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No matter how big or small, every show starts the same way.

Unloading the sound system gear.

When you load in, it's a good idea to have someone stay outside with the gear,

while a second person goes inside to find someone in charge.

We'll go in in a minute, but first, let's take a look at what's going on out here.

How you doing?

If you move a PA regularly, the best investment you can

make is in protective cases and rack mounts for all your gear.

Let's go inside and take a look at how the pros pack it up.

We're here in the equipment bay with Brian, and he's going to give us some tips and

techniques on protective cases and rack mounts for gear.

Big question, do you rack mount everything?

Generally everything. Anything that is rack mounted should be rack mounted.

Okay, why do you do that?

There's quite a few different reasons.

Number one reason, protection.

To put this stuff in a truck, van, whatever it may

be, you want this stuff to come back in one piece.

You can spend $200 to $2000 for a piece of rack gear,

and you want it to come back functioning for the next day.

Some other reasons out in the field, protection from weather, salt, sand, dust,

dirt, humidity, fungus, anything that can affect the equipment.

We'll try to help protect it in the long run.

Walk us through some of the rack mounts and protective cases we've got here.

Start with this guy.

This is a general four-space 19-inch rack mount case.

A general case manufacturer uses multiple different woods with type of wood.

It's completely up to them.

Different size woods you can get.

You can get a quarter-inch ply case, a 3-8 plywood, or a half-inch plywood.

Some case companies we even custom make you up

to one-inch thick plywood for maximum protection.

Case companies will make anything possible, a general rack like this, to something

completely out of the ordinary that will hold

TV monitors or cameras or whatever it may be.

Then they'll usually lay a laminate on top of it or fiberglass or a thicker

laminate than this, which is generally just glued on.

They'll put some flashings on the corner, which all gets riveted together.

And then usually on the lids, they'll throw some ball corners.

Keep it from protective.

This thing happens to come down on its corner.

If this wasn't on here, you would generally end up with a crushed corner.

With a ball corner, it kind of gives a little spin, a little roll.

It will kind of bow its way off.

That's great.

How about this microphone case here?

This is my case.

This general mic is a Sennheiser 441.

The case itself comes standard with a cut foam for the microphone.

Most microphones usually come with some sort of

protective case, whether it be plastic or a vinyl case like this,

with foam inside to try to keep the microphone a little protected.

We'll generally keep them in the cases for

as long as we can and transport them this way

to try to keep the microphone from being damaged in any way.

Excellent.

Well, I know you've got some wrap here on the cables, too, keeps things organized.

Absolutely.

A lot of our cable, a lot of our loose cable ends up on the rack.

We'll generally throw some Velcro around it, keep it in a nice coil.

Without this on here, you end up with a pile of spaghetti.

You end up with guys grabbing more than one cable, multiple cables,

and just end up taking knots out of the cable for a good hour or so,

trying to get just one piece of wire.

How about cases back here?

Back here, we have some Tukey covers, general speaker

cover that's usually made for larger frame speakers.

For smaller speakers, something that you can transport a little easier.

Once again, you can have a case company build you something like this.

This particular case here houses two monitors, not a very large case.

If you were to try to put two of these in a road case, it would be pretty big.

It takes up truck space, ends up being a little uncomfortable,

a little rough for two guys to move around.

For medium grade size speakers to larger frame size speakers,

they make covers like this, manufacturers such as Cloud9

will custom make anything you want to fit a particular speaker.

Is this water resistant?

It's water resistant to an extent.

If this sat out in the rain all day, it will take in some water.

But if this is out in rain, you're loading a truck,

or if they're just sitting there for maybe half an hour,

the rain will generally sit on top, kind of bead off, kind of roll off.

The cover will get wet, should let it dry out.

There's about a half inch protection of foam on the inside.

This is thick. This is...

It's quite thick.

The thickness will keep it from being damaged, scratched.

A lot of jobs you go into, especially in the industrial work, corporate work.

Cabinets always have to look shiny and new.

So this keeps you from having to paint them every week.

This will keep, like I said, this will keep

them nice and protected over the long run.

And then general ratchet strap for these particular two cabinets, like I said,

you don't want to put them in a large road case.

We opted to take these two cabinets and put them on a single dolly board.

And then just tie a ratchet strap around it.

Standard truck ratchet strap you can buy from any freight dealer.

Tighten the strap up.

