A wonderful week-long experience with well-kept grounds, clean facilities, and good food - all tainted by incomprehensibly bitter interactions with their AV Tech, Michael Smith. We endured three days of poor EQ in the chapel before I walked up the stairs and offered my assistance. My help was greeted with a terse and annoyed "We've got this," and hand-wag. Sure, I've mixed professionally for fifteen years myself and had my fair share of unhelpful helpers, so I gave him some space and rooted for him to figure out how to EQ out bad frequencies. Unfortunately, the previous two days and the next ninety minutes proved to be insufficient time for the task.
We had a full band the next night, and Michael was not present. One of his underlings was present and quite accepting of my help with EQ'ing, setting levels, compression, etc. He was forthcoming in that he was only recently trained on how to use the mixer (Allen & Heath GLD-112). After a brief moment behind the mixer with him, I knew exactly where a lot of these problems were coming from: the mixer is in a terrible spot for listening. Several large beams sit between the FOH (A pair of QSC KLA lines) and the mixer. Fortunately, there's an iPad loaded up with A&H's AP for EQ'ing the mix from the audience down below. Unfortunately, I never once saw anyone but myself use it.
The tech that night was extremely appreciative of my help. His mixing aesthetics knowledge was minimal, but to his credit, he was eager to learn. That evening, I used the iPad and mixed from the floor, tweaking levels and EQ when needed. The local tech babysat the mixer and helped me out with the nuances of their setup. It was win-win. The next morning was more of the same. I worked with another underling of similar skill and willingness to learn I taught him how compression and gates work, how to properly set a HPF, and showed him how to EQ out bad frequencies. The band was happy, the audience was happy, and most importantly, the camp's organizer was happy.
That evening, I helped out with the first practice before dinner, made adjustments for the band, added another vocal mic and set levels/EQ for it per their request. All was well - it sounded better than ever! After a quick dinner, I went back to the chapel to prep for the evening session and mister mixer himself was there, perched smugly atop the Dunning-Kruger curve and prepared to tell me off, having gotten word that I had been helping his minions. I was ousted after being told that I messed everything on the mixer up (LOL), and that this was his show to run. The organizer relented in order to avoid any confrontation, and I stepped down to assist him in that.
Back to more feedback and assaulting EQs we went. Fortunately, our audience wasn't picky. Most people expect sound to be about as bad as it was, so all's mediocre that ends mediocre, I guess. That said, someone really needs to teach that poor fellow that channel levels relative to master levels are arbitrary on a digital mixer. He seemed pretty bent up about it haha. read more