How Do You Deal With Engineer Ignorance?

Say to him; "I don't tell you how to play your drums…do I? ok then, shut up and leave this to ME!" Then say to your sound engineer; "Lets take advantage of the stereo capability of the Axe2 and run TWO channels direct to FOH. Trust me, it'll work!" Your drummer will eat his words!
 
fox5150 said:
I've just got in from band practice having had an uncomfortable conversation with the drummer, who also used to engineer.

Tonight was the first night at band practice with my Axe-FX and Atomic CLR (more to come on that in another thread) and the consensus on the sound was a resounding thumbs up. However, after practice, we're packing up and chatting away and we're discussing about how I connect the Axe-FX up. My plan is to use the CLR from Output 2 as my monitor, and run to FoH from Output 1 and let the PA do the heavy lifting. He was adamant that I'd have to mic the CLR up as any engineer worth his salt will want to blend the sound coming out of the CLR with the processed sound coming out of the Axe-FX. Now this opinion is one borne simply out of ignorance.

Try as hard as I might I could not make him understand that that was pointless. I explained how it all worked and still I couldn't make him understand. He even said "do you think big touring bands run straight to the desk", which is then when I brought up every artist in the Fractal Artist page. Still he was adamant that this was wrong and every engineer will insist on micing it up. Even when I brought up that I'd used the Axe-FX at a gig with our regular engineer and that he loved just running out the back of the box, he still wouldn't accept it.

So, after my waffle and preamble, how do you guys deal with this kind of attitude, short of saying "Just shut the f*ck up and listen to how it sounds".




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This is a typical case of "Just because somthing has engineer written on it dosen't mean it has engineer in it"!
 
just say, "i always go direct, it always sounds great, trust me :) "

also, sometimes i just unplug the cable coming out of the 57 and put it in the axefx before the sound guy even gets to the stage, i feel like that act shows confidence in your approach (seems silly i know...)

more and more engineers are becoming familiar with axe fxs as the years go by, this wont be a problem soon
 
Thanks for all the replies and advice guys. I do want to stress that he is a really good guy and a great friend of mine, he just simply doesn't understand the technology.

There is no question of me actually micing the CLR, I just need to tactfully handle the situation. I can't imagine that this will be the only time that I will face this attitude as we do play all over the place; sometimes with our PA, sometimes with what's at the venue. I can't really go around getting into arguments with the sound guy as we probably wouldn't get invited back!

There's lots of good suggestions in this thread and I'll be trying them out on Saturday!


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if you have to play with the guy, there's no point in having an open argue with him. You feel bad, he feels bad, the whole band feels bad. I suggest you put some effort in explaining him how it works, like "would you mind hearing these next 5 minutes what I have to say and show to you, without interruption? If you still don't agree, you won, ok?". There are few good arguments here in this forum and maybe you could find some example on youtube to show him, let him also hear the difference. If you convince him at the end, he will even respect you. I see this as an ongoing problem and I would definitely try to solve it.
 
A well-labelled breakout strip below the Axe, on the front of your flight case works wonders. A guitarist fumbling around in the back of any sort of rack gives them psychological problems.

I use the wording "Bal Out (FOH). The sound guy sees XLR's, and mostly plugs straight in. I did have an argumentative one, but while I was explaining, his assistant was sleuthing round my rig, plugged into the labelled outputs and went back to the desk. He then asked over the talk-back "Do you want this panning?" "Yeah," said I. "Hard left and right please?" End of problem. And nice comments afterwards (although the boss man did throw me by giving me some FOH guitar in my monitor - which as I use guitar cab backline, sounded weird). SO telling them not to do that isn't a bad idea either...

The other slight difficulty I've noted is if they use mic rather than line level - and it's too hot. It's their mistake, but if they're so dim as to make it, then they're likely to "blame" the Axe - and with the hassle they're giving you + the need to soundcheck, as when it happened to me, you might not immediately realise... The best thing to say say is "Treat it like the keyboards".

But we're talking about people like your drummer here... Jolly nice mainly, but inexperienced and self-opinionated.

But it could be worse. Have you ever worked with a singing drummer?
 
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I wouldn't do the "fake mic" or unplug the mic thing. That will just drive them nuts when adjustments to that channel at the board do nothing.

Do you have the cab or wedge CLR?

I think if he will get it that the CLR is a monitor ala a wedge, that would be all you need to get across.

And I'm with Rex, I don't believe getting brody over stuff like this serves any purpose. Arguments and hard feelings are a major buzz kill to me.
 
