Dear Soundman,

Hi. We've talked a couple of times. You seem like a pretty alright guy, so I'll try and make this gentle. The job you do isn't bad, per se. It could just use some improvement.

Let's use tonight as an example. You did sound for A Place To Bury Strangers and Holy Fuck. Both sets were pretty good. The latter set was actually mixed really well. For some reason, though, APTBS was bass-heavy to a point where it was absurd. I had the compulsion to sit you down and have you listen to Loveless all the way through, so that you understand that an atmosphere can be created by instruments outside the rhythm section. It's really unfortunate when the guitarist has to actually go and adjust both the volume of his amp and the direction it faces in relation to the audience so that his playing can actually be heard.

This isn't the first time I've been to a show where this has happened, though it's pretty clearly the tipping point. I'd really wanted to hear the sheer sonic force I knew Oliver Ackermann could wreak upon an audience, especially since I'd kind of talked up that point in the concert preview I'd done for the student newspaper. Instead, somehow, a band notorious for destroying their own equipment through sheer volume managed to have a guitar sound almost neutered. It was way, way below the spot it needed to be in the mix. Don't get me wrong, the bass playing was pretty awesome and the drumming was brilliantly intense, but when I know a band is as capable of unbelievable guitar noise as A Place To Bury Strangers are, I kind of want to hear that noise, hey?

Certainly, they didn't put on a bad show. They were absolutely blistering in places, menacing, atmospheric, inspiring. The leaden spell they cast over the audience drew down jaws and knocked heads forwards with the rhythm. "Ocean," closing out the set, blew primal beats through squalls of noise into something ethereal and fantastic. What I'm trying to say, though, is that half of those squalls were missing until the last thirty seconds of the set.

And you're not the only one. I mentioned that earlier, and I'm mentioning it again. God, I've heard some poorly-mixed shows. Trimming the guitar out of a band with such a solid guitar foundation is a pretty major infraction, but I've been party to worse. I've heard vocals mixed so low the singer might as well have been doing something productive like knitting or workshopping lyrics, five-piece bands drowned out by washy cymbals, awfully-equalized bass farting all over an otherwise good set and much, much more. I've heard the gamut from way too tinny and piercing to way too muddy and thick and every limp-dick mid-range tone in between. All you did was forget a guitar; some soundmen commit war crimes the second they do a line check.

So, if you're reading this and you're mad, don't worry. The set came across just fine. The parts you did well, you did really well! Poor instrument balance is just a pet peeve of mine. Consider it a project. It's one that I'd really love to see some progress on.

Yours,
JC