I am not impotent! a.k.a YES I CAN

I've been giving some thought to my approach to sound mixing.  I have always believed that my job is to capture a performance, make it audible, and make the musicians comfortable.  The equipment I use is merely a mechanism for making what's happening on stage heard.  No frills, no bells and whistles, no magic make me sound good button.  Lately I've been wondering if that is just a lazy way out.  Wouldn't the mark of a great sound engineer be that regardless of the circumstances it always sounds good?  To be fair I do my part to make the band sound good, but it usually involves me talking to the musicians on stage to adjust the problem there.  Yesterday however I was approached with a different problem and I'm not sure I handled it as best as I could.  And the question I was left with is am I here to modify sound, or amplify it? I believe the answer is both.

     Yesterday was the Piano Student Concert here at the BPC.  Considering the craziness of last week this concert was a breeze.  Solo piano, piano trio... piece of cake right? Well, firstly I hate the little puny kick drum the jazz drummers use.  It is impossible to make it sound good. (Yesterday the floor tom was tuned lower than the kick drum honestly!) But I did my best to make it sound halfway normal, which basically involved me taking the mic out of the mix. (This rant was totally unintended but surprisingly ties in nicely with the theme) I had two options right there.  I could either place the mic then recreate the natural sound of the kick. Or I could try to manipulate the drum sound to something more appropriate for the non-jazz songs.  I didn't even try the second option.  I brought up the mic said, "Yeah that's how it sounds" and tried to find a decent balance with the rest of the band.  Technically I did my job, I wasn't happy with the way it sounded but in my mind I thought that there was little else I could do.  Up next was a solo piano piece. Same deal, I wasn't going to put much piano in the mix since it didn't need to over power a band. But as the pianist was playing the first notes, the head of the piano department turns to me and says, "It's too bright".  At the moment which she said this, the piano mics weren't on. I told her she was hearing the piano acoustically at which point she asked, "Oh my God it's the piano! Is there anything you can do about it? My typical answer (the one I say in my head, never aloud) is a big fat NO followed by a derisive laugh. I instead started messing with the EQ knowing I wouldn't make any difference.  She was eventually happy but it made me think.  Perhaps I shouldn't be so dismissive if someone asks me to alter an instruments sound.  I'm not a miracle worker, but I'm not impotent either.  Complacency is the death of excellence and ultimately whatever the situation is, if it sounds bad, it's my fault. Sound guys are always full of excuses (mainly because we're always under attack) but perhaps in making excuses, we forget all of the resources we have to make a bad situation great.