I don't write about my church gig on Sunday nights anymore; usually there's nothing worth writing about. However, last night gave me a story to tell.
In the past six to nine months, the vocalists in the group have decided that they don't like the sound; specifically, they don't like the way that I run the P.A. Even though I'm listening to what it sounds like in the cathedral (I've been doing this gig now for fifteen years--I know what the room sounds like), and listening on headphones, the singers will complain about what they hear (there are no monitors, just singers with handheld microphones standing around the piano), or roll their eyes, or decide on their own that their microphones aren't working and will pass to each other the microphone with the gain turned highest (set for a weaker singer), at which point they will turn to me wanting like they're proving a point (I guess that would be if I set all the microphones right at the point where they will begin to distort, they'd all be really loud, and then they'd be satisfied, and who cares if you can't hear any of the instruments halfway back in the church).
Our set up is a twenty-four channel analog mixer plugged into the amps that drive the speakers. No monitors, no compression. I have control over the gain, the EQ, and level.
A month ago, I'd finally had enough of the vocalists and informed the music director that either that bullshit with the vocalists must stop, or I would quit. That put an end to it.
Last night, I was getting everything dialed in on headphones when the singers swapped microphones mid-song, causing me to flip out, throw my headphones, and cuss out the music director, only to figure out minutes later that the routing of one microphone channel was incorrect--the reason why I could see it on the meter and hear it in my headphones, but it was not making it to the speakers in the church.
Nice going. I wanted to crawl in the piano and die. Apologies all around after mass. Damn.