The Sound Of It All

[Chickee]

I played an open mic last night in a suburb of Princeton, NJ. A new crowd and MeetUp group I have not been to before.

The Einstein Ally Musicians Cooperative is the handle this gang goes by. This open mic, the first Friday of every month is their get together. Charity gigs all over the state is their mission to give back to people needing a little happiness in their lives. The ill and hospitalized, all veterans groups, elderly, disabled and anyone who wants to introduce a little music into someone’s life who needs to take their mind off of other things for a while. How cool is this!

But, the thread is about this...how wonderfully this team of sound guys dialed in everyone’s guitars last night. From 7pm to 10:30pm, in 15 minute intervals, the next act took the stage, be it solo or ensemble. No less than 16 acoustic guitars took that stage last night, and everyone of them sounded terrific. Not one quacky, ice picky, brittle, feed back inducing moment the entire night. From $200 beaters to hi ticket Taylor’s, Gibson’s and Martins.

All I read about, all the time, is how horrible everyone’s guitar always sounds if they don’t have a ton of gear in line befor the sound reinforcement. Well this was a church with a 36 channel analogue mixer, 2x12” and 2x10” powered speakers suspended from the ceiling. Nothing fancy. I went from my guitar(thought of as a pos in this crowd)to a radial DI box into the board. It’s a piezo guitar, nothing more, and it sounded terrific(oh, they had floor monitors too).

So, if this were the exception to the rule, even more reason to tip my hat to these two sound engineers. If it weren’t the exception, what are people expecting to hear? No quack, no feedback, what more do you need for a fifteen minute set?

[leew3]

thanks for sharing a beautiful experience, which I suspect is more the rule than you'd expect.

[Marty C]

Thanks for sharing. I went to Blowing Rock, NC during the early summer 2019 and heard some local singer, songwriters perform outdoors. The sound guy had everything from guitar through a mic to UST to multiple source pick ups and he made them all sound good. Most were nice guitars. It was a joy to listen to. He did a great job on the vocals as well. It wasn’t an open mic, but rather a preplanned show of local talent which performed about 30-60 minutes each. Maybe helped that the talent level was good to begin with and the sources that generated the sound were good quality.

[Chickee]

Originally Posted by Marty C

Thanks for sharing. I went to Blowing Rock, NC during the early summer 2019 and heard some local singer, songwriters perform outdoors... Maybe helped that the talent level was good to begin with and the sources that generated the sound were good quality.

And if that were the case, the Einstein Ally guys really deserve credit, because I personally stunk on ice and they made me sound acceptable! 😂