The audio system we set up for the Piedmont performance was the most ambitious ever. There were six inputs into the mixer. One mic for my vocals, one Dick's vocal, one for the tubas, one for Maggie's clarinet, one for the banjo, and then a line for the onboard pickup inside my acoustic guitar. In the photo below you can see my vocal mic and then one affixed lower on the stand for the banjo.
In this photo you can see the mic for the tubas up high in the back and the one for Maggie's clarinet on her stand.
We got a lot of positive compliments about our "wonderful sound". I'm convinced part of it was due to the extreme humidity (there had been downpours off and on all day). Wet air transmits sound better, and I think people felt our sound as well as simply hearing it.
Another acoustic phenomenon that just about drove me crazy was a weird disjunct between the sound space the band was in and the other one the audience was in. In the top photo you can see how we were each in our own tents with a bit of a gap between. Particularly when I was singing, it sounded as though there was some sort of out of phase interference in that space between us, and though people said they could hear my vocals just fine, it felt to me I wasn't connecting with the audience.
On balance though, this system worked very well and I'll use something very much like it in the future for large events like this. If we can all hear each other we play well, and if the audience can hear us comfortably without our being too loud, that's a success.
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