"May you live in interesting times "

[Excalibur]

As I said elsewhere, an ancient Chinese ( I think ) curse. Move over Shakermaker, Tolstoy's more eloquent brother coming through. Are you sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin.

OK, Friday. First off, it appears my website ( due for an upgrade, now that my web designer/IT Guru/ fellow white van man Justin has practised on his ) has generated it's first booking. I did this chap's wife's party at this venue years ago, and he wanted me again, but didn't have my number. Eventually, while driving one day he had the Eureka moment, and remembered "Excalibur" One of the searches found it, and booking was made. Result. Thanks Justin and Marc J.

I arrived early in lovely sunshine, and parked in a corner of the car park nearest to the fire exit where I was to enter. ( Philosophical question here, can you enter through an exit? Does the fact that you have entered through it, automatically make it an entrance? ) In I go, meet the steward, who informs me I'm to be the test pilot for the newly acquired sound limiter! Aaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrggggggh! Due to licence changes, noise has become an issue and they're having to be very careful not to upset anybody.

Splendid chap, he informs me that as luck would have it, when they changed the licence, a neighbour raised objections about noise, so a man with a meter was involved, and turned up on a night when a DJ working on the " More is more , and quite possibly not as much as I would like " principle with regard to noise levels was playing. Fantastic.

Right, so cunning plan is, I plug the amp into the protected circuit, and run everything up in "Monitor " mode. Pick a max volume I'm comfortable with, and we adjust the limiter lights to that level. ( Interesting, I now know where the internal adjuster is on one of these blighters. )
I'm confident of no problems with it, cos it's a 50th party, a relaxed crowd, and no need for the other eight cabs and four amps to come out of the van. Steward says " If you have problems with it, just plug into a normal socket, and tell the bar staff you've done so. ( Bar staff not quite as heplful as I'd have liked, venue has a Wi Fi signal, but protected. Password not freely available to DJ's apparently. Suppose it makes sense, but I'll have to have a tutorial from Justin on it I reckon. All I want is the chance to say hello on here, and download requests. )

Off we go, with me looking at the lights, one green, two amber, two red, and I hardly ever light the amber, except with the mic, when I often light the first red. Strange. I'd virtually forgotten about it cos it was almost always green, and the only thing I did was not to push the levels as much as I might have done.

Then, out of the blue, during "Hi Ho Silver Lining", zap!!! No amp. I never saw a light move. Ease off the faders a tad, and we're back in business again, great crowd. I'm giving the punters the chance to hear my learned thoughts and pearls of wisdom, when crikey! I'm censored. I'm convinced the limiter is picking up one particular frequency band, as I reckon I've had way higher noise levels than that with no probs. When I change from the cabled SM58 to the wireless AT I lose at least two lights, leading me to believe I'm on the right lines. No probs after that, very happy punters, pack up and go home.

BTW, don't you just love punters who tell you to help yourself to food as they've done their speech after the buffet, just when you're about to give it full throttle, and you've got no chance to go and get any? Cue visit to 24hour Tesco on way home. No libation on returning home, and no check hat's happening here either. Straight to bed, as Saturday's day job is hectic.

Day job done, home, wash, jump in car to roadie for Twinspin. Tea is sarnies from the Shell station, and I'm still eating them when John rings for my ETA. Politely, I decline to answer this time, and have just finished my repast when he rings again. I'm five minutes away at this time, and he guides me in like an air traffic controller. I think I've overshot the runway, but no, I've actually got it right, and I park up beside John's most faithful and reliable roadie/driver/assistant. ( His Mum. )

The notice bearing the warning that it's going to cost me £8 to use the hotel car park is worrying, until the manager says don't bother. Phew, relief. Gear in, set up, B&G come in, announce they're off to a pub and will be back in an hour. They offer to take me with them, but John won't let me go. Swine. All set up, some very tidy cabling from John, and some very poor camera work from me for John's Gig Log. ( There are a couple of bits he's going to find surprising when he edits it, I'd nearly learnt how to use it, and he didn't know I'd wandered off with it. )

Ready to Rock and Roll, the RCFs are singing, and we get busted for noise. Situation normal when I'm roadying for the Maestro. John, I saw you pulling the throttles back each time management came in the room as well. You'll have to be a bit quicker though.

Small crowd, some very enthusiastic punters, particularly the Lara Croft lookalike who made requests a joy when she came to speak to me. Most of the usual suspects played, and some very happy punters, particularly B&G. By the end of the night, I've managed to cure the HD2500's annoying deafness problem on a couple of occasions, and persuaded it to play a song for me. Hooray. I also manage to pause the playing track with the keyboard at one point, during a frenzied attempt to get it to listen to me. Not hooray. I know the Denon is the class of the field, but the operating sequences on it are so diametrically opposed to my thought patterns, that I've got to honestly say that in this respect the Cortex beats out of sight for me personally. Especially when you learn to not hit the enter button that final deadly time when you're searching on the wrong side of the Cortex. I've helped Justin as well, and I have to say that I think VDJ is blindingly simple, logical, and idiot friendly. ( Me, not Justin. ) Suffice to say I won't be scouring Ebay for a 2500 in the foreseeable future.

Evening passes well, there's Wi Fi in the venue, but it wants me to get a voucher to use it. Yeah like that's going to happen. Dongle time when necessary. At least we had free soft drinks for DJ's and Roadies, so that was nice.

Game over, pack up gear, it's raining outside. John goes off to give cards to a Manager mucho impressed by an outfit who turn up impeccably dressed, set up tidily and efficiently, with stylish and professional kit adequate for the job. ( Though John was warned about excessive use of the sub. I don't care how little it's turned up mate, if you put a big signal in the back, you get a loud noise out the front. )

Nice drive home in the car, luxury compared to SS Continental drift. Open a bottle, check up quickly on here, and go to bed a very tired and fairly happy bunny. Now I've caught up on a few zzzzzz's,will have to unload and reload the van later, and watch the British GP later. If Max and Bernie carry on at the present rate, it might be the last one I'll ever see.

OK folks, if you've got this far, well done, and thanks for reading. Watch out in case John finds enough footage or a gig log. I don't think I've got a future as a cameraman.

[andyw]

glad i read it before shakermakers reply interesting weekend

[Mark Wild]

I haven't read that much all in one go since school, worth it though, nice post mate as usual.

[Excalibur]

I haven't read that much all in one go since school, worth it though, nice post mate as usual.

If I'd had Internet access all the time, it might have appeared in instalments.

[mike8863]

you have a way with words excalibur, entertaining read as always...!!!

[CRAZY K]

you have a way with words excalibur, entertaining read as always...!!!

Plus 8 cabs and 4 amps in the White Tardis

CRAZY K

[Solitaire Events Ltd]

Good report Peter.

Not sure what you're on about half the time, but......

[DeckstarDeluxe]

which sandwich from shell did you have?what did you think?

[Solitaire Events Ltd]

which sandwich from shell did you have?what did you think?

LMAO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Danieleastwood.com]

[QUOTE=
Right, so cunning plan is, I plug the amp into the protected circuit, and run everything up in "Monitor " mode. Pick a max volume I'm comfortable with, and we adjust the limiter lights to that level. ( Interesting, I now know where the internal adjuster is on one of these blighters. )
[/QUOTE]


Am I right in thinking you are admiting to being able to play with/adjust the venue limiter or your own limiting system??? Just wondered what the legal implications are on the venues behalf if its the venues system?

Sureley they are set for a reason!!!!