GoodBuyGuys Blog – Page 35 – News from the Good Buy Guys of goodbuyguys.com

Great Documetaries At Your Fingertips

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Jeff Posted in good business ideas, Other News, Pro lighting, Pro Sound — No Comments ↓

I watch way too much video on the internet. Between catching up on The Daily Show reruns and watching my daughters short films on Facebook, it seems like I’ve got something streaming all the time.

A new site which hosts documentary films is making this web video addiction a lot more of a problem.

The site is SnagFilms.com, which hosts hundreds of documentaries and does it in a way that allows you to embed them in a blog, attach them to an email, or use them as content in your own web site. The site is free, and you are only shown a few very short advertisments during the film.

SnagFilms is free and you are only shown a few short ads during the screening of the film. You can even view it a full screen mode.

This is a great way for a documentary maker to get lots of exposure and even make a little money, since you can buy a DVD of the film right from the site.

I just finished watching a film about life in the New York City Fire Department called “Brotherhood”. Here’s a link:

GoodBuyGuys.com is your online source for Shurtape gaffers tape, Duracell Procell batteries, MagLite flashlights, Nashua duct tape, Bay State wire ties, Electratrac and Coast Wire extension cords , OnStage Stand mic stands and quality speaker cables. Lots of supplies for film makers.

No Wonder The Soundman’s Asleep Under The Console!

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Jeff Posted in mic cables, microphones & mic stands, Other News, Pro lighting, Pro Sound — No Comments ↓

I try to blog at least once a week about some new innovation or clever device in the pro sound industry. I spent 30 plus years as a “knob twister” and I try to keep up with new ideas.

Leave it to the British to bring us a decidely “low tech” solution to handling sound mixing for those interminable 8 hour corporate meetings or all night rehearsals.

Its the Canford Wine Rack, a 3 space rack mount module, designed to store up to four bottles of wine in an audio rack.

Apparently this is not a joke (even though I first came across it on “boingboing“). It appears that you can actually order it.

Obviously cooling might present a problem if you prefer a Chardonnay or Reisling, but we are going to get to work right away on a nitrogen chilling system.

Check back here for updates.

OK!-Who are you guys?

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Jeff Posted in Uncategorized — No Comments ↓

In reading one of my favorite business oriented blog sites, ducttapemarketing.com/blog, this article resonated with me.

My blog (buygafferstape.com/blogs) is almost two years. Its a project that I have really enjoyed.

The article I am referring to addresses the issue of bloggers trying to maintain their anonymity and not posting any information about who they really are. It has never been my intention to remain anonymous, but the idea never crossed my mind to do a posting about who I am.

Here goes!

After 20 years in the special event and concert production industries our company, Harrison Bros. Inc. gradually migrated from being a “hands on” production company to a seller of production supplies online.

My background as a sound tech and special event producer covered both freelance work and a stint at Duke University Technical Services during the 1980’s. I left Duke at the end of 1985 to start Harrison Bros.

As a production company we offered multiple services, including sound, lighting, staging, labor brokering and production management. The scale of the events we were involved in spanned a huge range from building dedications with one microphone to constructing the stage for one of the stadium dates on The Who’s 1989 “The Kids Are Alright Tour”.

It was challenging work and I had a chance to travel the country and work with some really high profile acts-Frank Sinatra, DollyParton, Bill Cosby, and lots of others.

Realizing that there wasn’t a great future in hands on work for someone staring down the barrel of his 50th birthday, I knew that it was time to turn our little company in a new direction.

We started out selling colored duct tape, and quickly found that there was a customer base for production supplies out there who were more than happy to tell us about production supplies they needed that were either difficult to find or way to expensive.

I gradually added other tape products like gaffers tape, then batteries, flashlights, tie lines , extension cords, etc. to the point where we now offer about 400 products.

We started by doing catalog sales and direct mail marketing, long before the internet evolved into a an ecommerce engine.

It didn’t take long to realize that the internet provided a perfect medium for marketing and selling and we rolled out thetapeworks.com and buybattery.com. This took a little while to gain traction, but after a year or so, it really took off.

2003 was a really important year in our business development. We left Main Street in Carrboro, where we had been since day one and built a new building about 5 miles south of Chapel Hill, and only four miles from my house. The entire back of the building is a 100′ wide loading dock and having a “purpose built” facility has provided a tremendous asset for our growth.

