I had a little trio gig at the World of Coke--background music for a corporate dinner thing. They wanted to speak, too, so I brought my meager PA (two speakers, two sticks, and twenty-five feet of cable).
Upon arrival, I learned that it wouldn't just be remarks for the crowd--they were presenting awards, so the PA got really complicated really quickly. We were in the atrium; the band was situated on one landing, the podium on the other (stairs between us), and the audience down on the floor. Yikes! Forty-five minutes to come up with a solution, test it, and get set up to play music. The distance between the speakers, plus the distance up to the landing were a major concern. I finally got it sorted out by daisy-chaining my speakers. Glad I brought a boom stand as a place to keep the microphone. This was not was I was expecting.
OK, so that was settled…here's the audio from the gig. It's Tyrone Jackson on keyboard and Kevin Smith on bass. I felt really good about my playing tonight.
David Freeman Trio-September 20, 2012 by David B Freeman
We played for an hour, and I finally declared a break--no one from the client's camp would give me any kind of timeline for the event. The break worked out to be about right, though--they were ready to get started. I got the important old white guys set up with the microphone…one of them actually asked me to turn down the echo! I wanted to say, "Unfortunately, we are in a room of glass and tile, built like a four story bucket. There's nothing to eat up the sound. It's an acoustical problem I cannot solve for you. Please forgive me, the World of Coke, and the city of Atlanta." Instead I barked, "IT'S THE ROOM!!!" Oops. At least I didn't cuss.
davidfreemanmusic.net
