Best sound as a player I’ve had was when we were in a rotation at the local casino. They had their own sound man. He was adamant about keeping volume low. It worked amazing the stage sound was so balanced As a sound guy the toughest thing to overcome is one player in the band thats to loud, typically the drummer or one of the guitar players. If your venue seats 150. Theirs a really good chance that the guitar player doesn’t have to crank his Deluxe to 10. 20 watts of Fender is bloody loud. The drummer doesn’t need the same kit as “the zep” had either. I would say learn to play to the room
There’s one guy around town, I forget his name but he wears a leather jacket, and he is phenomenal. When we roll up to a show and he’s there, we all smile.
I am an old time singer/songwriter in the Seattle Washington area. My guitar teacher was Howard Roberts and he always played super loud, through his favorite Fender Twin. It did not matter if it was a lesson or a show...he simply cranked up the Twin and you could feel it on stage. An amazing and complicated guitarist Howard Roberts was one of the best that ever played!
Great video guys! And greetings from England. FYI The Soft Boys were a seminal English band back in the 70's, the guitarist was Kimberly Rew, who went on to make a few quid after writing Walking on Sunshine for Katrina and the Waves!
We've organized our set list with the first song being a sound check song. It's got enough space so that we can tweak our on stage volume, which translates to the out of house volume. It also tends to be the song that sets the tone for what type of set we are going to play. Comes in handy in clubs with a backline and 5-10 minute change outs.
Whatsup guys Joe here, man I love the videos lol!! Y’all are right on again! Y’all mentioned having to play some times without hearing everything nice & clear and I totally agree with you it’s not the end of the world & personally I think it makes you better as a band in a number ways!
stellar advice, dudes. treat your sound pro's with respect! i make a point to thank the sound person AND the venue staff in between songs at some point in every set. especially important if it's a local show where you'll likely play again. here's my mid-set shout-out list: -- sound peoples -- venue staff -- other bands on the bill (they're the folks who will likely book your next show!) -- crowd, for coming! all you really have in life is your reputation. please, be fucking cool.
All of my bandmates are all sound techs. I like to think we are an easy act to deal with. If it’s a tiny bar with a sketchy PA we can make it work and don’t expect miracles from the sound person if there is one. On bigger festival stages we know what to ask for and go with the “good enough” approach for monitor mixes. The techs are doing their best is what I always assume. As a sound tech I offer this bit of advice. Never and I mean NEVER!!! Never ask the crowd how it’s sounds from the stage. It shows a total disrespect for the person that has been hired to do the job of listening to your band and making you sound good. Different story if you’re mixing yourself down at the local pub though 😉
Treat the sound guy like you treat the guy who’s making you food. Be polite, be kind be courteous and offer to buy him a drink. They’ll be more inclined to help you out, be proactive during your set and if you’re lucky, he’ll turn a blind eye to you squeezing that last track in 😏🤟🎸
I've played a lot of live gigs. If I'm in the crowd as a fan/spectator I'll sometimes buy the sound guys a drink if they're killer. A good sound guy is integral to a good show.
I came across a great sound guy who would call each member of the band a few days before he ran sound and would go through all the mics he might want to use for each person. I didn’t recognize any of the mics he mentioned but it made me feel good in a cork sniffer kinda way. Miss that guy
I worked as a FOH man at a venue in Dallas for about 5 years. Best job I ever had. I had lots of bands, including fairly high level ones, say I was one of the best sound guys they’ve had. I always thought of it as a performance. Since I was also a musician, I thought of myself as performing passive instruments to help serve the band. It was great. I loved that job.
Being a sound man is a thankless job. The band always appreciates the efforts of a successful show, but the sound guy is invisible to the audience. And he/she should be. So one of the nights I remember was a bar owner came up to me and said I had the band sounding good all night. Shocked someone noticed the mix. When I do sound for my friend's band, it is the normal rock affair--guitar, bass, drums, vocal. One time he had an opening band with mandolin, acoustic, keys. I was proud to get them sounding great a couple of songs into their set.
I like what you said about monitors. Our bands here in Tucson play mostly small clubs and often dont have them. I don't care for them myself and if there's one onstage, I'll point it away from me so I can hear the vocals out of the main speakers. Like you said, it is more fun and we can get a better overall balance.
I've recorded concerts for our local college choirs, and Spokane Choral Artists (a group of music educators that do this for the comradeship, and they elected the NIC choir instructor their director since he's so good at that, too). The space built in 1905 has great natural acoustics that the choir director/instructor and I shut off the ceiling fans, mute/disconnect monitors and PA, so I had two condenser mics on the stage front rail to concentrate only on the recording. It was all beautiful, and one of those was played on KPBX-Spokane as their Concert of the Week. So cool when you hear the sound rolling along the side walls!
When you were talking about band names and guessing what they would sound like it reminded me of one of my favorite bands. This band formed in the late 90s and I didn’t start listening to them until 2011 when I just happened to see them open for someone else at the Fox Theatre in Atlanta. I missed out on this band for over 10 years because I didn’t think I would like them because of their name. As it turned out I bought their newest album (which had just been released the week of that show) and their previous album before I left the theater that night, and I have been a hardcore fan ever since. Two years later I moved to Memphis (the city they are based in) and got to see them play frequently and regularly talked with the band members. That band is North Mississippi Allstars. Luther and Cody Dickinson are two of the most amazing individuals you could ever hope to meet. I hate that I never got the opportunity to me their dad Jim Dickinson, but their mom is there in the front row supporting them at every show they play having a great time like the rest of us.
Here's a professional sound guy's take on mixing. Firstly I would NEVER sabotage a show (no matter how much of a PITA the musicians are). Both the band and you are there for the audience. Period! Secondly, one of important features of being a good musician (yes I am a musician as well) is dynamic control (you know that funny pppp and ffff you find written on the sheet music). A truly great bunch of players are easy to mix because individually they get the right tone, at the right volume, everytime. OTOH many bands may need some help (this is point where "engineer" becomes "producer" and must be careful to understand what the band is trying to do and to not bruise too many egos (including the sound guy's :)). Often with a few tone adjustments for the venue and a good basic mix, a sound person's job is done. I've heard the term "Band Engineer or B.E." bandied about. I agree with this concept. A good engineer will know what the band wants (usually by working with them for a while) and knows the music intimately, Will boost solo's and other accented parts as needed as well as choosing proper vocal FX for each song type. I have worked beside engineers that were so busy that they forgot to make the band sound good. The best possible mixer will depend on your bands needs (Busy or not, and in what way). Watching more..... Yes it's important that the sound person cares about your show. Luckily I managed to avoid having people threaten me to "fix my son's sound" however I have had people come and pester me (oft times over something I have no control). If it's bad enough I offer for them to take my seat..... They never took me up on it. You did touch upon an interesting concept as who's paying the sound person. Most of the time I've been paid by a sound contractor or the venue. If they say it must sound a certain way, that's what I will try to do. NOBODY touches a mixer I'm responsible for unless invited (or of course if I'm working for them).. After many years of doing this job I decided I much prefer being a monitor engineer. You are mixing for people that (hopefully) know the difference AND know what can and cannot be done. It is technically a much harder job than FOH but IMHO more rewarding. When you get a compliment, you know it's from a professional and not some drunk dad in the audience. Watching even more..... SOUNDS MAN'S CREDO (or at least mine :). Acoustics of the room will ultimately predict success :). In a "bad" room, there is little you can do. Pattern control and mild eq"ing can help but it's still a bad sounding room. In a good room it's difficult to sound bad (unless the band just can't play well). Acoustic anomalies vary greatly and unfortunately fixing them can be expensive. This usually puts this job either off budget or the bottom of the list for most venues. Funny that a venue might spend $80k on a sound system but nothing on acoustic treatment (mostly because the A/V contractor only makes money on equipment sales :). Sound checks should be a must as long as the venue and schedules allow for them (no "I need my beauty nap excuses :). Tips are: don't "sandbag" with your volume. Show up on time ready to play just as if it was a show. There are a few "systems" that work well for sound check. Nobody wants to waste time so no rehearsing (unless this is scheduled as such). Everyone needs to be onstage when this happens (sound checking solo, later rarely works well :). FWIW I'm thinking of opening a small music shop and I find your videos excellent and informative. Thank you. Cheers
I ran sound at a theater/coffee house venue for a little over a year, 2005-06. The acoustic treatment was sweet (a converted movie theater). I really cared about how the music sounded, and I worked to serve the musicians, even helping with load-in, load-out and set-up when possible. We had only 2 aux sends on the board for monitor mix, but the original giant horn speakers were actually behind the stage projecting sound over the band. It was an awesome, live stage. I got job offers to run sound for several bands while I was there. I owe a lot of that to the sweet venue, but what I brought to the table was 3 basic things: I wasn’t lazy, I cared about the music, and I cared about the people (i.e., I was nice). Imagine how nice it is to be greeted at the venue by a happy, helpful, competent human being who wants to put on a great show with you. Make the music world a better place by putting others ahead of yourself; That’s my 2 cents.
