Beckman liveblog

Dear loadbangers,

I'm liveblogging the Beckman gig - first of all, a big thanks to Dale, Jinok and Ming-Ching for helping with the setup; and to John and Jinok for letting use their computers and interfaces - that's a big deal! And thanks to Ming-Ching for getting us an extra gig Friday night - it'll be great doing the concert twice in a row!

For tomorrow night's concert, we will need the performers to be earlier - it's not good to be setting levels etc. while the audience is already there, it makes us look unprofessional. If we have another daytime concert (which is unlikely), you'll just have to miss your classes to be here on time.

Our strategy of using two computers seems like it's working! For tomorrow night, let's see if we can avoid moving mics around more than necessary. Also - Adrian suggests putting the laptops in FOH position, next to the mixer. That might be a very good idea - Dale do you think we can do that? OTOH it's cool to see the laptops onstage.

Daniel, Dee & Justin - I'm not sure what happened in your piece, but the combination of gamelan and electric guitar sounds really good. Let's devote extra time to sound check on this one tomorrow, and do it last, so it's ready to be the first piece. Dee, double check your electric guitar rig - make sure the laptop is facing you, so you can visually check that your levels are OK.

Ming-Ching, Justin & Alex - nice piece, I think it's very successful - the highs were really maxing out though. Dale had your highs entirely down, but it was still painful at times. I don't know if we can get monitors for tomorrow night or not - I wouldn't count on it. But it'll be a little easier to hear in Smith.

Mackenzie & Ming-Ching - good job. Try to act more like a "performer" - it seemed (to me) like you were sound-checking or practicing, and never really went into performance mode. Just play one or two short/long notes as a soundcheck to make sure everything is working; then start your piece. Try to make it more integrated, so it really sounds like a piece of music.

Adrian & Cheryl - good job. I'd like to draw attention to Adrian's posture behind the computer; you can really tell he is performing as a musician, not just sitting back there.

Jinok - good job. Can your beats section fade out more gradually next time, to make a smoother transition into the ending?

Alex & Ming-Ching - good job - try to have some sections in the middle with the vocal samples where M-C stops playing in the middle of the rolls - that would make it more obvious that M-C is controlling the sample playback (if he is).