Friend of the Band Monte gave us a surplus screen and it is huge and HUGE and I was well..and it was...GREAT A great idea. Now the other guys can see WTH the show looks like and I can see our guests.
So....Episode 1, Season 2. We called off Date 1 for restart due to COVID precautions (someone had a fever).
This time, it looked like the Weather was going to do for us and we did not strictly have a Wet Weather Plan. Well...Theo Suggested Bongos so I guess we did.
As I didnt know if we were on/off until pretty much last minute I gave up on promoting it. I think that was a wise move. Not cos things went wrong (they did) but cos promoting stuff in the old way may not matter anymore (separate discussion).
All things considered it was still a hoot.
Now, to do it better for Ep 2...we have to look at what went wrong.
The nutshell was, without doing a technical rehearsal, we were overwhelmed on the day by gremlins and it makes it hard to troubleshoot down to an on/off level of testing.
With so many moving parts, clearly being able to see where the problem is can be a task in itself. As we had not done our prep, the episode was called No Homework.
We had:
- Network issues (had to drop my net altogether and go Hotspot from my freaking phone omg)
- Server Issues (things went wrong, the server issues an error code but Bec tells me that doesnt mean it isn't working. I understand that and it still makes me go um...)
- Platform issues (what the heck is the new error code from Twitch or was it just our bandwidth sucked or was it the server or was it ARGH)
- User Issues ( I need to write myself a manual on how to reboot the server properly)
- Sound issues (Monitoring PC had issues, recording gear was fussy and wanted reboots)
- Weather issues - I was all for canning it but Theo wanted to push through. We are ok on the electrical front but he got a wet butt.
The upshot was that it took as 30 min to manage the ARGH and we didnt get it all right. FOTB Dion says 'thats the joy of live TV' so maybe it's an inescapable part.
In true Stormcellar style we managed the disaster. Before we do it again, we are going to rerun the gear again and I have to do some more training to remember my Linux basics.
I am Ok with the errors and learning how to do this. It's a challenge to get my brain in a new mode. It's a new type of 'gig' and there is a learning curve.
It's not just the 'how to' it's the 'how now' as the environment, the software, network, time zones it's all variable.
I love it. this is just our thing.
Oh yeah recording/mixing process underway on 3 projects. Plus Other Stuff. I'd show you faster but there's only one of me and some of this stuff is hard :)
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