From simon@alphabeck.co.uk Sat Apr 14 16:20:13 2012
Subject:Re: FOH engineer

I had a "nightmare" experience about 15 years ago when I was playing piano with Mississippi John L Watson's Odyssey Blues Band. We were playing at London's 12-Bar Club - a very small and mostly acoustic venue off Denmark Street (London's former "Tin Pan Alley"). The Odyssey Blues Band was an 8-piece electric blues outfit with a horn section, and we barely fitted on the tiny stage - my keyboard had to be set up NEXT TO the stage! We sound-checked just fine, and then the acoustic support act went on, followed by ourselves. As soon as we started playing I knew something was wrong. My piano (an Alesis NanoPiano module controlled by a Studiologic weighted keyboard) wasn't responding properly - the dynamics were all over the place. By the end of the first set I knew what the problem was. I walked over to the desk and told the soundman to turn off the compressor on the piano channel. You should have seen the look on the poor guy's face! He had used the compressor for an acoustic guitar on the same channel for the support band and forgetten to remove it for the piano!

Simon