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I was recently asked if I could supply a complete P.A. System for an acoustic set. Though this was not a theatre production (which is the vast majority of my companies sound equipment work) I’m telling you about this as this particular event was an example of how bad things can sound if the wrong people get their hands on the mixing console …

When people/small bands tour around the country they usually hire in their sound requirements from a local hire company. They supply a general list of equipment required and the “intelligent” ones then leave the final requirements of how many monitor speakers and main P.A. speakers along with processing equipment etc, will suffice, to the local P.A. hire company.

So, the get in time was 4.00pm with a sound check at 5.00pm. We got held up in traffic and so arrived 15 minutes late to find the village hall occupied only by the tea lady and caretaker. No sign of anything looking like a musician or sound engineer! The caretaker greeted us at the door and said the band had turned up at about 3.45pm and left to go into town to check into a hotel at about 3.50pm.

We got cracking and got all the sound gear in and set up for about 5.10pm. Still no sign of the band! Now, I had been warned about the bands engineer being a bit of a complaints expert so I was ready for a bit of a moan from him, when he finally decided to turn up! At this point I should tell you the spec sheet did say 6 monitor speakers were required for the musicians to hear themselves. However as the hall only seated 200 and the stage was only 15′ x 8′ and 7 musicians, a keyboard and a guitar along with 5 fiddles had to fit on this stage. A friendly atmosphere and plenty of deodorant was required. Room for 6 monitor speakers? Yeah right!!!… we set up 4 and put 2 of the bigger ones on the floor in front of the stage (which easily covered all the musicians!) along with 5 of the 7 microphone stands as there was just no room for these on a stage this size.

6.00pm came and went, so did 7.00pm. Finally at 7.10pm in came the band with “Mr Happy” (the bands so called sound engineer).”Where were you? we wanted a sound check at 4.30pm” (where was this sound check then? in the bar of the hotel somewhere in town?) – no I didn’t say that but felt like it as they weren’t at the venue between 4 & 7pm!!!) good introduction I thought. “Have I worked with you before?” he asked. No, I replied. “Nice speakers – I like these” he said. Things were getting better I thought… until he noticed the lack of 2 monitor speakers… Mr Happy wasn’t now so happy… I politely pointed out that the hall wasn’t much bigger than the average lift and their was no room to put the extra monitor speakers. Off he went to moan at the agent about this. “They turned up late,” he said to the agent and “half the gear is missing”. Really? … what a nice chap!…

At this point I left him to get on and set up the system as he wanted it to sound, even though we had basically set the system up for him. The company who asked me to supply the sound for this band had asked if I could leave a “minder” for the sound system to make sure everything was OK. Mr Happy was left to get on with life and my minder just made sure he didn’t do anything silly to damage the equipment. It is not the job of the minder to make the system perform well… that’s the job of the engineer… in this case Mr Happy.

When I went to collect the system I got back to the venue about 30 minutes before the end so went in the back to listen… Oh dear!!!

I can honestly say I have never ever heard anyone destroy the sound of a voice or instrument in such a way as this man did. He made very good sound equipment costing a considerable sum of money and would not be out of place on any stage for any artist you can think of, sound like a Karaoke system on a bad night after far too much beer in the pub round the corner! That man couldn’t mix a cake! let alone a sound system!!!

When you ask someone to mix your sound please remember, it’s not only what you’ve got it’s how well you use it. This equally applies to theatre sound as well as any other form of sound reinforcement system. Sound quality is critical to every production… when you choose the person to mix your sound… choose carefully or suffer the consequences.