The "Pro" sound guy.

Sheesh - that sucks.

Didn't anyone figure it out after the first couple times?

He certainly couldn't have had much soundman experience!

"Pro" I think NOT.

I'd guess that your mix may not have been optimal either...

Joe

 

I've played more gigs than I can remember where the band was only given a single outlet plug to power everything in the band. The only time I've seen the power blow is when a group I was in did an outside show and we were plugged in to the same circuit as the moonwalk (which had three separate air blowers keeping it inflated).

Sometimes it isn't the sound guy's fault.

 

I've had a similar experience, though not as bad when I did a gig in Disneyland, or world, what the difference? Anyway, the sound guy was terrible! The volume levels for everything were constantly changing, and nothing ever really sounded that good on stage, but it was a jazz ensemble so everyone's parts kinda smoothed out for the audience (I hope!)

Pro my ass.

 

Well, y'must not have any lights to speak-of!

The Classic Rock band I'm with has quite a humble-little light setup - two 500W fresnels - and we always plug them to a seperate circuit, even if we have to run a looong cord to another part of the building (we have an extention cord on a reel that's just for that).

Now as-for all the audio gear: we go out of our way to TRY to get it all to one outlet (hopefully a four-banger)! We avoid ground-loop hums and buzzes that way.

Joe

 

A lot of pro... not 'pro'... sound guys plug into the same outlet to avoid frying you when you step up to the microphone. When you plug into the same outlet, you are ensured of a common ground with all your equipment. If you plug your amp into one circuit, and your PA is plugged into another one and the wires are crossed, YOU get to short it out!

The lights, though, could go onto another circuit.

 

Exactly. Plugging all audio into one outlet is a good thing. The mistake this guy made was not checking wheater it was up to the task.

 

Nope. Not really an issue in KC.

Besides, the lights aren't the sound guy's domain.

 

Of course, "pro" can also be short for "prostate"...and they can certainly sometimes be one in the same.

 

as a soundguy i almost never plug into the same outlet that the band does for their amps and whatnot. i have had too many breakers blow from plugging everythign into one. most circuts wont handle that much power

lowsound

 

+1 on all the comments.

I did a concert this summer for a pro touring band in a church building, and we had extension cords running all over the building to cover the lights (mainly).

Of course, we were pushing 4 or 5 power amps, so we had to split those to 2 circuits, and the soundboard was 60 or 70 feet away, so it got plugged into a separate circuit... and we ran one more exclusively for guitar amps...

But mainly that was because of the ancient wiring in the front of the church. We ended up frying (read "destroying") an outlet just plugging in one of our lights...

Luckily, aside from the pastor accidentally shutting off the power to the guitar amps in the middle of the band's set, we had no problems. No ground loop buzz to speak of, no "zapping" on the mic by the guitarist... good stuff.

 

Go HERE and look at the word document describing how to make a poor man's power distro. It's called Bar Distro.

It is well worth using something like this (if you must run off of separate circuits) so you have a common ground to avoid hum and possible electrocution.