Live Sound

[krth1985]

I've noticed during our live gigs when there is a soundman that the singer and lead guitarist of the band interfere too much in the FOH sound. My opinion is that thats the soundmans job. The singer wasnt happy from the get go because of the sound and rather than say "we dont sound the best, but thats not our problem, lets just do what we do and put on a show" he simply says "that sounds sh*t, u cant heard lead, u cant hear this, thats too loud" and is never happy after a soundcheck - so straight away im in a bad mood because i think whats the point if ur gona be morngy all night?

Anyway, my question is: How much control do u guys like to have with the FOH sound? Do u just set up and let the soundman work his thing, maybe throw him a few pointers to how u want to sound, or are u constantly at the desk??

[crez5150]

I too find it surprising the amount of people that tell the soundman how to do his job..... it comes up a lot on basschat too.... I'd be pissed off if the soundguy came up to me during soundcheck and told me how to play or get a better sound.... leave them too it, it's not your job!

[Low End Bee]

I used to be in a band with a singer/guitar operator who was a nightmare.

It's too dry...it's too wet...can I have more vocals?...can I have more drums?...can I have more guitar?...can I have more bass?....this monitor's too loud now.....Can you make me sound bigger?.....can I have a more reverb?...can you make it more sound more natural?

It used to drive me and the sound person mental and cocked up the sound no end.

[chris_b]

+1 for leaving him alone to do his job.

If the sound guy is good he's good and if he's not, all the nagging in the world won't make him any better. And what do you know about FOH anyway?

[crez5150]

[quote name='chris_b' post='1145887' date='Mar 1 2011, 03:23 PM']+1 for leaving him alone to do his job.

If the sound guy is good he's good and if he's not, all the nagging in the world won't make him any better. And what do you know about FOH anyway?[/quote]


That's exactly the thing that gets me.... it's his job. I currently work as a sound engineer/acoustician but I wouldn't dream of telling someone how to do their job at a gig.

[wotnwhy]

[quote name='Low End Bee' post='1145871' date='Mar 1 2011, 03:10 PM']can I have more vocals?...can I have more drums?...can I have more guitar?...can I have more bass?....this monitor's too loud now.....[/quote]

This is what really grates my cheddar.

Thankfully i've been lucky enough to only be in bands who's soundcheck consists of blasting through a song (maby 2), some quick mumbles of 'yup, yup', then asking the soundman if s/he was happy before getting off the stage. Never on stage for more than 10 minutes.


If I'm ever on first in a night, I'm not really bothered about the sound as there's either A. No-one there to hear it or B. No-ones cares cause it's the first band.

When we're not on first, you get to hear a band or two from the FOH and for me, this is the important bit. If the sound is great, no problems. If it's poor, then the soundmans crap and there's nothing that can be done. If it's good, but not how we sound, then a quick word before the set using prior bands sound as refernce is enough to do the job.

[wateroftyne]

I/we tend to leave to FoH mix to the FoH folks.

Having said that...

A lot of them - even some of the best ones that I've worked with - seem to be obsessed with volume and sub-bass... (a bass player's nightmare, IMO).

So, we might occasionally ask them to tidy up the low end, or bring the overall level down a bit. They generally take it in good spirits.

[chris_b]

I was playing with Ruthless Blues one night and the fold back was getting quite loud. In the middle of a number their singer, Stevie Smith, shouted at the sound guy;

"F**s sake, Doon, I want to hear myself sing, not dry my hair!!!"

[krth1985]

By the way, the lad who did the sound last friday also did the sound for this gig which everyone said was good, so he knew what he was doing. It was just the venue in my opinion. The drums were under a small arched roof - and we're mic'd up. And it was only a small stage, so surely the mic's on the guitar amps would pick up everyone else? I dunno, but it just set a really bad tone for the gig

[url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KcsolVrVEmA"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KcsolVrVEmA[/url]

[Dave Vader]

As a former soundguy myself, I found a trick to dealing with singers/guitarists that kept asking for a bit more this, and a bit more that during soundchecks. Having already set it perfect for the room, as they ask for more of something turn the treble all the way up, and slowly bring it back to where it was in the first place, at this point they will generally say something along the lines of "That's great now, much better".
At which point you nod, take all the guitars out of the FOH and hope they don't turn their marshall stacks up any louder or everything's going to go to hell.