I'm not going to fall out with him over this, life's far too short and we have a great time in the band. I just need to maybe explain it to him a little better than I was last night - obviously wasn't getting through to him.

I guess we all take the whole "amp/cab/mic" modelling thing as granted as we're all here, chatting about the products we love; if you've never come across this before, I can see how it would be a change in mindset that is at odds with the "traditional" approach.
 
fox5150 said:
I'm not going to fall out with him over this, life's far too short and we have a great time in the band. I just need to maybe explain it to him a little better than I was last night - obviously wasn't getting through to him.

I guess we all take the whole "amp/cab/mic" modelling thing as granted as we're all here, chatting about the products we love; if you've never come across this before, I can see how it would be a change in mindset that is at odds with the "traditional" approach.
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In my experience, folks are trying to get their job done as quick as possible. If they see you set up a cab like a traditional backline, they will be there in a heartbeat to mic it up.

Nothing wrong with that. They are trying to get the load in and sound check done.

The CLR is like a conventional PA monitor. Not really made for micing like a guitar cab. That's really all you have to convey.
 
Can't say that I've come across this as yet (I dare say that I will somewhere!), but I normally get greeted by an initial confused look, a smile, a "F*ck yeah! You're easy!" and then a wander over to see what is generating all of this good sound stuff! :)
 
When I saw Billy Sheehan back in the 80s at a club in Queens NY called L'amores,This was before his debut with DLR.In his original band Talas,he used to mic his cabs on stage.After meeting him,I asked about his setup.He told me His cabs are mic'd,the amp goes DI'd to the board.So there really is no wrong way to do this.
 
What I do (sometimes) out of necessity when confronted with a similar situation is just not let the engineer know what I'm doing. I just unplug this mic cord from the mic, and run it direct into my output and leave the mic up (or even, if you are sneaky, just plug in a 'dummy' mic cable to fool 'em. ;) ) and then just proceed normally. I do make it a point in these cases to point out that my feed is 'really hot' because you are feeding them a line level for the most part; but with the II (which is lower output on the direct outs than the Ultra/Standard) that's less and less an issue.

He'll think his mic placement is incredible, because it sounds so insanely good.

Whether or not you have to ever explain to him what you did is up to you. And your conscience. ;)

FWIW - I run into this more on festival type shows (fast on/off between bands) and they are sometimes not in a mood to hear you out or do something 'different' than they KNOW. This is far less, IMHO, prevalent the last few years but I do occasionally still run into it.
 
Only bad engineers are ignorant.

If you can't convince the guy, put a mic on the FRFR speaker and don't plug in the other end of the XLR from the mic but take an XLR feed directly out of your axefx to the stage box.

Tell him after he's mixed the gig.
 
tommyco10 said:
Only bad engineers are ignorant.

If you can't convince the guy, put a mic on the FRFR speaker and don't plug in the other end of the XLR from the mic but take an XLR feed directly out of your axefx to the stage box.

Tell him after he's mixed the gig.
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Aha!

Scott got there first.

Great minds think alike...
 
fox5150 said:
I'm not going to fall out with him over this, life's far too short and we have a great time in the band. I just need to maybe explain it to him a little better than I was last night - obviously wasn't getting through to him.

I guess we all take the whole "amp/cab/mic" modelling thing as granted as we're all here, chatting about the products we love; if you've never come across this before, I can see how it would be a change in mindset that is at odds with the "traditional" approach.
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Why doesn't he understand that the sound that comes out of the rack already has cabinets/mics/amps/effects baked in, before it leaves the device? You can then reproduce that with a miniature on-stage sound system called a CLR, or you can send the output to the PA. It simulates a guitar into an amp into a cabinet with a mic in front of - you custom tailor every aspect and control/dictate it down to the angle and distance away from the grill. Why would you want to do all that, and then filter all of that again with an SM57 on the CLR?

Would he mic his snare through an SM57 into a 400 watt sound system, and then put an SM57 on the speaker to that small sound system, and send that to the PA? One mic in the signal path is enough, and yours is inside the box and already baked into the sound and cannot be separated and does not need to be duplicated redundantly.

Would this guy toast a piece of toast a second time?

Is he able to use an Ipod and accept that the sounds coming from it have already been processed sufficiently and he should just listen to them and enjoy them, or does he need to mic the headphone speakers with an SM57 and reamplify them so that they have been mic'd properly in accordance with his wishes?

How about when he's relaxing at home and surfing the web. When he hears sound coming out of speakers of his laptop or desktop, is he willing to accept that those sounds already magically have been mic'd and processed, or is it incumbant upon him to throw a 421 in there for good measure?

I don't get this at all.
 
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