In the summer of 2006, we rolled out an important new web strategy, goodbuyguys.com. This allowed us to combine lots of websites, including buytape.com, buybattery.com, buyextensioncord.com, buywireties.com, buyspeakercable.com, buymicstand.com and buymiccable.com, under the same web portal.

One of the best things about developing this site was being able to use cartoon characters that my Father, Bill Harrison, had drawn for his 1960’s comic strip “Guess Who“. They are great spokesmen for our company, and using them to represent us has really helped me “find my voice” when blogging and creating web material.

I spend my spare time gardening, sailing, building furniture, and doing metal sculpture (my yard is full of this work).

Even though I left Duke University as an employee, I am a charter member of the Duke Chapel Congregation. My wife Gina (we were married in Duke Chapel) is a 25 year member of the Duke Chapel Choir and I enjoy being part of the usher team there, along with my two children, Charlotte and Kevin.

Being able to work for myself for the last 23 years has been a wonderful blessing, and I am grateful to all our loyal customers who have helped our business grow.

I am anonymous no longer!

Livenation-Would Someone Check Their Pulse!

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Jeff Posted in good business ideas, Other News, Pro lighting, Pro Sound — No Comments ↓

Livenation, the king-of-entertainment wannabe, is setting the record for reinventing themselves.

This ill advised attempt at vertical integration in the concert and entertainment business is getting ready to fail yet again.

The idea of owning every component of an entertainment venture from the performer to the venue was a bad one from the start. Livenation continues to prove how bad an idea it was every single day.

Their stock (LVY) has lost 40% since the beginning of the year and is down a whopping 200% over the last 12 months. Their sale of controlling interest in many of the theatres they ruled to a British theatrical producer during the winter gave them a little breathing room, but their most recent spending spree on artists may be the final nail in their coffin.

It appears that the strategy of controlling venues and ticket distribution is now morphing into ownership of artists. They are paying ridiculous sums to concert performers in exchange for their future earnings in performance, recording and merchandising and the stock market continues to vote with investors’ dollars. The vote is a resounding “NO”.

Today’s announcement regards Nickelback, a band that’s been over for longer than they were popular. Livenation has made a deal for somewhere between $50 million and $70 million for these Canadian has beens, and the stock is now flirting wtih its 52 week low.

Add this deal to those for Madonna ($120 million), Jay-Z ($150 million), U2($120 million), and its obvious that Livenation won’t be alive much longer.

Even still relevant acts like U2 and Jay-Z (hasn’t he retired a couple of times already?) can’t possibly generate enough revenue to make these deals pay off.

Every move that Livenation has made into the entertainment business has been bad for the consumer and for local venues. We can only hope that their continued failures will lead us back to local control and booking of venues, fair pricing of tickets, and the chance for new entertainers to reach an audience.

Lets hope that this is the beginning of the end for this failed experiment.

Making The Case For An XLR Speaker Cable

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Jeff Posted in extension cords, good business ideas, mic cables, Pro lighting, Pro Sound, speaker cables — No Comments ↓

Many years ago when I worked in the Technical Services Dept. at Duke University, we embraced a speaker cable connector standard that seems to have fallen by the wayside. We used the standard XLR3 connector for speaker cables-the same connector that was used on microphone cables.

With my background in pro sound, I was familiar with both the quarter inch standard , and the Canon EP multipin standard. I had never seen the XLR used for speaker cables. I quickly became a convert. Here’s why.

Because speaker cables with XLR connectors have a male connector on one end and a female on the other, its easy to extend the length of a cable without an adapter. Not using an adapter means not losing an adapter. This is a really valuable feature when doing long outdoor speaker cable runs.

Each pin in an XLR3 connector is rated at 15 amps. That’s more than enough current carrying capacity for most practical amplifier outputs.

The flexible strain relief boot on an XLR connector is flexible enough to handle 2 conductor 14 gauge, or even 12 gauge cable.

Each pin makes independent contact with the mating connector, unlike a quarter inch connector where the tip must make contact with the sleeve before it mates with the tip.

Finally the solid, easy to use locking mechanism on the XLR3 means that no additional securing of a connection is necessary when cables are linked together.

