There is a certain sound engineer in a certain venue in Plymouth that is so unbelievably arrogant and conceited that he wont let anyone else use ‘his’ rig, going on about how he has 12 years experience and has worked with some quite big sound rigs. I have spoken to many other engineers and musicians about the guy and they all say that has a unique way of pissing people off, and now he has alienated local engineers by saying this;
“I’m afraid I have my own policy on guest engineers, a lot of the gear in the hub belongs to me, and I won’t let other people use it unless I KNOW they know what they’re doing. (sorry if this is harsh but I do this for a living), this is not aimed at anyone in particular, but in my 12 or so years of experience, everyone is a sound engineer, (this is the part where I rant for a minute) it seems the only criteria for being a sound engineer is to have used a home recording system, or to have done music tech courses and/or sound for amateur bands in pubs. Sorry guys but this doesn’t make you an engineer. Big bands sometimes come with their own engineers and the have usually worked for some big PA companies and that’s ok, but that’s the only situation where I’m prepared to let my equipment be used by someone else.”
I cant believe just how far up his own arse he is; just because an engineer has used a large rig doesn’t necessarily mean that they will be good engineers in a small venue environment, and I have experienced that first hand in the past. You simply can’t treat a small 200 – 300 capacity venue like a 5,000 – 10,000 capacity arena, you have to balance the onstage sound with the sound coming from the PA system, but the engineer in question insists that all bands have their amps as low as humanly possible, and then he’ll relay the sound through the stage monitors, which frankly sounds shite, you are not even going to get remotely close to the sound of 4 x 12 cab from monitors. Seems that the guy can get a good sound from jazz, reggae, funk and soul, but can’t deal with rock, metal, and punk, but is too stubborn to let someone with experience of working with those genres take the helm.
I would talk about Plymouth’s 0 – 0 away draw at Hillsborough against Sheffield Wednesday, but it was so dull that I can’t bring myself to write much about it, but it’s a good away result for Argyle, another point gained, taking the team up to the relative safety of 18th position. Next game is at Home Park against league leaders Reading on Saturday, it would be nice for Argyle to come away with all three points from that fixture, but I think that a draw will suffice, although saying that Argyle do need three points to haul themselves further away from the drop zone, more draws will suck Argyle back in to the danger zone!