Sound man rant...

psycle_1

psycle_1

Inspired
So my band played a show last night as a small deli/bar and doubles as a music hall. Sound system was decent (2 QSC powered mains, a powered sub, QSC monitors). I asked the sound guy before the first band played if I could send him 2 line level signals rather than micing the Mesa 2x12 cabs (I run myself as well as the other guitarist through my Axe Fx II). He said sure. I'm thinking "great, I won't even have to switch on the Matrix and run the cabs". We decided to put the cabs on stage and hook them up, just in case....

I'm glad we did. Sound guy didn't even give us a proper sound check. My other guitarist sounded awesome through the PA, but was way too loud through the monitors. Me on the other hand, it was like I was on mute on the board. My other guitarist wasn't sure if he could hear me, so he cut out a couple of times and could barely hear me. I walked back to my rack, switch on the Matrix and crank my channel up to try to make up for me not coming through the PA. We even asked the sound guy after the 2nd song to bring me up. He just stood back there with a deer caught in headlights look. Didn't see him near the board the rest of the set.

Suffice it to say, we will never play there again.
 
I'll never understand bands that complain about sound men at venues. If you are serious, bring your own. The only way someone is going to do as you prefer is is to pay them, sorry.
 
Also if you have a printed:

- stage plot: show a top down view of the stage. everyone's name and stage position and purpose (e.g. bass, keys, lead vocal). number of mics, mic purpose and stage position. wedges and stage position and simple mix notes (e.g. lead vox + guitars + snare). power outlet requirements and stage position. DI lines.

- set list: indicate the song tempo and key. who is singing lead vox and bkg vox.

In my experience you will get better results.

A creative sound person will even dial in some tempo based efx now and then too for the vocals or rhythm section.
 
Sound guys can sometimes come from the same camp as DJ's. Any idiot that can turn a knob can sometimes feel justified in labeling himself a sound guy, just as any idiot who can press play on a laptop can label himself a DJ. The reason people study audio engineering is so that they can deal with any situation and not just have the bare minimum to get some kind of loud signal through a PA. If a guy is being paid then he should know his job.

Mind you, a good sound guy is worth his weight, and there are a lot of great DJs out there.
 
luke said:
I'll never understand bands that complain about sound men at venues. If you are serious, bring your own. The only way someone is going to do as you prefer is is to pay them, sorry.
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I have the same issues with sound guys. I even went this route and tried to bring my own. He was awesome and reasonably priced. But every venue we played at gave us shit about having our guy run their board. Saying we werent insured. Or they dont let others touch their faders. One even tried to charge us weeks later for blowing a speaker which never happened. Lets just say they didnt win that argument. Lol.

But I eventually gave up on bringing our own tech. At least until we have our own live board and pa.


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barhrecords said:
Also if you have a printed:

- stage plot: show a top down view of the stage. everyone's name and stage position and purpose (e.g. bass, keys, lead vocal). number of mics, mic purpose and stage position. wedges and stage position and simple mix notes (e.g. lead vox + guitars + snare). power outlet requirements and stage position. DI lines.

- set list: indicate the song tempo and key. who is singing lead vox and bkg vox.
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+1000
I have a one-sheet that I email to every venue in advance, and physically hand off to every FOH / monitor operator. It has a stage plot exactly as you noted above. Then they get a set list with each song, with production notes.

I'd be happy to post my stage plot as an example if it's helpful to anyone else.
 
Sleestak said:
+1000
I have a one-sheet that I email to every venue in advance, and physically hand off to every FOH / monitor operator. It has a stage plot exactly as you noted above. Then they get a set list with each song, with production notes.

I'd be happy to post my stage plot as an example if it's helpful to anyone else.
Click to expand...

Yes, please post your stage plot. I have a couple big shows coming up and it would be extremely helpful.
 
In all my gigging various venues from serious mid size clubs, dives, and everything between, when I started acting like a professional, I started getting treated more like a professional.

Having your shit together, in my experience, results in getting the best out of the situation.

And yeah there are plenty of people running sound that don't know what they are doing. But coming in with the printed plot and set list gives you your best shot in my opinion.
 
what a doofus (sp?)

if a guy can't handle two line level feeds, then he has no business calling himself a "sound man". maybe you should complain to the venue. top tip...always try and do a line check before you start...wherever you are...

by the by...do you have cab blocks in your patches for the foh feed?
 
I have 2 bands with different needs/setups, so I have 2 approaches to this.

My original band, Chaos in Question.
Everybody in this band runs stereo In Ear Monitors, but I'm the only one that goes DI from an Axe FX. For this purpose, we built a monitor rack with a Crest Audio X18RM, a vafam input panel, and most of our In Ear units. The board has a built in split and we have a 15' whip that comes off that, giving us two ways to tap into the house. We can either run all the mics into our front panel and give the FoH guy the whip for his snake (all labeled kick, snare, etc...) or we if they have a house split, we just take that and go right into our panel. No muss no fuss. This way we can roll into any club and still have control over our own monitors. This is especially helpful because we don't play all nighters, so there's always 2 other bands that need to monitor check so we generally only get 5 minutes to check 'em and go. It only takes minor tweaks from night to night.

My cover band, Save Me CJ:
In this band we either hire our own sound or we use house sound depending on the bar. PA + Soundguy for a full weekend is expensive ($400-$800) and bringing your own guy to operate house sound doesn't guarantee that you're going to get what you need. We will use house sound when it's available and adequate, because I like keeping the money I earned. Very often, however, we have to rent full production as there aren't a lot of clubs around here with house sound that comes even close to what we need.

