tres-gique.com / Sessions / 2008 / 11 ( 08, 09 )

2008/11/08-09 Session Report

Overview

Tres Gique's first rehearsal weekend was November 8-9. None of the Super Sekrit(tm) technology was actually used, in part because most of the software we need to drive it is still being written.

We used the open space around the table in Suite 115 (the administrative wing) on Saturday (with lunch in the Suite 118 lunch room), and one of the members' living rooms for comparison on Sunday. There's more room here at $COMPANY, and fewer allergenic interruptions, which bodes well for the future. Having our initial session in two different locations and without any $COMPANY technology, though unplanned, was the right thing to do in retrospect: it provides a baseline against which any technological improvements can be measured.

Specific Findings

Document-related

• The group uses physical copying and scan-to-email, as well as multiple-copy printing. Anything that helps manage and distribute scanned and printed documents will be helpful. It's an obvious application for [new printer-driver stuff]
• A music stand, especially a lightweight, portable one, makes a very poor substrate for handwriting. This is especially true for loose sheets (like copies and printouts) and thin books with paper covers. Pads, which are rigid but small enough to pick up and hold in one hand while writing with the other, will be very useful.
• Full lead sheets, with chords above every line and all choruses written out, will be absolutely essential with one-page displays -- much of what we're working with stretches over multiple pages. A foot pedal for flipping pages would also be useful.

Audio

• Going back over recordings to label and split out songs is tedious, and both CPU- and disk-intensive. We're recording at 24 bits into a .wav file, and splitting the result with Audacity. By the time we're done we've used 40MB/minute, and a minimum of two or three hours of editing time. Recording directly into Audacity would help a lot, but it would be even better if there were a specialized recording program we could use. Ideally it would simply attach audio to the electronic document (lyric sheet) being worked on. Between pages (songs) it could drop back to the lower (but sufficient) quality afforded by the meeting recorder's room mics.
• Next session we will all be individually mic'ed, which will help a great deal with the sound quality for both streaming and recording. Naturally, this isn't something that most workgroup meetings will be able to do, but any venue with a sound board will find it useful.
• If both multichannel and ambient (room-mic'ed) audio are available it becomes almost essential to have a convenient way of turning the multichannel recording (which is both space- and labor-intensive) on and off. Pads are an obvious control point.

Telepresence

• We used Skype in our Sunday session to bring one of our offsite associates into the meeting; her backchannel was an IM connection to a band members' laptop. It was difficult for her to get the group's attention, and when the laptop timed out and went to sleep the connection dropped, leaving a confused and unhappy person on the other end of the wire. Meeting-room equipment must not time out as long as the meeting is in progress. Breaks need to be coordinated between local and remote participants.
• In a followup conversation I suggested putting an IM client up on the projector.

  (21:55:52) N: I like the idea. I'm quite happy communicating to you in text while being able to hear you but not be heard. It means if I need to deal with the kids or ask someone a question or rustle the pages of my book, I'm not interfering.

  It's worth noting that many people are like N. in preferring text to voice for remote participation, especially if they are mainly passive observers or audience members.
• Skype's bandwidth and sound quality, even with video turned off, were clearly not up to the task. Next time we'll use streaming audio via icecast; this is another service where the projector controller is the obvious place to put it. Video from a webcam is another possibility.

Venue and logistics

• The big advantage of using a bandmember's house for rehearsal space was that it reduces the amount of transportation, setup, and teardown required. This could be largely offset by more portable equipment and by keeping some spare equipment (e.g. microphone stands and music stands) at Ricoh.
• The big disadvantage was that there were both interruptions and allergy problems, both caused by the resident pets. The other possible household venue wouldn't have that problem, but would have others including lack of adequate space and the presence of family members who would be annoyed by the rehearsal.