So much I could say about this one. The front of house sound persons main job is to build confidence in the performers. Bands being comprised of temperamental artists that are about to put their hearts on the chopping block publicly can be a bit nervous no matter how they hide it. The stage mix or in ear mix is designed to build confidence and eliminate distraction so the artist can deliver a performance that connects to the audience emotionally. It works best if the sound check is handled systematically and professionally. Mic, Kick, snare, amps, ecstasy. Just act engaged and like you really care. This works with most aspects of life. Let the artist know how great they sound and how excited everyone is to hear the band. Let them know how great the gig will be. A good sound guys can improve the performance. I will stop there. So many train wrecks I could cover:)
I did a show a small joint, where we did a proper sound check, then the headliner came in and did theirs. We gear up to play, and we have no stage monitors! We simply sang loud enough to hear ourselves over the instruments. It was a great set.
being someone who has worked pretty much on all sides of the stage, in house and touring, when on tour if a house crew made my life better that day, they knew it before i left. I made sure of it, person to person. I have no prob buying a round on the way out for Local Crews
There was a venue in Tacoma, WA called The Swiss that my band played at a few times. It was a large, tall room with lots of hard surfaces, but their sound engineer was skilled enough to make everything sound excellent for player and audience alike. With sound people like that, all you have to do to sound good is follow their advice. That, and of course, play on time and in tune without mistakes... I was pretty bummed out when I learned that this was one of the many businesses that didn't survive the pandemic. I'm really gonna miss playing there.
When I gigged in AZ locally, my favorite place was the Hollywood Alley. I would always ask if I could buy the sound person a drink to get off on the right foot, because my bass rig was a pain in the but for them.
The best sound guy in Raleigh is Jac Cain. He works at The Pourhouse downtown, and worked at The Brewey (sadly gone) on Hillsborough St during its golden age. Dude is good and actually cares to make bands sound their best.
@ Don O'Neil... Hey shout out to Raleigh, I went to school at State, lived in Raleigh in the mid-late '70s and through a lot of the '80s. Really enjoyed living in that town but I understand it's different now. Our favorite rock clubs/venues were the Switch, Charlie Goodnight's, the Brewery, and the State Theatre downtown. Long time ago but great times and memories.
Back in tha day, I had a "sound man"/karoke dude sabotage our sound at a big local event, because we had blew up one of his PA's accidentally a few weeks before. It was terrible, the only time my parents went to a gig and I was using a triggered hybrid drumkit at the time. I learned a lot that Saturday night! The first was how not to kill someone.
We're a 4-piece cover band that plays small bars and pubs, and we bring our own PA and run it from the stage. (Three of the four of us were in touring bands decades ago. We're just doing local stuff for fun now.) Guitars are running through modelers direct to FOH and drums only run a kick mic. Bass is using a 4x10 combo amp, volume adjusted to the room. Everyone in the band plays with dynamics, raising or lowering their own volume as appropriate for solos and such. I'm a non-singing guitarist...the other guys all sing and play. My wedge monitor is a mirror of the FOH mix and I run FOH from a tablet...the other guys have their own separate monitor mixes and the drummer runs the monitor mixes. He's also a sound tech, which has been handy when ringing out the system in new venues. Once a venue is dialed in, we save that snapshot and use it every time we play that venue. We get compliments for not being too loud and having a clear and balanced mix. I've experienced the crappy sound man plenty of times, though.
There’s a pro sound guy in my boardgame group. I sit by him every time I see him working a show and watch as he is tweaking the live sound for each song. There’s a lot to hear that my ears aren’t trained for, but I’ve come to appreciate the art. I’m used to just hearing 80% drums, 20% my amp, and 100% indecipherable looks from the lead singer on stage.
Best sound techs are the ones who care. We always introduce ourselves (BE NICE) and just give them a heads up about any specific things about our set that they should know. Like for example we don't really have a "hot lead" player and a rhythm player. We swap back and forth - even during the same songs. So we just tell the sound guy, "Hey heads up we both play lead parts so it might save you some headache if you just set the guitar levels even and we use our boost pedals when we need to juice it." Most of them are like, oh cool thanks! Worst sound techs are frankly the incompetent ones. I've worked with some guys who really think they know what they're doing but they don't. Had one guy who would run up on stage with a handheld DB meter to measure how loud our amps were (we were set lower than the level of the drums). Had him come running up to me at the start of our THIRD set of the night yelling at me to turn down - I had not touched a single knob the entire evening so I was the same level I'd been at for the past two hours.
Got great sound on monitors, side fills and FOH at the Lincoln Theater in Raleigh. Sound choice can make a difference so it's best to know the room and vibe of the venue. If you travel and play many places that you don't know well before you get there, you need to be sure the band name reflects the genre. I was in a SRV trio and we were hired to play an after-party for a Civil War reenactment. (unknowingly) "ummm, we don't know ANY waltzes. How about Couldn't Stand the Weather?"
Best sound ever was playing with 2 P.A.s and 2 sound guys. 1 mixing stage sound perfect and as loud as you want, shows always turned out great and so much fun.......... ah glory days !!!!
...would love a video on all of the in-ear monitor/isolated track/band-in-a-box/excessive effects in a church setting overview. This has become something I believe turns worship into radio music, prompting too-many wanna-be rock stars into pretend worship leaders... not that I have an opinion on that or anything...🤷♂️😉😂
Went to see the Scorpions at Shoreline Amphitheater in about 2005 ish... I was in the front third of the reserved seating area, and when they started playing, I could barely hear anything! My first thought was, “OMG, I have been in the front of too many Heavy Metal shows, and have lost my hearing”... I was honestly scared! After about 3 minutes, the sound man woke from his nap, and got the sound out to the audience. Obviously, the Scorps were hearing it through the stage monitors, so didn’t know what was going on. I was really pleased to know that I could still hear! As for my band, we don’t suck, in spite of me. I am a life long guitarist, but due to a visa issue with the old bass player, I was forced into duty on the bass. As a bassist, I am probably extremely close to sucking. But, the guitar player is just so good that I just need play in the right key, and stay in time... He once told me, “just don’t stop playing, anything you EFF up, I can fix”...
