Gear confusion for live shows

[ubit]

12 hours ago, lemmywinks said:

you just have to not instantly dismiss it because you failed to make it work. That's on you.

We did make it work. My point is it's uneccesary.

[phil.c60]

8 minutes ago, ubit said:

We did make it work. My point is it's uneccesary.

And expensive (relatively) and complicated and time consuming to set up, and as for the ability to change monitor mixes "on the fly" - while your playing? How on earth? Or between songs? Constantly fiddling with your mix while the rest of your band hangs around? Fine if you have a dedicated sound person like Bluejay who knows what they're doing, that would be great but most of us don't have that luxury.  We run with just backline and vocal PA, total PA cost (second hand, Yamaha and EV, not rubbish) about £500 get told we sound great and play 30 -40 gigs a year. We must be doing something right. If the drummer needs to hit harder to hear himself, the answer is that the rest of you are too loud. The volume of an un-mic'd kit in a small venue is perfectly sufficient even when played "gently", the rest of you adjust your levels to suit. Simple, effective and quick - we expect to be set up, checked and ready in 30 mins. The last time I played with a band who had all the fluffy stuff they told me "we need to be there about 7.15 to be ready by 8.45".  and we didn't finish packing down until 11.45 after an 11.00 finish That didn't last long. YMMV.

[Muzz]

Just as an aside for the OP, the 1 x 212 or 2 x 112 thing? Depends on the range of venues/volumes you'll be playing, but more importantly how self-restrained you can be: I once had three Berg 112s (and an amp that could run them all), figuring I'd have the ultimate modular rig. I did, but every time I left the house I always brought a second 112...and a lot of times the third, 'just in case'. No self-restraint, y'see... 🙂

[ubit]

I just get annoyed when I am accused of not knowing what I am talking about or not being able to make a PA work. I have been gigging for the best part of 30 years. We always used a PA for vocals. As we evolved we started putting bass through the tops, then bought subs and gradually became more and more mired in worrying about getting the right sound. Eventually I bought the current powered EV speakers/PA that  we have at the moment.Sound checks became essential and yet not always possible due to venue constraints. Most pubs we played didn't have room for monitors. What I am saying is, in an average British pub, going through a full PA is not necessary. I can only imagine what sized pubs some of you are referring to but every one that we played in wasn't big enough to justify the use of a full PA when we had no one to control it out front. Its like trying too hard to be this professional outfit when you can get by with a small drum set,  bass/guitar combos and a vocal PA.

[ubit]

1 hour ago, phil.c60 said:

The last time I played with a band who had all the fluffy stuff they told me "we need to be there about 7.15 to be ready by 8.45". 

It used to take us about an hour to an hour and a half to get everything set up. Ridiculous when you think of where we were playing and who was the audience.

[Happy Jack]

1 hour ago, phil.c60 said:

The last time I played with a band who had all the fluffy stuff they told me "we need to be there about 7.15 to be ready by 8.45".  and we didn't finish packing down until 11.45 after an 11.00 finish That didn't last long. YMMV.

Those timings seem about right to me, regardless of whether or not everything is going through the PA. For a 9pm start I would want to be playing one song as a soundcheck at 8:30, no later than 8:45. To be ready to soundcheck at 8:30 I would start loading in to the venue at 7:30.

Do bear in mind that allowing an hour for a set-up is NOT the same as needing an hour. I always want some 'spare' in case of accident or breakdown. If that means that I'm ready half an hour early, well that's fine ... time to have a quiet chat with the band / punters / landlord / pub cat / whatever.

As to finishing packing down 45 minutes after you've finished playing, I'm really not sure how you could shave any significant amount of time off that, or in fact why it would bother you. Say you managed to slash a third off that time through utterly frantic work; you now get to load out at 11:30 instead of 11:45. Wow. What a result. 

4 minutes ago, ubit said:

It used to take us about an hour to an hour and a half to get everything set up. Ridiculous when you think of where we were playing and who was the audience.

Is that how long it actually took, or the elapsed time between the load-in and the gig starting?

