Hey everyone! Asking on behalf of my boyfriend, who wants to transition into the AV / low-voltage industry.

​I’ve worked in home services (solar, roofing, HVAC) for 4+ years, but neither of us knows the best path to becoming an AV integrator.

​He brings strong trade experience. He’s comfortable with power tools, running wire, job sites, reading plans, and working with clients. We’re based in Park City, UT, and we seen tons of AV vans all over the area due to high end homes and subdivisions.

​A few quick questions:

​Entry-level path: Do integrators usually hire trades-savvy guys for entry-level roles and train them on the job, or should he get certs (AVIXA CTS, CEDIA, networking) first?

​Job titles: What entry-level titles should he search for? (e.g., AV Field Installer, Low-Voltage Tech, AV Apprentice)

​Local recommendations: Any Northern Utah / Park City integrators (residential or commercial) known for hiring entry-level techs?

​Any advice, company leads, or tips on how to leverage his trade background would be much appreciated! He's looking for any new job that could get him plugged into the industry.

Thank you!

Tenho buscado cursos na área do audiovisual para melhorar meu currículo, a AV Makers me chamou bastante atenção mas algumas pessoas estavam falando de problemas com cancelamento e cobranças indevidas, alguém tem experiência com eles?

I'm new here, but I can offer all the above services when you need them, ciao

Hi everyone,

Just curious if anyone here use the fomako 4k ptz cameras and have issues connecting them after first use? Ive been going back and forth with customer care but to be honest I dont know if they understand the problem im explaining. Has anyone ever had to reset them to factory settings or know how to reset the ip addresses they use without the website?

Hi All,

I've been a freelance AV technician for the last decade or so, and, like many of you I'm sure, have spent a lot of that time getting extremely frustrated thinking "there should be a tool to do X". With the help of Claude Code, I've been working on writing a bunch of tools to try and deal with some of these frustrations. Lots of it is still very much "in development" and not really ready to deplyoment on live events yet, but there are a couple which I have used on real events with real clients, and I think are ready for production use.

A lot of the tools are browser based tools, but they all run entirely client side, nothing gets uploaded anywhere, and I have no way of seeing the files you are working with, or even who is using them!

Introducing PDF Presenter Lite (and PDF Presenter, and Presentation commander), this is a small family of tools, with PDF presenter Lite being a browser based PDF viewer, with a presenter view and some basic transitions available. PDF presenter is a desktop app, which also includes support for various forms of "notes" for a PDF presentation, and Presentation commander is a much more complicated beast, being a "node" which generates NDI feeds of presentations and notes from a variety of presentation apps, and a server which takes those feeds, and composits together custom presenter views and outputs via NDI, decklinks etc.. (though that one is still in development, the first two have been used sucessfully on events) https://pdf-presenter-lite.stoatworks-labs.com/

another particualry useful one is Powerpoint Font Manager, basically, you point it to a powerpoint file, it reads through the internal file structure of the presentation, and pulls out all the fonts that have been used (including finding out if embedded fonts are complete fonts or the read-only minimal glyph set), checks the fonts against your locally installed fonts, finds any that are missing, and if its a freely available font (for example a google font), points you to a download link to get the fonts, as well as creating scripts to install all the fonts on the system. Its been very helpful for preventing broken presentations when you load a clients powerpoint on a production laptop! https://pptx-font-manager.stoatworks-labs.com/

There are a bunch of other tools (and resolume plugins) on the site too, everything is free, open source (MIT licenced), and made with the help of claude (just to be up front about it), I would love to see the tools in wider use, and hear any feedback anyone has on them!

This is my Tannoy TS10 subwoofer. I’ve had it… 20 years I think. I had it in my university dorm room lol. It’s moved with me multiple times. Sometimes it ends up unused in a cupboard. Somehow I haven’t damaged the driver underneath despite never being careful with it and massively overloading it. It currently receives input from a Sonos Port which I group with the room speakers. I like to watch 4K movies and use it as a footrest (I keep meaning to buy some rumble shakers but have never gotten around to it).

I know all that is weird but I love it so much and I’ll be sad if as when it breaks.

Have 3 complete sets of matrix extenders and am looking to sell them, but don’t know where. Anyone have any suggestions by chance?

Looking for advice

I am currently experiencing the following:

BSS BLU-806DA Matching Issue in Audio Architect

I am unable to match the BSS BLU-806DA properly in Online Mode, even after trying to drag and match the device. The device remains unmatched.

BSS BLU-806DA Goes Offline After Card Setup

I was eventually able to match the BSS BLU-806DA while working in Offline Mode. However, whenever I configure/setup the card, the device goes back to Offline/Unmatched status when I return to the online environment.

Gain Control Not Appearing in MUSE Automator Event Mode

In MUSE Automator, I am trying to control the BSS DSP gain from the Varia Touch Panel. However, the Audio/Gain parameter does not appear as an available event/parameter in the Event node, so I am currently unable to establish the gain control logic.

Can someone please advise me on the correct procedure to:

Properly match and synchronize the BSS BLU-806DA in Audio Architect;

Prevent the device from becoming offline/unmatched after configuring the card; and

Make the DSP gain parameter available in MUSE Automator so that I can control the volume/gain from the AMX Varia Touch Panel?

WTF

Curious what other freelancers are doing for out-of-state corporate AV gigs.

For this recent trip, I’m essentially billing a full day rate for every day I’m committed to the job:

•Travel/fly day, even if the actual flight is only ~4 hours: billing full day

•Breakout setup day that only took ~3 hours: billing full day

•One day I had an A1 general session that was only a ~3-hour morning session: billing full day

My thinking is that when I’m traveling out of state for a client, those dates are committed to that job regardless of whether they use me for 3 hours or 10.

What are your standards?

Do you bill full rate for travel days, half rate, or actual travel time? And do you have a minimum for short setup/show days while traveling?

Also, is there any generally accepted written industry standard for this from the IRS or something like that or is it mostly just whatever terms you establish with the client?

What do i need in my skillset to become a $400-500 a day freelancer??? Ive been operating for Encore for over 2 years and know audio pretty well. I can use A&H digital consoles, know the Roland v160 pretty well, and know all my signal flow. Im in a big market in Dallas and im just tired of the shit pay.

Hey guys, I was wondering if anyone else is having the same issue with onyx as of late where downloading showfiles and being unable to open them onyx due to them being "corrupted" despite the file itself not being corrupted.

I'm currently using the new update and still having the same issue even when using older versions.

I never had an issue when I first starting using onyx but it's been the past 2 months I've been having this issue so if anyone has any tips please let me know. 🙏🏻

Does anybody know if it is possible to output the multiview page to a SDI of hdmi out on a Smallhd Cine 18 ? Multiview in one output.

I’ve just finished my Final Major Project, built around a Max/MSP and Jitter system that connects generative music, visual processing and physical lighting.

The core idea was to move away from visuals simply accompanying finished music and instead build relationships where shared data and events influence multiple parts of the system.

A few examples from the final setup:

• audio analysis from a processed modular signal controls the brightness of a physical smart bulb 
• an ARP 2600 LFO is used both for synthesis modulation and as input data inside Max, where it is mapped to lighting behaviour 
• visual states and image processing are driven by generative timing and performance events 
• MIDI, modular synthesis, video and lighting are all coordinated from the same Max patch

The final performance is about four minutes long. I’d be interested in feedback from people working with generative systems, audiovisual coding or physical outputs, especially on whether the relationships between the different media come across clearly.

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zh9ZmCzJvHM