The big picture items were done for “The Sunday Surf Party Is Back!” We were down to getting what the Pups committed to do in order. Topping that list had to be the PA and the equipment to put sound through it. For starters, playing our instruments into and through our PA is totally new to us -- not done before. In fact, when we met with the VibroCounts and Retronauts, the equipment was on backorder.As they left, the Nagging Little Voice asked, “Were you just a bit too brash suggesting that in the first place?”
Fortunately, the equipment arrived. But we needed to test out running our own sound through the PA. After all, we are first on the bill. We are setting the tone for the afternoon. Screw up, and we possibly rain on everybody’s parade.
As I was on my hands and knees hooking up mic cables between the recently-arrived electronic gadgets -- aka DI boxes -- to the PA, the Nagging Little Voice started up. “Do you have any idea what you are doing?” It continued, “What if this is a giant failure? Do you really think that miking the amps will bail you out? You really must like the taste of crow!” I muttered something profane -- not even mildly profound, just purely profane -- under my breath.
When the first connection was set up, I tried it with the Ocean Turquoise Jazzmaster. The set up worked. The Nagging Little Voice relented a bit, “Maybe I spoke too soon.” That concession, however, was short-lived. When I engaged the highly acclaimed “4x15 simulation,” the Nagging Little Voice and I exclaimed in unison, “That sounds like s**t! Maybe this is not such a good idea.”
After a bit of debate, the Nagging Little Voice agreed that the sound was fine as long as we did not push the 4x15 button. I thought, “Good thing these things were relatively inexpensive compared with the bag full of useless pedals in the closet.”
The next step was to test this new-fangled gadgetry with the whole band -- at volume with drums. We played, and what we heard was fuller and richer than before. It deepened the tone from Sue’s uku-tar (guita-lele); pushing the 4x15 button provided even more depth. Even the Nagging Little Voice seemed to like her new sound.
The Kool Kat, however, kept tweaking -- and tweaking -- and tweaking. “I want to keep pushing the amp to break up the sound a bit.” He would turn knobs on the amp. “I need get the PA to color this.” He would twist knobs on the PA. This went on from 7:30 to 9:30 -- two hours of tweaking.
As we called an end to our first practice session incorporating the PA, Robert said, “This is going to take some getting used to. It’s still not quite right.” The good news is we have one more band practice scheduled before the gig. The bad news is that the number of knobs for him to tweak has more than doubled.
Will the Kool Kat find THE tone by next Sunday? Come on down to the Capitol Bowl and find out.