I saw the scorpions three times in their heyday, Oakland twice and the US Festival, ‘82 and ‘83, indoors the sound was great but both outdoor shows the sound was so bad at one point I couldn’t tell which song they were playing, the good news for them is nobody remembers because Van Halen was the headliner and David Lee Roth was so drunk he couldn’t remember the lyrics
In 2014, some former bandmates and I decided to do a 32 year reunion. We started together in 1982 and for some reason this seemed like a good year to get together. We just wanted to do a show somewhere, and my ex-wife was able to get us into a place called the Red Line Pub in the Rogers Park neighborhood in Chicago. It was 4th of July weekend and they hadn't planned to have a band. We played for free, the place was packed, and they made bank. The soundwoman was Alex - she was awesome! Only woman sound person I ever worked with and she made us sound incredible. Fun gig.
Chris Cornell deep cut ?? Through the Window form Higher Truth or Wide Awake from Revelations or #1Zero from Out of Exile. Mayer has stage volume, so does Pearl Jam. You can hear the background hum on between songs on all the bootlegs
My default sound man is my long time best friend... been a house mouse for 30 years.... his system is pro, and his ears are golden... the money spent is worth everything.
My old new wavy power pop/punk band did a local music show on the cable access channel on my local cable up here in Maine. They showed "All Hit Videos" (late night music videos) and then had a show right after called "No Hit Videos" which was all live clips of local bands shot at local club showcase gigs for the show. I had just got a nice new front bass drumhead with the band logo on it for my drums. The soundman immediately wanted to know why I didn't have a hole in it and if he could cut one out very crudely. I told him I liked the way it looked without a hole (it had a nice big logo) and I thought it sounded fine and boomy without one. "It has to have a hole for the bass drum mic! How do I mic it without one?" he angrily asked. The drummer for one of the other metal bands on the bill shouted over "Really?!? Can't you mix it without the mic inside? Jeez!" The sandman said "okaaaaaaayy" and sighed. Later after my brother bought us the dvd of our filmed set, much to my chagrin as I watched my drums mics were silent during our whole set. Nothing went to the direct audio. Minus some bleed through the guitar amp mics and vocal mics you can barely hear them, and I was hitting good and hard with nice fat back beat. Why didn't he turn my mics on and mix the bass drum mic facing the head instead of inside the drum? WTF? haha.. yeah some sound guys suck.
some friends had a B side cover band . They all were really good and had lots of gigging experience . They kind of fizzled out after a few gigs . the perplexed looks on peoples faces said it all . they kind of recognized the music , but not really . People want familiarity and to be comfortable while bar rooming , in most cases in most clubs . An occasional B side sells beer , but not a steady diet of almost rans . .. .. .
sound guy horror story, my first bar gig, the sound guy had control over the individual outlets on stage, and messed with the synth by flipping it on and off during the show on top of messing with the sound, Synth & Guitar Duo doesn't exactly work with just the guitar... that Venue which was on Vh1, doesn't exist anymore, and is much more enjoyable as a taco shop...
I know that feeling when the sound man does not care. Had to ask for lights one time and he responded with white flood and spotlights and left that on for the entire set. And my monitor was dead and I had to go to the board to turn it up myself.
‘Beatles didn’t have monitors’ !!! They didn’t have a front of house system either - some of those early big tours the vocals were through the ‘tannoy’ (announcers system) and the rest of the music was whatever was on the stage! With 15,000 teenagers like 5000 of them hysterically screaming! I am amazed they sung in tune (which they did ever so amazingly with no fold back at all for the most part). And trucked in and then back out in the back of a windowless cop van holy shit no wonder they stopped touring- it hadn’t been invented (at that scale) yet!
Underrated by who? Oh wait, today’s generation, yeah, the shredder generation(not that Roy couldn’t do that). When I was playing metal in the 80s I brought my girlfriend to a Roy Clark show, she thought I was nuts until she saw him play, her jaw dropped
So so true! Had a gig & before we played the drummer got drunk & picked a fight w/the club owner. Guess who was running the board?You guessed right, him. Needless to say, he sabotaged us & it cascaded into a disaster for us.
Pumpkin Patch Party! That woman at Sine' was awesome. Never that fun a stage or room to play but it always sounded way better there than Mercury or any of the other small rooms. Except CBs of course you'll never get me to say there was a better sounding stage in NY than CBs. Sidefills!
I organised a charity event in a rock bar which was known to typically have good music (in the upstairs section). Even though we didn't ask for the room for free (I paid for it out of my own pocket) we were given the basement room. I prearranged a time with the sound guy weeks in advance and triple checked and confirmed we were good to go. I arrived 30 minutes earlier than the agreed upon time with a van full of gear (we were providing the back line for the night also but not the PA as they had a good one in house) only to find the place locked up. I went upstairs and I was informed the sound guy wouldn't be there to open up for atleast 2 more hours. 3 hours pass and he arrives and opens the door for us. We unload the van and on to the stage only to discover that the PA is not set up AT ALL. It was taken down for a private function and was still to be set back up again. The sound guy then sits his ass on a couch, takes out a sandwich and goes on to explain how its not his job to set it up, if we want to use it, we have to set it up ourselves. He then leaves after finishing his sandwich and doesnt return for another 2 hours, literally 5 minutes before first sound check was to begin. He spent all of around 2 minutes sound checking the first band and refused to sound check anyone else until they got on stage to play so the poor audience had to suffer through his shouting back and forth and other BS and set ups between bands. It was an experience to say the least.
Soundman relationships can cover a big swing. I've gone on to be great friends with people I have met running sound for my band.....and also had sets which devolved into shouting matches between me and the soundman during the show.......(yeah....I was pro like that. lol - but I still think he earned it. ;-) ) It was definitely one of those "not at the board" situations after I was hassled for having backing tracks. Look buddy - if you have that big of an opinion about how to play a show.....go book your own gig.
Hello, younger fan from Canada, I have a band but we have not played live yet. I am just curious, are you supposed to like tip your sound guy? Like is it weird if after a show, assuming they did a good job, give them like 50$ or something?
Not sure about Canada but here in the states I’ve never heard of tipping the sound man, like the guys said just be nice to them, offer to buy them a drink! Just being nice we’ll go along way! I’m not saying don’t tip if you feel like they earned it go ahead, but don’t feel like you have to. If you’re playing somewhere that has a sound man/woman they’re getting paid by the venue/bar to be there. Good luck with your band though! Listen to these guys, I know them personally, you’ll learn a lot they’ve played gigs for years! -Joe Frye of L.D.D.H.
8:37, is the in house sound man/woman getting paid? It’s a good thing to find out, I have been to many a gig in a small bar/venue and found out the person running the live sound wasn’t getting paid or only getting paid for the actual show not the set up, or just getting a burger and a beer. Some were cool with this but if there not getting much of anything you might want to buy them meal or give them a little something for there help.
That "no stage volume" thing really hurts. Too many times a soundguy has watched me struggling to load in my cab before lsaying he'd rather go DI for the night
On a national level I've heard some bands sound people f@(k it up so bad that it was 5 or 6 songs in before my musician friends and I could figure out wtf songs they were playing. Dokken was legendary, or notorious, depending on how you look at it. During a Monster of Rock tour (way back when those were new), there were way too many bands sabotaging each other, either as a "joke" (usually alcohol-fueled) or jealousy, or the joke got outta hand and turned into malice. Locally there's a guy that knew his $hit inside and out, and great guy, but he'd always turn up the volume WAY too loud. My band friends would have to have someone stand by the board (sometimes it was me) to get him to drop the levels down, or subtly back it off when he wasn't looking. Louder does not equal better!
I'm curious as to why these your band sucks videos on my TH-cam feed as I'm not currently in a band but I do remember over a decade ago when I let this guitar player a try out with rehearsal and one of the songs we wanted to do was white room from cream but he instead was playing the riff from smells like teen spirit 😂
For years, our sound man/bass player would inadvertently sabotage our gigs by running each open mic to the point of feedback before backing it down. Every gig I would ask him not to do it because he was driving away half of the few audience we had. I was never sure of his motivation. Now I do a solo.
