Beautiful points, Chris, I see where you are coming from. My job at this club is merely 'keeping the Blues alive,' which seems to be forever more chalenging for us Old School' types. Since selling our family's club last year, things have gone way south for them. I chose to help remake this bar as the new location for our Blues Society's home base. The owner is aloof, unconcerned with certain basic stage protools and standards, presuming among other things that he needn't buy any microphones or mic stands, since the last set walked out the back door a year or so ago. Will he 'pay' me? -not remotely in the cards. Therefore, I have taken the opposite approach. On 'Valentine's' we're going to show them what it's like to have 500 people turn up on a Saturday night. Once I can get the owner looking over a day's register with triple the usual drink sales, I think our guys will have the keys to the store! 'Acoustics'-that's where he needs to spend real money. Cable-wise, these are really short runs, and I happen to have a lot of pro/consumer spare wire & parts I could use. I don't know if DMX is supposed to be stranded & tinned, pure 'drawn' copper, or whatever, but the rig works perfectly for now.
I checked out the sound reinforcement gigs you show at your site... See the band on the tiny club stage, dude, that's us!
After this show, I will try to get them to buy a couple more pieces of Elation gear. I would especially like to get some back light into the scene. They have a high ceiling and the opportunity to do an egg crate array of absorptive panels that could also work as 'gobos' above the drum-riser, otherwise the angle would be right in peoples eyes. Also, I would like a row of foot lights, like a pair of modern RGBW-strips. Over the dance floor, what would be more typical than some form of oscillating color-ball? --When either of these additions come into play, lengthening the daisy-chain, I will make sure to replace the mic cables at your suggestion.
Thanks to all, -over and out.