In this band, everybody is DI, we use 3 wedges, 1 mono IEM, and 1 stereo IEM. It's extremely uncommon to get house sound that can accommodate 5 AUX sends. People will even tell you they have 6 AUX's to work with, but only 4 that are usable as monitors because they have Subs on an AUX group or they use them for efx, etc... Bringing your own guy to run their PA doesn't solve that.

So, with this band, we make sure our setups are flexible. I usually chat with the soundguy a week in advance to discuss setup, soundcheck, load in times. I have two Atomic wedges that we use in different configurations. If the problem is not enough monitors, we can use the Atomics as a powered monitor. If the problem is not enough AUX channels, I can run one side of the Axe FX into the atomic and share a vocal monitor with the singer. Our bass player can also do this since she doesn't sing at all and uses an Axe FX Ultra. My next purchase for this band will be a rack mount Behringer X32 as everybody has expressed interest in going IEMS.

The whole thing comes down to being prepared. Communicate with the venue ahead of time and figure out what additional equipment you need to bring to get what you want. It's in both parties best interest to have a good sounding band on stage.
 
simeon said:
what a doofus (sp?)

if a guy can't handle two line level feeds, then he has no business calling himself a "sound man". maybe you should complain to the venue. top tip...always try and do a line check before you start...wherever you are...

by the by...do you have cab blocks in your patches for the foh feed?
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Did a line check and everything sounded okay, no feedback from the sound guy whatsoever. Just stood back there staring. Obviously things changed once we started playing.

Yes, cab blocks at the end of the line, fx loop branched off before cab block for Output 2 going to the Matrix.
 
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well it all sounds tickety boo...you must have been incredibly surprised and very frustrated at what transpired...
 
psycle_1 said:
Sound guy didn't even give us a proper sound check.
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DID YOU PUT "COMPOTENT SOUND MAN" IN YOUR RIDER? If not... Shame on youuuu.

;)

My bad, couldn't help myself.

On the more serious side whenever I do gigs, I typically bring my own gear and set/forget mostly. If it's a bigger venue, I'll have a trusted buddy or someone who actually knows how to properly/efficiently turn knobs attend. That billhilly of a sound guy you had screwed you out of that and left you extremely frustrated which sucks... Sorry you had to experience that mate... To better endeavors in the future!! :very_drunk: :very_drunk: :very_drunk:
 
psycle_1 said:
Did a line check and everything sounded okay, no feedback from the sound guy whatsoever. Just stood back there staring. Obviously things changed once we started playing.

Yes, cab blocks at the end of the line, fx loop branched off before cab block for Output 2 going to the Matrix.
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Its tough man. In some situations there is really nothing you can do. Its impossible to be in two places at once, so sometimes it just ends up blowing the show.

If I could add my own rant :)

Several years ago the band I was singing for played a show at this local "venue" that I had driven by a hundred times and never even knew was open. Turns out the place is a "by appointment only" restaurant (btw, wtf is that?) and its beautiful! I was shocked! But it was a VERY strange setup... no PA or sub, they had restaurant style audio, like mounted ceiling and wall mid cones haha, and no stage! And the sound both was up in this loft that was only accessible by a pull down attic ladder. Weird as hell. And no sound guy... wtf! So I did the sound for the first bands, we played last. No one to do the sound for us so it feed back like crazy, until some drunk chick spilled her rum and coke into the console because the owner was trying to show off, then it sounded like rain through the speakers until the whole thing just stopped working. After free drinks for the crowd, we left never to return.
 
Here is the stage plot / input list I created for BowieVision. The master file is in Microsoft Visio format. I export the file as a PDF (although this one is a JPG because the forum engine won't support PDF), and email it to each venue, along with our contract and technical rider. I also print a stack of this PDF and bring them with me to the gig. During load-in, I find the FOH operator and monitor operators, and give them each a copy. We quickly walk through placement to ensure we're in agreement about how to approach the stage configuration.

After we line check and soundcheck, I provide annotated copies of the set list to the sound / lighting operators, so everyone knows what to expect and where we are in the show. The set list has production notes, such as who solos in each song, and I include notices like "that cracking sound coming from the keyboard during the intro is actually a sample and not a malfunction".

BV Stage Plot.jpg
 
Come to find out we've been asked to return for another metal night on a Friday or Saturday night. I told my other guitarist (which handles the PR and booking for us) that the only way I would do it is if we could bring our own sound guy.
 
The back of this sheet of paper has a couple of additional tables, showing (1) the default wireless frequencies / channels used by [guitar, bass, vocals, sax] (2) monitor mix proportional preferences for 2-4-8 mix configurations (3) descriptions and license numbers of band vehicles. handy if the venue needs to identify vehicles in the lot / loading zone) (4) FRS radio channel in use by the production team. we carry four motorola FRS radios to communicate between green room / video tech / production team. it's much more reliable than cell coverage inside venues, and because we aren't competing for cell capacity, it's more reliable at festivals. all decent sized venues and festivals have their own radios, and this lets us have a group comms plan.

Sounds like OCD overkill, right? It might be. But let me add this : our shows go smoothly, despite having a pretty complex production involving eight musicians, two technicians, plus spouses / significant others along for the rodeo. Venues and festivals always thank me for providing this sheet. These are the answers their most common questions, and it saves them crucial time during setup, which means they have more time to focus on our soundcheck and show.
 
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