Im always nice to our sound guys in my bands area (Western Canada), because 99% of the time they do multiple gigs for multiple venues, that plus most of them are actually friends of the band (and good sound guys to boot) That being said, we were playing in Kelowna, British Columbia one night and our sound guy was this grumpy old 65 year old looking dude for a Hard Rock/Heavy Metal Show, first thing he does when coming up to the stage is kick my singers glass of water all over his setlist and cables on the floor, doesn't say anything about it and just walks away, then just about at the end of our set (second to last song) he comes up and starts bitching that we've been playing too long and that we signed a contract saying we would only play till 1 am (we didn't, it was around 1:06 at this time and the bar closed at 2... It takes all of us no more than 20 mins to year down our gear... That being said he was a good sound guy and did make us sound good
The singer in my old band did an acoustic song solo once at a our last gig. He stopped a song in the middle to tell soundman to adjust the levels. So cringe. Yeah, that was our last gig.
We just stand on stage during soundcheck and take directions from the sound person. Lol and then maybe ask for more guitar in the drum monitor and less vocals in the vocal monitor. Lol
1-When I had an in-ear gig, I would inevitable take one or both out of them out of my ears halfway through the sent. 2-Recently I turned down a gig because the soundguy was a “plug your pedalboard or line out directly into my board and I control everything through the monitors” control freak. 3-Trust the sound guy. Don’t automatically say “I can’t here myself” until the band is dialed in. 4-Most importantly!! If the sound guy is doing a good job, go up to him a set break and say “nice job, dude!”
The drummer is the key, the linchpin. I realized this went to see a band I knew nothing about. After a few numbers I'm thinking "OK, guitarist very good, vocalist good, bass player solid, keys good, backing vox ok, but it sounds like they're all playing a different song." Guess who I didn't list there...?
I ran sound for my dads cover band out at the local county fair. the sound company the fair hired provided a sound guy and I stood back as I didnt know their board or gear. The band had 3 vocalists one of which is the drummer with a headset mic who sings backing and lead vocals. The Drummer needed a lot of attention with that headset mic when it came to levels as he was a grunter and the mic is hot all the time for backing vox. the sound guy walked off a minute into the first song of a 3 set performance. I jumped in to adjust levels as shit was going south immediately feedback levels out of whack etc. the sound guy came back and I apologized to him for running his board. he said "dont fuckin worry about it. I just did 5 days of the country thunder festival and my ears are fucking shot. you know the music, you know the band, and you know the cues. makes my job easy if you got this... Im gonna go grab a beer and take nap... see you at 4pm. later!" would have been a disaster otherwise.
Sound and lighting crews make the show as much as the cats on stage! Plan on hiring a professional if you want to sound professional yourself, that money is never wasted.
The Beatles no monitors...pretty sure all of them had everything they asked for, including monitors after the breakup. The only reason they didn't have them is because they were pioneers in a time when the electric guitar was still fresh and new. It wasn't long before they started their career path that the only monitor in a music performance was the shape of the venue, like amphitheaters.
Interesting cool video. I didn't even know that any of that stuff exists. My "soundman" is my wife saying "Do you think you could turn that down a little bit" Yes ma'am. Once again, Sorry.
Speaking of sound people. Owsley and Dan Healy were the two best that ever lived. I would go see other bands in the 80s and no one ever sounded as good as the Dead. It wasn’t even close.
I was on a mini tour and we did a gig in Baton Rouge. When we got there, the guy who booked us said, "The owner of the club likes to run the sound .... but he's a bit hard-of-hearing." The sound check was 2 hours long.
Dare we make the analogy between the guy on the out front desk and the director of a movie? The idiots on stage generally do not have a clue. I worked for a named band for decades (before in-ear monitoring), after several decades still shouted to the front desk asking for more in the monitors... Not the guy doing the job stage left/right. I quit when they believed they had achieved god like status. (And they banned stage volume).
I was in a hard rock band back in the day and I had a sound guy fall asleep during our set. The crowd was going crazy. At the end he wanted his money. Nope.
The thought of Jonathan and Baxter on stage as the Soft Boys, wearing flip flops, yellow belts, playing deep cut Chris Cornell made me laugh so hard I almost fell out of bed. My wife checked on me and I had her watch part of this. She said “I don’t get it”. I explained it to her, and she still doesn’t get it. It’s gonna be a great day. A band I was in used to play a certain bar and the sound guy was always phenomenally stoned. On more than one occasion he told me to continue to turn my Marshall DSL 40C down, past 1 on volume and then would say “oh man, wrong amp, and then ask the other guitarist playing a 150watt Mesa Triple Rec half stack he was the one that needed to turn down. I would have thought just the visual from the crowd would have told him who the loud one was. Oh and did I mention how phenomenally stoned he was?
I was in a band with some sound guys once upon a time and when it was good it was good and when it wasn’t? It sucked. We were like that. The best foh operator in the world wouldn’t have saved us😆 I’ve also been at the mercy of foh guys who’ve been around waaay to long. They’ve lost all the top end and most of the low end, in fact, nearly all their hearing and over compensate in every frequency band. Too much kick, and highs that could shatter glass. As a muso you have to learn to roll with it. Some nights it’s there some nights it’s not. I remember years ago people around my hometown raving about this hot new blues rock act I should check out. Eventually I did and it was one of those nights. They weren’t playing well, the sound wasn’t good and I left early distinctly unimpressed. Some time later my band opened for them. The sound was great, we played well, but they came out and blew the roof off. I’ve also worked with a lead singer who couldn’t wait to blame everyone else; me, the bass player, Lee Harvey Oswald, anyone at all, for his own shortcomings. It’s a team effort.
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Best sound as a player I’ve had was when we were in a rotation at the local casino. They had their own sound man. He was adamant about keeping volume low. It worked amazing the stage sound was so balanced
As a sound guy the toughest thing to overcome is one player in the band thats to loud, typically the drummer or one of the guitar players. If your venue seats 150. Theirs a really good chance that the guitar player doesn’t have to crank his Deluxe to 10. 20 watts of Fender is bloody loud. The drummer doesn’t need the same kit as “the zep” had either. I would say learn to play to the room
Showing love to the sound guys, nice! Being nice to people you encounter really goes a long way to making your (and their) life better. :-)
There’s one guy around town, I forget his name but he wears a leather jacket, and he is phenomenal. When we roll up to a show and he’s there, we all smile.
We got a guy like that, but he wears a denim jacket :-)
@@lance134679 ours wore a leather jacket or a huntsman style raincoat or an anorak (!) sometime for late night outdoors but basically yeah
The Soft boys were one of the great undiscovered bands from the UK in the 70's.
'I wanna destroy you' is killer!
Robyn Hitchcock’s old band with Kimberly Rew (later of Katrina And The Waves).
I am an old time singer/songwriter in the Seattle Washington area. My guitar teacher was Howard Roberts and he always played super loud, through his favorite Fender Twin. It did not matter if it was a lesson or a show...he simply cranked up the Twin and you could feel it on stage. An amazing and complicated guitarist Howard Roberts was one of the best that ever played!
Guys, I just wanna let you know that I love your videos. It's a perfect podcast to listen to while working, you're doing a great job!
Great video guys! And greetings from England. FYI The Soft Boys were a seminal English band back in the 70's, the guitarist was Kimberly Rew, who went on to make a few quid after writing Walking on Sunshine for Katrina and the Waves!
How many sound men does it take to change a light bulb?
“One, two, three, check, one, two, three...”
The Soft Boys was Robyn Hitchcock's band, actually.
You beat me to it. They were good.
@@guitarlusteuphoria4507 The Balloon Man concurs
We've organized our set list with the first song being a sound check song. It's got enough space so that we can tweak our on stage volume, which translates to the out of house volume. It also tends to be the song that sets the tone for what type of set we are going to play. Comes in handy in clubs with a backline and 5-10 minute change outs.
