Weren't no other choice, for with time rapidly disappearing, our decision to run with an extended setlist and an overly ambitious stage set-up was about to go down in flames before even a chord had so much as been strummed, as everything was suddenly (and horribly) compounded by our general sub-par level of knowledge when it comes to the business end of sound engineering.
After a few failed attempts to get the sound wired through the various means we'd envisaged and discussed during the week, we settled on at least getting the same basic approach going as we have in the practice room (having thankfully taken our own PA system with us); surmising that if worst were to come to worst, we'd at least be making some noise ...
Stage notes during set
Once this decidedly rudimentary set-up had been established, we then set about trying to amplify our presence by simply getting more sound running to more outputs.
To this end, we eventually managed to send the vocals directly through the main in-house system, which cast a more generous level of volume towards the crowd whilst simultaneously freeing up our PA for another use, as directly in front of the stage was a large foldback tied to the main volume; our inability to isolate these (the front-of-house speakers and the foldback) caused some problems with regards Tim's vocal mic feeding back but he received swift, screeching reminders if he stepped too close or moved too far sideways though, so this was kept to a minimum - though at the expense of a much less animated frontman than we're accustomed to seeing.
A healthy level of foldback was paramount though, because it was our first outing together as a band and we'd never gotten around to mimicking the stage layout (and any crucial sound discrepancies) of a live performance beforehand. This is surprisingly important, as various cues can all of a sudden disappear when you're least (or most!) expecting them.
Centre page of the programme
Anyway, our own PA system was then utilised to partially disguise some of the missing bottom-end by clipping a microphone onto the kick drum. It would've been preferable to run some reverb across this as well, although (due to being unable to get the sound through front-of-house) this unfortunately wasn't an option. The guitar amp was also sent through our own PA unit, which helped to better scatter the sound as it would otherwise be coming from merely one source; the more sound we could throw about the venue, the better ...
As it turned out, the onstage sound was by far the best we've ever actually experienced. Naturally, our having been reduced to a three-piece instead of a five-piece was a contributing factor - less instruments needing to point sound at less musicians equalling less chance of it all becoming a muddied shambles onstage.
Thankfully we also had time to run through a couple of half-song sounchecks (one acoustic and one electric) for an audience of three who helped shape the final sound with minor adjustment being made to various EQ settings where possible. Thanks Em, Mel, and Karen!
The entire electric set (currently sourced from one stationary angle, though another more dynamic view exists) is up on our Youtube channel
