Hi All -
Long time listener, first time caller here at the REP. I work in the event production department at a university in WI. I've been working on a proposal for a new recording/training setup and was hoping I could snag some suggestions from y'all.
Every semester we hire a couple of new production technicians to run audio and lights for the events on our campus. I always struggle with how to appropriately train them. I've tried bringing in some instruments of my own and playing for them, but just play the guitar and sing. I've tried just throwing them on a board for a show after going over the basics, but it often takes them about a semester to get any degree of comfort with it. I've tried having them shadow a more experienced tech, but it's hard to train people when you have a strict (and short) timeline to deal with.
I've been thinking about purchasing an 8 channel recording interface that has 8 outs as well (something like the Profire 2626.) I'm hoping that this will allow me to do things such as record the drums during a show and then sending each individual track through a different output and into a board so that I can teach people how to set compression, gates, EQ, etc. for the different parts of the kit. I also want to use it to record shows for some of our on campus groups, but the training aspect would be the most important.
Would this work? Do you think it would be an effective way of training some of these noobs? Most of them have little to no experience running a show.
Thanks for any feedback!