It was at church gig number two, in their parish hall. That room is no fun to play in because the speakers are in the ceiling and the band is in a little nook off to the side. The sound inside the nook is completely different from the rest of the room. To mix sound, one has to walk most of the way to the doors to room in order to hear the speakers.
Tonight, I couldn't get hardly any volume in the house without pushing the master fader almost completely up. When the band really got going, the mixer would hit the red and send a distorted signal to the house. At one point, the priest came over (after putting ashes on everybody) and said, "I think it's clipping." Ouch. Interesting that he wouldn't say "breaking up" or "distorting." I guess in a way that makes it worse; he might actually know something about what I was doing.
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| she's gonna blow! |
My guess is that the amplifiers that power the speakers are set too low, so just when I start to get some volume out there, I'm waaaaaaaaaay into the yellow on the mixer. Then I hit the red, it distorts, and I look stupid. I wanted to get up on a chair and yell (can't use the PA!) "PEOPLE OF GOD! IT'S NOT MY FAULT! THE PEOPLE WHO INSTALLED THIS STATE OF THE ART SPEAKER SYSTEM ARE MORONS! THE AMPS ARE TOO LOW! IT'S NOT MY FAULT!" I can only hope that God was able to silently convey this message.
I never played a note. I stood there the entire night riding the master fader…push it up when the band is quiet, back it down as the get louder. Fun.
davidfreemanmusic.net
