Professional audio, done by an amateur

So the church has a Christmas thing coming up and they've moved it to another building than where all the A/V stuff is. I have been dissatisfied with the A/V I've been able to do in alternate venues in the past, working with the slapdash collection of crap that they have sitting around, or having to disassemble, move, then move back all the existing stuff.

So I took the opportunity to go shopping and found a Fender Passport 250 on eBay from a guy in Kalamazoo for $225. A friend at work lives in Kazoo and commutes here once a week so I'll have that tomorrow.

I also went looking for a mixer with a lot of XLR inputs and found a used Peavey PV14.

Yesterday I went on a scavenger hunt after church and managed to turn up all the crap that's been missing for the last year or more, except there's an Audio Technica receiver that I can't find. I bought and installed a shelf in one of the storage rooms for my equipment, but that almost immediately had so much shit piled in front of it that I can't get to it anymore. Seriously thinking about a locked cabinet at this point.

Today I got on Monoprice and put in a bunch of cables, but wound up getting them from Amazon. The price and reviews were about the same, once shipping was figured in (within $3) but I know that I'll get the Amazon shipment in 2 days, whereas Monoprice sometimes takes days to ship and I must have this stuff by next weekend.

I went a little overboard with this, because I have other stuff in mind. I would like to use the mixer as a satellite for trying out new locations to place the mixer board without having to move all the existing equipment for a trial. Almost all the inputs are wireless, so I figure I can take the unpowered mixer and the receiver (most weeks, just one receiver) to other places, run some 50 ft XLRs up to the powered mixer in the corner of the balcony and see how it goes. If that becomes a permanent location, wires will have to be shifted and a cabinet built.

Used purchase win

The mixer I bought used on eBay smelled a little like an open box special, which is most of the reason I went with it, and I think that was the case. In fact I think it might even be an overstock clearance or something. I got it today and it really looked like it had never even been opened. What's more, I got the USB version, which I was not supposed to get. This means that it has a USB port on the back and when plugged in to a PC, it acts as an audio input AND output device, so I don't have to patch over from a headphone jack on the PC to do audio, and I can record on the PC instead of using an external recorder.

A couple of the controls feel a little wonky/stiff but I think it's been in a box for a long time. Moving them seems to be loosening them up. I haven't actually connected it yet as I have nothing to really connect it to for a couple of days, but it looks good.