There’s a strip club in town that used to be one of the best spots for local music. When local music died, they turned to strippers. You have to pay the bills somehow.
One time my band was playing a gig with one other band at this club. We were having a terrible time with the sound man and the PA sounded awful. I finally decided to invade the soundman’s territory and see if I could make the PA sound any better.
The mains just sounded strange. I looked at the console and it looked OK. I found my way to the graphic EQ that controlled the mains and I found the problem. The EQ didn’t look anything like it should have. Many of the 31 frequencies were boosted that I’d never dream of boosting. Many were cut that obviously from the sound of it needed to be boosted. The EQ did look very “pretty” though. The knobs were neatly arranged in kind of an ocean wave line. When I went to set all the sliders to a better sounding setting, the soundman threw a fit and wouldn’t let me touch it.
It was at that point that I looked down at the magazine this bonehead sound man was reading. The mag was a typical audio or guitar player magazine type. It was opened to an advertisement for the exact EQ this sound man had installed! I then figured it all out. The advertisement had a really neat picture of this EQ and they had arranged all the 31 sliders in a very attractive line that looked like….an ocean wave.
So rather than knowing anything about sound and how to adjust it. This moron of a sound man put the sliders on his new EQ just like the ad in the magazine.
