Splendid isolation, or Three Musketeers?

[Excalibur]

Up yours pal, I'm fireproof,or One for all, all for one? Inspired by Shauns comment in another thread. Are you there to do your job, and to hell with anyone else, or are you merely a ( very important ) cog in the wheel?

A vocalist wants a mic and a line input to your kit, but there are none to spare. So he brings in his kit and plonks a tangled mess of cables and cabs, sticks them in front of your kit, and then carries it all out through the middle of your dancefloor when he's finished. Far from ideal, in my opinion.

Or you have such a facility, and a ten quid DI box in the van, he's plugged in in five minutes, and ready to rock and roll. When he's finished, he walks out carrying his guitar. Simples. Or he just needs your mic, and a CD drive, which is racked in one of your playout cases ( mainly cos it's in the DDS drive which has a hard drive in as its main purpose in life )

I can see this splitting with the under 50s on one side, and the over 50s on the other. Over to you folks.

[Kernow]

Up yours pal, I'm fireproof,or One for all, all for one? Inspired by Shauns comment in another thread. Are you there to do your job, and to hell with anyone else, or are you merely a ( very important ) cog in the wheel?

A vocalist wants a mic and a line input to your kit, but there are none to spare. So he brings in his kit and plonks a tangled mess of cables and cabs, sticks them in front of your kit, and then carries it all out through the middle of your dancefloor when he's finished. Far from ideal, in my opinion.

Or you have such a facility, and a ten quid DI box in the van, he's plugged in in five minutes, and ready to rock and roll. When he's finished, he walks out carrying his guitar. Simples. Or he just needs your mic, and a CD drive, which is racked in one of your playout cases ( mainly cos it's in the DDS drive which has a hard drive in as its main purpose in life )

I can see this splitting with the under 50s on one side, and the over 50s on the other. Over to you folks.

Indeed and, at the risk of appearing predictable, completely correct from my side of the fence !!

[DJRecardo]

Really depends on the person in question, If they seem sensible enough that they wont do any damage by using excessive amounts of gain or peaking the system in some way and their equipment appears to be in reasonable condition then I have no issues with letting someone hook into my system. Have only ever refused once and it was a male karaoke singer who has mentioned before the start of the event that he had "dealt"with a ground loop hum by means of cutting the earth cable in his main power feed.

[jc light and sound]

I m sorry i dont plug anybodys kit into my rig at all.
From past history i can tell you it doesnt work.
As soon as your backs turned up goes the gains pulling ipods out without turning down the faders etc.
If it aint theres they aint bothered .
Once had a hefty bill for doing this so never again.
Take your point about them de rigging before your finished but i would rather have that than irresponsible damage.

[Twinspin]

Vocalists i wouldnt have any objection to it. Providing they do a proper soundcheck first and im happy with the levels.

We hooked up Steve Caprice an amazing Elvis tribute. He's just been voted the best Elvis Tribute in Europe at a big Elvis event.



Steve Caprice.



Barbara Caprice - Steves Wife and Sound Engineer. Both very nice people and a pleasure to work with.

Ive also hooked a couple of vocalists up and never been any problems.

Bands would have to setup their own PA because i wont have them thrashing my PA system a lot of bands seem to.

[Kernow]

We hooked up Steve Caprice an amazing Elvis tribute. He's just been voted the best Elvis Tribute in Europe at a big Elvis event.

Barbara Caprice - Steves Wife and Sound Engineer.

Looks like Colonel Tom Parker kindly agreed to operate the laptop ?

[Twinspin]

Looks like Colonel Tom Parker kindly agreed to operate the laptop ?

The laptop is my music laptop that Peter was stood behind at the time Peter was just stood behind it. It was me that took the picture.
during the night. I played some tunes. Then Peter played a few tunes during the night as well.

Barbara was using an Ipod Touch or Iphone as the playout device connected into their Bose mixer... With a Electro-Voice (EV) wired mic. They traveled light and compact. They normally uses a couple of Bose L1 systems.

That Bose Tonematch Mixer is an amazing piece of kit. The sound quality was excellent as well.

[Shaun]

I don't let anyone hook not my gear, as you well know , but it's definitely not an Up yours pal, I'm fireproof attitude I have. Whilst working I'm the consummate professional and try to be the most helpful guy I can be to my clients, and I think my clients would agree with that. What I do take great exception to is other entertainers presuming it's ok to hook in to my gear. I've had an instance or two over the years that prompted me to change the way I work. So it's just policy now that I will not allow anyone to use my gear.

Fair play to those of you that do, but I really don't think those that don't are being unreasonable in declining to offer that service.

[Excalibur]

Looks like Colonel Tom Parker kindly agreed to operate the laptop ?

The laptop is my music laptop that Peter was stood behind at the time Peter was just stood behind it. It was me that took the picture.

Bit of a moment there I feel John, Kernow was having a gentle jibe at the handsome old chap in the piccy.

That Bose Tonematch Mixer is an amazing piece of kit. The sound quality was excellent as well.

It certainly was. Fits in the palm of your hand as well.

Whilst working I'm the consummate professional and try to be the most helpful guy I can be to my clients, and I think my clients would agree with that.

Shaun, I'm trying to tread the fine line betweeen mercilessly pulling your leg, and appearing to the unwary to be insulting you.

Let me say that I know that you do indeed try to be helpful, and I fully appreciate your stance on this matter. We've already had the debate about advance warning, and know that you can offer the required facilities, if given a reasonable amount of notice.

And re artists presuming that they have a God given right to plug in to your kit, let me tell you, they don't. On this one, I'm with you 100%.

Where we diverge is ( I think, and I apologise if I'm casting slurs on you here ) that I'm happy to accomodate suggestions that where the situation dictates it, I'll readily plug artists into my kit. It's what I've done for many years, and it's a hard habit to get out of. Yes, it has bitten me on the bum before, it once cost me a speaker driver when I ran a full band through my rig a lot of years ago.

A working knowledge of the process helps a lot as well, so if you don't have a clue what you're doing, it's wiser to prohibit access to your kit from external sources.

I feel we may have to add a third category, the folk of a certain age like Corabar Steve who have ready made patch panels on the back, and will allow conditional access to kit. ( One of the conditions apparently being that they don't come within twenty yards of the gear, and keep their hands in their pockets at all times. )

Right, just so nobody's in any doubt, I'm not saying that anyone who won't plug other folk into their kit is wrong, unhelpful, or providing a service which is lacking in any way. They are providing exactly what they have been asked to in a professional manner.

[DJ Jules]

I've plugged vocal artists and guitars into my PA before and I've also run FOH for a full Jazz band using my PA in the past and (touch wood) I've never had any damage. I believe this is because I've managed to strike a happy compromise with vocal artists and customers alike.

For the odd vocal artist/guitar/etc I have a couple of DI boxes in my bag which means the people concerned and their cables never come closer than the 6m lead attaching the DI box to my mixer. I also stipulate that I am always at the controls or, on the rare occasion where the artist(s) turn up with a sound engineer who knows what they're doing, I am always present and have absolute final say on the levels (and do the patching).

So far I've never had the situation where an artist or band have been sprung on me. My customers to date have always been well prepared and have taken the trouble to consult me and brief me before the event. If I did have someone sprung on me then I'd try and be as helpful as possible (given the above caveats).

Julian