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D8 Skills #50 | Unit E | Xmas Gig: The Gig Day

D8 Skills #50 | Unit E | Xmas Gig: The Gig Day

I found out this morning that the band that hadn't submitted a tech rider are no longer planning on using a cajon, and are using a drum kit instead. They also need a vocal microphone and sidefill for the drummer.

I firstly drew out the input list, running order, and stage plan onto a big whiteboard so that everyone could easily see it. I then made sure that everyone knew what their role was, and explained the 3 sheets I'd printed out, plus asked them all to put a tick next to their role once they've completed everything involved in it:

I also edited the Technical Specification sheet with the information I finally managed to gather from the bands this morning:

I spent most of my time guiding and managing the setup process, but I began by setting up the PAs with Caio, and then set up a laptop with a Logic session ready to record by connnecting it to the desk via FireWire:

I then set up and connected the drummer's sidefill to the desk (into channel 3). We found out from which direction the drummer wanted his vocal microphone coming from, and put the sidefill on that same side so that the sidefill wasn't blasting straight into the mic which surely would have created a feedback loop:

After setup was done, we rang out the PAs using Vocal Mic 1 first, and then the Drummer's Mic to check everything was good there. This was a very quick and smooth process. We managed to get loads of headroom (much more than we needed).

We then brought in a band to carry out a sound check. During this, we set gain, set FOH and Mix levels, and set FOH inserts on the right channels following the 'FOH Insert' column in the table that I created for the Technical Specification that was printed out, conveniently sitting right next to the mixing desk.

I connected my phone to the desk via some cables I brought with me to play music between acts. I had compiled a folder with all music made by us on the tech course.

During the performances, the laptop I was using to record showed the following message multiple times, so wasn't able to record the performances entirely, however, I did manage to get many full recordings. At the end of the gig, I copied the Logic file onto my memory stick so that I could later bounce out the stem from my laptop for who ever wants them.

The gig went very well and was thoughly enjoyed by the audience.