A couple of amplifier manufacturers adopted this standard back in the 1980’s, but they let it fall by the wayside when the industry as a whole failed to sign up.

On more than one occasion, I must admit that I used a microphone cable as a temporary speaker cable when I ran out of speaker cables. Try that with a Speakon cable!

How Many Times Would I Have Liked To Have This?

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Jeff Posted in good business ideas, mic cables, microphones & mic stands, Pro lighting, Pro Sound — No Comments ↓

Neutrik, the maker of a broad line of audio connectors, has a great new product that every sound person ought to know about. Its a new style of XLR connector called the Convertcon.

How many times have you gotten to the end of a long XLR cable run, only to discover that you had the wrong gender connector in your hand? The Convertcon makes that a thing of the past.

By simply sliding the connector barrel forward or back, a male XLR3 connector can become a female XLR3, or vice versa. No more coiling and rerunning the cable or digging through your tool box for a turn around.

While the cost ($12.00 or more) keeps this connector from being practical to use on all mic cables, those special long run control cables or the ones you use to interface with someone else’s equipment are where this innovative connector shines.

The problem of running a long interface cable “blind” to a remote patch bay, an outboard production truck, or an unknown facility interface just got a whole lot easier.

Finally, A Little Good News

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Jeff Posted in batteries, duct tape, extension cords, gaffers tape, good business ideas, tape — No Comments ↓

It is something of a stretch for me to go from selling audio visual supplies to watching the commodity markets. Unfortunately, volatility in the base components of everything we sell means that this vital information just can’t be ignored.

Between the price of the petroleum derivatives in tape adhesives and the cost of trucking these very heavy products, the cost of oil impacts the cost of every kind of tape we sell. There has been some short term moderation in the price of a barrel of oil, so we are hoping that our suppliers can hold the line a little longer. It is hard to connect the price of filling up your car with what you pay for a roll of gaffers tape, but the connection is real.

After peaking at $4.00 a pound in April, the price of copper is down about 10%, closing at just over $3.60 earlier in the week. As our cable business expands, the cost of the most important, and heaviest component, in an extension cord or speaker cable has forced suppliers to raise prices several times this year. Maybe those increases are over for a little while. Hopefully, this decrease in will help battery makers hold the line as well

Unfortunately, it seems like what one market gives back, another takes away. Dow Chemical’s announcement that it will raise chemical prices by up to 20%, effective this month, is going to impact much of we sell. Tape adhesive resins, battery components and cable jackets all have chemical components, and even if Dow isn’t the supplier, most other major suppliers are sure to follow.

We are grateful to our loyal customers and will do all we can to work with major suppliers to address pricing pressure.

Welcome To A New GoodBuyGuy-Speaker Cable Sam

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Jeff Posted in extension cords, mic cables, Pro lighting, Pro Sound, speaker cables — No Comments ↓

Today we introduce the newest of our GoodBuyGuys.com website, BuySpeakerCable.com.

BuySpeakerCable.com is hosted by Speaker Cable Sam , the latest addition to the GoodBuyGuys family. Sam is ready to provide lots of valuable information about speaker cables, speaker cable connectors and the proper set up of sound system speakers. Sam draws on 30 years of work in the concert production industry to help you make decisions about purchasing and using the best speaker cables and accessories, no matter what your application.

Buyspeakercable.com features cables from Mitee Cable. Mitee cables use quality connectors and wire to insure that your speaker cables deliver all the sound possible from your amplifier to your speakers. They have tough rubber jackets and copper wire that is durable, easily coilable and ready to stand up to the tough use sound and audio visual pros subject their equipment to every day.

Of particular interest is the in depth information provided about Speakon connectors, the new standard for pro audio speaker cables. Mitee Cables feature Speakon connectors that are fully compatible with the Neutrik NL2 & NL4 series connector, available at a fraction of the Neutrik price. Here, you will find valuable guides about wiring and using Speakon connectors, along with adapters that make Speakon speaker cables compatible with other connector types.

With the addition of BuySpeakerCable.com, you can turn to GoodBuyGuys.com for all of your audio visual and sound system cable needs.

Tagged with: Pro Sound, speaker cables

When Is A Speakon Not A Speakon?

