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[Conner]

   So here is the deal...I went to see a show last night,(God I love going to shows) I missed most of the openers but the headlining band was Further Seems Forever. I had a rather awful time because I was very excited to see them play, (a couple of the guys are pals of mine) but the sound from FOH was atrocious. There was so much mud in the room you couldn't distinguish any instruments...and forget about the tones. I wanted to shake the FOH guy and ask what he was thinking. It was primarily just a level and compression issue that was an easy fix if someone could have helped him out.
 Hence my question. I guess I would be offended if another professional was trying to tell me how to do my job. But I'm thinking about the band, obviously they want to have their sound portray what they play right? Is there a reason that the whole show has to suck?
  It killed me to talk to the band after the show because all they wanted to know was my opinion on the new singer and new material. I had to tell them I was sorry I couldn't give an opinion because the sound was so bad I couldn't hear it.
 I wasn't the only one either, even one of the guys from Dashboard had to tell them the same thing. Thats gotta be very disheartening to the band members.
 Personally I make no quams about seeing a band that I've worked with or definitively "know" their sound, and telling the FOH how to run the show.
  Please give opinions or examples of times you have been in the same position.

[j.hall]

my band loaded into a club to play, we typically try to show up as late as possible when we are opening.

we get there as the opening band is getting ready to go on....they start playing and there is this awful reverb on the drum kit.....and a terrible delay on the vocal.

i wait for the set to be over, walk back to the sound guy and simply say......."i'd greatly appreciate it if you try and not use any effects on my band, just let us play dry......"

i wasn't rude, nor did i act like i knew anything about his job, just made a simple request, and he was really cool about it

[STILL]

This is simple, if you have to tell a guy he's outta tune - don't bother - get someone else.

The unfortunate truth is that bands have to go through this shit at almost every level, which is why people started bringing their own people with them. If the guy was working for your friends then they fire and hire someone else, if not, then they need to start bringing someone, otherwise they might as well not play basically.....

You're almost always gonna get nowhere being someone in the crowd and giving suggestions to the sound guy.......except maybe tossed out....

[Fibes]

I don't mess with other peoples business. Still has a point or two or or or or.

There are times when i do live sound when i'm out (not working) and usually i'm asked by the headlining band that is scared to death of the mix the opener has (either because they know me or someone they've bitched to does). In my little pond that's my public service and bar tab. This has lead to many studio gigs, too many to mention. I would never, ever approach a house dude about this. I saw a Parliament and the dude had the 2buss comp pumping down 20db when certain vocalists sang. it was prolly a 400,000 dollar system and it soundied like the ducking on a local car dealership TV commercial. I didn't speak up but i did want to hit the dude with a brick. BTW The opening act had their own dude and it was spot on.

Rant over.

[spankenstein]

I've foudn it best to not mention it and let the band know. Maybe they'll start bringing their own sound guy. I've tried approaching some guys with pretty little innoccuous things and they get all upset so screw them... let them suck.

[drumsound]

I don't mix live.  The few times I did it I hated it and thought I did a shitty job.  I don't tell FOH guys how to mix.  I will suggest to the band, if I know or really like them, to hire somebody for that room if the mix was bad.  I tell them if they can they should have somebody with them all the time.  

I really hate when a band has a friend who "runs sound" who comes in and tries to tell me how to mix a record, so I don't them how to mix live.

[iluvatar]

I generally try to give the guy the benefit of the doubt. I haven't been doing this too long, but in my short tenure as a house sound guy (jazz club, ~250 capacity), I've worked with plenty of musicians who make it difficult to get a good mix.

People who:
*play their guitars inconsistently
*bob up and down in front of the mic
*deep throat the mic
*LPF the bass guitar at 150Hz
*insist on having their acoustic duo's monitor mixes at 5x10^12 dB
*insist on cranking their half/full stack in a 250 cap room
*insist on bashing their symbals in a 250 cap room
*don't have a pickup on their upright bass when they play w/ horns.
*don't want a mic OR a DI on their upright when they play behind a horn section (oh no, you'll be able to hear me fine )


On top of that, what little money is made by the owners is not reinvested into the sound system.

We have one DBX 166 comp/gate. I bring my RNC. That's it for dynamics processing.

