I get a call the other day from a local production company that I’ve been doing work for lately. They say they need me as an opt-out at this synagogue for two days and that it’s “the lowest level mixing gig” they’ve got. I’m like, “sure, why not?” — they're paying my rate, and I've got nothing planned those two days, anyway.
I come in with really low expectations (think 12-channel Mackie w/ two boxes on sticks), and they're immediately met. The main hall (where there is to be about 2,000 people) consists of two small under-hung boxes and four mics, one for the rabbi, two for readers and another one on the cantor. They take me back to FOH, which is in another room around the corner inside a vertical rack.
The person from the venue opens it up and asks if I know how to use this (pointing to a small LED screen with a knob underneath it). I reply that “I haven't seen it before” and ask for an explanation. Turns out, this thing is the smallest digital console known to man…the LED screen is a button that changes the fader selected and the knob changes the volume level. No Eq, nothing besides level — OK, not so bad…one of those set-and-forget, I'm-going-to-be-bored-for-the-next-four-hours gig — or so I thought.
Just as I finish “examining” their system, the house guy says to me “OK, now I'll show you to the other PA you'll be running as well.” I reply, “Oh, there's another service after that you want me here for, too?” He chuckles and says that I'll be running both systems at the same time. Now, the second PA is something like the first, except instead of the button-and-knob combo upstairs, there's a 12-channel console rack-mounted with a high/mid/low EQ and six-band graph — slightly better, since now I can at least hammer away problems instead of just dropping the level and saying “sorry, can't go any louder.” Did I mention that the second PA is down three flights of stairs in another room? Yeah, it looks like I'm getting a workout the next two days.
The services start and everything goes fine for the first day, with me going up and down the stairs between rooms every 20 minutes or so. No prob-lems, clients are happy, everyone can hear everything.
I get there the next morning, check both systems…everything seems good to go. Services start (entirely in Hebrew, might I add) and it's running fine. I'm upstairs listening to the service, and all of a sudden, a guy comes up to me saying there's “a whistling sound downstairs that comes and goes.” OK, easy enough to fix (so I thought), and I run downstairs and listen. No whistling sound… after about five minutes, I start to walk away and hear this 800-1k ring erupt through the room at a moderate volume.
Thinking it might be a feedback issue, I notch it out on the graph. Doesn't stop. I drop the mains around 20db. Doesn't stop. I shut the mains off completely, still doesn't stop. OK, this is odd. As I'm contemplating what it could be, it randomly stops.
I bring the mains back up to normal so everyone can hear again (the Rabbi was talking during this whole ordeal) and continue my thought as to what that sound could be. All of a sudden, the sound randomly starts again, and as soon as I get off my chair to go to the console, it stops. This is just getting weird. Next time, when it starts, I'm going to be right here waiting. And when it does, I dial all the power amps down. It's still ringing throughout the room. Alright, it CAN'T be the PA, unless there's something other than what they've shown me. For the remainder of the service, I'm sitting there trying to induce this noise into the PA, with it randomly starting and stopping the whole time. Nothing I did could either cause or re-move this tone running throughout the room.
At the end of the show, the house tech (I think he was a tech… at least, he was the guy who showed me the systems and gave me instructions) came over and asked if there was a problem with the PA. I give him the explanation about what I've done, and that I found it not to be anything with their system, unless there was something they hadn't told me about. He replied “no,” so that was that. I couldn't figure out what it was, but it sure as hell wasn't the PA downstairs!
James Feenstra
Audio and Lighting Technician
Ed Note: Instead of leaving all of us hanging, James told FOH that he and the two other techs working the gig eventually came to the conclusion that the mysterious whistling sound was someone’s hearing aid running low on batteries…Who’d a thunk it?
