Teacher's Day

(: the new implementation works for ACFM (: So glad.

Righto, todays teachers day performance. I was on board and quite stressful la. Everything was quite smooth except for the transition from the normal performances to the band performances. For some stupid reason, until noe i still don't know, the setup for the bass guitar did not work well. So in the end Kee Ann and Zhong Xian decided to mic it up, which is a good move. Choir was not very good too because of the way the mics were aiming at. I could not do much on the board cause if i pushed the gaine even more, it will feed. Actually if u hear closely, it feed a few times but they are minor feeds. I think i pumped the volume a little too loud for dance? But how leh, dance always want loud loud music-_- Then the music of the dance start playing only ahh, Miss Tay SMS me tell me to lower the front left amp because the sound very sharp. I AGREE! The dancers told me to cut bass and boost treble?! hmm. But anw, i think MRC did quite a good job this time round ba. The emcees had a part to play too cause i was giving them commands to tell them when we are ready to go or not so a BIG thank you to them. Last but not least, THANK YOU STUDENTS COUCIL FOR ORGANISING TEACHER'S DAY!!

Bowling + ACFM

Okay its been very long since i last updated, so here is something.

Today we went bowling! Okay we includes vivian, kai yuan, jaymond, cynthia and me. Five people went to play bowling! Woah!... We started off with making the trip to the bowling alley. It was funny for us to be in such a rushing mode because of Vivian. She had to get back to school before 4.30 for her Chinese Orchestra. So we walked really quick and ran after a 196 bus-_-. Eventually we reached West Bowl and then started discussing about how many games to buy. We settled for 2 games each.

We started bowling and oh my, Jaymond is super pro! His highest being 140. I was just having fun with the first game and i think i scored terribly. All the random shots which totally required skills that are next to none. Vivian started off with a winning streak which had 2 strikes. (Notes: strikes in here mean this sign "-" and not "X") She was busy washing the gutters. Haha. She was laughing at herself too but then she soon became busy with sulking at herself la. But overall, she improved throughout the 2 games. In fact, she is the 4th one to get a strike cause i did not-_-. But hey! i managed to get a strike in my very last game.

Okay so bowling game came and went. Now on to ACFM.

For this week, the ACJC students council would be having ACFM where students can dedicate songs to their beloved teachers to thank them for their hardwork and effort in nurturing students into bright young talents. Main point. MRC had to support. They had this very odd request. The ACFM they wanted was very different from the previous ACFMs as they wanted the sound to come out from the hall and outdoor system. This would mean that they are not using the school's horns. Crap. More work for us. Even Mrs Sharon Loh made that comment. We had to find a solution to channeling the audio feed into the hall system as it was non existent. I thought of one and decided to go ahead with it. It used speakon cables as it seems that that is the only cable that is long enough to travel from the hall to the lobby. I soldered this speakon to XLR converter and on Firday, Kang De, Kee Ann and me started to lay the long speakon cable. We flew the cable from the third floor and let it down to the first floor all the way to the concourse. From the third floor, the cable entered the side door and went all the way into the cage. The length required was very long that we had to get another speakon cable to extend the 1st speakon cable0_0. So all was laid and we decided to do a test first before we duct tape everything down.

The source was a creative mp3 player. AMAZINGLY, the sound was just super clean and clear. I was rather surprised to hear such clean sound as i did not expect that. I was expecting to hear some buzzing sound because speakons are not balanced cables which means that they are more prone to noise pickup. But anw it worked. So we started to duct tape everything down.

So this week came and we have to support ACFM everyday for this whole week. First day no major problem. The transmission was quite okay except that there was some buzzing sound which was not really loud. Second day, MAJOR buzzing sound. So major that i had to rethink about how i transmit the signal. Well i thought of it and im going to try it out tomorrow to see if will it work. So wish me luck for tmmrs new implementation.

Stupid Actions

Today i did something stupid. Very stupid.

It started of with me walking with Joe to the MRT. Then we got onto the MRT. Then in the MRT, somehow we started talking about chinese teacher. He mentioned about his chinese teacher who used to be a reporter for Mediacorp News. Then i was like who? He replied saying that it was the one who was the chief invigilator for the chinese mock exam. Then i went. OHH!!! THAT ONE WHO ALWAYS DID THIS ACTION AHH? And stupidly, i did the vulgar hand signal which means no d***. ZZZ. The people around me were like trying to walk away from me after that la. Crap, so embarassing.

A trip to City Harvest Church

Yesterday, i had a chance to visit City Harvest Church. Mr Foo said i could go there and see him operate the board during their services so i decided to just go take a look. I reached quite early so i entered the hall like halfway through a service. The service was for children i guess? Cause everyone there were pretty young.