We've got a Mackie 24-4. Channel 18 is spotty. Aux send 1 is gone, so I'm limited to using 2-4 for monitors. One of our two stereo monitor amps lost a channel. One of the 2 flown FOH speakers lost a tweeter - so we've got a couple free-loaner EAW LA's up on poles right now. Most of the boom stands have sketchy clutches - god forbid I have to mic the piece-of-crap out-of-tune no-name piano which, btw, is missing several of the bolts attaching the lid to the body. The Yamaha SPX 90 has a dead battery so I can't save any presets. The ART fx box is a piece of crap with an impossible interface that I have yet to figure out. The sound booth is nearly enclosed and shares a wall with the walk-in freezer. The freezer compressor is above the PA rack, giving me all the white noise, electrical interference, and 95 degree breeze I could ever hope for. On nights with a good crowd, I'm pretty much trapped in there, in front of this thing for a couple hours.

Sometimes bands show up after we've already started seating for dinner, so on top of having tp schlep gear in between tables and waiters, nobody gets a soundcheck.

Then I get stuck playing DJ, having to keep an eye on the friggin cd player. The last player sat directly underneath this compressor which, btw, leaks water. Surprisingly, the cd player doesn't work any more. I found a spare lying around in a closet, and after replacing the faulty audio cables connecting it to the board, hooked it up. The club has a lot of custom-made compilation discs that they like to use for background music. Problem is - 99% of them have spent most of their life either on the floor or in the pool of water beneath this compressor, so guess what - you're gonna want to sit down for this - they skip all over the place. And everybody knows it. And yet they continue to put them in. And they get mad at me for not catching the skipping within 15 seconds. So they're starting to get osme of my music. Don't like Satriani for your 60 yr old jazz crowd? Tough.

And yet we host some of the better shows in town.

In spite of all of this, I love my job and I think I do well at it. But when I see other shows, I don't know what this guy had to put up with before I got there. Yeah, he may suck, but he may just be trying to make the best of what he's given.

Besides, I have a tendency to be a cocky know-it-all jackass, so I gotta watch myself.

-Dan.

[Fibes]

Dan,

  Understood, but there are times when the FOH dude is clueless, having done this for years with an "i live for nightmares" attitude it is apparent when it's the dude, the system or the band.

Recently a band i mixed an album for was playing at the local club and i caught their show. the full sail grad behind the desk was freaking out because there was this weird thrumming enveloping the entire mix. He asked for my help and grabbed the guitar eq, high passed it cranked out a big chunk of low mids. He asked me if it was OK to use that much eq because his schooling taught him that too much eq causes phase issues. i replied by insisting that the entire PA resonating at 130db at around 100 HZ was a bit more problematic for the listeners. I have a feeling you might agree.

Rochester!
BTW I used to love gigging at the BugJar. i played the Bugfest years ago with the Bomboras and Servotron, it was mucho fun.
Is Universal Buzz Radio still going? Rochester is a very cool town.

[iluvatar]

Fibes wrote on Fri, 06 August 2004 09:46

Dan, I have a feeling you might agree.

Well, ok.

Quote:

Rochester! BTW I used to love gigging at the BugJar. i played the Bugfest years ago with the Bomboras and Servotron, it was mucho fun. Is Universal Buzz Radio still going? Rochester is a very cool town.

I've been meaning to check out the Bug Jar. I drive by there all the time (I work primarily at The Montage Grille and a bit at Milestones)

Buzz radio... Hmmm... Doesn't ring a bell, but then I mostly listen to talk radio. (Coast to Coast AM w/ George Noory is the perfect thing on the way home from a show. )

The two main indy/college stations are WRUR (U of R) and WBER (MCC).

-Dan.

[xonlocust]

oh that is a tough one.  a friends band was playing 600 or so capacity place in town and no lie, the person running FOH was clearly a begginer and it sounded sooo bad.  very much like connors story. it was so frustrating to see an amazingly good band play to a much bigger crowd than usual and have the sound sooo bad.  

the band was telling me soundcheck was a total nightmare.... monitors were in the realms of the nonexistant...  seriously, in this decent size room with a really good PA (i've seen trail of dead there, spoon, the breeders...) all this person had going through were vocals, mixed WAY too high for this rock band. it was like watching a practice session... no drums in the FOH... total, total mess.

the FOH person kept flipping through a notepad surely filled with notes from the normal house engineer - they were totally gunshy.  that was the closest i've come to just walking up and butting in... but, of course in the end, like everyone's conceeded... professional courtesy i guess.  it was clear that person was a rookie, and the only way to get better is with experience - it just sucks when you have to be part of someone elses learning experience.  

