Seniors Night

One word. Tiring.

Well funny shit happened too. haha. On Sunday, we wanted to go back to school to run last checks before we headed down to shangri-la to do our setup. We also wanted to do a mock setup to ensure that the sound would be sufficient. We were in school at around 10+am. Started doing our checks till like 12+ then we went for lunch outside. When we came back to school, much to our horror, the school was locked. Shit was the first word that came to everyone's mouth. The security guards were so evil. They just refused to open the gate to let us back in. All our valuables were in MR room and some even had our house keys in there. For me, my laptop was inside, so no laptop for one day :'( But well its at least better to be locked outside than to be locked inside :P

This was a big problem cause our stuff was scattered around in the hall. Terrible situation. The guards refused to open the doors and OM just hanged up on us leaving us with a note of "don't disturb my holiday" -_- So end up, we went over to Zhong Xian's house to stay over and go back to school early in the morning. Did just that and headed back to school on Monday at 5am. Reached school at 5.30am and we were also still quite worried that the gates would be locked and the guard would not open it. But hehe, when we reached there, i asked the guard "Is the school opened already?" HE SAID YES!!!!!!! AHHHH!!!!!!!! That kind of happiness and feeling of being relief is just great. We were so happy that we RAN into the school. I think the guard would be thinking whats wrong with these 5 people, open school only mah. Haha.

First stop was MR room. All our stuff was like frozen. Super cold cause the aircon has been turned on for like 8hours and the thermostat is set at 16 degrees :x We put our stuff down and then me and KD went to LT4 to collect the snake from Faith Methodist Church. The rest went to the hall first. We started to pack everything into our flight cases and just prayed real hard that we would not miss out anything. Fortunately, we got everything ready by 6.20+am. All of us supposed to meet at 6.45 so we were kind of ahead of time. We started playing badminton in the hall but with squash and tennis rackets. Everyone arrived and had a short briefing with them. Shifted everything down from the hall and began the wait for the lorry. The lorry was LATE. zzz. When it came, we went OMFG WHY THE LORRY IS LIKE THAT ONE!? It was like those sing chinese opera show kind of lorry with no aluminum tail gate which made it really hard to load up heavy items! And we had 4 of them. Our amp rack which was super duper heavy cause of the 3 amps within it, and the other 2 flight cases which had almost all of our cables in there from our room. haha.

We got the void decks benches and tables to form a stair case thing so that we could load it up easier. Thanks to the councilors, we were able to load everything up. We brought along 11 speakers for this whole event cause shangri-la was really just very big. When we reached there, we begin our setup. Set a target for every section of the setup but we did not meet it. Well cant really blame them cause the scale was rather big and the helpers we got were lacking in technical experience. Well thats the exact reason why we brought them along, to let them learn, make mistakes and gain experience. I had to setup the console and lay the snake and that itself took quite some time. Even me myself did not meet my own target of 30mins. Had a prime location of having the console at the centre and back of the whole hall so that i could monitor the sound better. The ballroom was on the wide side so we had some problems with laying the speakers in that manner. We were rather unsure too of how to place the speakers cause totally no experience with wide venues. Initially, we started off with a plan of having improvised subwoofers cause the school did not have any. We took the EAW speakers and passed only the low frequencies into it. We wanted to use the DIY speaker done by our dunno how many great grand senior but sadly, it doesn't work. But then, i spotted the subwoofers that came with shangri-la's ballroom and decided to ask their sound crew if could we tap into their subs. They were great people. Kind of funny too (: At first when they saw the amount of equipments that we brought in, they asked Zhong Xian "I thought u only asked for projector screens?" Haha. I guessed that they did not expect schools to have such stuff la.

Tapped into their subwoofers and the sound was just really great. We used our DIYed kick mic, and it got broke after that. Some KUKU person went to pierce the woofer cone :'( But anw, with this DIYed kick mic and coupled with the MD421 and the subwoofers, the kick sound was just SUPERB! Their subs were some good stuff. 18" woofers with integrated crown amp inside. Really can shake the whole place. I played some bass music from my computer and from far, i could feel the ground shaking if i pushed it real hard. I walked around to check the sound pressure level and when i got close to the subs with our speakers at the corner, wah almost died. The bass makes u feel as if u are going to have a heart attack but it felt good for me:p Decided that i shall not have to much bass after all.

Got everything up and running at around 11am and the SCs were kind of surprised with the sound cause it was way better than expected i guess. Cause got subs mah...lol. Did sound check till like 1pm then had my lunch while the rest went on to duct tape the cables. Seriously, the back stage was like wah lao damn messy with all the cables. First time i see so much cables too.

Had Macs for lunch and really gobbled it down very quickly as soundcheck for the bands was about to begin. After lunch, the morning crew was dismissed.

The bands started coming in to rehearse. I was on board that day so i did sound check for every single band and recorded the settings down. First time i did it this way. Kind of fun too.

Finished sound check for everyone and then we began our lazing around session. As we lazed, Shang's sound crew came down and said that our duct tapping of the snake was kind of messy and it would fall out very soon. He gave us a few rolls of duct tape which was wider and better quality and that allowed us to duct tape the WHOLE snake. THEY ARE JUST GREAT PEOPLE TO WORK WITH! Their personality are also very good. There was this uncle in the sound crew, he joked alot la! When i asked him what tape he giving us, he said video tape -.- very lame but still... haha. Then we wanted to borrow an XLR cable cause ours was not long enough. Then he cracked a dirty joke saying that his longer, if u get what he means.

So anw, got ourselves ready for the night. We were kind of bored at first cause nothing was happening. Ran my last sound check before the actual thing began then we went to pretend we are J2's and joined in their cocktail session. haha.

FINALLY, the event started. The J2's started entering the ball room and the dinner started. My seniors came and find us at the console and Reuben kept taking food from his table to give us. haha Thanks man! But in the end, we didn't really eat finish everything and the waiter cleared it away for us :x

The bands performed and the whole night just went on quite smooth la. Got a few feedbacks here and there and its actually caused by the subwoofer and not our speakers. Thats how amazing their subs are. haha. I heard that the backstage had a few problems or two but from where i was at the console, it seemed like nothing went wrong.

The whole event sort of ended with the emcee's saying good night and me playing some rock music which many say that i have a bad taste for rock music -_- But quite rock mah, so much bass. It was supposed to make people dance but no one danced -_- SO SAD LA!!!! zzz

Everyone sort of wanted to stay on but the councilors had to make them leave. They had to resort to turning off the lights to make people leave. But still they were staying. LOL. But slowly they left la. Began our pack up and aiyo so many cable to pack. ESPECIALLY THE SPEAKONS AH! DAMN JIA LAT. RGB CABLE ALSO QUITE JIA LAT. Loaded everything back into the flight cases and loaded it onto the truck. Took the truck back began unloading.

Slept over in school cause it was so late already.

Overall, i think the sound was quite good and it went on quite smoothly. Hoped all our seniors had a great night yesterday. (: