I just finished a 14 hour show at a 3000 seat venue as the only engineer for the show and now I’m watching this sitting in my kitchen after midnight. I only yelled at myself twice for the whole show.
I’m stopping in to go off topic and say: what I’ve experienced far too many times, is everything just being far far too loud. Like… that’s all you need to do to make it a good gig. No! It’s not!! Ok, I’m finished venting. Thanks for the video!
IMO shows have gotten far, far too quiet in the past 20 years. If I'm at a show, either in the audience, or performing I want to feel it. I want the kick drum to hit me in the chest, Conversation shouldn't be an option once the music starts. The bass should rattle your teeth and you should feel the guitars in your balls. You can go to damn near any show anymore go right up front, and when you leave your ears won't even ring. Make concerts loud again!
Passive Aggressive behavior is a problem in most workplaces unfortunately its hard to please everyone in live sound if you can get a good sound they should be thankful
I love this channel! Not only because as a starting pa tech I find this channel super useful, but also because of videos like this. Everything he said is true and I've seen these behaviors on the job
As I once had the chance to be part of one of the top live teams in our country over a three-day project, the biggest takeaway from that experience was their problem solving-oriented attitude with no egos involved whatsoever. It's incredible what you can achieve, and how quickly, in such an environment! 💪✨ -Eero
Some time ago I decided that mistakes are awesome. We are all going to make them from time to time. But everytime I make a mistake or figure out why something malfunctioned I think of it as a win. There is now another thing I can put in my bag of experience of things to not do or how to fix things.
Thanks so much for several great tips and opinions. I find that one difficulty is getting the sound of high volume instruments down to the same level as the quieter ones. Another is half-deaf and stubborn musicians who of course always know best. But to be honest, most musicians are very good, knowledgeable and helpful.
@@OffshoreAudio I got a lot of joy out of it. A live performance is often like a war with several unexpected twists and turns. Being calm but awake and alert is probably a must. Experience is invaluable and as you say a willingness and desire to learn.
Sometimes it’s about choosing your battles. Tell musicians that their stage volume is overpowering the vocals and leave it up to them to ruin their show. Speaking about low-stakes gigs here. If a great mix is very important, then find ways to aim the sound somewhere else.
I absolutely agree with you. I'm a house technician and although I'm busy with lights most of the time, I know how to do audio (wouldn't call myself a good mixer though) and have done some audio gigs in my spare time. My coworker who does predominantly audio exhibits a lot of these unfortunately and I hate it. Often I think "just do your damn job and give it the best you can". This kind of behavior just sucks.
Perhaps I’m out of line here, but there seems to be a majority of men in the industry - men who are competing on a predominantly freelance market. Gear and tech also seem to attract certain ”personality types” that can make cooperation difficult. I won’t speculate more into this but I have heard some interesting theories on audio podcasts. I salute a future where its ok for an engineer to not know and be best at everything. ❤
I really feel like we're going there. Me and my colleagues, among some who work on a very high level, have often talked about how we would fire someone instantly for not admitting to not know something. On the other hand being eager to learn (while communicating about what you don't know) is a giant green flag. I feel like once the boomers are out, we're way closer to that goal
Had a women who was insanely rude and PA just last night at my Venue. From stage volume, the temperature, even the photographers. Just gotta remind myself these people are miserable. Disassociate and carry on. Most people are nice
I'm 64 years old. I mostly get hired by bands and big festivals for mixing. I am good with Digico/Yamaha/SSL/ A&H mixing consoles but have no clue what all these Cat6's are doing running out of my console. So, I use you youngsters to get that all up and running and I do show my appreciation when it works as it should be. Why are we doing this job in the first place? For me, it is the goosbumbs when a show slots in and everything is perfect and falls into place in time, lights/video/decor/place. Crucial for an event to happen as described is total commitment from everybody involved, crew/musicians/actors/production-crew etc. Last thing you want is certain "ego's" destroying the fine line between somthing beautifull happening or a bad atmosphere on the production. So, you youngsters. Help and explain each other what's going on at your podium and find a way to make it, respectfully, work.
Thanks for the great video. I can relate to dealing with (or being) difficult people in live sound. Your videos show you're good at working with others and staying positive. I've been doing this for 20 years, and I still learn from you. Your video about rebooted the stage box? That was helpful. I sometimes get too focused on finishing on time and forget to relax and check the basics. Problems are part of the job and keep it interesting.
Thank you for watching! I'm honoured that you've got so much experience and can still learn something from me. I hope to be as open to learning in another 10 years. I guess we're all learning from each other no matter where we are in our journey.
I personally welcome mistakes when I am running sound. Every mistake teaches me something that makes me better for the next time. Of course we all try to do the "perfect show" but seriously, I can't think of a single time where I didn't make at least one small mistake. It happens. Own it, learn from it and move on.
I’ve been to and played so many shows over the years and the absolute #1 biggest problem in live sound is VOCALS. From what I’ve heard from acts & venues both big & small. It’s like no one has ever figured out how to make vocals sit properly in a mix. They almost always sound muffled & flat and it ruins the entire experience for me. I’d rather sit at home and listen to the recordings at this point.
In this industry everyone makes mistakes, small or large. The important thing is how we react in these situations to try to resolve or deal with the issues and try to understand what we can do to improve in the future. Sometimes things just happen and you just need to move on or laugh it off
Things to remember in this industry. 1 - You're only as good as your last gig. 2 - know your place in the pecking order and stay in your lane. Humility will get you further than braggardocio. 3 - Learn to recognize true experience and talent in sound pro's, and be willing to learn from them. These ones usually quiet and humble and like to share knowledge with those they see as genuinely keen to learn. 4 - Don't be a dick. He/she/they/them are the ones nobody wants to work around. And finally the big one 5 - The biggest problem in live sound, is the abuse and overuse of Subs. So often great performances are marred by too much Sub.
I am working with a band that lead guitarist owns the system. Every venue is different we walk in set up mostly the same and then we spend two hours sound checking. I've gotten to the point where I go he's gonna do whatever he wants to do it's gonna sound good to him behind the speakers and then I am going to have to take control of the mix as we start the first song and actually adjust so it's not an ear piercing. And it doesn't help that I'm dealing with somebody who has hearing issues. On the other hand I've gotten very good at fixing things quickly unless it's really out of whack and I'm going how could it even sound like that. But it is frustrating to have to do all my mixing with just levels and graphic EQ. Oh yeah I can't just instrument EQ because he's looking for that sound but it's getting comprehended by the monitor EQ and we just keep pushing to the floor. There's almost no volume out of the monitor because the graphic EQ for the minder send is practically all the way down on all the frequencies that are basically within the voice range.
After 40 years in the industry most at the FOH, prefer the A2 or even labor as a gym therapy, moving off the industry that wear most every hat, working now in the healing freq field, too much - vibes and egos in the Corp 🌎, love the direction of your channel. 👍
All good advice across the board. A knot in a cable, who does that? I've worked with Broadway level sound designers who have offered suggestions, but if they weren't familiar with the specific equipment, stayed out of the way.
I think it's important to recognize, that some of these issues can occur unintentionally. I accidentally "limited problem-solving" by holding bad assumptions about a part of gear and skipping to finding ways to change a show element to keep it running, while someone else found a way to solve it directly a minute after I asked for show-changes. Led to a bad feedback. I'm still sorry for not having had a rundown of the gear beforehand.
I would say the bigger problem with the sound cute was editing that cute last minute. sure go in and tweak it but you need to absolutely know the software if you're going to do that last minute because you don't want to be accidentally I don't know changing the volume of it. I ran into this type of thing a lot where something doesn't work right so we change a bunch of other things and then we end up deeper down the problem tree changing multiple things that aren't really affecting what's going on because of the lack of understanding of the flow. I had this one guitarist that whenever there was a problem we would jump around the problem oh it sounds weird play with all the settings on the mixer. Change the cable out, oh it's my paddleboard. Meanwhile I'm still re-patching all the cables we just unplugged.
Don’t be afraid to laugh at yourself. I had a decent screw up on show 43 of 48 of the summer tour because I was trying stream line the talk back mic. I didn’t make a big deal out of it so it didn’t become a big deal. I tell this story to house techs to let them know it happens to the best of us. It wasn’t a show stopper type of thing but the first song was questionable. 😂
yeah you're so right you've got to admit to your mistakes to learn but there's nothing like a big argument to heighten your senses and produce an amazing Mix. This is happened to me
@@OffshoreAudio Yeah You can't live in denial and in the end it is the philosophy that makes a great show not just technical mixing if the band is happy they can play good music which you can then mix 🙂
Speakers who tap the mic, lean in very close and say is this working, can you hear me at the back. Why do you think I haven't tested the coverage of the speakers? And often, why do you think something's changed between the last speaker sitting down and you standing up?
As a sound engineer myself my biggest gripe is where we had a work experience lad working with us and he was telling me how to do my job and saying I'm doing this and that wrong and I told him to go home
I do live sound/recording. I hate when sometimes people will try getting me to do things that make no sense. They sometimes want me to do the very thing the last person screwed up doing. I had people who said they been doing sound for years stand over me or talk to me but their actions didn't match their so called knowledge which kind of showed their intimidation. I know what I know but I never try making people feel bad. It's things I have learned from others and they somewhat learned from me. I even get upset sometimes seeing how people wrap cables wrong bolllllll but usually I be like hey do it this way and they feel respected and be like thanks for help. I been here before with uncomfortable situations but I try being down to earth and friendly so I can be rehired which happens time to time!!!
Having worked in the industry for 20 years I've come to the conclusion the majority of the industry is on the Autism Spectrum, myself included, and that bad attitide is a masking technique. Nearly every day some road tech comes to FoH to educated our PM/A1 on how to mix. She's got a Grammy. We both hold off till the end of the night where it gets subtly mentioned.
Doing live is so chaotic, I really get stressed. There's a moment you have to deal with negligent musicians, other technicians maybe nice... maybe they want to complicate things that are easy just for free. The lack of time of some events is stressful as fk and if you work at small independent teathers that are not properly equipped as me and the band doesn't makes a good rider (they never do) you have to switch to MacGyver to get the show up. I can't imagine how it is at big productions
this will haunt me forever because I let my ego affect my performance after a not so great interaction with the sound guy and It’s on me. We run backing tracks and do our own monitoring and give a split to FOH like many modern bands. because I look younger than I am (I’m actually 31) the sound guy dismissed me while he was prepping for setup like I was inexperience and was playing my first gig when all I wanted to do was let him know was about our split and lines we’d feed him before he patched things in and make his life easier. Once he saw our rig he was actually impressed and his tone changed and was really respectful and praising how pro and self reliant we were. but my ego took a hit and It mind f’ed me. ended up playing horribly and mess up my leads parts pretty bad.
“The biggest problem in LIFE is people”… But yes mate, I couldn’t agree more. I engineered a festival last weekend and the nob head from the council who was walking around with a decibel reader actually tried to tell me how to run front of house. After 30 years in the industry I no longer have any patience so he was told to f*ck off and then I had security ban him from within 10 meters of FOH.
Houses have an attitude that the touring group has owneship of the venue on that particular day. I work years a House Lighting Designer and I was told that I was assigned to take all of the complaints from the traveling techs. I was screamed at and even physically assaulted by Tour Managers. Most touring techs always acted like the were better than me. Most of the time their skills were limited and they're performances were stock.
I do sound in a mid-sized club, basically for fun. Can anyone here comment on vocalists insisting on using various little digital vocal processors and inserting them between the mic and the stage box?? Then changing gain, clipping their vocals, tripping over/unplugging wall warts, or drenching themselves in reverb? Oh, and then at the end of the set, unplugging the mic cables and leaving them who knows where on the floor right before the next band is ready to line check? I have tried to politely talk vocalists out out of using these devices. To me, they never sound better than what we can present in the monitors and to the audience. I like to let artists do what they want, but the use of these devices is perhaps my biggest pet peeve!
As a musician who has also run sound many times, Iould make my own video of soundperson stories that would be three hours long. It's hard to pick from for a little comments section, but I'll pick two: #1: A lot of soundpeople are just assholes from the moment they show up at the venue. Ever wonder why? I was in a tribute band and we put together a show at our "home" venue. We took a chance on a Smashing Pumpkins tribute band who was doing a short tour although we hadn't heard them or knew anything about them. They show up an hour late for load in, drag ass loading in, take forever to set up, and when the bass player/singer is checking his wedges he has all of these insanely specific requests. "Can I get the drums in stereo between these two wedges? I need all six toms in the wedges, and the overheads. Can I get more hi-hat in the wedge? Can you pull some 400hz out of the toms?" And finally, "Can I just come down there and mix it?" We were friends with the FOH guy, and he's super nice and friendly, but even he was like, "What is with these guys?" But he said, "Sure, absolutely, do your thing." He never got upset, he never showed any signs of unprofessionalism, but it was a clear lesson of, "Oh! That's what ruins it for the rest of us." And no, the band wasn't good, but the drummer was awesome. He played the tiniest, skinniest sticks and played so quiet you could drown him out by talking over him. But he nailed the Jimmy Chamberlain thing. #2: Having run sound many times, there's always some annoying friend of the band who hangs out around the board and chimes in with his expert knowledge. My friends' band is playing a pretty good sized show and soundcheck is fine, but they don't get to run through a whole song. No biggie, until in the first song, every time the kick drum hits hard, there's a horrible blast of distortion that sounds like the entire PA is dying. I'm standing right next to the FOH console, and I know what the problem is: the keyboard amp has a notoriously bad DI output, the chassis is held on by one screw, and they put the amp on the drum riser. Drummer hits the kick hard enough to rattle the riser, the riser shakes the amp, the keys DI glitches in and out horribly. I'm watching this soundguy completely freak out, trying to figure out what the hell it is. It's obviously the kick drum, so he swaps channels, he has someone swap out the mic thinking it blew the diaphragm, he swaps out the cable, he swaps channels in the snake... the whole time I'm standing there with the dilemma: should I be "that guy" and tell him? I actually know the problem! It really is the correct solution! Or do I keep my mouth shut and just let him do his job? It's a no win scenario. I kept my mouth shut and just wrestled internally with it. 75% of the way through the set he realized it was the keyboard amp, and he just turned it off. Should I have told him? Would he have just blown me off? Would he have bitten my head off for being "that guy" in his most stressful moment? My friends' band also got completely fucked out of pay for that show, unrelated to the sound incident.
Biggest problem in live sound (or visuals, or lighting fixtures etc.) is the people who walk around as if they are 100% involved with the equipment's whole life which is false. You did not design that mixer, you did not do its r&d and a concerningly large chunk of us didn't even see a resistor in their lives before. What we do is, mostly, push some buttons and adjust levels and effects. Sure it's not a simple job but anyone can become properly good at it after a year, 6 months with ambition. Most of the toxic attitude is good old gatekeeping. If you are new to this and some douchebag scared you away, don't be afraid. It's not that difficult! Modern equipment made the job a thousand times easier too, go ahead and dive in. And no, modern equipment doesn't suck.
I work with a production company with a guy that does ALL OF THESE. except, he ALSO doesn't see how he contradicts himself. he always says he's been doing this for "40 years", but can't tell you 60 HZ from 120 Hz. I guess that's why he has never grown
Passive aggressive behaviour is nothing compared to the level of jealousy I’ve encountered. And some of the bitching I’ve heard about me from live sound ‘professionals’ I’ve never met! From a fellow Scot!
I have loved all these videos and they have been really helpful in my development. Here is a topic I don’t see a lot of and I wonder how you would tackle it. I want to practice live sound but I do not have the resources to go out to a local church or club and work with them. How can I practice at home? Or does that defeat the purpose of live sound reinforcement?
get out there very often systems are put up by engineers who think the gigs are way below them they should be mixing Pink Floyd Genesis. Work your way to the mixer desk and get a go I've done it often had great fun and the audience get so much better mix😊
You can do a lot at home. You can practice mixing (EQ and compression etc) on a laptop. A good mix is a good mix. Whether it is on a laptop with multitracks or in a venue. If you could get your hands on a speaker and a microphone you could practice eleminating some feedback or EQ'ing the speaker (you would need something like a 31 band EQ for this). You could train your ear with feedback apps or programs on your computer. Learning to indentify frequencies.
I'm so glad they've helped you. My question is what resources do you not have? All you need is the willingness to learn. If you're in a city then get in touch with pa rental companies, ask if you can Shadow or pack cases. If there's nothing like that around you then start a band or make friends with a local band. Ask if you can try and mix their rehearsals. There's a crazy amount of info on TH-cam. Though I might just be misunderstanding your situation
That’s great advice, I guess to be a bit more specific is how can I practice live mixing if I cannot get to be in a room? As long as it sounds good does that make it good? My worry is that because I can’t get that sort of time behind the board at an actual performance to get those repetitions I won’t grow. Just curious on your thoughts if you have encountered that or meet others who have.
you can only get people not to deflect and blame shift when production management teams don't penalise people for their mistakes if you don't have an environment where people feel safe to make mistakes no one will take responsibility for them
OMG!!!!! just happened to me in a show where the headliner team just thought they were discovering America again!!! after 2 hours yeah! 2 F$%%ing hours they tried something that I suggested and voila problem solved. Did any of that team say thank you to me? you guess it hahaha
... i'm sorry, tying a KNOT in my AUDIO CABLE??? BRO DO YOU THINK WE OVER-UNDER WRAP EVERY SINGLE AUDIO CABLE FOR *FUN*??? if it's their gear idgaf but nobody better be intentionally tying knots in ***MY*** FRICKIN CABLES like actually what the fuck that's one of the most disrespectful asks I've ever heard
Wtf, the 3rd one was literally someone I had an arugment last week. He insist on not doing something that I genuinely think worth of try which complicate a fricking 10 minutes worthless debate. Then finally, he tries to listen and voila, it could've been done for like a minute or less 😔😔😤
Then there is the so-called ‘professional’ artist who causes feedback by some clever trick with a microphone and a speaker, usually when you’re not watching him/her, then blames you and makes a comment as such in front of the entire audience. I had that happen during a sold-out show. I think everyone in that audience was embarrassed and formed a new opinion of that person…
Jimminy christmas - yeah, I get it: some people are just total assholes - and some people need to develop thicker skin - welcome to the real world people
Don't have the whole Stage-Tech field pull on the same string and , at least work professional besides a paid project? I mean, every worker will be confronted with workplace changes at some point in their life. Must suck, to do an application to a new job and your reputation sucks, because you work at Company EGO-Tech Ltd. Or are they mostly independant freelancers?
I agree. Most of the bigger shows I have attended lately reflect what you mentioned. Bass is great as long as it's at a reasonable level. The treble is usually unbearable along with excessive volume. A loud concert can be cool if the EQ is properly set. Unfortunately it's usually not and heavy guitar tones are over gained and not cutting in the mix. Sounds like white noise, boomy vocals, and muddy bass , and illegal volume levels.
@@jeremyshirah8293 Exactly. I remember one show with Exodus and Anthrax and a couple of other old school metal bands. Everybody but Anthrax used the house sound guy. Guess who sounded the best. Exodus didn't help matters much with scooped guitars with WAY too much gain. But the sound guy didn't help anyone. Pure aural ASS.
I just finished a 14 hour show at a 3000 seat venue as the only engineer for the show and now I’m watching this sitting in my kitchen after midnight. I only yelled at myself twice for the whole show.
Wow! Hope you had time for a lunch break at least. 😮
If someone tried telling me, "Just put a knot in the cable." I'd kindly say, "that's an industry standard way of telling that a cable is faulty." 😊
And if it's not faulty, it will be shortly.
@@jerrymckenzie1858 Absolutely 💯
I would've assumed it's bad a thrown it out, or cut the end off....
I’m stopping in to go off topic and say: what I’ve experienced far too many times, is everything just being far far too loud. Like… that’s all you need to do to make it a good gig. No! It’s not!! Ok, I’m finished venting. Thanks for the video!
IMO shows have gotten far, far too quiet in the past 20 years. If I'm at a show, either in the audience, or performing I want to feel it. I want the kick drum to hit me in the chest, Conversation shouldn't be an option once the music starts. The bass should rattle your teeth and you should feel the guitars in your balls.
You can go to damn near any show anymore go right up front, and when you leave your ears won't even ring.
Make concerts loud again!
Passive Aggressive behavior is a problem in most workplaces unfortunately its hard to please everyone in live sound if you can get a good sound they should be thankful
I love this channel! Not only because as a starting pa tech I find this channel super useful, but also because of videos like this. Everything he said is true and I've seen these behaviors on the job
I really appreciate your mentality of just owning a mistake. I need to get better at that. Thanks for the honesty 🤘
As I once had the chance to be part of one of the top live teams in our country over a three-day project, the biggest takeaway from that experience was their problem solving-oriented attitude with no egos involved whatsoever. It's incredible what you can achieve, and how quickly, in such an environment! 💪✨
-Eero
Some time ago I decided that mistakes are awesome. We are all going to make them from time to time. But everytime I make a mistake or figure out why something malfunctioned I think of it as a win. There is now another thing I can put in my bag of experience of things to not do or how to fix things.
Totally this. It's intimidating to mess up and it's never easy, but it's certainly a good way to learn.
Thanks so much for several great tips and opinions. I find that one difficulty is getting the sound of high volume instruments down to the same level as the quieter ones. Another is half-deaf and stubborn musicians who of course always know best.
But to be honest, most musicians are very good, knowledgeable and helpful.
Oh thank you. I was mostly just ranting so I'm very happy you found some value in it 😁
@@OffshoreAudio I got a lot of joy out of it. A live performance is often like a war with several unexpected twists and turns. Being calm but awake and alert is probably a must. Experience is invaluable and as you say a willingness and desire to learn.
Sometimes it’s about choosing your battles. Tell musicians that their stage volume is overpowering the vocals and leave it up to them to ruin their show. Speaking about low-stakes gigs here. If a great mix is very important, then find ways to aim the sound somewhere else.
@@joshdemarco4308 Thanks.
I absolutely agree with you. I'm a house technician and although I'm busy with lights most of the time, I know how to do audio (wouldn't call myself a good mixer though) and have done some audio gigs in my spare time. My coworker who does predominantly audio exhibits a lot of these unfortunately and I hate it. Often I think "just do your damn job and give it the best you can". This kind of behavior just sucks.
Perhaps I’m out of line here, but there seems to be a majority of men in the industry - men who are competing on a predominantly freelance market. Gear and tech also seem to attract certain ”personality types” that can make cooperation difficult. I won’t speculate more into this but I have heard some interesting theories on audio podcasts. I salute a future where its ok for an engineer to not know and be best at everything. ❤
I really feel like we're going there. Me and my colleagues, among some who work on a very high level, have often talked about how we would fire someone instantly for not admitting to not know something. On the other hand being eager to learn (while communicating about what you don't know) is a giant green flag. I feel like once the boomers are out, we're way closer to that goal
Had a women who was insanely rude and PA just last night at my Venue. From stage volume, the temperature, even the photographers. Just gotta remind myself these people are miserable. Disassociate and carry on. Most people are nice
I've met several people like that over the years. Like you, I disassociate and carry on.
I'm 64 years old. I mostly get hired by bands and big festivals for mixing. I am good with Digico/Yamaha/SSL/ A&H mixing consoles but have no clue what all these Cat6's are doing running out of my console. So, I use you youngsters to get that all up and running and I do show my appreciation when it works as it should be. Why are we doing this job in the first place? For me, it is the goosbumbs when a show slots in and everything is perfect and falls into place in time, lights/video/decor/place. Crucial for an event to happen as described is total commitment from everybody involved, crew/musicians/actors/production-crew etc. Last thing you want is certain "ego's" destroying the fine line between somthing beautifull happening or a bad atmosphere on the production. So, you youngsters. Help and explain each other what's going on at your podium and find a way to make it, respectfully, work.
Hear hear
Man all the facts in this video are on point. Keep it up, bro!
Thank you!
Thanks for the great video. I can relate to dealing with (or being) difficult people in live sound. Your videos show you're good at working with others and staying positive. I've been doing this for 20 years, and I still learn from you. Your video about rebooted the stage box? That was helpful. I sometimes get too focused on finishing on time and forget to relax and check the basics. Problems are part of the job and keep it interesting.
Thank you for watching! I'm honoured that you've got so much experience and can still learn something from me. I hope to be as open to learning in another 10 years. I guess we're all learning from each other no matter where we are in our journey.
I personally welcome mistakes when I am running sound. Every mistake teaches me something that makes me better for the next time. Of course we all try to do the "perfect show" but seriously, I can't think of a single time where I didn't make at least one small mistake. It happens. Own it, learn from it and move on.
I’ve been to and played so many shows over the years and the absolute #1 biggest problem in live sound is VOCALS. From what I’ve heard from acts & venues both big & small. It’s like no one has ever figured out how to make vocals sit properly in a mix. They almost always sound muffled & flat and it ruins the entire experience for me. I’d rather sit at home and listen to the recordings at this point.
In this industry everyone makes mistakes, small or large. The important thing is how we react in these situations to try to resolve or deal with the issues and try to understand what we can do to improve in the future. Sometimes things just happen and you just need to move on or laugh it off
Things to remember in this industry. 1 - You're only as good as your last gig. 2 - know your place in the pecking order and stay in your lane. Humility will get you further than braggardocio. 3 - Learn to recognize true experience and talent in sound pro's, and be willing to learn from them. These ones usually quiet and humble and like to share knowledge with those they see as genuinely keen to learn. 4 - Don't be a dick. He/she/they/them are the ones nobody wants to work around. And finally the big one 5 - The biggest problem in live sound, is the abuse and overuse of Subs. So often great performances are marred by too much Sub.
You should write them on stone
I am working with a band that lead guitarist owns the system. Every venue is different we walk in set up mostly the same and then we spend two hours sound checking. I've gotten to the point where I go he's gonna do whatever he wants to do it's gonna sound good to him behind the speakers and then I am going to have to take control of the mix as we start the first song and actually adjust so it's not an ear piercing. And it doesn't help that I'm dealing with somebody who has hearing issues. On the other hand I've gotten very good at fixing things quickly unless it's really out of whack and I'm going how could it even sound like that. But it is frustrating to have to do all my mixing with just levels and graphic EQ. Oh yeah I can't just instrument EQ because he's looking for that sound but it's getting comprehended by the monitor EQ and we just keep pushing to the floor. There's almost no volume out of the monitor because the graphic EQ for the minder send is practically all the way down on all the frequencies that are basically within the voice range.
After 40 years in the industry most at the FOH, prefer the A2 or even labor as a gym therapy, moving off the industry that wear most every hat, working now in the healing freq field, too much - vibes and egos in the Corp 🌎, love the direction of your channel. 👍
Great advice! You and I would get along!
there are always 1 or 2 people in a crew you've never met who introduce themselves, those are your guys that evening
All good advice across the board. A knot in a cable, who does that? I've worked with Broadway level sound designers who have offered suggestions, but if they weren't familiar with the specific equipment, stayed out of the way.
I think it's important to recognize, that some of these issues can occur unintentionally.
I accidentally "limited problem-solving" by holding bad assumptions about a part of gear and skipping to finding ways to change a show element to keep it running, while someone else found a way to solve it directly a minute after I asked for show-changes. Led to a bad feedback. I'm still sorry for not having had a rundown of the gear beforehand.
I would say the bigger problem with the sound cute was editing that cute last minute. sure go in and tweak it but you need to absolutely know the software if you're going to do that last minute because you don't want to be accidentally I don't know changing the volume of it.
I ran into this type of thing a lot where something doesn't work right so we change a bunch of other things and then we end up deeper down the problem tree changing multiple things that aren't really affecting what's going on because of the lack of understanding of the flow.
I had this one guitarist that whenever there was a problem we would jump around the problem oh it sounds weird play with all the settings on the mixer. Change the cable out, oh it's my paddleboard. Meanwhile I'm still re-patching all the cables we just unplugged.
Don’t be afraid to laugh at yourself. I had a decent screw up on show 43 of 48 of the summer tour because I was trying stream line the talk back mic. I didn’t make a big deal out of it so it didn’t become a big deal. I tell this story to house techs to let them know it happens to the best of us. It wasn’t a show stopper type of thing but the first song was questionable. 😂
yeah you're so right you've got to admit to your mistakes to learn but there's nothing like a big argument to heighten your senses and produce an amazing Mix. This is happened to me
It's a very hard thing to do. I've definitely got a ways to go with admitting mistakes myself. Just gotta keep improving!
@@OffshoreAudio Yeah You can't live in denial and in the end it is the philosophy that makes a great show not just technical mixing if the band is happy they can play good music which you can then mix 🙂
@@Hipyon Couldn't agree more. That's a very astute point that the philosophy makes a great show. I'll take that with me.
Speakers who tap the mic, lean in very close and say is this working, can you hear me at the back. Why do you think I haven't tested the coverage of the speakers? And often, why do you think something's changed between the last speaker sitting down and you standing up?
As a sound engineer myself my biggest gripe is where we had a work experience lad working with us and he was telling me how to do my job and saying I'm doing this and that wrong and I told him to go home
I do live sound/recording. I hate when sometimes people will try getting me to do things that make no sense. They sometimes want me to do the very thing the last person screwed up doing. I had people who said they been doing sound for years stand over me or talk to me but their actions didn't match their so called knowledge which kind of showed their intimidation. I know what I know but I never try making people feel bad. It's things I have learned from others and they somewhat learned from me. I even get upset sometimes seeing how people wrap cables wrong bolllllll but usually I be like hey do it this way and they feel respected and be like thanks for help. I been here before with uncomfortable situations but I try being down to earth and friendly so I can be rehired which happens time to time!!!
Having worked in the industry for 20 years I've come to the conclusion the majority of the industry is on the Autism Spectrum, myself included, and that bad attitide is a masking technique. Nearly every day some road tech comes to FoH to educated our PM/A1 on how to mix. She's got a Grammy. We both hold off till the end of the night where it gets subtly
mentioned.
Doing live is so chaotic, I really get stressed. There's a moment you have to deal with negligent musicians, other technicians maybe nice... maybe they want to complicate things that are easy just for free. The lack of time of some events is stressful as fk and if you work at small independent teathers that are not properly equipped as me and the band doesn't makes a good rider (they never do) you have to switch to MacGyver to get the show up.
I can't imagine how it is at big productions
this will haunt me forever because I let my ego affect my performance after a not so great interaction with the sound guy and It’s on me.