Whatsup guys Joe here, man I love the videos lol!! Y’all are right on again!
Y’all mentioned having to play some times without hearing everything nice & clear and I totally agree with you it’s not the end of the world & personally I think it makes you better as a band in a number ways!
stellar advice, dudes. treat your sound pro's with respect! i make a point to thank the sound person AND the venue staff in between songs at some point in every set. especially important if it's a local show where you'll likely play again.
here's my mid-set shout-out list:
-- sound peoples
-- venue staff
-- other bands on the bill (they're the folks who will likely book your next show!)
-- crowd, for coming!
all you really have in life is your reputation. please, be fucking cool.
All of my bandmates are all sound techs. I like to think we are an easy act to deal with. If it’s a tiny bar with a sketchy PA we can make it work and don’t expect miracles from the sound person if there is one. On bigger festival stages we know what to ask for and go with the “good enough” approach for monitor mixes. The techs are doing their best is what I always assume.
As a sound tech I offer this bit of advice.
Never and I mean NEVER!!! Never ask the crowd how it’s sounds from the stage. It shows a total disrespect for the person that has been hired to do the job of listening to your band and making you sound good. Different story if you’re mixing yourself down at the local pub though 😉
Treat the sound guy like you treat the guy who’s making you food. Be polite, be kind be courteous and offer to buy him a drink. They’ll be more inclined to help you out, be proactive during your set and if you’re lucky, he’ll turn a blind eye to you squeezing that last track in 😏🤟🎸
I've played a lot of live gigs. If I'm in the crowd as a fan/spectator I'll sometimes buy the sound guys a drink if they're killer. A good sound guy is integral to a good show.
Needless to say I'll buy them a drink or dinner when I'm playing, too.
I came across a great sound guy who would call each member of the band a few days before he ran sound and would go through all the mics he might want to use for each person. I didn’t recognize any of the mics he mentioned but it made me feel good in a cork sniffer kinda way. Miss that guy
I worked as a FOH man at a venue in Dallas for about 5 years. Best job I ever had. I had lots of bands, including fairly high level ones, say I was one of the best sound guys they’ve had. I always thought of it as a performance. Since I was also a musician, I thought of myself as performing passive instruments to help serve the band. It was great. I loved that job.
Being a sound man is a thankless job. The band always appreciates the efforts of a successful show, but the sound guy is invisible to the audience. And he/she should be. So one of the nights I remember was a bar owner came up to me and said I had the band sounding good all night. Shocked someone noticed the mix.
When I do sound for my friend's band, it is the normal rock affair--guitar, bass, drums, vocal. One time he had an opening band with mandolin, acoustic, keys. I was proud to get them sounding great a couple of songs into their set.
I like what you said about monitors. Our bands here in Tucson play mostly small clubs and often dont have them. I don't care for them myself and if there's one onstage, I'll point it away from me so I can hear the vocals out of the main speakers. Like you said, it is more fun and we can get a better overall balance.
I've recorded concerts for our local college choirs, and Spokane Choral Artists (a group of music educators that do this for the comradeship, and they elected the NIC choir instructor their director since he's so good at that, too). The space built in 1905 has great natural acoustics that the choir director/instructor and I shut off the ceiling fans, mute/disconnect monitors and PA, so I had two condenser mics on the stage front rail to concentrate only on the recording. It was all beautiful, and one of those was played on KPBX-Spokane as their Concert of the Week. So cool when you hear the sound rolling along the side walls!
When you were talking about band names and guessing what they would sound like it reminded me of one of my favorite bands. This band formed in the late 90s and I didn’t start listening to them until 2011 when I just happened to see them open for someone else at the Fox Theatre in Atlanta. I missed out on this band for over 10 years because I didn’t think I would like them because of their name.
As it turned out I bought their newest album (which had just been released the week of that show) and their previous album before I left the theater that night, and I have been a hardcore fan ever since. Two years later I moved to Memphis (the city they are based in) and got to see them play frequently and regularly talked with the band members. That band is North Mississippi Allstars. Luther and Cody Dickinson are two of the most amazing individuals you could ever hope to meet. I hate that I never got the opportunity to me their dad Jim Dickinson, but their mom is there in the front row supporting them at every show they play having a great time like the rest of us.
Great video guys!!
My band plays some deep cuts: Bring on the Night, Colorful, Fall with your Knife, as well as the hits like Message in a Bottle.
Here's a professional sound guy's take on mixing. Firstly I would NEVER sabotage a show (no matter how much of a PITA the musicians are). Both the band and you are there for the audience. Period! Secondly, one of important features of being a good musician (yes I am a musician as well) is dynamic control (you know that funny pppp and ffff you find written on the sheet music). A truly great bunch of players are easy to mix because individually they get the right tone, at the right volume, everytime. OTOH many bands may need some help (this is point where "engineer" becomes "producer" and must be careful to understand what the band is trying to do and to not bruise too many egos (including the sound guy's :)). Often with a few tone adjustments for the venue and a good basic mix, a sound person's job is done.
I've heard the term "Band Engineer or B.E." bandied about. I agree with this concept. A good engineer will know what the band wants (usually by working with them for a while) and knows the music intimately, Will boost solo's and other accented parts as needed as well as choosing proper vocal FX for each song type. I have worked beside engineers that were so busy that they forgot to make the band sound good. The best possible mixer will depend on your bands needs (Busy or not, and in what way).
Watching more..... Yes it's important that the sound person cares about your show. Luckily I managed to avoid having people threaten me to "fix my son's sound" however I have had people come and pester me (oft times over something I have no control). If it's bad enough I offer for them to take my seat..... They never took me up on it.
You did touch upon an interesting concept as who's paying the sound person. Most of the time I've been paid by a sound contractor or the venue. If they say it must sound a certain way, that's what I will try to do. NOBODY touches a mixer I'm responsible for unless invited (or of course if I'm working for them).. After many years of doing this job I decided I much prefer being a monitor engineer. You are mixing for people that (hopefully) know the difference AND know what can and cannot be done. It is technically a much harder job than FOH but IMHO more rewarding. When you get a compliment, you know it's from a professional and not some drunk dad in the audience.
Watching even more..... SOUNDS MAN'S CREDO (or at least mine :). Acoustics of the room will ultimately predict success :). In a "bad" room, there is little you can do. Pattern control and mild eq"ing can help but it's still a bad sounding room. In a good room it's difficult to sound bad (unless the band just can't play well).
Acoustic anomalies vary greatly and unfortunately fixing them can be expensive. This usually puts this job either off budget or the bottom of the list for most venues. Funny that a venue might spend $80k on a sound system but nothing on acoustic treatment (mostly because the A/V contractor only makes money on equipment sales :).
Sound checks should be a must as long as the venue and schedules allow for them (no "I need my beauty nap excuses :). Tips are: don't "sandbag" with your volume. Show up on time ready to play just as if it was a show. There are a few "systems" that work well for sound check. Nobody wants to waste time so no rehearsing (unless this is scheduled as such). Everyone needs to be onstage when this happens (sound checking solo, later rarely works well :).
FWIW I'm thinking of opening a small music shop and I find your videos excellent and informative. Thank you. Cheers
I ran sound at a theater/coffee house venue for a little over a year, 2005-06. The acoustic treatment was sweet (a converted movie theater).
I really cared about how the music sounded, and I worked to serve the musicians, even helping with load-in, load-out and set-up when possible.
We had only 2 aux sends on the board for monitor mix, but the original giant horn speakers were actually behind the stage projecting sound over the band. It was an awesome, live stage.
I got job offers to run sound for several bands while I was there.
I owe a lot of that to the sweet venue, but what I brought to the table was 3 basic things: I wasn’t lazy, I cared about the music, and I cared about the people (i.e., I was nice).
