Hello to All (NOTE: This is a long post but please bare with me) -

I am new here to this forum but really like the quality of the posts and am in need of some SERIOUS help.

I work for training company doing multimedia production (recording voiceovers, video editing, etc) for training dvd's and/or online eLearning courses. I have a working knowledge of audio and video hardware but am more familiar with the software end.

My company has several clients that have speaking engagements (powerpoint/video based) throughout the year at various hotel and conference room venues that usually consist of 100-200 people as well as several on stage speakers. These clients now want my company to actually produce these speaking engagements (ie. setup and run the whole presenation as well as the audio and video equipment).

Consequently, my company is looking to me (instead of hiring someone) to get a pricing list together for equipment (wireless/stick mics, projectors, mixer, speaker monitors, confidence monitors for on stage speaker(s), dvd players, video switchers, rack mounts, cabling, etc) and ultimately produce and run the equipment with a couple other coworkers for each of these presentations.

I will probably have a crew of 3 people including myself (one to run the presentation laptops, one to run the audio, and another person to help do any misc things that may be needed.) We will also have 2 static video cameras to record the events and probably run sound to the cameras from the mixer.

Having never produced any live speaking engagements, I am obviously a little green and need A LOT of advice or tips and tricks from any of you veterans out there who have produced these kind of engagements. Any sure fire equipment recommendations (mixers, mics, projectors, etc) or website/book/tutorial suggestions for producing live events would be GREATLY appreciated.

For the record, I am really interested in this and want to learn as much about the equipment and producing as I can before the first event in Feb. 2007.

Look forward to hearing from you all.

Best
NM

If you don't have any experience with running a PA or any of those other items mentioned then maybe you should sub it out to a pro outfit for a tag-a-log tutorial. If you explain the situation to them they might be willing to show you how they do it and then in future events you could take over. The most critical part of your production is running the sound system WITHOUT squealing feedback. A few technical glitches are forgivable but poor sound and feedback can ruin any event. As an aside to this very subject - I've seen a couple of these type events run offtrack due to PC laptop problems and couldn't help but think how much better it would have gone with a Mac iBook or any other Mac product. Another event had a slide display that would have been great but the home style projector was not nearly enough to project images in the daylight - (what were they thinking?!)

Yeah, good advice for sure. I may end up subbing it out for the first couple in the end. I just wanted to get as far along in the process as I could before mentioning that to the boss

Thanks
NM

Hi There,

Coupla tips that come to mind... You should consider investing in wireless headset mics, as many inexperienced speakers don´t keep handheld mics close enough and you might end up having to increase system gain and feedback might occur, but I find that with modern equipment positioned correctly feedback is rarely an issue.

About speaker cabinets: If you´re about to do mainly speaking events you are advised to keep the sound system as invisible as possible and not draw attention to the sound equipment. There are great small cabinets from a number of manufacturers that provide more than enough level for situations you described. In some long rectangular spaces you may need to resort to another pair of cabs as a delay line to keep it intelligible in the back of the room without deafening the people in the front. You´ll need to insert a delay device between your mixer outputs (it´s useful to have subgroups on the mixer but you can feed from the auxs) and the rear speakers and set the delay so the the sound from the front is in line with the delay speakersI prefer active speakers to avoid the clutter of separate amp racks and extra wiring involved, with powered speakers you just connect the line input and the power cord and you are done.The objective is to keep it as natural as possible to have the focus on the speaker and not the loudspeakers!

Hope this was helpful and best regards,

Thomas

Yeah, one more,

Nobody pays me to advertise so I can recommend some loudspeaker systems worth checking out:
D&B soundtechnik, from Germany, their E-series is really compact and all products are seamlessly compatible with each other so in case you need to expand to an occasional band P.A. you can always find a subcontractor to provide larger systems. Same with another German company, Fohnn. These are not cheap but they have serious build quality and some clever DSP, really fast to get up & running.

Thanks a lot fellas. I really appreciate the advice. Looks like I have a lot to go through.

nm

Hi again,

Some mixing console suggestions; I would go for an analog compact mixer first- they are easy to get around on and reliable- if your connections are done right there´s no way to get confused in a hurried situation if you´ve done your labeling. The subgrouping I mentioned earlier is a very straightforward way to distribute audio input channels all over the place- you can have different feeds on separate faders. Auxiliary sends are fine for this too, get a mixer with at least four aux sends. You´ll never know when you´re going to need that one extra send for the foyer or whatever... clients get ideas and even if something is not discussed beforehand it´s good for your business to be able to deliver. Try to be prepared for some unexpected requests!

Compact digital mixers sometimes take you for a dive trough menu layers and you can´t do two different things simultaneously even if you have two perfectly good hands!
Mackie compact mixers as well as Allen&Heath Mix Wizard series ( another bloody advert I don´t get paid for ) have always done the job for me without failure. Digital can do a lot of things but there´s a learning curve to be able to use them with confidence.

Hope somebody helps you out with the video & multimedia stuff...