F*ing house PA systems!

mjbphotos

Moderator
Sorry, long story.

So I've been hosting a new open mic (at a re-opened club) for about 2 months.
The house PA system is big cabinets/subs hooked up in an array OVER the stage, pointing out to the audience area. because of the angle of it, you really can't hear the PA until you get out 12-15 feet from the edge of the stage - to compensate, it gets turned louder so the sound bounces around more. The house mixer is in a little balcony at the back of the place up 12' from the main floor.
For ease of use, I bring my own mixer, run a line out of the mains to the stage wall-mounted snake. I bring my own powered monitor, rather than use the unpowered monitors and stage amp they have - this all means its easier to change the main and monitor mixes as players changes - I don't have to run up the stairs every time.
A few weeks ago when I opened up with a few songs I noticed the sound kicking off when I would let a guitar strum ring out - like a noise gate was in play. Someone agreed with me, I went up the stairs, couldn't find that any FX were on the channel, but one guy who had worked with the house PA before told me to make sure the 'third slider from the right' was down. It appears to be just another channel, but everything maybe routed to it and its hooked into something ... I put it down, the gating seemed to stop that night.
Last week, the sound kept getting worse and worse during the night. I had to keep cranking the channel sliders, and gains, and main on my mixer to get volume, and it started sounding muddy and distorted of course. The problem was only in the mains, but of course the monitor sound suffered as the gains were cranked.
Last night I go to start and the 'noise gate' thing is happening again, only this time its worse, as if the 'on' point was up - I have to shout into a mic to get sound out. WTF?!? Up and down the stairs 3 or 4 times, trying different things. Finally in desperation, I unplug my mixer from the snake's #1 input, plug it back into #2, then back up the stairs, mute channel 1 and slide up the fader on #2. Problem solved, best sound I've had since I started running the open mic! Who would have guessed the channel was going wonky?
 
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