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Jeff Posted in mic cables, Pro lighting, Pro Sound, speaker cables — No Comments ↓

The addition of buyspeakercable.com to our family of goodbuyguys.com web sites has led to an interesting question regarding Speakon connectors. The Speakon, first introduced by Neutrik (a German company) has become the new standard for professional audio.

As with most popular products based on good design, lots of copies of the original Speakon have made their way into the marketplace. Neutrik has wisely decided to allow these “knock offs” to prolifierate, realizing that the more products on the market built to be compatible with their brand means the more connectors they will sell. This is how they have managed such total market penetration in an industry that always challenges change.

Our line of Speakon speaker cables is designed to mate effortlessly with Neutrik branded connectors and to perform comparably. Mitee Speakon cables use the same quality components as the Neutrik version and can be counted on to deliver the same reliability over a very long life.

Mitee Speakon speaker cables have locking tabs and are designed to latch securely to Neutrik panel mount connectors, whether mounted on a speaker cabinet or on an amplifier. A simple twist insures a solid connection. Strain relief is provided through a spring loaded “press to release” tab.

Just like the Neutrik version, Mitee Speakons are fully shielded so that there is no risk of ever touching an energized contact. All conductors are recessed and the connector body is heavy duty, non-conducting plastic.

Speakon connectors have a unique design that insure they are not switched with XLR, quarter inch, or any other low current audio cables. They are never used on microphones or signal processing equipment, only speaker cables.

Mitee Speakon speaker cables utilize the four pole connector, even though the cables are two conductor. The four pole standard has been adopted by amplifier manufacturers that equip their amps with Speakon connectors so that the amp can be switched internally between mono and biamped. This means that you can be sure that speaker cables from buyspeakercable.com will mate with all popular Speakon equipped amplifiers.

Now featuring speaker cables at BuySpeakerCable.com

Tagged with: Pro Sound, speaker cables, speakon connectors

The More Things Change, The More They Stay The Same

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Jeff Posted in good business ideas, mic cables, Pro lighting, Pro Sound, speaker cables — No Comments ↓

I retired for active involvement in the sound business just at the time when digital mixers were being introduced into the sound reinforcement industry. Consequently, I have observed from the sidelines as this change in technology moved into the live sound world. Sometimes it is easier to be a backseat driver than it is to learn new production skills.

The biggest impediment to having rank and file sound people (not those on the bleeding edge) embrace this technology has been that there were too few knobs capable of doing too many things. Sound people with years of analog mixing experience couldn’t just step up to a new mixer and build a mix. Intuition as to which knob will give the desired result simply didn’t matter anymore.

Digico, long a leader in digital mixers, has introduced a new series of consoles, the SD7 that speak directly to this problem. Instead of embracing the line of thinking that computer processing power would allow the manufacturer to decrease the number of knobs on the mixer (now called “control surface” in digital-speak), Digico is turning this idea on its head.

Decreases in cost and size of computer processing allows the SD7 to have MORE knobs and sliders. The result is that this mixer looks almost like a conventional analog desk. This is the part of the digital puzzle that has been missing, and it is an idea that will lead a whole generation of “over 40 something” sound people to take the digital plunge.

Recognizing that having separate knobs for tone control (eq) and aux busses (monitors and effects) is of more value than making a mixer as small and multi-functional as possible is an idea that is long overdue.

The Digico SD7 is expensive and you shouldn’t expect to see them in churches and schools anytime soon (probably never!). What you will see is some of the more reasonably priced offerings from companies like Yamaha and Mackie following Digico’s lead and using additional processing power to make their lower priced digital mixers something that late adopters will actually recognize.

When that happens, I just might come out of retirement.

GoodBuyGuys.com is your online source for Shurtape gaffers tape, Duracell Procell batteries, MagLite flashlights, Nashua duct tape, Bay State wire ties, Electratrac and Coast Wire extension cords , OnStage Stand mic stands . Now offering Mitee Speaker Cables at buySPEAKERCABLE.com.

Great Documetaries At Your Fingertips

No Wonder The Soundman’s Asleep Under The Console!

OK!-Who are you guys?

Livenation-Would Someone Check Their Pulse!

Making The Case For An XLR Speaker Cable

How Many Times Would I Have Liked To Have This?

Finally, A Little Good News

Welcome To A New GoodBuyGuy-Speaker Cable Sam

When Is A Speakon Not A Speakon?

The More Things Change, The More They Stay The Same

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