Pop Shield

How odd that one of the potentially best recordings of the year should prove to be, well, so dysfunctional.  Families on the road can be, I guess.

There are a few things necessary to secure a well-received live concert and broadcast which the industry take for granted.  We do things in a certain way for a reason and when convention is broken it can almost seem to be a lesson in how not to go about things.  For example:-

Do not randomly switch between mic and line levels on your handheld RF mics after each has been tested by three systems.

If you want a three-hour soundcheck to pay off, put the monitor engineer behind the console and not behind the lead singer’s mic.

Avoid holding two microphone capsules together and announcing to all sound professionals in the venue that you are doing an important check for phase correlation.

Probably best not go mental about the lack of salad dressing.

Think twice before throwing the freelance patch monkey onto the FOH desk five minutes after the gig has started having banned him from the board during s/check.

Perhaps best for the band not to collude with the assembled audience in the event that the singer may complain about sound levels in the house.

Do not take numerous scheduled breaks during the concert for banjo tuning accompanied by announcements to the audience.

Actually, why not?  And if the audience are denied all bass frequencies in order to keep the artist happy and able to hear the key stuff so be it. And in the scheme of it all we’ll remember and honour the unusual circumstances.