Different Skies: after

I’m currently at the airport, having just finished going through security and having to have my backpack scanned twice; too many confusing electronic bits, I guess.

Load-out took from after the concert and final jams (ten-ish) until about 3AM. We got to experience the weather we might have had: 60 mph winds and cold. Fortunately, that was the only cold night we had. We all got up as usual thsi morning; several folks had to go out early (Otso, DK, and Mike) because of bad weather predicted along their return route. Giles, Bill Fox, Darrel, Allen, and Doug went out around noon, and Jim Combs and I followed soon after. I was lucky that Jim was with me, as there was construction that required us to get off the freeway and drive through random parts of Phoenix. Jim had done it on Sunday when he went back down to pick up Otso and John 3. I dropped Jim off, dropped the rental car off (it was a Honda Civic hybrid – only half a tank of gas to get all the way to Arcosanti and back – cool!), and checked in.

Man, am I tired. Thank goodness Ivan was there to do sound for us, but that is some heavy equipment. Fortunately Rus ran into The Naked Guy during this process instead of me, as I would probably not have handled it with equal aplomb. (The Naked Guy showed up partway through the process; he apparently really needed to get to the visitor’s parking lot for some reason. Who knows.)

Sales at the merchandise table were brisk – the two folks who volunteered to help out took in more than $400. Wish I’d had my CD ready, but oh well. Maybe next time.

I need to analyze my setup and come up with something without a single point of failure if I want to play live. The FIREBOX was the bottleneck – if I’d just yanked the mixer cables and swapped them to the Firebox I could have stayed on line. “Everything and Nothing” would have just been different, rather than for all practical purposes nonexistent. I could have done fine with something I could switch to a straight audio-out feed from the headphone jack in an emergency – it worked well enough for the TV appearance, so it would certainly do for a backup. I didn’t use the Vortex much at all, so I could leave it home next time. If the audio was all routed direct to the mixer, and then to the direct box, I could turn up the direct laptop feed in case of an interface crash, or simply switch to whatever else I was using (real modules/etc.) if the computer bit it completely. Add one of the Edirol controllers for a backup if the keyboard goes but the computer’s up. and I should be ready for nearly anything. Though I will still keep the drum and whatever other acoustic instrument(s) I bring handy; they should work for anything short of the power going off. Miking, etc. is to be figured out later. And I’d really like to start playing trumpet again. Would be a nice addition to Brian’s sax.

Admittedly, it would have been nice if I had been able to figure this out earlier, but at least I’ve got a live setup sorted out for next time … and I definitely want there to be a next time.

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