We run backing tracks and do our own monitoring and give a split to FOH like many modern bands. because I look younger than I am (I’m actually 31) the sound guy dismissed me while he was prepping for setup like I was inexperience and was playing my first gig when all I wanted to do was let him know was about our split and lines we’d feed him before he patched things in and make his life easier. Once he saw our rig he was actually impressed and his tone changed and was really respectful and praising how pro and self reliant we were.
but my ego took a hit and It mind f’ed me. ended up playing horribly and mess up my leads parts pretty bad.
Spot on video
“The biggest problem in LIFE is people”…
But yes mate, I couldn’t agree more.
I engineered a festival last weekend and the nob head from the council who was walking around with a decibel reader actually tried to tell me how to run front of house. After 30 years in the industry I no longer have any patience so he was told to f*ck off and then I had security ban him from within 10 meters of FOH.
Houses have an attitude that the touring group has owneship of the venue on that particular day. I work years a House Lighting Designer and I was told that I was assigned to take all of the complaints from the traveling techs. I was screamed at and even physically assaulted by Tour Managers. Most touring techs always acted like the were better than me. Most of the time their skills were limited and they're performances were stock.
I do sound in a mid-sized club, basically for fun. Can anyone here comment on vocalists insisting on using various little digital vocal processors and inserting them between the mic and the stage box?? Then changing gain, clipping their vocals, tripping over/unplugging wall warts, or drenching themselves in reverb? Oh, and then at the end of the set, unplugging the mic cables and leaving them who knows where on the floor right before the next band is ready to line check? I have tried to politely talk vocalists out out of using these devices. To me, they never sound better than what we can present in the monitors and to the audience. I like to let artists do what they want, but the use of these devices is perhaps my biggest pet peeve!
As a musician who has also run sound many times, Iould make my own video of soundperson stories that would be three hours long. It's hard to pick from for a little comments section, but I'll pick two:
#1: A lot of soundpeople are just assholes from the moment they show up at the venue. Ever wonder why?
I was in a tribute band and we put together a show at our "home" venue. We took a chance on a Smashing Pumpkins tribute band who was doing a short tour although we hadn't heard them or knew anything about them. They show up an hour late for load in, drag ass loading in, take forever to set up, and when the bass player/singer is checking his wedges he has all of these insanely specific requests. "Can I get the drums in stereo between these two wedges? I need all six toms in the wedges, and the overheads. Can I get more hi-hat in the wedge? Can you pull some 400hz out of the toms?" And finally, "Can I just come down there and mix it?" We were friends with the FOH guy, and he's super nice and friendly, but even he was like, "What is with these guys?" But he said, "Sure, absolutely, do your thing." He never got upset, he never showed any signs of unprofessionalism, but it was a clear lesson of, "Oh! That's what ruins it for the rest of us." And no, the band wasn't good, but the drummer was awesome. He played the tiniest, skinniest sticks and played so quiet you could drown him out by talking over him. But he nailed the Jimmy Chamberlain thing.
#2: Having run sound many times, there's always some annoying friend of the band who hangs out around the board and chimes in with his expert knowledge. My friends' band is playing a pretty good sized show and soundcheck is fine, but they don't get to run through a whole song. No biggie, until in the first song, every time the kick drum hits hard, there's a horrible blast of distortion that sounds like the entire PA is dying. I'm standing right next to the FOH console, and I know what the problem is: the keyboard amp has a notoriously bad DI output, the chassis is held on by one screw, and they put the amp on the drum riser. Drummer hits the kick hard enough to rattle the riser, the riser shakes the amp, the keys DI glitches in and out horribly. I'm watching this soundguy completely freak out, trying to figure out what the hell it is. It's obviously the kick drum, so he swaps channels, he has someone swap out the mic thinking it blew the diaphragm, he swaps out the cable, he swaps channels in the snake... the whole time I'm standing there with the dilemma: should I be "that guy" and tell him? I actually know the problem! It really is the correct solution! Or do I keep my mouth shut and just let him do his job? It's a no win scenario.
I kept my mouth shut and just wrestled internally with it. 75% of the way through the set he realized it was the keyboard amp, and he just turned it off. Should I have told him? Would he have just blown me off? Would he have bitten my head off for being "that guy" in his most stressful moment?
My friends' band also got completely fucked out of pay for that show, unrelated to the sound incident.
Biggest problem in live sound (or visuals, or lighting fixtures etc.) is the people who walk around as if they are 100% involved with the equipment's whole life which is false. You did not design that mixer, you did not do its r&d and a concerningly large chunk of us didn't even see a resistor in their lives before. What we do is, mostly, push some buttons and adjust levels and effects. Sure it's not a simple job but anyone can become properly good at it after a year, 6 months with ambition. Most of the toxic attitude is good old gatekeeping.
If you are new to this and some douchebag scared you away, don't be afraid. It's not that difficult! Modern equipment made the job a thousand times easier too, go ahead and dive in. And no, modern equipment doesn't suck.
I work with a production company with a guy that does ALL OF THESE. except, he ALSO doesn't see how he contradicts himself. he always says he's been doing this for "40 years", but can't tell you 60 HZ from 120 Hz. I guess that's why he has never grown
Passive aggressive behaviour is nothing compared to the level of jealousy I’ve encountered. And some of the bitching I’ve heard about me from live sound ‘professionals’ I’ve never met! From a fellow Scot!