Let the sound guy do the sound, he's already got enough audience members telling him how to do his job without you lot chiming in as well.
Still have to do the sound for the bands I play with now, and pull the same trick on our vocalist every gig still.

[ironside1966]

All I want from a sound check is to set the levels make sure that there is not going to be any problems and set the monitors if there is no separate mix. When people come out front I just turn it down and ask them how the monitors are.
If I am a player I just let the engineer get on with it.
You will always get somebody who says you need to do this and you need to do that but in truth no two jobs are the same there are many other factors come in to play and time been the major one, the next is that most of the time you are seeing bands for the first time and the only time you hear them is in a short sound check so you stick ways you trust

[JTUK]

[quote name='chris_b' post='1145929' date='Mar 1 2011, 03:46 PM']I was playing with Ruthless Blues one night and the fold back was getting quite loud. In the middle of a number their singer, Stevie Smith, shouted at the sound guy;

"F**s sake, Doon, I want to hear myself sing, not dry my hair!!!"[/quote]

Excellent

[xilddx]

[quote name='chris_b' post='1145887' date='Mar 1 2011, 03:23 PM']+1 for leaving him alone to do his job.

If the sound guy is good he's good and if he's not, all the nagging in the world won't make him any better. And what do you know about FOH anyway?[/quote]
BIG +1

That said, I've had some arrogant but totally flaky f***ers that can't manage the monitor mixes, and are not to be found at their desk when you need them. I would NEVER play the Babalou Crypt in Brixton again.

[ahpook]

[quote name='wotnwhy' post='1145900' date='Mar 1 2011, 03:29 PM']Thankfully i've been lucky enough to only be in bands who's soundcheck consists of blasting through a song (maby 2), some quick mumbles of 'yup, yup', then asking the soundman if s/he was happy before getting off the stage. Never on stage for more than 10 minutes.[/quote]

plus the one.

and i always let the sound engineer do their job...if you hack them off they can make you sound awful.

let them get on with it.

[Lozz196]

Couple of views on this.

With my previous to last band, a mate of ours used to do the pa for us, and one of the guys was a reverb freak. Can I have more reverb on my (backing) vocals was his catchphrase. My mate used to adjust the pa, and ask him if it was ok. the response was always "thats much better". That pa didn`t have any reverb on it!

Also with this band, we used to play at a venue with an in-house sound-man. You`d see bands asking for "more clarity on the upper mids, but with some snappiness on the kick" etc. He used to adjust it as they asked, never rolling his eyeballs, and usually they sounded dreadful, but that`s what they asked him for.

Every time we played there, we`d run through a song. He`d ask us "what do you reckon" and we`d ask him "what do you reckon Bill". He`d usually say he thought it sounded great, so we always went with that, and every time we played there, people in the audience would ask why we sounded so much better than all the other bands on that night. And we weren`t a particularly good band.

In-house sound engineers do usually know what they are doing, through their own kit. They sometimes get a bit of bad press from us musicians, but a lot of the time, it`s the bands themselves who have individual sounds that don`t work together, and putting it all through a big pa highlights this for the first time. Result "it must be the sound-mans fault" when in reality, the fault can be closer to home.

And no, I`m not a sound-man, and never have been.

[Muzz]

We played a gig years ago, and agreed to let some some friends open up for us as their first gig. Luckily, the club was closed during the afternoon for soundchecking, so there was very little pressure. We soundchecked two numbers, thumbs up from the desk, and left to go and get something to eat while the younger guys soundchecked. We came back about 45 minutes later and they were still soundchecking. The soundman had his head in his hands as the singer said "We're not happy".
The soundman said "Well, what do you want?"
"I don't know" said the singer "but we're still not happy".
"Look," said the soundman, leaning wearily across the desk "I haven't got a friggin Happy button on here..."

