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Location: Tarpon Springs, FL
   
Default 11-06-2010, 12:57 PM

Well we made it thru 3 nights of practice and tonight is Opening Night. The songs in act 1 are pretty easy but personally I think we could use a little more time on Mean Green Mother and a couple of others... oh well, I'll practice this afternoon and we'll see how it goes tonight.

They have us set up in front of the stage on the floor, which isn't really a "pit" but is partially hidden by a desk-height wall across the front. Everyone (bass, guitar, keys) is going direct input (D/I). The drums are live and not mic'd since the room isn't that big (seats less than 500 total). I wanted to use my amp (Egnator Tweaker) down low facing me but the sound guy has his way of doing things and really isn't very flexible. I was going to run thru my amp modeller (V-Amp, like a POD) but ended up with a decent sound just out of the pedal board!

The only real problem is that we completely depend on the sound guy to give us a good monitor mix, which is a hit and miss thing it seems... after finally getting him to build a decent mix for us to all hear ourselves, he ends up tweaking his levels once the play/songs get going and next thing you know we have trouble hearing again. The real issue is that this guy is a "set it and leave it" type who mixes for the actors mics (with very music underscore) and never brings back up our levels for the songs. He really needs to be riding the faders and mixing back and forth between songs and just dialog but he says he has "too much going on"! LOL - the board is only like 24 channels... he'd pass out in a bigger show on a 64 or 96 channel board The other down side to his mixing style is that he isn't bringing the keys up to where they need to be for the stage monitors and thus the singers cant hear their pitches/cues very well. This can throw them off, which in turn means the band has to follow along wherever they (singers) may go. Oh, it's a learning experience!!! LOL

The worst part is that you've got 2-3 guys (me and a couple of others) that could do a better mix (IMO) but this guy comes with the theatre (owned by the city as part of their performing arts program). Like many government workers, the sound guy doesn't seem to put in a lot of effort (albeit if you asked him he would tell you how "busy" he is)... and sorry to any of you that are government workers (no disrespect intended).

Anyway, the show must go on! I'll post another update after this weekend's performances.



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MMCQUAIN * Rock, Blues, Christian player * mmcquain@mcquain.com
Gibson Les Paul Studio 60's Tribute, Breedlove Acoustic/Electric
Egnater, Dean Markley, D'Addario, various effect pedals
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