The place is quite impressive and the main hall is situated underground. I went into the hall and first thing i saw was the BIG LED screen. Yes they don't use projectors, they use LED screens. Then i saw the board in the middle of the hall so i went to it. Met Mr Foo there and started to admire at the equipments. The board was a 48 channel, Series Five Spirit mixer by Soundcraft. Its quite old already. The previous mixer that was in this position was a MIDAS Heritage 3000 but it got shifted over to Singapore Expo Hall. Still i had a wonderful time at just looking at the equipments. The speakers were those hanging from the ceiling array speakers. I felt that the volume was very loud cause i could feel my ear drums ringing after the first service. Clearly not very good for the ears. The board was around 3 metres long? Not very sure but im very sure that i must run from one end to the other to control it. They confirgured it such that one side was for the singers and one side is for the band. Mr Foo was on board and he did it himself. The impressive thing was the amplifiers they used. From the mixing desk, i could not see any amplifier cause the amps were in a different room. So if it was in a different room, how am i going to control it? There is this computer at the side of the mixer and a software was running. Then i realised that that software actually controls the amps! You could adjust the gain the volume from it and everything is connected through fibre optics.

So after the first service, Mr Foo took me around the whole hall to show me all the equipments. I went to the amp room and it looked like a server room to me with all the racks and stuff. Then he brought me to the light room which was super cold. Then he showed me the subwoofers which are like hidden. Then we went to their "own" room and before we entered that room, I saw another mixer as big as the main mixer in the centre of the hall. It was used JUST for controlling all the stage minitors! It was another Spirit Mixer but it was much older than the main mixer. It was a Spirit Viena. Not just that, beside it was a MIDAS Venice mixer to accompany it. Below that mixer was all their wireless mics receiver. Awesome stuff.

Their setup would sure cost ALOT. Everyt channel in use had a compressor and a gate. Thats like 0_0. Wah if only my school had such equipments......

scared

Scared. A word that that describes fear. I felt it. Today.

During chemistry tutorial, it was suddenly jolted into my brain that this term is going to be over. Promos is just 45 days away and im still struggling away with my maths and physics. Somebody save me! The kind of fear that got into me, is really something that i do not want to feel. So fast the june holidays ended. So fast the term is going to be over. So fast will the promos end. And eventually it will be, so fast did my college days end.

I just cant believe it. I better start studying.

One ACS National Day

Today, all 6 schools of the ACS family gather at Queenstown stadium to celebrate One ACS National Day. Well other people may have found it boring but i found it fun. Not because of the parade by itself but more of because i was doing Roving DV on it. All of the Roving DV crew were suppose to meet at 6.30am and i made it there at 6.05am. I even went to school at around 5.50am to get extension cord. BUT holy crap, everyone reached at 7. -_-. 7 leh! omg thats like 30 mins late la.

So anw, started to take videos. We had on hand 2 cameras so we took almost anything we could see. Kellop (is this how u spell it?), Geraldine's cousin was our reporter. So we started off trying to record an intro, which was almost impossible because of the super duper loud speakers behind us but we eventually manage to get the timing right.

Then we interviewed our GOH. He was very friendly and answered our question with very elaborated details. Well he was once an ACS boy too (: So after the interview, we had to take a wrap up shot. We took like 4 shots before we got it right. Quite fun i would say but i won't want to do the script.

My New Amp!

All righty, my new amp is up and running. Whats left is just some fine tunning. So here are some pictures for you:



Pretty Blue Light







Cause im on a budget, i had to recycle parts from my old amp



Last shot of it before it is disected :(



So this is what i took out to recycle. Reconditioned it and its ready to be used again.



Getting everything ready to do a mock up with everything inside.



Got those ellen key screws to hold everything in place.



Bare back.



Started soldering all the wires together. Its hell of a mess...Like my hair!



Messy right?!











The largest and smallest heatsink i used in this amp.







Then came the time to spray my casing. I had to sand everything before i could spray. Luckily, i had this adapter thing to sand for the drill and it really helped alot!



Managed to sand it till it reflected evenly but its not very shiny.



The power of aluminium dust...!



Then the spraying started off. I had to do it at the condo's staircase shaft so that no one could smell the smell of spray paint.



Sprayed a total of 3 coats of paint and i think it looks quite nice (:







Final product without the top cover.



And my workspace (Bedroom)



Really learned alot this time round from my father and the people online. Want to really thank my father for being so surpportive this time round. I was seriously shocked when he was so supportive of it but really, he teached me alot of things that i don't think normal schools would teach. So thanks to all those who helped and suggested idea for my project!