Keeps the two cabinets nice and secure, so now you can push one box.

Don't have to worry about the next box falling off the dolly board

when you hit a bump, or any obstruction is in the way.

Now, how do you keep track of all the gear?

I mean, this is more gear than any typical band would have,

but what does the company do to keep track of all this?

Every single piece of gear that's in the shop, from rack gear to microphones

to road cases to cabinets, even blank panels, for instance, the smallest things,

everything is itemized and inventoried in a database

by serial number, by model number, by manufacturer name.

Everything is completely serial numbered, and every six months

we're generally doing a complete inventory to

find out what's missing, what's not missing,

what we need to replace, what doesn't need to be replaced.

Brian, that's excellent.

Okay, while the guys continue to unload the truck,

let's go inside and see what the engineers found out about the room.

We're here at the club, and we're going to meet our engineer, David Rittenhouse.

Dave, how are you doing?

Doing good.

And we want to talk to you first about some things you look for

when you first come into the club.

The first thing I'm going to do is I'm going to look for anyone in charge.

That way I can figure out where to bring the gear in.

Hey, how's it going? I'm Dave.

I'm with the band.

Where should we load in at?

Take your stuff around back.

Around back?

Me too.

Usually, we're bringing the gear in through an exit or a secured area,

and that means I have to find someone with a

key to open a door or turn off the exit alarm.

The next thing I do as I walk into the stage

area is to see where the gear will come in.

I want to know if there are stairs, if there are people already in the room,

how far it is from the truck to the stage, things like that.

Basically, I want to find the closest distance between the stage and the truck.

Next, I'm going to take a closer look at the

stage to figure out where I'm going to set up the PA.

What are some things you look for specifically?

Well, the first thing I'm concerned about is going

to be where to run the power cables and the snake.

I want to try to avoid any trip hazards and keep them way out of the way,

so I'm going to try to avoid any doorways as much as possible.

Then, I look for power and make sure I know where the outlets are on stage.

How about the position for the mixer?

Ideally, I want to be center, in between the two speakers,

but you rarely get that optimal position.

But I am going to try to avoid being all the

way up against a wall or under any overhang.

Why is that?

Well, if I'm all the way up against a wall,

the sound waves are going to reverberate off that wall and cloud up my mix.

If I'm under an overhang, an overhang acts as a giant bass trap,

which is going to muddy up my mix and change the way I EQ the band.

Dave, we'll be talking about AC outlets and grounding issues later on in the video,

but you'd recommend checking the outlets on

the system circuits now, right before the show?

Sure.

Okay, you have a multi-tester with you?

But of course.

Okay, could you show us how you do that with one of the outlets on stage?

Not a problem.

A multi-tester is a device that measures the electrical current.

For live sound, I use it to take two measurements,

voltage between hot and neutral, and voltage against ground.

First, I measure voltage between hot and neutral,

which tells me how much voltage is coming out of the outlet.

To do that, I set my multi-tester to AC.

Then, I put my black or neutral lead into the neutral side of the outlet.

Then, I put the red or positive lead into the hot side of the outlet.

The reading should be between 110 and 120 volts.

Using an outlet with a voltage output less than that could result in brown outs

or having gear like some digital gear simply not work at all.

Next, I test the voltage against ground.

This measurement tells me if I have a clean, isolated ground.

I insert the red lead into the neutral side

and the black lead into the ground.

The reading should be between 0 and 0.5 volts.

If the reading is higher than that, then I might have a grounding problem

and need to use a lift on the gear at that outlet.

So if these tests show that the outlet doesn't have the required voltage output

or the ground isn't isolated, then you're

better off running a power cord to a separate box?

Definitely.

Okay, Dave, how important is it to know the amount of power your system needs?

I think it's always a good idea to know how many amps your system draws

because typically you're going to be dealing with 15 or 20 amp wall circuits.

So if you know how much you need, you can set

aside a couple of those circuits just for your PA.

That's a good idea, and we'll talk more in detail about that later on in the video.

Okay, let's stop at this point and take a look

at what we've covered so far in this segment.

Now that we've covered the load-in, we're ready for the next step.

Setting everything up and getting connected.

We'll spend the next several segments in a controlled

environment where we'll examine the PA components in detail.

We'll show you how everything gets

connected and why it's important to do it properly.

So stay tuned. We'll be right back for more of Live Sound Reinforcement.