Wow.

[BillESC]

Received a call from a church about 45 minutes away.

The caller said since Covid the tech's had not come back and the sound was not working properly.

Got there at 10 this morning and found a nightmare. I'll try to explain.

On the left and right walls behind the pulpit were a pair of Kustom 15" speakers on stands, By the House right speaker was a Kustom 8 channel powered mixer. The Main was just above zero, channel gains were near ten. The only mics were 4 wireless mics in the 600 Mhz spectrum, EQ's were everywhere.

The house right speaker was feed from the monitor knob and the house left from the main. Level were adjusted and sound became better but certainly not great.

The pulpit mic was on a separate system controlled in the balcony. There I found a no name analog 12 channel mixer and 2 channel 32 band EQ. After a search, and the removeable of a plywood panel we found the amplifiers. one Bogen mixer/amp and one Gemini.

Turns out, the Bogen feeds the choir monitors and the Gemini feeds the center cluster for the FOH sound. Again, gain Structure was totally out of wack. Did the best I could given the gear.

They have asked me to design a completely new system that is simple to use. As money is always in short supply, I'm quoting an pair of ZLX12 speakers moved forward of the pulpit and a XR12 mixer. We will integrate all of the existing mic wiring. tune the room and give several hours of instruction.

Love what I do.

 

[JohnD]

If only the Kustom speakers were the vintage tuck and roll sparkle tolex! Then you would have had something.

 

[TimMc]

If only the Kustom speakers were the vintage tuck and roll sparkle tolex! Then you would have had something.

And made in Chanute, KS by Mr Ross... it's been 10 years, maybe, but I was in Chanute for a little corpy event and drove by the Kustom offices/plant.

 

[JohnD]

My visit to the plant was much earlier than that, but they also made police radar guns back then. Some staff members would try to check the speed of flys in the hallway for laughs. Also one of the tech benches had an oscilloscope with a tuck and roll sparkle tolex shroud.

 

[TimMc]

My visit to the plant was much earlier than that, but they also made police radar guns back then. Some staff members would try to check the speed of flys in the hallway for laughs. Also one of the tech benches had an oscilloscope with a tuck and roll sparkle tolex shroud.

Very cool, John! They're still making microwave/radar stuff. The music side was sold/bought/sold/bought several times after Bud Ross ran out of money in the 1980s, and the radar side sold at least a couple times. I was surprised to see the Chanute facility still operating.