Sidney: Gee, Wilbur … we gotta fix this thing!
Wilbur: Alright, I’ll meet you Saturday morning at nine. I’m really tired of that feedback stuff in the monitors all the time. That sound guy at Myrtle’s Music must not know anything about sound, or else it wouldn’t be howling all the time.
Sidney: I know what ’ya mean. And Pastor Bob’s really gettin’ upset about it. He even kicked the monitor off the stage last night at the prayer meeting.
Wilbur: Well, I know we can fix it. My brother owns a really good stereo, with forty-seven woofers and everything. I mean he’s got every record that the Galena Lightheads ever recorded. He’s even got one of them equalizers, and he showed me how to tweak it—that’s one of them audio words.
Sidney: Alright. See ’ya in the mornin’.
Saturday morning at 10:30 AM
Wilbur: Sorry I’m late, man.
Sidney: That’s alright. I brought my tools in, and I just pried that cover off the equalizer. I had to use my crowbar to do it though. I don’t know why that sound guy put it on so tight!
Wilbur: Well, he means well. But I just can’t figure why the new minister of music hired those guys in the first place. My brother says that they did everything all wrong.
Sidney: They sure did charge enough. By the time the church paid them their $900, we had barely enough to pay the $30,000 bill for the pews. That’s gotta be enough for a top-notch sound system, isn’t it?
Wilbur: Well, it oughta be. After all, we’re just a church. We don’t need anything fancy. We’ve only got ten musicians and eight singers. Hey, did you see the TV broadcast of our service last night? Can you believe the haircut that Pete’s brother got?
Sidney: Naw, I missed it. I was reading the owner’s manual about this EQ thing. It doesn’t say anything about how to set it. Are you sure you know how to work it?
Wilbur: No problem. Let me at that thing. Let’s see here … first, ’ya push all the controls clear to the bottom, and then you play a tape and listen to it. I brought my favorite Lightheads tape. It’s a few years old, but I love these old songs.
Sidney: Give it here. I’ll put it in the cassette recorder. Hey, it says something about CrO2. What’s that all about?
Wilbur: I don’t know. I think my brother said that means to push in that noise reduction button.
Sidney: Oh, yeah … I think you’re right.
Wilbur: No, ’ya gotta twiddle those three knobs up there on the console. Yeah, that one. There, I hear it now.
Sidney: Sure sounds funny.
Wilbur: Turn it up.
Sidney: Hey, I remember these guys.
Wilbur: Okay, here goes. Now I’ll push up these sliders on the left. My brother said to push them up a bunch ’cause ’ya get more lows.
Sidney: How come?
Wilbur: Beats me.
Sidney: Sounds too muddy to me.
Wilbur: Well, we’re not finished yet. Now I’ve gotta push up some of these things on the right.
Sidney: Hey, I can hear some of the words now. That used to be one of my favorites too.
Wilbur: Sounds pretty good to me.
Sidney: What about all those sliders in the middle? Shouldn’t they be up there with the others?
Wilbur: Naw. My brother said to leave them down all the way. He said that was one of the things that sound guy from Myrtle’s Music did wrong. They were too close to zero, and that’s why we’ve had so much problem with the feedback. He said it’s supposed to look kinda like a smiley face when you’re done.
Sidney: They oughta fire that guy and hire your brother.
Wilbur: Hey, we fixed it. I can turn the slider on the console all the way up, and no feedback from the cassette.
Sidney: Yeah. Hey, that was fast. Shouldn’t we set these other equalizers too?
Wilbur: What do they say on the front?
Sidney: Uh … house.
Wilbur: No big deal. The owner’s manual calls them “room equalizers” and they’re all in the same room, right? Let’s just set ’em all the same.
Sidney: Oh, yeah. That’ll work. I remember my friend saying that he’s got an uncle who has a friend who went to one of those TMS sound workshops once, and I think that’s exactly what they did.
Wilbur: Well, that oughta do it.
Sidney: Hey, do you think we oughta hook up some mics or something and try it out?
Wilbur: What for? I set it just like my brother told me to.
Sidney: I guess you’re right. Man, the pastor’s gonna really appreciate us coming in and fixin’ this.
Wilbur: Yeah, and just wait till the new minister of music comes in tomorrow and hears what we did.
Sidney: Yeah, he’ll probably call us up and take us out to lunch next week.
Wilbur: Is there any special music tomorrow?
Sidney: I don’t know. Nobody said anything to me. See ’ya later.