Imagine how nice it is to be greeted at the venue by a happy, helpful, competent human being who wants to put on a great show with you.
Make the music world a better place by putting others ahead of yourself; That’s my 2 cents.
So much I could say about this one. The front of house sound persons main job is to build confidence in the performers. Bands being comprised of temperamental artists that are about to put their hearts on the chopping block publicly can be a bit nervous no matter how they hide it. The stage mix or in ear mix is designed to build confidence and eliminate distraction so the artist can deliver a performance that connects to the audience emotionally. It works best if the sound check is handled systematically and professionally. Mic, Kick, snare, amps, ecstasy. Just act engaged and like you really care. This works with most aspects of life.
Let the artist know how great they sound and how excited everyone is to hear the band. Let them know how great the gig will be. A good sound guys can improve the performance. I will stop there. So many train wrecks I could cover:)
I did a show a small joint, where we did a proper sound check, then the headliner came in and did theirs. We gear up to play, and we have no stage monitors! We simply sang loud enough to hear ourselves over the instruments. It was a great set.
being someone who has worked pretty much on all sides of the stage, in house and touring, when on tour if a house crew made my life better that day, they knew it before i left. I made sure of it, person to person. I have no prob buying a round on the way out for Local Crews
Always a good idea to have a cold beer for the sound guy and any crew after the gig.. People totally forget about support crew and they shouldn't.
You are very kind to the struggles of bad sound guys.
I’m embarrassed how I treated sound men when I was in my late teens early 20s playing shows.
There was a venue in Tacoma, WA called The Swiss that my band played at a few times. It was a large, tall room with lots of hard surfaces, but their sound engineer was skilled enough to make everything sound excellent for player and audience alike. With sound people like that, all you have to do to sound good is follow their advice. That, and of course, play on time and in tune without mistakes...
I was pretty bummed out when I learned that this was one of the many businesses that didn't survive the pandemic. I'm really gonna miss playing there.
I know that room as well... was great sound....
When I gigged in AZ locally, my favorite place was the Hollywood Alley. I would always ask if I could buy the sound person a drink to get off on the right foot, because my bass rig was a pain in the but for them.
The best sound guy in Raleigh is Jac Cain. He works at The Pourhouse downtown, and worked at The Brewey (sadly gone) on Hillsborough St during its golden age. Dude is good and actually cares to make bands sound their best.
@ Don O'Neil... Hey shout out to Raleigh, I went to school at State, lived in Raleigh in the mid-late '70s and through a lot of the '80s. Really enjoyed living in that town but I understand it's different now. Our favorite rock clubs/venues were the Switch, Charlie Goodnight's, the Brewery, and the State Theatre downtown. Long time ago but great times and memories.
Back in tha day, I had a "sound man"/karoke dude sabotage our sound at a big local event, because we had blew up one of his PA's accidentally a few weeks before. It was terrible, the only time my parents went to a gig and I was using a triggered hybrid drumkit at the time. I learned a lot that Saturday night! The first was how not to kill someone.
when you realize all those guitars on Hee Haw are now vintage
From personal experience, I blame the drummer.
Always. Without question.
🤠
FYI: the soft boys were already a band back in the early 80s.
agreed
Typically i feel its the guitar player always trying to make people deaf
We're a 4-piece cover band that plays small bars and pubs, and we bring our own PA and run it from the stage. (Three of the four of us were in touring bands decades ago. We're just doing local stuff for fun now.) Guitars are running through modelers direct to FOH and drums only run a kick mic. Bass is using a 4x10 combo amp, volume adjusted to the room. Everyone in the band plays with dynamics, raising or lowering their own volume as appropriate for solos and such. I'm a non-singing guitarist...the other guys all sing and play. My wedge monitor is a mirror of the FOH mix and I run FOH from a tablet...the other guys have their own separate monitor mixes and the drummer runs the monitor mixes. He's also a sound tech, which has been handy when ringing out the system in new venues. Once a venue is dialed in, we save that snapshot and use it every time we play that venue. We get compliments for not being too loud and having a clear and balanced mix. I've experienced the crappy sound man plenty of times, though.
Be a good human, get along and chances are things will go well - be that with sound people, roadies, security
As one who has done some sound work, it basically takes a person with ears and who cares.
There’s a pro sound guy in my boardgame group. I sit by him every time I see him working a show and watch as he is tweaking the live sound for each song. There’s a lot to hear that my ears aren’t trained for, but I’ve come to appreciate the art. I’m used to just hearing 80% drums, 20% my amp, and 100% indecipherable looks from the lead singer on stage.
Best sound techs are the ones who care. We always introduce ourselves (BE NICE) and just give them a heads up about any specific things about our set that they should know. Like for example we don't really have a "hot lead" player and a rhythm player. We swap back and forth - even during the same songs. So we just tell the sound guy, "Hey heads up we both play lead parts so it might save you some headache if you just set the guitar levels even and we use our boost pedals when we need to juice it." Most of them are like, oh cool thanks!
Worst sound techs are frankly the incompetent ones. I've worked with some guys who really think they know what they're doing but they don't. Had one guy who would run up on stage with a handheld DB meter to measure how loud our amps were (we were set lower than the level of the drums). Had him come running up to me at the start of our THIRD set of the night yelling at me to turn down - I had not touched a single knob the entire evening so I was the same level I'd been at for the past two hours.
If there was an unknown band playing sad songs I’ve never heard, I would be so stoked to go listen to that; because sad songs make me happy.
Got great sound on monitors, side fills and FOH at the Lincoln Theater in Raleigh. Sound choice can make a difference so it's best to know the room and vibe of the venue. If you travel and play many places that you don't know well before you get there, you need to be sure the band name reflects the genre. I was in a SRV trio and we were hired to play an after-party for a Civil War reenactment. (unknowingly) "ummm, we don't know ANY waltzes. How about Couldn't Stand the Weather?"
The best sound my old band ever had was at the New Daisy in Memphis. It was a fun gig.
Best sound ever was playing with 2 P.A.s and 2 sound guys. 1 mixing stage sound perfect and as loud as you want, shows always turned out great and so much fun.......... ah glory days !!!!
always surprised at how small a room Sine was, I liked the sound at CBs lol
...would love a video on all of the in-ear monitor/isolated track/band-in-a-box/excessive effects in a church setting overview. This has become something I believe turns worship into radio music, prompting too-many wanna-be rock stars into pretend worship leaders... not that I have an opinion on that or anything...🤷♂️😉😂
Went to see the Scorpions at Shoreline Amphitheater in about 2005 ish... I was in the front third of the reserved seating area, and when they started playing, I could barely hear anything! My first thought was, “OMG, I have been in the front of too many Heavy Metal shows, and have lost my hearing”... I was honestly scared! After about 3 minutes, the sound man woke from his nap, and got the sound out to the audience. Obviously, the Scorps were hearing it through the stage monitors, so didn’t know what was going on. I was really pleased to know that I could still hear!
As for my band, we don’t suck, in spite of me. I am a life long guitarist, but due to a visa issue with the old bass player, I was forced into duty on the bass. As a bassist, I am probably extremely close to sucking. But, the guitar player is just so good that I just need play in the right key, and stay in time... He once told me, “just don’t stop playing, anything you EFF up, I can fix”...
I saw the scorpions three times in their heyday, Oakland twice and the US Festival, ‘82 and ‘83, indoors the sound was great but both outdoor shows the sound was so bad at one point I couldn’t tell which song they were playing, the good news for them is nobody remembers because Van Halen was the headliner and David Lee Roth was so drunk he couldn’t remember the lyrics
@@vegashdrider Yes, I also saw them indoors at the Shark Tank, and the sound was great? Guess they should’ve played outdoors!
