Couple of weeks before gig the system owner rings me up for our tech requirements and says he's now bringing one of his larger rigs, a HK Linear 5 rock pack "Very high SPL and 4.4k of grunt, plenty of punch for the car park". Me to self "Oh dear".
I ask about rest of rig.
Linear 5 tops for stage monitors, A&H analogue desk, doesn’t know model maybe a Z something.
Outboard?
silence!
You know, eq, comps, gates and such.
Oh we don’t need that.
What about feedback issues?
We never have any trouble with that.
I've never done a gig yet where I haven't needed to ring out monitors!
silence!
I offer to bring my outboard rack.
Lets see how friday night’s bands go and he'll give me a ring if it’s needed.

Weekend of gig comes and roads are gonna be shut early sat so we go up fri and take gear including outboard rack. So, from the roadside entrance to car park I see car park is roughly rectangular maybe 30m wide by 20m deep slopes uphill to the back wall and slopes uphill to the right. Stage is a curtain sided truck parked centrally along the back wall so stage slopes downhill right to left by maybe 3degrees and also slopes forward by a similar amount. Oh dear! PA is already assembled on the 22ft by 8ft steel flatbed. Oh dear! One stack either end. Two subs and a top per stack. Lowest sub is head height and tops are approx 12ft in the air, on tilt boards though so aiming at a reasonable area of car park. Tranny type van is parked to the right facing uphill with side door open and mixing desk set up in there. Maybe 5m off axis to the right hand stack and 10m downhill from it. We stash gear and go to set up camp.

We arrive back at venue as the final band is going on, stand near the entrance to see how things go. Female fronted pop/rock band, quite good! Lead singer wants more monitor after first song and appears to get enough to keep her happy, backing singer spends a few songs gesturing for more monitor and eventually either gets it or gives up. Not sure which. From near the entrance the sound is pretty low level, clarity is ok, low end distinctly lacking, backing singer is lost in the mix! I notice that engineer never leaves the van to check sound around the venue.

I go for a walk around find sweet spot on axis with left hand stack and maybe 8m in front of it. Level is now moderate to average pub band level with same issues as before. I spot system owner stood in right hand stack sweet spot and go for a chat. He greets me with.

Sounds good doesn’t it.

Well, clarity is good but can you get any more out of this rig?

What are you like?

Well, we are having this conversation with barely raised voices, its pretty quiet at the back and there isn’t much low end!

What do you normally play through? This is a five and a half grand rig!

Oh!

I go for another walk. Between the two sweet spots the lead vocals are getting a bit lost in the stage spill. I go to tell the system owner who is now in the van with the engineer. By the side of the van the vocals sound fine. I tell him the problem.

What do you want me to do?

I would raise the vocals till they are above the stage spill then raise everything else to balance or just try raising the master!

System owner reaches over and raises a fader a bit till there is a howl of feedback and backs it off again.

“I’ve got it up about 1.5db but were not gonna get any more than that!”

I shrug and go off to enjoy the rest of the night with my girlfriend and band mates. The crowd are having a good time and two songs from the end the backing vocals appear in the PA. I think to myself “ I would have put those four subs in one block in the centre under the truck”.

Next morning I walk back through the town to the venue, I meet one of the organising committee. She greets me with…

I don’t know what you were on about, last nights bands sounded great!

Well, it’s a different PA to what was originally spec and I still didn’t think it was very good but if you’re happy then…

I get back to venue mid morning, many hours before the evening events are to start. I say a friendly hello to system owner and ask politely if I can help him with the sound system…

You know I’ve been thinking about this all night and the system is what it is and your band is just gonna have to deal with it!

I have my outboard rack and amongst other things I have four channels of 30 band graphics, which I think could do a lot of good!

I don’t have time to be setting up 30 CHANNELS of graphics!

I tell him I could patch it in and ring the system out in 15 min but he’s having none of it.

I go off to fill in time until the TdF passes through town.

TdF was awesome, town was buzzing and really happy atmosphere all round.

I go back up town afterwards to the venue where the system owner’s big screen is showing TdF coverage. Sound is through the PA and sounds pretty good and is at a good level for that sort of thing. System owner and engineer are at the van so I think its worth one more try.

I start with the engineer first.

You know, I am sure I could help you solve that feedback problem…

We didn’t have any feedback…

He then goes on to tell me that..

An engineer who always works with a certain major media star once told me that these type of high quality systems always sound quieter than you think they are but if you meter them then you will see that they are really loud but you are used to hearing cheap distorting PAs that sound louder but really aren’t! I can’t explain it but that’s how it works! And he always works with this certain major media star in fact he only works for him! Look at the Vu meters on the desk! There are no lights showing and it’s giving this level.

I think to myself that this system could deliver way better than last night if driven correctly.

System owner joins in…

These things just work you know! I don’t know how but they have that HK voodoo running through them!

I realise that I am fighting a loosing battle and go off to chill before the gig.

I arrive back at venue an hour before we are due on to prep our gear ready for a quick changeover. Including setting up the drum kit with our mics because the sound guys don’t have any.

The system owner is on stage with his acoustic band. Its still a bit quiet at the entrance but as you get further in levels are fairly adequate for that sort of thing. The mix is quite good and the crowd are enjoying the entertainment. I notice that a couple of stacks of the original Elements rig have appeared to “augment” the main PA. One sub and two tops approx 10m either side of the main PA. Interesting! I go to check them out.

The excursion on those little 3? Inch drivers is quite alarming. I can clearly see them popping in and out as far as the suspension will allow in time to the slapped upright bass solo that is happening on stage! And they are making a lovely percussive clicking sound that I am sure doesn’t entirely originate from the slapped bass! Hmm!

Changeover time and we get on and set up pretty quickly. I am now trapped at one end of the uncomfortably sloping stage. One of the main stacks approx 18inch from my right shoulder, drum kit to the left approx 18inch from the end of my bass, kit has a monitor in front so no easy way past it and it’s a long way to the ground.

Engineer starts to line check. I hear the drums come up individually in the FoH and some eq going on till there is quite a good drum sound as far as I can tell. I start to think that engineer knows a bit more than I was crediting him with. He asks what I want in my monitor despite me going through it previously…

Lots of my vox please, a bit of his and a bit of lead guitar. If I need anything else I’ll give you a shout after first song!

First song and sound on stage is fekin awful the stack to my right is obviously being seriously spanked. There is a wash of sub over everything and I can just to say hear my harmony vox. We finish first song and I ask for more of my vox in the monitor. There is a short lived howl of feedback and then we get on with the set. I can now hear nothing from my mon and the on stage sound is just as bad as before.

I can only imagine what the sound out front is like but the crowd seem to be loving it so we get through our set and give it the best we can while I just guess at singing in tune. When we finish the system owner rushes over and says…

That was fantastic, you were setting car alarms off in the next car park!

The headline band follow us and I hear the same bland sound as the night before except a bit louder. I ask my girlfriend…

Did we sound as week as that?

No, you were a lot heavier and a bit louder. It wasn’t great but it was ok!

So, we get drunk and enjoy the band. Plenty of folks we never seen before come and tell us we were great a few of our regulars say it was a good gig but sound was poor and why didn’t we use our own PA?

Next morning we go to collect our gear. The engineer is there on his own. I have a friendly chat with him…

You know you really should consider investing in some outboard. It could make life a whole lot easier!

He looks at me blankly for a moment then puts his head down and mumbles…

The system wasn’t really bought for this kind of thing!

Here endeth my ramble! Sorry, but it had to be told!