PW’s sound system is composed of three subsystems: CD player, tape player, and two minidisk players; mixer; speakers. You’ll notice that this is different from most sound systems in that it is missing one element: amplifiers. This is because our speakers are spiffy active speakers. They’ve got amps built in, you see. So no amps to deal with. This is a Good Thing (for the most part). Let’s take a little walk through the system, part by part.

Input
Most shows these days use digital sound, running off the pw sound computer through a host cable into an audio interface allowing 8 1/4 inch inputs and outputs. Accompanying this system is a snake with 8 color-coded 1/4 inches to relay the information to and from the mixer.

The pw computer runs Windows XP, and has over 50 gigabytes of free memory. Most shows are run off of software called SFX. If you don’t know how to run SFX, feel free to ask, it’s a great learning opportunity and programs like SFX are industry-standard. For audio recording and editing, the computer also runs ProTools and Audacity. If you’d rather not use digital files to run sound, we also have a CD player, Minidisc player, and tape player.

The CD and tape player are both old, but they work. Don’t try firing any precise cues off of them, but they’re fine for playing house music or background sounds. Currently, the display for the CD player is broken, so you need to count tracks or run off of the minidisk (highly recommended). The minidisk players are very nice and intuitive in their design. In short, the thing to do is record all your cues onto two disks, alternating from one to the other so you can fire off a cue just as the previous one is finishing up, if you need to. The top minidisk machine takes its recording source off of Aux sends 1 and 2 from the mixer. 1 for left, 2 for right. So send your source through the board on Aux 1 and 2 and hit record on the top deck and you’re up and running. Of course, if you don’t know what this means, you’ll probably want to give the PW sound person a call. They’re happy to help!

Mixer
The mixer is a Mackie 1642. It’s a nice piece of work. The first eight channels are normal mic/line single input strips. The next two are mic/stereo line input strips. The last two are stereo line strips. This gives you versatility in a minimum of space. The MOST IMPORTANT THING about the mixer is that if you mess with the patching, patch it back when you’re done. This way the next guy coming in won’t get confused. The speakers are patched into the subs, 1 through 4, and not the main outs. This might be confusing at first, so keep this in mind.

Speakers
The speakers are (usually) hung in the corners of the theatre, but this is by no means set in stone and they are moved with the help of another person. They weigh fifty pounds and cost $750 each, so if you are thinking about moving them, please don’t do a thing without talking to the PW board. We will be very very sad if something happens to these speakers. We might even do something like make you pay for the damage. Consider yourself warned. The speakers are powered through the orange extension cords plugged into the power strip on the floor. Turn this on last and off first. Go back and read that sentence one more time. Everyone forgets this, and it’s important; it will help extend the life of the speakers.

All of the above assumes that you don’t want to do anything too fancy with the sound system; however, if you want to spend a fair amount of time, you are welcome to rearrange things as the show mandates. You might want to talk to Paul about it first though if you’re doing anything too odd.

Inventory:

Much of the above equipment (mics in particular) is property of TF Green, rather than PW. Therefore, it is in a locked closet of which we are the caretakers. So, if you’d like to use something you can’t find, contact Justin or Drew. Also, if there is other equipment that you’d like that we don’t have, they may have it, or may be able to help find it.