You just described what narcisistic behaviour looks like. Don't argue, just get out
I have loved all these videos and they have been really helpful in my development.
Here is a topic I don’t see a lot of and I wonder how you would tackle it.
I want to practice live sound but I do not have the resources to go out to a local church or club and work with them. How can I practice at home? Or does that defeat the purpose of live sound reinforcement?
get out there very often systems are put up by engineers who think the gigs are way below them they should be mixing Pink Floyd Genesis. Work your way to the mixer desk and get a go I've done it often had great fun and the audience get so much better mix😊
You can do a lot at home. You can practice mixing (EQ and compression etc) on a laptop. A good mix is a good mix. Whether it is on a laptop with multitracks or in a venue. If you could get your hands on a speaker and a microphone you could practice eleminating some feedback or EQ'ing the speaker (you would need something like a 31 band EQ for this).
You could train your ear with feedback apps or programs on your computer. Learning to indentify frequencies.
I'm so glad they've helped you. My question is what resources do you not have?
All you need is the willingness to learn. If you're in a city then get in touch with pa rental companies, ask if you can Shadow or pack cases. If there's nothing like that around you then start a band or make friends with a local band. Ask if you can try and mix their rehearsals. There's a crazy amount of info on TH-cam. Though I might just be misunderstanding your situation
That’s great advice, I guess to be a bit more specific is how can I practice live mixing if I cannot get to be in a room? As long as it sounds good does that make it good? My worry is that because I can’t get that sort of time behind the board at an actual performance to get those repetitions I won’t grow. Just curious on your thoughts if you have encountered that or meet others who have.
you can only get people not to deflect and blame shift when production management teams don't penalise people for their mistakes
if you don't have an environment where people feel safe to make mistakes no one will take responsibility for them
GREAT CONTENT!🔥
Can I get that stereo line with a Scottish accent? Maybe in Portuguese?
great video
Real shit
OMG!!!!! just happened to me in a show where the headliner team just thought they were discovering America again!!! after 2 hours yeah! 2 F$%%ing hours they tried something that I suggested and voila problem solved. Did any of that team say thank you to me? you guess it hahaha
Thr Smartest person is the one who admits that they dont know everything....
Oh, hang on. let me flip the phase on the left channel for you !!!!
... i'm sorry, tying a KNOT in my AUDIO CABLE???
BRO DO YOU THINK WE OVER-UNDER WRAP EVERY SINGLE AUDIO CABLE FOR *FUN*???
if it's their gear idgaf but nobody better be intentionally tying knots in ***MY*** FRICKIN CABLES
like actually what the fuck that's one of the most disrespectful asks I've ever heard
And you know what you can't read his mind either on whether the kont should be the left or the right.
Wtf, the 3rd one was literally someone I had an arugment last week. He insist on not doing something that I genuinely think worth of try which complicate a fricking 10 minutes worthless debate. Then finally, he tries to listen and voila, it could've been done for like a minute or less 😔😔😤
One word "never" 😜
Why don't you use colour code for each lead
because the colours you chose for left and right could be different to what I use. Simple, concise labeling just makes life easier.
Then there is the so-called ‘professional’ artist who causes feedback by some clever trick with a microphone and a speaker, usually when you’re not watching him/her, then blames you and makes a comment as such in front of the entire audience. I had that happen during a sold-out show. I think everyone in that audience was embarrassed and formed a new opinion of that person…
I was gonna just leave a"Yes!" and not even watch the video lol
I didn't though, cos i'm not the asshole...
id rather work at home depot than go back to live sound. its inhumane.
Jimminy christmas - yeah, I get it: some people are just total assholes - and some people need to develop thicker skin - welcome to the real world people
The music industry....you will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.
DJs 😞
You have too much common sense. Get out of the sound business!!! 😂
Excellent advice
Try being a woman in that industry
Don't have the whole Stage-Tech field pull on the same string and , at least work professional besides a paid project?
I mean, every worker will be confronted with workplace changes at some point in their life.
Must suck, to do an application to a new job and your reputation sucks, because you work at Company EGO-Tech Ltd.
Or are they mostly independant freelancers?
Yes.
JK
I just don't wnat the entire mix drowned in kick drum and sub sludge. Do live sound engineers even listen to their mix? It's almost always ASS.
I agree. Most of the bigger shows I have attended lately reflect what you mentioned. Bass is great as long as it's at a reasonable level. The treble is usually unbearable along with excessive volume. A loud concert can be cool if the EQ is properly set. Unfortunately it's usually not and heavy guitar tones are over gained and not cutting in the mix. Sounds like white noise, boomy vocals, and muddy bass , and illegal volume levels.
@@jeremyshirah8293 Exactly. I remember one show with Exodus and Anthrax and a couple of other old school metal bands. Everybody but Anthrax used the house sound guy. Guess who sounded the best. Exodus didn't help matters much with scooped guitars with WAY too much gain. But the sound guy didn't help anyone. Pure aural ASS.
“I’m still fairly young compared to some people still in the industry.” The word still makes that sentence passive aggressive, no?