Implementing the newest technology in an artistic manner requires hours of forethought, study and preparation, and we need to accept that this is a never-ending process. So we in the industry will always be downloading that manual, attending that webinar and studying those online tutorials. I recently got a call at 6 p.m. on a Friday from PRG to program an Mbox Media server using Mbox Director. The gig loaded in at 11 a.m. the next morning. I had less than 10 hours to learn Mbox Director. I was familiar with Mbox, but I had always used a console to program. Now I had to learn how to download the media files from the dropbox, get the media onto the servers in the proper format, play 12 separate clips for two different artists synced to time-code and do it all on a Friday night without tech support. Luckily, PRG has a ton of online tutorials demonstrating every single step that I needed to configure the Mbox and control it via Mbox Director. I was able to cram an entire training course worth of information into my brain in one night.
—Chris Lose, from “LD-at-Large,” PLSN, July 2016
