Hey guys,
Got a gig on friday, but the time planned in for soundcheck is extremely limited due to people still being at work and arriving late. Also, there's other bands playing there that night.
So I'd like to know; what do you guys do if you only have a couple of minutes time for sound check?
Thanks to the Axe, at least it doesn't take long for me to set up my gear.
And what do you do if the space on stage is very limited for all the equipment and there are multiple bands performing?
Greetings!
Hey Zwiebelchen (are you german?
)
would you mind telling us what kind of band you gig with on friday? Instruments, how many ppl and so on? Really depends on that.
Best possibility would be to bring a sound engineer with you who knows your sounds and how to bend them to mix well and knows what you need on monitors - yes this is the option that costs something (normally - not so many pro sound engineers that work for free) but the one that would help you the most.
Of course this isn't always possible even more so for friday if you have no one like that until now who you could call and ask.
So the thing that helps 100% and a lot:
DISCIPLINE within the band at soundcheck time. I experienced this with a band I'm mixing FoH and monitor (from FoH) for the last 3 years, started out with some chaos during soundcheck - now we can pull of a full check with linecheck, monitors and full band mix in 15 minutes - round about 24 channels, 6 people on stage (drums, 1x guitar, 1x bass, 1x keys, 1x dj, 3x mics).
Had to experience this the hard way again with my own band that I joined a year ago - I hadn't experienced this from the stage point of view and had to teach myself and the band (still regularly shouting "arms in the air guys"):
Normal checks are like this:
Sound guy asks for some one to play something, checks, does the playing persons monitor and ask the next person to play. Very often somebody isn't ready ("I still have to cable this or that") which results in jumping aroung to check different instruments in no particular order (which is not that bad if you know what you are doing) but results also in people onstage being distracted from soundcheck:
you already checked drums, bass and guitar, now the guitarist tells you he needs some bass and kick + snare on his monitor. what do you do? -> mr bassman could you please play again. turn level up until guitarist is satisfied. same with drums. The "drummer please play kick and snare again" takes time (as the drummer is distracted with something else of course and needs 15 seconds to start drumming).
this happens often and costs enormous times.
so the way the soundcheck should look like:
first person starts to check e.g. the drummer: while he plays the snare all band personnel on stage who need snare on their monitoring RAISE YOUR HAND with hand/finger pointing to the sky (and yes this should be done also if you still have to plug in a cable or whatsoever - no problem if you have to use both hands for a time but come back to show the engineer responsible for monitoring what you want from him = snare louder on your monitor. as soon as it's loud enough SHOW it - I just start waving cut-my-throat-style (sorry didn't know how to describe it better). Same goes for less volume for the current playing instrument on your monitors.
So this should be the way the band acts during the whole soundcheck - giving the sound engineer the possibility to adjust your monitoring while checking the respective instrument with out the need to jump back to someone else. This is what costs the most time during soundcheck in my experience (as long as the source sounds coming from stage are acceptable - which I take as more or less granted as you play Axe-FXs
or at least let's say I'm optimistic in that regard
)
After this linecheck including monitors I let the band play a busy part of one of their songs - a part where all instruments are played + every vocalist sings at best. AND this just for 20-60 seconds. Then they can tell me one at a time WHAT they want louder WHERE
It's possible to cut changeover + soundcheck to 5-15 minutes for the house engineer AND make the band happy with their onstage (and offstage) sound.
but not when:
- you tell the tech 2 minutes before changeover that there will be two additional singers and a never-before-mentioned acoustic guitar
- you confront him with a never-before-mentioned in ear monitoring wish
- you are not trained enough to this onstage discipline....do not fear, this is just a matter of time and practice, you can get this down pretty fast
- the tech is a total lazy douchebag: in this cause - sorry but get rid of your illusion of a good sound onstage and from the PA and a lightning fast soundcheck
EDIT: Forgot to add:
It's really important that the venue/house engineer get's your stageplot + techrider beforehand - he has to know what you bring, what you want where from him. And by beforehand I mean at least 1-4 hours before soundchecking. He has to be able to arrange things so that setup, changeover and routing is fastest ans easiest to change.
Also if time is of the essence and you have to work with a unknown engineer try to get to him before getting on stage to setup and tell him what he has to expect.
There might be the possibility that he's a douchebag and doesn't care and won't listen anyway.... like said before - I'm sorry if that's the case and my deepest condolences....
If he's halfway professional he'll listen and might (and only might but hey, the chance is there) be able to use some of the information you give him to fasten the soundcheck. Tell him what kind of music you're doing (genre-wise, instruments wise), who does what vocals (clean vocals? screams? shouts?) if there are some peculiarities of your sound etc.pp.
Hope I could help, if you have any questions in particular or specific situations which you need advice for feel free to ask!