[dan2112]

I've just started work as a FOH engineer in a small club with small time bands...and I do get it very often from the band who are stood BEHIND the FOH saying that they can't hear this and that...it's really frustrating as what I'm hearing from the FOH is a well balanced mix. I had a corker the other day....'can we have another microphone on the plant pot to capture more of the paper'...."facepalm"

[Stylon Pilson]

[quote name='dan2112' post='1148642' date='Mar 3 2011, 05:39 PM']I've just started work as a FOH engineer in a small club with small time bands...and I do get it very often from the band who are stood BEHIND the FOH saying that they can't hear this and that...it's really frustrating as what I'm hearing from the FOH is a well balanced mix.[/quote]

I'd interpret that as meaning that they were asking for you to make adjustments to the monitor mix.

S.P.

[Mykesbass]

[quote name='wateroftyne' post='1145909' date='Mar 1 2011, 03:34 PM']A lot of them - even some of the best ones that I've worked with - seem to be obsessed with volume and sub-bass... (a bass player's nightmare, IMO).[/quote]

Not a young guy at the Cluny by any chance?

[wateroftyne]

[quote name='Mykesbass' post='1149013' date='Mar 3 2011, 10:36 PM']Not a young guy at the Cluny by any chance?[/quote]
I'm saying nowt....

[dan2112]

[quote name='Stylon Pilson' post='1148655' date='Mar 3 2011, 05:44 PM']I'd interpret that as meaning that they were asking for you to make adjustments to the monitor mix.

S.P.[/quote]
No no, this was them telling me to turn up the guitars in the FOH when they were happy with the monitors.

[citymariner]

Let them do their job.

However, on the opposite side of the fence, I had sound guy tweak one of my pedals when I was off stage. I asked what he was doing and he said he liked a particular sound from that pedal. It went from a crunchy overdriven to FUZZ.

I asked if I could boost all channels on the mixer @ 1.4khz. He asked why. I replied "I like that particular frequency..."

[jonsmith]

Must admit, it seems I take a rather different view to the majority here. The sound engineer needn't neccessarily know that in such & such a band, the keyboards are mainly beefing up the sound rather than being really prominent, or that the backing vocals are meant to to be just that and not totally 'in your face'. I think it's only fair to provide some sort of idea as to how the band should sound and then allow him to tweak to suit his gear and the venue. In these sort of instances, then I will suggest some tweaks if it's not sounding correct FOH (I will normally wander into the audience during soundcheck to get some idea of how it's sounding, then he/she can adjust for a venue full of bodies). If a particular song needs a lot of reverb on the vocals (because that's how it's meant to sound), I'll ask for it. Perhaps it depends how you deliver the request, but it's never been an issue yet.

[flyfisher]

Interesting. I've always assumed that the on-stage sound will never be as good as FOH and that the monitors should really be set-up so that each performer can hear enough of the rest of the band to be able to play their part - not to give the same sort of quality mix as the FOH, which the sound guy then mixes to give the audience the best possible sound.

Thus the band members instruct the sound guy to give them the monitor mix they want, but the FOH sound is his responsibility alone.

Or am I missing something here?

[wotnwhy]

[quote name='flyfisher' post='1152830' date='Mar 7 2011, 07:20 PM']Interesting. I've always assumed that the on-stage sound will never be as good as FOH and that the monitors should really be set-up so that each performer can hear enough of the rest of the band to be able to play their part - not to give the same sort of quality mix as the FOH, which the sound guy then mixes to give the audience the best possible sound.

Thus the band members instruct the sound guy to give them the monitor mix they want, but the FOH sound is his responsibility alone.

Or am I missing something here?[/quote]

Completely agree.

Also agree with jonsmith, I always tell the soundman the bass sound i'm trying to achieve. ie, nice bit of rumble, focuss on the mids and cut treble. Because it's not the usual bass mix soundmen go for. Or even better, when he's up on the stage, show him your bass sound through your rig, much more effective than trying to describe a sound!