On Monday night I went out for a few beers to Voodoo Lounge to check out the live music facilities, and it was reasonably good considering the setup used. The sound wasn’t great, but I think the engineers did the best they could with the room and equipment they had. Apparently these guys have bought a PA, literally amps, crossover, speakers and a sound desk and took it on the road, and it does work reasonably well. But to make the whole thing sound better, they need some compression channels, gates and equalisers, as this would allow the engineer to shape the sound better and remove any unwanted or problem frequencies. I couldn’t personally imagine engineering without at least two compression channels and/or gates, and a front of house equaliser. I am not criticising these guys they did the best they could in the situation, and I would have loved to have that sort of PA the last time I engineered at Voodoo, but sadly I only had a 1,000w amp, speakers, 12 channel desk, and a four way compressor/gate, which was constantly running with all the red compression lights on. I had to convince the band that the faders were as loud as they go, it just meant it got compressed more because they couldn’t hear the vocals, but as I explained, if the band cranks their amps up, the PA wouldn’t be able to compete for volume, hopefully the whole system will be up-scaled soon, and they could be another job opportunity, the thing about live gigs, you should be able to feel the force of the bass, which was really lacking, in fact the kick drum was barely audible in the full sound mix! It does make me wish I have enough cash to buy myself a 10 – 12Kw rig with a decent amount of outboard equipment (e.g. compressors, gates, equalisers and effects) and a 24 channel desk and a van on take it on the road, but sadly I don’t have 20 grand just laying around!