The Intergalactic Cowboy

In my last diary entry, I mentioned that I was running sound at a wedding this weekend in which all of the wedding music would be prerecorded. My additional job was to cue up and play the appropriate wedding music at the proper time of the ceremony. You may remember from previous diary entries that the church p.a. is wearing out. The consultant that we hired told us that the entire system could break down at any minute.
Yesterday at the wedding rehearsal, the system performed at the level that it has recently been performing at. We had a left hand main speaker, powered by an old power amplifier, aimed at the congregation. We had a monitor amp, powering two monitor wedges, aimed at the choir and the organist. Today, at 1:30 pm, I arrived at the church to soundcheck the p.a. for a 3 pm wedding. The one main speaker started producing a high pitched buzzing sound, similar to an obnoxious alarm clock. There were several small children banging on the grand piano. Ordinarily I would have told them to stop, but they were providing a distraction to the three or four members of the wedding party who happened to be in the sanctuary. This gave me a couple of minutes to hopefully correct the buzzing. Nothing worked. I had to unplug the speaker from the speaker cable to stop the buzzing. I then pointed the monitor speakers in the direction of the congregation and began adjusting the volume of the microphones with the auxilliary output # 1 knob on each channel for each microphone. I then adjusted the volume of the CD player, using this same technique. By this time, wedding guests started to arrive and I was asked to begin the prelude music. All faders were turned down to minus 60 decibels since they would have only controlled the defunct main speaker volume anyway.
I pulled off a half decent wedding with only the use of a monitor amp and two monitor speakers. I never told the wedding party about any of this because they had enough to worry about. Tomorrow, I address the building and grounds committee of the church, who have been reluctant to fund the purchase of any new p.a. equipment. Obviously, when the monitor amp and speakers eventually fail, there will be absolutley no amplification in the sanctuary.
I should add that I remembered to perform this emergency procedure today with care and attention, rather than overtly panicking.
Whew,
I.C.