Front of house sound comes from a pair of Mackie SRM1530 speakers with the optional addition of a pair of HZ SB600 subs if extra bass is required. The Mackies are rated at 1000W per pair, but being amongst the most efficient and brilliantly-designed tri-amplified speakers on the market, this 1000W is favourably comparable to many much higher-powered systems. On their own they have fantastic bass response, but the HZ subs (with QSC amplification) can be added if necessary (larger venues / marquees / outdoor events etc.). With the subs, the system is rated around 2000W.

The six foldback monitors are also active Mackies (SRM350s); those that have experienced them know that they are some of the clearest sounding compact active speakers on the market, and perfect for foldback monitoring (as well as smaller front-of-house applications).

The mixing desk is an Allen & Heath 'MixWizard' 16-2. It is the only 19" rack-mount desk I have found on the market which features 16 mono channels, 2 additional stereo inputs (effects return, CD player etc), 6 auxiliaries, 4-band EQ with 2 swept mids on every channel, inserts on every channel and direct outs on every channel (enabling the simple connection of a multi-track recorder). This means that the option is there to record the gig in 16-track multi-track format allowing separate mixing and editing to be done at a later date.

Outboard gear includes a DBX Driverack PA (an amazing piece of equipment which automatically EQs the front-of-house PA to each individual room in the space of about 2 minutes), various graphic EQs for the monitors, a TC Electronic M300 effects processor, a Samson S-Com Plus dual-channel compressor / limiter / de-esser (can be useful for vocals), a Samson S-Gate-4 four-channel gate / ducker (often useful for taming ringy toms and bass drums) and a Marantz CD deck (particularly useful for playing CDs).

Mics: 4 x Shure Beta 58A (vocals); 2 x Sennheiser MD421, ElectroVoice RE20 & Shure Beta 56 (horns), Sennheiser E609 (guitar cabs), Shure Beta 52 (bass drum), 4 x Sennheiser E604 (clip-on mics for toms / snare), 2 x AKG C1000S (drum overheads), various DI boxes (bass / keyboards).

The lighting rig is basic but very effective. It consists of 4 ancient but safely working Fresnels (650W each) which bring the band out of the darkness with a splash of colour, and a pair of moving-head lights add some atmosphere to the dance floor.

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