Sound man confusion is part of my motivation for this. I usually have them set up a separate channel for each accordion because the EQ and gain requirements are different. I make a point of telling them that they don't have to worry about raising and lowering the volume on the accordions when I switch between them, due to the fact that I turn the unused accordions off myself. But, they sometimes seem to forget that and lower the volume anyway, and then fail to notice that I switched accordions with the result of no sound! GRRRRR. (this just happened to me last month at Gator By The Bay).

So when you used the mixer on stage, did you have it mounted on a stand somehow? What kind of mixer did you use?