Last Day Of Quarantine

We made it. Day 14 and no symptoms. Socially isolated and in quarantine. Tomorrow we can… er, wait, what’s this?

Yes, after 14 days of being isolated in our coach, we can finally continue to remain isolated in our coach.

This is what the government currently allows me to do after today:

• Travel to the grocery store, pharmacy and bank only when essential and limit the frequency.
• Use delivery services where possible. When picking up food or a prescription, call ahead so it is ready when you arrive. Use tap to pay, if possible.
• Greet neighbours and friends with a smile, wave, bow or nod.
• Travel by car, bike or walk, where possible. If you need to take public transit, try to travel during non-peak hours and take shorter trips.
• Limit the number of people on an elevator.
• Exercise at home or outdoors, but not with a group.
• Go for an on-leash walk with your pet or take your child for a neighbourhood walk, while maintaining distance from other people.
• Always clean hands with alcohol-based hand sanitizer, or soap and water when you return home.

I’ve been doing a lot of audio engineering and guitar work while isolated during my quarantine and this will likely continue.

For the first time ever I mixed sound for a live event remotely over the Internet. From inside a motorcoach. A side shot of my computer, one of my compact studio monitors, and the live video stream with the tech crew at a separate location.

A little bit more about the setup. These are all the active windows I was using to mix the event in real-time from our coach.

At the bottom left is the browser session from Cleanfeed. It streams high resolution audio from the event to my computer with less than 250 milliseconds of latency. I am hearing what is going on at a location roughly 10 miles away with very little delay. That audio signal goes straight to my digital to analog converter out to my Genelec monitors.

Beside the Cleanfeed session is the VPN connection to the remote site. We have a secure session that allows me to remotely connect to the audio console that is physically located in the production room of our church.

The two sessions at the top of the screen are what I use to communicate to the console over the VPN connection. The adjustments I make with the software are almost instantly applied to the physical audio console. On the right side of the screen are notes related to song tempos — I use tempos to program the delay effects in the audio console — and the order of service for the livestream event.

This is what the physical audio console looks like in real life:

Aside from mixing livestream events, I have also been remote recording.

We had a Pro Tools rig set up in the recording area of the church and I ran the session remotely using Google Hangouts Meet. If you look carefully you might make out my tiny face at the top right, the vocalist singing into the mic at the middle right side of the screen and, of course, the waveform being recorded on the Pro Tools screen.

I also recorded a full drum kit using a different set of tools.

I’ve been collaborating on guitar and mixing songs in preparation for a livestream event on Easter Sunday. I’ll post the result once the service has taken place.

In other words, the quarantine has not really had that much of an impact in terms of keeping engaged with serving through audio engineering and music. Where has it had an impact? Social. Lorraine and I miss not being with people. We stay connected with family and friends through technology but it is not the same as being with the people you love.

Can this really be sustainable for any length of time?

Apparently the leader of our country is prepared to continue to suppress civil liberties over the long term:

Some provinces and health officials saw glimmers of hope in the country’s COVID-19 numbers on Monday, even as the prime minister warned that Canadians shouldn’t expect life to return to normal any time soon.

Speaking in Ottawa, Justin Trudeau said officials will have a better idea of how long the crisis will last once models and predictions are developed, but success will depend on how fully Canadians practise distancing habits.

“To stay at home, to continue this period of isolation and distance is the best way to get out as quickly as possible, but certainly it will be a case of several weeks, perhaps several months,” the prime minister said in his daily update from Ottawa.

I looked up the definition of several:

Definition of several
an indefinite number more than two and fewer than many

We had a time limit for our mandatory quarantine. Social distancing and social isolation may be an indefinite period with no specific timeline, fewer than many. Many being defined as a large but indefinite number.

This might take a while.

Sigh.