... then at show time the guitar player starts sterilizing the first 6 rows of the audience
One of their favorite techniques is to 'sandbag' during soundcheck, then turn back up at show time.This happens to me in over half of the pop/rock shows I do.
Rather than saying "the guitarist sandbagged me during the soundcheck and then cranked it up", perhaps a healthier approach would be "wow, something must have changed radically between soundcheck and show onstage to make him feel he had to do that-- I wonder what we can figure out next time to make the soundcheck experience less incongruous with the show experience", etc etc etc.
If a guitarist is too loud, the appropriate way to bring this up is "I'm getting the sense out front that stage right guitar might have difficulty hearing herself. Would you be opposed to changing the position of your amplifier so we can find a balance that works a little better out front?"
Yes, I'm sure our different perspectives lead to different opinions..."A 500 cap room that's full and we're talking about an extra 2500 sabins of absorption in a medium-sized hall-- this is appreciable, and a stage blend that might have worked fine in an empty hall suddenly no longer feels in-balance or appropriate."I haven't observed a guitarist who cound accurately mix the show while standing 3 feet from his Marshall stack and washed by 5 front-of-stage wedges full of keys, vocs, etc not to mention drum wedges and bass amp.
That;s why we have a FOH engineer in the house.
I'm not assuming you are doing anything, I'm speaking of observing guitar players doing soundcheck with their guitar volume pot at 50% of FS, then rolling it up at showtime.In my experience, it's not the FOH who complains...It's the other singers/musicians on stage who can't hear their wedges because they're 10 feet from that Marshall stack.And/or it's the broadcast engineer who says "less stage volume!"And/or it's the producer/promoter who's watching the first 6 rows flee the venue and comes to the FOH and says "turn down that guitar" (whereupon the FOH shows that the guitar is muted in the PA).
As both a touring musician and FOH engineer in a small venue, I have seen a lot of incompetence on both sides of the mic. Holding up the musicians as preeminent is just as off base as the opposite, as far as I'm concerned. IME, most musicians are quite clueless about what it sounds like out front or how to facilitate that. They take care of themselves and hope for the best. Some attempt to insulate themselves from any larger perspective by demanding themselves at obliterating levels in their monitor. On the other side, as an audience member, I have given up hope in even mediocre sound quality, let alone non-deafening SPLs, at most concerts. I almost never bother to see someone outside my own venue anymore. Luckily, I'm mostly too busy playing and running sound.
As a sound man, I am one of those guys who talks to the band ahead of time if I sense that there may be an issue to try to give them a sense of the somewhat unusual community and venue that I work in, that overwhelmingly prefers relatively quiet levels. Most people are happy to work together to an appropriate mutually agreeable end, and are very receptive to my observations and suggestions. I think it's usually pretty clear that I'm on their side, but occasionally that perspective is not shared. The result is that the venue has become a favorite for most of the performers who come through, as well as for the audience.
Personally, I like to strike a well considered balance, but my sense of where that is and someone else's may obviously differ. Some bands require a louder volume to achieve their sound and I honor that, but always within context. Sometimes we will provide ear plugs at the door for the more sensitive. In the end, I know my room and my audience and the artist doesn't. IMO, the artist and the sound engineer have equal responsibility to the audience. One does not trump the other. They simply play very different roles to a common end that may well involve mutual flexibility.
