| Type | Sound operator's account |
|---|---|
| First recorded | 18 September 2008 |
| Status | Channel source unresolved |
The rehearsal channel
The Retort rig arrived at Sorel Civic Hall at half past two on 18 September 2008. I signed for it because Northline Event Hire had sent a driver but no operator, and the hall manager knew I had done sound there before.
The rehearsal
Yvette Cudjo-Neuville came in through the side door just after four. She was the Third District congresswoman by then and had previously worked as an actress, which showed mainly in the way she checked the room. She tried the lectern, walked to the last row, came back and asked me whether the side lights would remain on during questions.
The rig started returning her words through the monitor with that little delay it had. Not an echo across the hall, exactly. She would say a sentence, pause, and hear the end of it come back as if somebody behind her had corrected the timing.
She stopped twice. Then she said, “Please record one clean pass in case my voice goes.”
I recorded eleven minutes and twenty seconds onto the hall machine. It was an ordinary rehearsal: opening remarks, three points about the district budget, thanks to the ushers, then a closing sentence. Her assistant stood beside me and marked the end time on his programme.
Before the doors opened, I left the recording on channel six. The live lectern microphone was on channel four.
The meeting
At seven, Cudjo-Neuville walked to the lectern and gave the same remarks. I thought they were live. Her pauses were longer than they had been in rehearsal, and she looked down twice when somebody moved a chair, so I had no reason to think otherwise.
Then I noticed that the meter moving on the desk was channel six.
I checked channel four. Its fader was up, but there was no signal. I did not touch either one because she was speaking and the room could hear her. That is the plain part of it. The part I cannot settle is whether the labels had been moved, whether the desk was displaying the wrong input, or whether the rehearsal recording was playing.
The speech ended at eleven minutes and twenty seconds.
Questions followed. A shopkeeper asked about loading permits, a student asked about evening buses, and an older man asked why the district office had changed its opening day. Cudjo-Neuville answered each of them. Channel six continued to move. Channel four did not.
Her answers were sensible but broad. They could have been prepared answers that happened to fit. They could also have been live answers reaching the desk through an internal route I did not know about. The Retort rig had already behaved incorrectly that afternoon, so I am not treating the meter as proof of anything.
Afterward
When the hall had emptied, I asked the assistant whether he wanted the rehearsal file. He said, “No, keep it with the job until the invoice is cleared.”
Northline collected the rig the following morning. Their driver took the cables, both speakers and the desk. He left the hall recorder because it belonged to Sorel.
The file remained there for six weeks. I played it once during that time. It contained the rehearsal I remembered, including the scrape of the assistant’s chair near the beginning. It did not contain the three public questions or any answers to them.
I was paid £84 for the afternoon and evening. I did not report a fault because sound had reached the room throughout the meeting. On the Northline work sheet I marked the job completed, which is still the fairest description I have.
See also
- Bath fitting return — Retort rig
- Casano interval — Retort rig
- Défense du décalage — Retort rig
- Delay-loop counter-drills — Retort rig
- Dons croisés — Retort rig
- Excursion allowance — Retort rig
- Grey reference case — Retort rig
- Lettre à Locations Belrive — Retort rig