So the month of August has been super busy! Starting with a week long trip to Seattle for our 1 year anniversary. I can honestly say that is one place I would love to move. The weather and the environment is amazing. Plus the public transportation is so cool that we didn't even rent a car and just rode around on the subway or street cars. After Seattle we had a special youth Sunday service which involved a full stage strike to get the youth band all setup. After that weekend I had 2 weeks of prep with 4 bands for a event we called 365. Basically it would be a worship service followed by 20 minutes of speaking. Then the audience would have a 30 minute intermission where we strike the worship band completely and have a support act then a headliner. Then the following morning it was just the worship set. Then again the following evening we had the 2 bands after. Knowing that I would have a lot of people pressed up against the front portion of the stage I decided to try some make shift front fills. I knew I needed them to sound pretty close to the mains so I spent all day the week of the event working on the tuning and level of the fills to work alongside our mains. Above is a pic of 2 per side in place on the front of the stage. They're way bigger then normal since they're not really designed for this application but the got the job done and we now use them on Sunday mornings since we have people down front fro praise & worship. I have to say the 365 event would have been a huge headache to me had I not had a VENUE system. Also 2 amazing volunteers made the set changes really fast and smooth. After laying out the number of inputs on paper that I would need for each band I decided that I would rather just create a show file for each individual band. By keeping the console architecture the same in terms of number of inputs,mix buses,L/R/M config, and such I was able to as soon as one band finished load the next band show files with only a 16 second pause before audio was able to pass for the ipod. I had originally wanted to use snapshots and had used them to switch between entire bands before but I liked the isolation and control having separate show files offered me. All the bands were running IEMs and I also had 2 sub fills on stage and a butt-kicker on the drummers throne. Stage patching was pretty easy; I just used our core Sunday band patching for the headliner and then ran an analogue snake to the middle of the stage for the worship set as well as the headline support. this way the headliner's patching would never be changed after the final sound check. This ensured set change for them went twice as fast and added a sense of security on my end of the snake. Having had rehearsal with all the bands except one(first night headline support) I felt super confident as well in my patching and gain structure which allowed me to really focus on mixing each band and not hunting down patching issues or trying to reset my gain structure the whole first song. The bands definitely had a blast and were super appreciative of me and my guys. Two things I will say always makes a huge difference even before wicked cool consoles or any piece of gear for that matter are: Preparation & Quality of Service. In terms of preparation; it would have been a whole other experience for the bands if I had waited till the day of the show and not had any rehearsals with them! They wouldn't be familiar with our stage, our IEM system, and certainly wouldn't have the time to find the right stage volume for their amps that worked with our size stage. Also, had I waited till then to find out what instruments they were bringing, or how many vocalists and where they needed mics it would have been a long frustrating day for everyone. Doing a lot of advance work such as input list, stage layouts, and building your show files ahead of time will go a long way in making your time with the bands smooth and enjoyable for everyone. Come to find out the day after the event our pastor was getting constant emails and phone calls regarding the service I provided for them and how thankful they were that were basically "rolled out the red carpet". In fact one of the headliners has asked me to mix all their shows from now on and later in the year I'll be mixing live and then the tracks after the show for a live album they are planning on releasing. That being said you never know what will result from the work you do. Always go 110% and make every effort to plan ahead. It will save you when things get crazy and will also make you look professional.
