We’ve all heard it. Bad, terrifyingly horrible live sound. It’s not always because the engineer is naturally tone deaf or a lead foot with the bass boost either. There are a lot of factors we have to contend with including shocking acoustics, El-Cheapo equipment or even gear Noah used to entertain the critters on the Ark.
Programmers are weird animals. Manipulating three (and more) dimensional objects, composed of cryptic software code, in one’s head requires a certain amount of weirdness. 
So it follows that the design of software, even software for theater audio will often be a little weird too. But it shouldn’t be. Not if the software developer knows the subject of theater and live audio and appreciates the rules required for creating usable software.
Theater has come along way since the days of sound effects produced from the orchestra pit, off stage clicks and bangs, tape recorders and now even CD players just don’t cut the mustard.
In between articles of general interest to theater sound we’ll be discussing some of the aspects of our MixAction Theater Software Package in respect of how we’ve designed it to make what’s otherwise a pain your gain.
For something so universal it’s certainly can be very confusing for people when it comes to spelling “theater” and “theatre”. Which is correct?
Like many words from the English language there are variations on the spelling, regional variations, particularly between the way it is spelled in the United Kingdom and the United States. The original English spelling, as used in the United Kingdom (England,Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland) Is actually theatre. However in the United States it is more commonly spelled theater.
Which is right?
Well, why not? You deserve it as the production audio engineer. Like the actors, stage hands, make-up artists and the rest of the crew you’ve sweated over rehearsals, spent years possibly, perfecting your craft. You deserve some of that applause.
Sadly though when the red curtain does come down the theater sound people, the live sound technicians are rarely noticed, rarely thanked and rarely credited and it’s a darn shame!
Turn the volume too loud and you can bet they’ll notice you – you’ll know this from the number of complaints you will get.
Turn the volume too low and while the audience may not realize - sometimes – you can bet the director will and so will the actors or lighting crew if they are relying on your sounds for their cues.
But there’s nothing we can do about this, right?
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