In 2014, some former bandmates and I decided to do a 32 year reunion. We started together in 1982 and for some reason this seemed like a good year to get together. We just wanted to do a show somewhere, and my ex-wife was able to get us into a place called the Red Line Pub in the Rogers Park neighborhood in Chicago. It was 4th of July weekend and they hadn't planned to have a band. We played for free, the place was packed, and they made bank. The soundwoman was Alex - she was awesome! Only woman sound person I ever worked with and she made us sound incredible. Fun gig.
Chris Cornell deep cut ?? Through the Window form Higher Truth or Wide Awake from Revelations or #1Zero from Out of Exile. Mayer has stage volume, so does Pearl Jam. You can hear the background hum on between songs on all the bootlegs
We are three guys. We set up back line, front line, lights, and we do our sound, our load in, add more load out.
I always mention to the people I work with that the Tech crew is FILO, First In Last Out, always. If we're doing things right, we won't be noticed.
I agree with beard, I do want to hear songs that are not always on the menu, the same hits get tiring.
My default sound man is my long time best friend... been a house mouse for 30 years.... his system is pro, and his ears are golden... the money spent is worth everything.
Sound guy here, (and guitar player) AMA!
My old new wavy power pop/punk band did a local music show on the cable access channel on my local cable up here in Maine. They showed "All Hit Videos" (late night music videos) and then had a show right after called "No Hit Videos" which was all live clips of local bands shot at local club showcase gigs for the show. I had just got a nice new front bass drumhead with the band logo on it for my drums. The soundman immediately wanted to know why I didn't have a hole in it and if he could cut one out very crudely. I told him I liked the way it looked without a hole (it had a nice big logo) and I thought it sounded fine and boomy without one. "It has to have a hole for the bass drum mic! How do I mic it without one?" he angrily asked. The drummer for one of the other metal bands on the bill shouted over "Really?!? Can't you mix it without the mic inside? Jeez!" The sandman said "okaaaaaaayy" and sighed. Later after my brother bought us the dvd of our filmed set, much to my chagrin as I watched my drums mics were silent during our whole set. Nothing went to the direct audio. Minus some bleed through the guitar amp mics and vocal mics you can barely hear them, and I was hitting good and hard with nice fat back beat. Why didn't he turn my mics on and mix the bass drum mic facing the head instead of inside the drum? WTF? haha.. yeah some sound guys suck.
some friends had a B side cover band . They all were really good and had lots of gigging experience . They kind of fizzled out after a few gigs . the perplexed looks on peoples faces said it all .
they kind of recognized the music , but not really . People want familiarity and to be comfortable while bar rooming , in most cases in most clubs . An occasional B side sells beer , but not a steady diet of almost rans . .. .. .
Any recommendations for a small tube amp ? Mostly hard rock and metal oriented?
You guys are doing great 😊 17:55
sound guy horror story, my first bar gig, the sound guy had control over the individual outlets on stage, and messed with the synth by flipping it on and off during the show on top of messing with the sound, Synth & Guitar Duo doesn't exactly work with just the guitar... that Venue which was on Vh1, doesn't exist anymore, and is much more enjoyable as a taco shop...
Could you do a video on how to become a guitar tech
I know that feeling when the sound man does not care. Had to ask for lights one time and he responded with white flood and spotlights and left that on for the entire set.
And my monitor was dead and I had to go to the board to turn it up myself.
‘Beatles didn’t have monitors’ !!! They didn’t have a front of house system either - some of those early big tours the vocals were through the ‘tannoy’ (announcers system) and the rest of the music was whatever was on the stage! With 15,000 teenagers like 5000 of them hysterically screaming! I am amazed they sung in tune (which they did ever so amazingly with no fold back at all for the most part).
And trucked in and then back out in the back of a windowless cop van holy shit no wonder they stopped touring- it hadn’t been invented (at that scale) yet!
My extra piece of gear is an amp stand for a combo amp. Sounds better and I can tweak if needed.
He Haw, Roy Clark is an underrated guitarist.
Buck no slouch either. No Buck no Dwight !
Underrated by who? Oh wait, today’s generation, yeah, the shredder generation(not that Roy couldn’t do that). When I was playing metal in the 80s I brought my girlfriend to a Roy Clark show, she thought I was nuts until she saw him play, her jaw dropped
So so true! Had a gig & before we played the drummer got drunk & picked a fight w/the club owner. Guess who was running the board?You guessed right, him. Needless to say, he sabotaged us & it cascaded into a disaster for us.
Pumpkin Patch Party! That woman at Sine' was awesome. Never that fun a stage or room to play but it always sounded way better there than Mercury or any of the other small rooms. Except CBs of course you'll never get me to say there was a better sounding stage in NY than CBs. Sidefills!
I organised a charity event in a rock bar which was known to typically have good music (in the upstairs section). Even though we didn't ask for the room for free (I paid for it out of my own pocket) we were given the basement room.
I prearranged a time with the sound guy weeks in advance and triple checked and confirmed we were good to go.
I arrived 30 minutes earlier than the agreed upon time with a van full of gear (we were providing the back line for the night also but not the PA as they had a good one in house) only to find the place locked up. I went upstairs and I was informed the sound guy wouldn't be there to open up for atleast 2 more hours.
3 hours pass and he arrives and opens the door for us. We unload the van and on to the stage only to discover that the PA is not set up AT ALL. It was taken down for a private function and was still to be set back up again. The sound guy then sits his ass on a couch, takes out a sandwich and goes on to explain how its not his job to set it up, if we want to use it, we have to set it up ourselves.
He then leaves after finishing his sandwich and doesnt return for another 2 hours, literally 5 minutes before first sound check was to begin. He spent all of around 2 minutes sound checking the first band and refused to sound check anyone else until they got on stage to play so the poor audience had to suffer through his shouting back and forth and other BS and set ups between bands. It was an experience to say the least.
Soundman relationships can cover a big swing. I've gone on to be great friends with people I have met running sound for my band.....and also had sets which devolved into shouting matches between me and the soundman during the show.......(yeah....I was pro like that. lol - but I still think he earned it. ;-) ) It was definitely one of those "not at the board" situations after I was hassled for having backing tracks. Look buddy - if you have that big of an opinion about how to play a show.....go book your own gig.
Hello, younger fan from Canada, I have a band but we have not played live yet.
I am just curious, are you supposed to like tip your sound guy? Like is it weird if after a show, assuming they did a good job, give them like 50$ or something?
Not sure about Canada but here in the states I’ve never heard of tipping the sound man, like the guys said just be nice to them, offer to buy them a drink! Just being nice we’ll go along way!
I’m not saying don’t tip if you feel like they earned it go ahead, but don’t feel like you have to. If you’re playing somewhere that has a sound man/woman they’re getting paid by the venue/bar to be there.
Good luck with your band though! Listen to these guys, I know them personally, you’ll learn a lot they’ve played gigs for years!
-Joe Frye of L.D.D.H.
8:37, is the in house sound man/woman getting paid? It’s a good thing to find out, I have been to many a gig in a small bar/venue and found out the person running the live sound wasn’t getting paid or only getting paid for the actual show not the set up, or just getting a burger and a beer. Some were cool with this but if there not getting much of anything you might want to buy them meal or give them a little something for there help.
Hi , guys , you're doing a great job . Having a sound person is a luxury and if you don't know that , then you're way beyond the likes of me .
That "no stage volume" thing really hurts. Too many times a soundguy has watched me struggling to load in my cab before lsaying he'd rather go DI for the night
Sound man? We didn't have fancy shmacy sound men in my day. You guys are the Soft Boys. :D
If I am doing sound at a gig, and you bring me cupcakes.... I might try to make you sound, ok.
