No gig tomorrow eve..

... but I get to do sound at a new venue on Saturday - The Wellington pub, Leeds. Unless we can borrow the acceptable but hardly stellar soundcraft desk from the Vine I shall be using a dodgy old one that outputs slightly lower on one side of the master stereo output than the other.

James (Broken Heart Underground promoter) will just tell me to solve this challenge by adding to the deficient side by using an aux send. However this solution reduces the number of stage monitors to one, which could potentially be unacceptable for the acts - I think we're talking full guitar-band style setups so this is likely. I also forsee that it could potentially lead to this side being overpowered. In conjunction with the losing a monitor downside I don't like this solution.

Instead I think I will underpower the amp channel that is serving the stronger output on the desk. Using an external source for music I will try and balance the amp volumes to compensate for the low output. I think I will re-check this with a vocal mic, as I've a suspiscion that this problem may only occur on the input used to bring the external source in- I can't remember as its been a while since I've used this desk.

post no 1 : hello guys

Alright you out there,
This is the first post of my new live sound - and related things - blog. In this blog I'm going to talk about the gigs I've done sound at, the gigs I'm going to do sound for, plans, equipment, challenges (a.k.a 'problems'), solutions, venues, promoters, bands etc etc.

Hopefully people can find this interesting and perhaps even useful, who knows?

As a quick introduction: I'm Owen (a.k.a Big-O/Owen McLove) and I have part time work as a live sound engineer in Leeds. A big thanks to James Reains of www.myspace.com/brokenheartunderground who has provided me with work at Dr Wu's, Mr foley's, The vine (upstairs and downstairs) and Mr Wu himself, Ben, who started me out in live sound with a university work placement at the now defunct Dr Wu's bar of Call Lane, Leeds.

Currently I'm looking to expand my horizons. At the moment I'm learning from the bands I get to work with, trying to work in a few different venues on different gear. Just increasing my level of experience with different equipment, different rooms, different styles of music - and other kinds of entertainment that require sound reinforcement.

So if you think you can help me in any way, let me know. I'm particularly looking to work with a different set of challenges such as theatre or venues that have extra outboard processors with their PA equipment. In addition to that I'd love to be behind the scenes at some of this year's upcoming European metal festivals.

Cheers, Big-O