 

[nilebodgers]

5 minutes ago, ubit said:

I just get annoyed when I am accused of not knowing what I am talking about or not being able to make a PA work. I have been gigging for the best part of 30 years. We always used a PA for vocals. As we evolved we started putting bass through the tops, then bought subs and gradually became more and more mired in worrying about getting the right sound. Eventually I bought the current powered EV speakers/PA that  we have at the moment.Sound checks became essential and yet not always possible due to venue constraints. Most pubs we played didn't have room for monitors. What I am saying is, in an average British pub, going through a full PA is not necessary. I can only imagine what sized pubs some of you are referring to but every one that we played in wasn't big enough to justify the use of a full PA when we had no one to control it out front. Its like trying too hard to be this professional outfit when you can get by with a small drum set,  bass/guitar combos and a vocal PA.

You are dead right for most small venues. The main problem with a simple vocal PA is that it requires a lot of discipline from everyone in the band to keep their acoustic and back line levels at the right levels to get a good overall mix. 

Not a simple thing to achieve when egos are in the room!

 

[ubit]

6 minutes ago, Happy Jack said:

 

Is that how long it actually took, or the elapsed time between the load-in and the gig starting?

 

Roughly how long it would take to get everything set up. We usually tried to have some me time before starting.

[ubit]

4 minutes ago, nilebodgers said:

You are dead right for most small venues. The main problem with a simple vocal PA is that it requires a lot of discipline from everyone in the band to keep their acoustic and back line levels at the right levels to get a good overall mix. 

Not a simple thing to achieve when egos are in the room!

 

Yes but I suppose you need that anyway. As said, going through a PA is great when you have someone to control it out front but most bands don't have this luxury. If you have a giant ego who insists on being heard above everyone else to the detriment of the overall sound then that's another issue. 

[peteb]

3 hours ago, ubit said:

What sized pubs are you playing in? 🤔

Haha :-) 

That was part of a discussion about playing a bigger venue, the point being that in pubs normally everybody can hear the onstage sound and it can sound odd if they can't... 

[bassace]

18 hours ago, ubit said:

plus we have @Silvia Bluejay out front with a tablet controlling the XR18. 

 

It makes a big difference if you have a sound man/girl controlling your sound. Most pub cover bands will not have this luxury.

Silvie is an essential, not a luxury!

[ubit]

27 minutes ago, bassace said:

Silvie is an essential, not a luxury!

Most bands don't have this so its a luxury to most. I appreciate your sentiments towards her.

[phil.c60]

"As to finishing packing down 45 minutes after you've finished playing, I'm really not sure how you could shave any significant amount of time off that, or in fact why it would bother you. Say you managed to slash a third off that time through utterly frantic work; you now get to load out at 11:30 instead of 11:45. Wow. What a result. "

That was just to pack it all up, before even thinking of carting it outside loading it. We're normally done and dusted in half an hour at the end and ready to drive away or have a beer. And that's without rushing. It's a small, simple and reliable set-up which works well for us.  As said, YMMV. Different strokes and all that. I just get a bit fidgety when folks suggest that unless you've got all the fluffy stuff and state of the art bluetooth this and wireless that and a fully mic'd drum kit and in-ears for everyone (including perhaps all the audience members so they can all control their own mixes too !) to play in a small pub that somehow you're not doing it "properly" and that you are stuck in the stone age. No we don't, yes we are, and no we're not. 

Edited May 6, 2020 by phil.c60

[mcnach]

2 hours ago, Happy Jack said:

Those timings seem about right to me, regardless of whether or not everything is going through the PA. For a 9pm start I would want to be playing one song as a soundcheck at 8:30, no later than 8:45. To be ready to soundcheck at 8:30 I would start loading in to the venue at 7:30.

Do bear in mind that allowing an hour for a set-up is NOT the same as needing an hour. I always want some 'spare' in case of accident or breakdown. If that means that I'm ready half an hour early, well that's fine ... time to have a quiet chat with the band / punters / landlord / pub cat / whatever.

As to finishing packing down 45 minutes after you've finished playing, I'm really not sure how you could shave any significant amount of time off that, or in fact why it would bother you. Say you managed to slash a third off that time through utterly frantic work; you now get to load out at 11:30 instead of 11:45. Wow. What a result. 

Is that how long it actually took, or the elapsed time between the load-in and the gig starting?

 

 

+1

Few things take away the 'fun' of a gig as rushing around to set up and dealing with emergencies. We like to set up with plenty of time, so that we also have some time to chill and chat before we start... and if there's a problem, we have a chance to solve it without going crazy. The difference in time between a rushed and a relaxed job is not very much really, but how we feel afterwards is like night and day. 

