RBIngraham wrote:
Yep, and I totally get that. Which is why I said if you're walking into a new console or something you don't have a file for, you need the time to do your job correctly. Although I still say that audience wouldn't be able to tell the difference. The band might hear the difference. But the audience would only perhaps notice a difference in relation to the quality of the performance, which could of course be effected in relation to how smoothly your sound check went. But given the right amount of time to do the job I fully suspect you could make the show sound good whether you just popped your file into an Avid or Yamaha or you were forced to use an old Midas analog. You might be a lot more stressed out, but the audience shouldn't know that. And in the end that is who it should really all be about since they are the ones that ultimately pay everyone. Of course not all bands, production managers (or in my world directors, producers, musicians, actors) and such get that concept.
Of course if you're not given the right amount of time to do the job... well then that shouldn't be your fault, even though I'm sure it often is if your world is anything like mine.
You might be surprised how complex a show file can be on a big show with heavy plugin use and preset scenes for different songs. Some of the show files I've seen on YouTube videos for FOH engineers for national acts probably rival the complexity of a small to medium size Broadway show. Try building one of those in 2-3 hours from scratch without the crew onstage or just running on the fly and see what a difference it makes in terms of refined sound.