I know I tend to bang on about the good old days a bit, but a recent set of problems got me thinking, which is why you’re reading this.
In those dim and distant days when I first started working in theatre sound in the UK, equipment choices were relatively simple: playback was via a number of tape machines—two, for minimum versatility, increasing as the shows became more complex. I think six was the most I ever had to use on a really complicated show, effectively giving me 12 tracks to play with, but that was exceptional. Three was the norm, and you could do pretty much all you wanted with the help of nimble fingers and an auto-stop mechanism.
There were really only a few machines that could offer the right combination of price and durability, and chief among these were the semi-professional ReVox machines manufactured by the Studer Corporation in Switzerland. The tube-based G36 was my first home-studio machine, purchased from the jazz composer Mike Gibbs through a small ad in a trade paper, but in the theatre, the all-solid-state A77 was the playback device de nos jours. In the first 10 years of my time as a theatre sound designer, I used these machines exclusively, both for preparation and for playback, keeping to a reasonably regular in-house maintenance program, including head cleaning, demagnetizing, and occasional tweaking of the electronics. We owned a test tape and a Valve Volt Meter for lining up, and I became quite adept at squeezing as much level on to tape as was humanly possible, with Ampex 456 and BASF 911 being the rust-encrusted plastic of choice.
Every year, the machines would go to an authorized service center for a full check-up and for replacement of any mechanical parts that were showing signs of wear, and thus, they were able to withstand another year of punishing treatment. They had their faults: the cabinet and handle were not really made for anything other than the odd move, and I recall one particular time when, moving a machine from one theatre to another, I was left holding a handle and half a case, looking down at the bare chassis that had just dropped a couple of feet onto a concrete floor. It says something about the construction that, with a bit of a bodge, I was still able to use the machine for playback that night. In the early 1980s, we upgraded to the Revue B77 for playback, and I acquired a pair of the more professional machines, the PR99, for my home studio, one of which still does sterling service as a machine for retrieving archive material.
By now you’re probably wondering what the point of all this rambling is, but just have a little think about what you’ve just read: the same basic playback system running well with a routine maintenance program for the best part of 20 years. An occasional tweak when a newer tape formulation appeared and a form factor that was pretty much interchangeable between theatres without too much trouble—not bad for a relatively small initial outlay, I think you’ll agree.
And then came computers: aside from my own experience with computer-based systems, I remember one particular case, back in the mid-1980s, which gave a glimpse of the problems that lay ahead. From time to time, I worked freelance for a small but innovative theatre company, whose home was a basement theatre, seating around 60 people in the center of London. Playback was from a couple of battered, but serviceable, tape machines, an elderly Alice mixing desk, and some even older HH amplifiers, and the lighting control was an equally ancient manual two-preset board, probably a Strand Mini 2.
One day, I came into the theatre to do some prep work, to find the theatre’s administrator crouched in the cupboard-like control room, hunched over a BBC Model B micro-computer. The theatre had purchased, from some decidedly dodgy outfit, a combined package consisting of rudimentary box-office software, a spreadsheet, a word processor, and a lighting control system. The big problem was that it did none of these things very well, and, in particular, the lighting control programming was so arcane that technical rehearsals dragged on and on as the operator struggled with making the simplest changes. It also meant that, during tech, the administration staff couldn’t word process, do the accounts, or update the box office—not an ideal situation, as I’m sure you’ll agree. The next time I did a show there, the computer had disappeared, relegated to admin duties, and a nice new little board from ETC had been installed.
Enough with the nostalgia. Life moved on apace; out went tape machines, and in came the digital kit. Samplers and hard-disk playback soon became the norm, with sound designers arguing among themselves as to what was the best control program on the best platform, and as freelancers, many of us had to become adept at using a bewildering array of systems and platforms as we moved from theatre to theatre. Stage Research’s SFX here, Richmond Sound Design’s StageManager there, Opcode’s Vision and StudioVision, Matt McKenzie’s G-Type and Akai, and EMU samplers everywhere. (I’ll gloss over the embarrassing flirtation with MiniDisc and sundry attempts at replacing tape-based cartridge machines with various non-compatible optical disc-based systems.) Interchange between venues and countries became a nightmare, and at one point, I was running three operating systems in my home studio simultaneously: Mac for Vision and ProTools, MS-DOS and eventually Windows XP for G-Type and SFX, and AmigaOS for StageManager.
Eventually, things calmed down and platform wars simplified to a choice between hard-disk playback systems running on Windows and those running on Mac OS, and that’s where we finally get to the point of this article. What triggered this trip down memory lane is the ruckus that ensues every time there’s a major operating system upgrade from the two main players: to borrow a few lines from W.B. Yeats, “The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world.”
Suddenly, everything breaks; the message boards and mailing lists are overwhelmed with pleas for help from people who’ve upgraded to the latest OS and found that half the software that they use no longer works, and the digital air turns blue. Companies like Avid, who know that its professional user-base relies on systems that don’t fall over every 10 minutes, carry out extensive checks on new operating systems and will not recommend upgrading until the bugs are ironed out, either in the OS or in the software, but still, those who have to be at the bleeding edge carry out the upgrades and then spread the fear, uncertainty, and doubt online at every available opportunity.
Setups that have been perfectly stable suddenly develop mysterious faults that can’t be traced to any one part of the system; designers tear out what little hair they have left, directors become apoplectic, and actors mutter darkly about technology ruining art. Tales start to spread of consoles suddenly becoming unresponsive as hidden operating systems try to update themselves during shows because the desk is connected to the internet, and suddenly, no one trusts anyone else or the systems until things get sorted by harassed programmers, and everything settles down until the next operating system upgrade, when it all starts all over again.
Why does this happen? It happens because we’ve been conditioned always to have the latest and the best in our computer-based operating systems, regardless of whether it actually impacts what we’re using our computers for, and because the Windows PC or Mac that we’re using for playback or show control is, more often than not, being used for other things, sometimes whether we know it or not. (In the early days of computer use, I got an emergency call from a theatre company using an Amiga for show control. When I arrived at the theatre, I discovered that the hard-drive was full to overflowing with free games, hacks, and utilities that one particular operator had loaded up in his spare time. I also discovered that the motherboard was coated in a thick layer of strangely aromatic ash, but that’s another story altogether.)
There’s a simple answer to this dilemma: treat your computer-based playback system as though it was a piece of hardware. Once it’s running smoothly, leave it alone, and don’t upgrade until it’s absolutely essential in order to cope with any new functions that may have been added to a newer version of the software. Don’t run it connected to the outside world, and don’t install anything that isn’t directly related to the operation of your program of choice. If you must install a driver for some new piece of hardware that you’ve added, test, test, and test again on a separate computer before you put it on your main system and trust it to a show. Otherwise, you’re likely to find that it’s not only the actors and directors who get cross, but several hundred paying members of the public as well. And you really don’t want to be responsible for that, do you?
John Leonard is an award-winning designer who has been working in theatre sound for 40 years. In his spare time, he records anything that makes an interesting noise in high-definition surround sound. His two libraries, The Voice Of Poseidon and The Sounds Of Flight, are available online here.