January Birthdays 
So, today in the 'studio' (read: the corner of my office with the music stuff), I had rigged up a new table top out of a couple pieces of particleboard shelving and some cleats to hold them together. I needed a little more depth and a couple feet more length than I had with the table. No problem. I also wanted to get the rest of the gear up and running. In particular, I wanted to move the little keyboard mixer back under the keys, and hook up the regular mix console. So I had to unhook everything, move it all onto the floor, then put the new tabletop up and hook it all back up.
But I couldn't get any sound. Hmm. Hook up the keyboard mixer and still no sound. Hmm. Put the headphones on the key mixer. All good. Hook up the headphones to the regular mixer. Still good. Maybe the cables went south? No, switching cables didn't help.
Then it dawned on me. It's Denny McCain's First Rule of Musical Electronics. Every cable has an input and an output. Do not hook up an output (from the mixer) to the output (of the sound system). Hook up the mixer output to the input of the sound system.
Now it all works, of course.
