Training Digitally
Image by Scott's View of the World via Flickr
One of my audio trainees recently had his first time at the helm during a Sunday morning service. Because we have a digital sound board (Yamaha’s LS9), I was able to do a few things to make his first time a little less hectic. I start out my newbies during rehearsals and working our Sunday night service. But there is a sharp contrast between our morning and evening services. Mornings involve four vocalists and a full band, videos all quickly moving from one element to the next. Evenings are more laid back with just the Music Minister and keyboardist.
My trainee’s job didn’t allow him to attend the weekly band rehearsal, and that concerned me, but since I’ve been moving toward saving a scene on the board for each song during the service, I decided to do that for him. I linked each scene for the service to a user defined key and noted on the worship flow which UDK to press for each song.
Next I sat my laptop beside the board that morning to make changes that his trainee user profile on the LS9 doesn’t allow him to do yet, like save settings. So while he was driving with his limited permissions, I had full use of my administrator permissions from my laptop using Yamaha’s LS9 Editor in Studio Manager. Kind of like the instructor in Driver’s Ed with the brake pedal on his side of the car.
We have used this method for a weeks, and it has worked very well. It allows the trainee to focus on timing and mechanics over mixing changes from one song to the next. Now that he is getting broken in to the Sunday routine, we can migrate to focusing on mixing.
Studio Manager and the LS9 Editor are free. All you need is a network connection, preferably wireless so you can move around. Mike Sessler has some great setup info here.
from my notebook 