A few weeks ago, I had a rather embarrassing incident where part of the P.A. went out to lunch during the show. As you’d expect, we had a proper soundcheck earlier that day and all was lovely. But at some point during the show, two-thirds of the right side of the P.A. system stopped working.
The systems engineer and I went through the usual suspects: We checked power to the speakers in the affected arrays, ensured that no cables had been accidentally disconnected, confirmed that the console was still seeing the stage box, etc., all to no avail. We then frantically combed through the show file of the digital desk I was using, looking for clues.
The two arrays in question were being fed from the right channels of two separate stereo matrix outputs. We confirmed that the main L/R bus was still feeding into these matrix channels, but metering showed no signal level coming out of the right side of the matrix outs. The left side of each matrix was working fine. Why one side of the matrix outs ceased working is a mystery challenged only by that of why—when I put a pair of socks in the clothes dryer—only one sock emerges.
Discovering the problem was a minor concession against deciding what we could do about it. The house engineer and I were willing to bet that it was some sort of digital glitch that would probably correct itself if we restarted the console—but restarting a desk in the middle of a show is a scary proposition at best.
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Another option was to access the matrix output routing and reassign the matrices to their respective physical output ports. Also a scary proposition, because what if something changed the level of those outputs and audio came blasting out of the P.A. into the house at obscene volume levels? Small furry creatures would surely be frightened out of the neighborhood. I did not have enough depth of knowledge on this console to confidently “hot patch” the matrix outputs, and even if I did, I’m not sure I’d want to do it anyway. Ditto the house tech. Granted, the desk was misbehaving, but it was the devil we knew.
The net result: We did nothing to alter the outputs on the right side of the matrices, opting instead to continue the show while limping on the right side. And inevitably, Drunken Fool brashly stumbled up to FOH to tell us, “the sound sucks.” Really? I had no idea. Luckily, my dauntless lighting designer ran interference, explaining to Drunken Fool that, Yes, we have ears, we know there’s a problem and we’re trying to fix it. And please don’t bother the audio guys right now, they’re kinda’ busy.
Please share this with your friends: Telling an audio engineer “the sound sucks” is no more helpful than it is for me to show up at your job on Monday morning and yell at you about how crappy a job you’re doing servicing automobiles or delivering packages. If Drunken Fool had approached us calmly and said something like, “I can’t hear the vocals in the front row…” well, that’s useful information which indicates a problem and points me toward a solution.
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Looking back, I know now what I’d do if faced with the same situation: power down the affected speaker arrays. Lower the faders on the matrix outs, re-soft-patch the matrix outs to their respective output ports, power up the arrays and slowly raise the matrix output faders while listening for signs of trouble. Hindsight is always twenty-twenty. Hope I can remember this if faced with a similar situation in the future.
Be assured that most audio engineers—myself included—take this job very seriously. I fight for every @#$%^&* decibel in an effort to make every show I mix sound as good as possible, and I take it personally when it’s not. Given the chance, I walk the room during the show to hear what’s happening outside my small FOH world to make it right for as many patrons as possible. And if the mix I’m hearing at FOH doesn’t agree with what the rest of the room is hearing, I’ll defer to making it sound right for the majority, even if I don’t love what I’m hearing behind the desk.
Far Side cartoons notwithstanding, there is no “suck” button on my mixing console.
