conflicts with pianist

[bcastle]

I am our church's technical director and also our band's rhythm guitarist. I have completely re-wired our sound system and increased our capacity in every way with gripes from only one member from our band (we had to adjust the instrument levels every week, oh no!). Now that most of the improvements have been made (until i get new ideas and/or more money ) I keep running into the same problem: My pianist and I but heads on her volume from her piano.

Now I know that in running a sound system that I have a lot of ways to adjust her "volume" or line signal, however this is at the source of her piano. I like to have all the instruments up about 80% on their control knob so I can keep the gain at the least value I need on my mixer. You know the whole signal to noise ratio, I like that to be nice. My pianist on the other hand likes her volume to be at 10% so she can make herself louder in the monitor if she thinks she's can't her herself. She likes to try and match her volume out of the house speaker that is above her with the monitor in front of her. I've tried to explain why that will never happen. No dice.

Here's my main problem though. It irks me that I have spent so much time fighting hiss and buzz rewiring everything only to get clean sound and then have someone, who has absolutely no concept of how the system works to adjust her piano to the point of knocking my gain levels out of whack, which in turn creates hiss in her monitor.

Example I set her levels on the board to where they should be and then during the service she drops her set signal to 10%, my sound guy has to compensate for it by either turning up the gain level and or fader knob to the point that it induces a very noticeable hiss as in people can here it in the sanctuary 40' away.

How do I fix this problem of my pianist not really listening to me even though I have explained over and over the why and the out comes? She is an older set in her ways kinda person and likes to hear things like it sounds in her studio where she sets and forgets her levels. She plays the piano awesome but just cant leave that volume knob alone. I dont want to run her off because she has followers in the congregation that love to hear her play and she got alienated from her last church.

[tedanderson]

If she turns downs her piano and says, "I can't hear" then have someone walk up to the stage and turn it up for her. That will "force" her to comply. Be nice, be courteous, and turn her local volume up as many times as you have to if that's what it takes.

Your only obligation in this situation is to do whatever it takes to make it possible for her to hear herself. You are not obligated to give her control of the system. You are not obligated to work around her or to do things on her terms. If she says that she wants to keep her volume knob down, politely tell her that she just can't. It isn't up to her. She will just have to trust that the board operator does the right thing.

I wouldn't be worried about running her off either. It would be one thing if you were being mean or uncooperative in order to solve the problem. But you are only asking her to comply with the way that the system is set.

If she chooses to change the volume setting, she would only be causing difficulty to herself. She would only be working against her own interests. Refusing to let the rest of the system go down the crapper as a result of fulfilling her desires does not make you a bad person. It only means that she refuses to follow the rules and she is putting herself before the needs of others.

If simply standing your ground causes her to leave, it wouldn't be because of you. She would eventually leave the church as a result of something else that she was not allowed to do.

[cmchamp]

Yeah, what Ted said.

[prochlea]

I have a pretty good relationship with my band - and they pretty much listen to what I say... which is nice. I have put gaff tape over the volume slider to keep it where I want it.

In your situation, I think the way to handle it is what Ted suggested. Get the level where you need it on the board to have a good S/N ratio, and if she wants to run it lower, then she just won't hear it.

[bcastle]

Thanks for the support. I'm about 2 sundays away from putting gaff tape on her volume anyways. Actually on both pianos (same volume issue with the other pianist but he has a little powered monitor with its own volume control that is not ran the the aux channels so i don't get feed back through it).

I'll set it AGAIN for sunday's service and see how it goes. What i really need is a head set mic for her that goes directly to an ear piece for sound board guy. so she can just talk to him directly.

[cmchamp]

Another way to keep her from changing the volume would be to disable it. Or, use an acoustic piano

[SamG269]

Isnt there a way to take apart the volume control and have it set to 80% but if she tries to adjust it it does nothing?

[bcastle]

I'm not sure that I want to take apart the piano since it's our minister of music's and he uses it with his band outside of our church. I'm pretty sure that a full wrap around the piano with gaff tape will do it.

[cmchamp]

Oh, that's not the "Like" button!

[tdangelo]

Gaffer's tape.

[waynehoskins]

Some time ago I gaff taped the volume knob and internal-speakers switch on our keyboard. Solves a multitude of problems.

Another solution is to compress the life out of the keyboard, so that no matter where its volume knob is set, you wind up with a relatively consistent level. More a damage-control solution than anything else, and it won't sound great, but sometimes that's what you have to do.

I consistently wonder why they ever put volume knobs on keyboards anyway. They cause more trouble than good.

[bggowing]

Why not talk to the minister of music about it and let him talk to her? He's the overall leader and it's his responsibility to have the tech team and music team work with each other. If you've tried to get this person to listen to you and she won't then it needs to get elevated.