3:47 re: "Soft Boys". I'd go with "Ionian Mode" ! You could do a double-bill with the prog metal dudes... great topic
On a national level I've heard some bands sound people f@(k it up so bad that it was 5 or 6 songs in before my musician friends and I could figure out wtf songs they were playing. Dokken was legendary, or notorious, depending on how you look at it.
During a Monster of Rock tour (way back when those were new), there were way too many bands sabotaging each other, either as a "joke" (usually alcohol-fueled) or jealousy, or the joke got outta hand and turned into malice.
Locally there's a guy that knew his $hit inside and out, and great guy, but he'd always turn up the volume WAY too loud. My band friends would have to have someone stand by the board (sometimes it was me) to get him to drop the levels down, or subtly back it off when he wasn't looking. Louder does not equal better!
I'm curious as to why these your band sucks videos on my TH-cam feed as I'm not currently in a band but I do remember over a decade ago when I let this guitar player a try out with rehearsal and one of the songs we wanted to do was white room from cream but he instead was playing the riff from smells like teen spirit 😂
For years, our sound man/bass player would inadvertently sabotage our gigs by running each open mic to the point of feedback before backing it down. Every gig I would ask him not to do it because he was driving away half of the few audience we had. I was never sure of his motivation. Now I do a solo.
Im always nice to our sound guys in my bands area (Western Canada), because 99% of the time they do multiple gigs for multiple venues, that plus most of them are actually friends of the band (and good sound guys to boot)
That being said, we were playing in Kelowna, British Columbia one night and our sound guy was this grumpy old 65 year old looking dude for a Hard Rock/Heavy Metal Show, first thing he does when coming up to the stage is kick my singers glass of water all over his setlist and cables on the floor, doesn't say anything about it and just walks away, then just about at the end of our set (second to last song) he comes up and starts bitching that we've been playing too long and that we signed a contract saying we would only play till 1 am (we didn't, it was around 1:06 at this time and the bar closed at 2... It takes all of us no more than 20 mins to year down our gear... That being said he was a good sound guy and did make us sound good
The singer in my old band did an acoustic song solo once at a our last gig. He stopped a song in the middle to tell soundman to adjust the levels. So cringe. Yeah, that was our last gig.
We just stand on stage during soundcheck and take directions from the sound person. Lol and then maybe ask for more guitar in the drum monitor and less vocals in the vocal monitor. Lol
Live mix is everything.never argue with the sound man,you may get in the last word but no one will hear it .
1-When I had an in-ear gig, I would inevitable take one or both out of them out of my ears halfway through the sent.
2-Recently I turned down a gig because the soundguy was a “plug your pedalboard or line out directly into my board and I control everything through the monitors” control freak.
3-Trust the sound guy. Don’t automatically say “I can’t here myself” until the band is dialed in.
4-Most importantly!! If the sound guy is doing a good job, go up to him a set break and say “nice job, dude!”
The drummer is the key, the linchpin. I realized this went to see a band I knew nothing about. After a few numbers I'm thinking "OK, guitarist very good, vocalist good, bass player solid, keys good, backing vox ok, but it sounds like they're all playing a different song." Guess who I didn't list there...?
I ran sound for my dads cover band out at the local county fair. the sound company the fair hired provided a sound guy and I stood back as I didnt know their board or gear. The band had 3 vocalists one of which is the drummer with a headset mic who sings backing and lead vocals. The Drummer needed a lot of attention with that headset mic when it came to levels as he was a grunter and the mic is hot all the time for backing vox. the sound guy walked off a minute into the first song of a 3 set performance. I jumped in to adjust levels as shit was going south immediately feedback levels out of whack etc. the sound guy came back and I apologized to him for running his board. he said "dont fuckin worry about it. I just did 5 days of the country thunder festival and my ears are fucking shot. you know the music, you know the band, and you know the cues. makes my job easy if you got this... Im gonna go grab a beer and take nap... see you at 4pm. later!" would have been a disaster otherwise.
Sound and lighting crews make the show as much as the cats on stage! Plan on hiring a professional if you want to sound professional yourself, that money is never wasted.
The Beatles no monitors...pretty sure all of them had everything they asked for, including monitors after the breakup. The only reason they didn't have them is because they were pioneers in a time when the electric guitar was still fresh and new. It wasn't long before they started their career path that the only monitor in a music performance was the shape of the venue, like amphitheaters.
I think at least one or two floor monitors is perfect not to overkill ether 🤘
We always tip the sound person at the end of the night.
Interesting cool video. I didn't even know that any of that stuff exists. My "soundman" is my wife saying "Do you think you could turn that down a little bit" Yes ma'am. Once again, Sorry.
Love that and we hear you:) she may be the best sound man you come across!
Much live and thanks for the sharing!
Speaking of sound people. Owsley and Dan Healy were the two best that ever lived. I would go see other bands in the 80s and no one ever sounded as good as the Dead. It wasn’t even close.
Yeah, the only problem with that is, you would have to listen to the Dead.
@@kitano0 best band that ever was my friend
@@autistichead8137 I'm happy you enjoy them...
What are the odds ... every band I've played in sucked ... hard to figure.
I was on a mini tour and we did a gig in Baton Rouge. When we got there, the guy who booked us said, "The owner of the club likes to run the sound .... but he's a bit hard-of-hearing." The sound check was 2 hours long.
Dare we make the analogy between the guy on the out front desk and the director of a movie? The idiots on stage generally do not have a clue. I worked for a named band for decades (before in-ear monitoring), after several decades still shouted to the front desk asking for more in the monitors... Not the guy doing the job stage left/right.
I quit when they believed they had achieved god like status. (And they banned stage volume).
I was in a hard rock band back in the day and I had a sound guy fall asleep during our set. The crowd was going crazy. At the end he wanted his money. Nope.
do they still call the area fayett-namm?
absolutley!
Tonight! "The Soft Boys" from 3:30 to 6 PM
The thought of Jonathan and Baxter on stage as the Soft Boys, wearing flip flops, yellow belts, playing deep cut Chris Cornell made me laugh so hard I almost fell out of bed. My wife checked on me and I had her watch part of this. She said “I don’t get it”. I explained it to her, and she still doesn’t get it. It’s gonna be a great day.
A band I was in used to play a certain bar and the sound guy was always phenomenally stoned. On more than one occasion he told me to continue to turn my Marshall DSL 40C down, past 1 on volume and then would say “oh man, wrong amp, and then ask the other guitarist playing a 150watt Mesa Triple Rec half stack he was the one that needed to turn down. I would have thought just the visual from the crowd would have told him who the loud one was. Oh and did I mention how phenomenally stoned he was?
Alot of our wives don't lol, and thats kind of the fun of it.
@@CasinoGuitars our own secret club. The Soft Boys Club. Bunch of guys who giggle as silly internets.
Same goes for the hosts of open mics.
There is a band now in Tallahassee that plays soft rock from the 70's called Naugahyde Park. I'll suggest a name change to Soft Boys.
I was in a band with some sound guys once upon a time and when it was good it was good and when it wasn’t? It sucked. We were like that. The best foh operator in the world wouldn’t have saved us😆 I’ve also been at the mercy of foh guys who’ve been around waaay to long. They’ve lost all the top end and most of the low end, in fact, nearly all their hearing and over compensate in every frequency band. Too much kick, and highs that could shatter glass. As a muso you have to learn to roll with it. Some nights it’s there some nights it’s not. I remember years ago people around my hometown raving about this hot new blues rock act I should check out. Eventually I did and it was one of those nights. They weren’t playing well, the sound wasn’t good and I left early distinctly unimpressed. Some time later my band opened for them. The sound was great, we played well, but they came out and blew the roof off. I’ve also worked with a lead singer who couldn’t wait to blame everyone else; me, the bass player, Lee Harvey Oswald, anyone at all, for his own shortcomings. It’s a team effort.