I've not left my blog behind. I just took some time off, and went into the studio with El Guapo Stunt Team to record all the tracks for the new album. Although I did not do all of the recording; I did most of the patching from the studio to the protools and mitch's recording rig. Now the only thing left is editing and mixing the whole thing. Maybe we'll go to Motormusic at Koningshooikt or we do it at my place going backing to analog and mixing from there with some rental tube gear to fatten it up. But that's something that will be decided in the near future.

Since El Guapo was recording I had my weekends off and had some time to do some other live mixing that I used to do when I just begun in audio engineering.
It's a operette company who were performing ' Die ZigeunerBaron' by Johann Strauss jr. All the singers were on Shure Wireless Beta 53 headsets, 23 plus 1 spare in total; plus a small ensemble with a special system that they were using.
It's a portable computer with a MIDI sequencer that is tapped into rhythm, so that the conductor can vary the tempo if a singer wants to keep a note a bit longer it is possible. I had some complaints about the sound quality of the MIDI sequencer.
All of it was mixed on one DM1000 that was fully packed with extra preamp/convertors, all outputs were used as well for left-center-right, monitors for the singers on stage and lines at the side of the stage and in the dressingrooms as well.
Since I just was there to replace their engineer for 4 shows, I didn't programmed it all, their engineer didn't use that much scenes. But I told him that next year he should that would make it all a lot easier.
I altered his balance and vocal compression though (to gain some presence in the vocals and make them come across in more soothing way), I also dropped the master volume, so everything would seem acousticly coming of stage. The real form of sound reinforcement as I see it.
Four shows on one weekend was really tyring, because the show asks for a lot of focus and concentration. But all went well, I even got complements of the public.

Next on my agenda was a micrphone course which was given by Peter Claes; it was really interesting and I'm using some of the stuff already. Like finally deciding to double mike all cabinets (it nearly doubled my input number for EGST), using SM 57/58 on overheads and hihat. And some more things about placement and compression.

Last thursday I did Starfucker at some bar in Roeselare on a Mackie  speakersystem with a  Allen & Heath console. The problem with the speaker system was that they putted up the 18" subs with the SRM450 cabinets that aren't designed to be used together or not without thought. The top cabinets were practically running into overload while the subs didn't get enough signal to drive that 18".

And yesterday, after almost 2 months of silence, El Guapo Stunt Team played at Hof ter loo. In the afternoon I also mixed another  band 'the School of Quiet' so I could already discover the defaults in the PA-system/room. I also used the demo-unit of the APEX dBC8 compressor, on all groups.
The El Guapo show was a bit of looking where it was going and constantly tuning the compressors, EQs and balance. But very soon it really sounded in your face but not that loud peaks of about 98 dB.

I was very happy with the achievement and the new things I tested, at the end of the week we're having a  PA rehearsal at the MOD room where we play the next day.

Blessings

The 'in an overly experimental mood' Reverend