Study Hall

Fun & Challenges (Or Fear & Loathing) At The New House Sound Gig

When did it become some sort of luxury to know if the knob you're turning is making it sound better or worse?

I can’t believe I have been at my new house gig for a couple months now.

Time sure flies when you’re having fun!

I wasn’t there when they brought in the gear and set it up, so some things are not the way I would have set them up.

The mixer is on top of the outboard rack, like you’d do with a portable rig. Bending down behind a rack is not the best way to hear the tweaks you’re making. When did it become some sort of luxury to know if the knob you’re turning is making it sound better or worse?

I’ll change this as soon as I figure out where to move the rack so I can operate it without bending over, while also still leaving enough room in the alloted space at front of house for the light guy.

We don’t have a light guy on duty every night, so I suppose I could just use up all of the space and let the light guy fend for himself, but this makes me a bad guy. Why is it when the light guy is a crybaby, it’s ME who’s being inflexible?

I’d have figured out how to do this sooner if the front of house position was not located back in the corner where I can’t hear the PA all that well. (You know, like most every club.)

The system was installed on the day of the club’s first show, so in order to save time, they didn’t run the drive snake. The loudspeaker processor was moved to the amp rack, and everything is hooked up with a single 24 x 4 snake.

This eats up two mic inputs on the snake, since we need six channels to do L&R as well as four monitor sends from FOH. It leaves me with 22 inputs from the stage and no spares.

Oh yeah, and lighting needs a channel, and when the light guy brings in his extra stuff, he needs a channel too. So now I’m down to 20.

But wait! There’s more!

A DJ rig behind the house left stack needs two channels as well. So now, my Midas Venice 32 can receive all of 18 channels from the stage.

Strangely enough, though, we’ve already hosted our first “national act” without any production issues at all.

Just the same, I really need to get in there and run that drive snake… One of these days…

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