[ericswan]

Back when I still did live mixes on a regular basis on my rare nights off when I would go out to see a band the sound would invariably suck.

My wife would ask me, doesn't it drive you nuts to hear such bad sound? I would usually reply, no, it makes my mixes sound so much better in comparison.

Really, I will never intrude upon someone elses gig unless asked( usually by the band or the management). I figure they have to make there own mistakes or else they will never learn.

Only once can I remember pushing someone away from the console. It was at a show with Sebastian Bach from Skid Row. I was doing monitors and the band's "engineer", after subjecting me to a 3 hour sound check most of which consisted of listening to a snare drum at 110 db, called me on the clearcom during the second song of the show saying the pa wasn't working right. I got out front to find the gain structure completely screwed; the guy had no clue what so ever how to make the thing work. I told him to get lost until I fixed it so you could at least hear the vocals over the stage volume.

I later heard from the guitar tech that a couple of nights later some of the local guys at a club took him out back and beat the snot out of him for being such an arrogant idiot.

[iluvatar]

ericswan wrote on Sat, 07 August 2004 02:35

I later heard from the guitar tech that a couple of nights later some of the local guys at a club took him out back and beat the snot out of him for being such an arrogant idiot.

haha, sounds kinda like an incident that went down at the club where I work, but on a night I was off. The Average White Band brought their own guy and I guess he was a bit of a douchebag, cussing about the system and what not (yeah, it sucks, but ya gotta get over it at some point). He finally got so mad that he kick the soundbooth door off it's hinges.

Later that night, whe he and the band were on the bus, they beat him up and left him on the curb.

-Dan.

[trexrox]

For some reason, my town has a huge lack of live soundguys... Most of the places in town SUCK for live sound, though, one club in particular, The EARL has gotten better over the past couple of years (I guess the guy is finally figuring out what he's doing).  I saw John Vanderslice play there once and the guy they brought with them to mix, well, it's the best I've ever heard that room.

[Rob Darling]

I would never actually say anything to the sound guy, but I would find the band's manager, and say the following, "I don't know if it's me or where the sound guy is located- walk around and see, but I think maybe you should..." and then say some very specific things- "turn down the di acoustic the singer is playing, turn up the bass or compress it, either way, to fill in the bottom, low filter the electric guitar and bring it up..."

[Bivouac]

I've never done live sound with proper equipment, but I've done my share of basement parties, etc, working solely with (usually my) practice PA equipment.  

I know how to work all kinds of music equipment, and I know how to work an acceptable sound in shitty conditions    

I'm always tempted to walk up to a soundguy and ask what he's thinking but only once have I ever approached one.  It was at my college's battle of the bands and whomever was allowed to work the sound should never have been allowed near that equipment.  To be expected: a college dork, mackie, peavey, and in the basement of some building, but they were running subs and had plenty of power going to the mains...it should have been pretty good for its purpose.

They had the soundbooth off to the side of the bands like in a monitor mix position.  This guy gets a few things miked up and just sits back and talk to his friends.  The first two bands sound BAD--not that they probably weren't bad to start with, but all anyone could hear were cymbals, vocals, and the 4khz and up of an electric guitar.  He's just sitting there like he already perfected the mix...

This shit's blaring at 120db, he's got stereo (sm58..hehe) overheads and no kick drum mic, random feedback everywhere, and the sub crossover sounds like it's set at 15hz because nothing's coming from there.  This just sucks to watch--a complete misuse of equipment.

So, a band I enjoy was getting ready to come on and I felt that they deserved a little better treatment, so I walk up to the guy and ask him if he's listened to the mix out front yet and he's like, "no bro, that's what I have these for..." as he points to some $30 Sony "studio grade" headphones.  So, very politely, I tell him that the bands deserve more attention than what he was giving them and if he needed any help, I'd be more than glad to offer a hand.

He gets a little huffy but eventually concedes that he might actually need to see what the mix sounds like from the audience since the console is located BEHIND the mains.  I think he ended up just turning up the guitar  He never asked for any help...I left after that next band.

He wasn't a professional and did not deserve any sort of professional courtesy...