At Broadstairs, year before last, there was a very good duo with a guitarist and a drummer. The sound man had the drums miked and amplified to the point where they were significantly louder than guitar and vocals put together. We grabbed one of them during the interval and said "can you get the soundman to get this right?" He replied that it definitely wasn't how they wanted to sound, but he couldn't risk pissing off the soundman.

In my (limited) experience:-

- The difference between a good soundman and an excellent soundman is being able to tweak the EQ to make people sound as good as possible.

- The difference betwen a good soundman and a disastrous soundman is being able to hear how loud each instrument is, relative to each other, and being able to judge how loud the overall sound needs to be to fill the room.

- A large proportion of soundmen are disastrous.

- Most halfway-competent musicians can do better than disastrous soundmen, simply by virtue of being able to hear the individual instruments.

And to quote David Knopfler, "If you've ever adjusted the bass or treble on your stereo, then you're halfway to being a sound engineer." A joke, but not so far off the truth.

Graham.