[lemmywinks]

12 hours ago, peteb said:

That’s the point about the drummer – small gigs are inevitably a compromise between getting a great sound and be able to make it work in that venue. A drummer can get an awesome snare sound that sounds great to them and to a punter 30 feet away, but there are problems if he is blowing out everybody’s ears onstage and you can’t hear anything else every time he hits the damn thing. However, you do have to accept that the top rock drummers around are all big hitters (e.g. the Kenny Aronoff, Josh Freese, Deen Castronovo & Brian Tichys of this world). But you do need to find a compromise when you are playing in pubs and on small stages.

You may prefer the clarity and spread of a soundless stage, but some musos (like me) and indeed many punters might prefer a more organic, ‘immediate’ sound. To take the example of my mates’ band that I mentioned above, (IMHO) it can sound more like a CD coming out of the PA rather than a live performance. It is undoubtedly different in big venues with proper stages, where only the first few rows can hear the onstage sound anyway.

I don't play dad rock and we avoid "heavy hitters" as IME that usually translates to no control and stupid uncontrollable volume wars on stage leading to terrible FoH. Some of the best drummers I've played with have been able to control their volume and still sounded great which is key for small gigs and stages, if you have a loud drummer then like I said you've lost before you've started. It doesn't matter what your PA or amp setup is, you're too loud for a lot of gigs.

 

I don't know where you get the idea that isolating the on stage sound from FoH is not "organic" or "immediate", that is just fabricated nonsense. Also the FoH sound is always different to the on stage mix (sometimes drastically) so this could translate negatively to what the audience hear or vice versa. Again it's about handing control to the engineer or whoever in the band is setting levels while being able to hear everything more clearly on stage. Adding in variables and bizarre adjectives like "organic" and "immediate" helps nobody as they are essentially meaningless.

[lemmywinks]

4 hours ago, ubit said:

We did make it work. My point is it's uneccesary.

Evidently not if your posts are anything to go by. It sounds like you couldn't manage to get a scaled down PA to work in pubs. We do and a ton of other bands do as well, IME they usually sound better. This is what all the good function bands I know do regardless of venue.

 

Basically what I was saying is that you can have a very simple setup of everybody having some sort of isolated monitor, lower stage volumes and the engineer having direct control over everything rather than having to work around the hard limits of backline volumes. This can be a simple setup involving less amps/cabs and two cable runs per member, miles more room on small stages (ie small pubs), everybody can hear themselves and the FoH can be as loud or as quiet as you choose with no interference from backline. 

 

Again you don't have to agree with it, just don't dismiss it when you couldn't get it to work and found it a worry. It works for us and leads to a much better gigging experience with less heavy equipment and a more streamlines setup. That's all I was saying and I have no idea why this is hard to grasp for you.

[ubit]

5 minutes ago, lemmywinks said:

ust don't dismiss it when you couldn't get it to work

We DID get it to work. My point is its completely unnecessary for small pub gigs! You may be talking about much bigger pubs than what I am. The ones we were used to playing in were not that big and as for monitors, we had people right in front of us. No room to have monitors. 

[lemmywinks]

4 hours ago, phil.c60 said:

And expensive (relatively) and complicated and time consuming to set up, and as for the ability to change monitor mixes "on the fly" - while your playing? How on earth? Or between songs? Constantly fiddling with your mix while the rest of your band hangs around? 

 

Simple, effective and quick - we expect to be set up, checked and ready in 30 mins. The last time I played with a band who had all the fluffy stuff they told me "we need to be there about 7.15 to be ready by 8.45".  and we didn't finish packing down until 11.45 after an 11.00 finish That didn't last long. YMMV.

It's not expensive. When I moved from an amp to a wedge I made over £100. When I moved to a basic set of in ears the price different was £540 in my favour. Our RCF tops which are full range were about £900 from memory.

 

I can change my monitor mix easily on the fly, if I can't hear backing vocals or something is too loud I can adjust it in a second or two using an old iPad Mini clamped to my bass stand (£25 for the tablet off eBay, £12 for the clamp), the screen is always on so you just move a slider with your finger. This might happen once or twice in a gig, might not happen at all. Again the "constantly fiddling with your mix" is something you fabricated to diminish someone else's POV. 

 

Our setup is also simple, effective and quick. I'm not sure what you are trying to do here, the OP asked a question and he was given some bad advice based on assumptions.

[Happy Jack]

19 minutes ago, lemmywinks said:

Evidently not if your posts are anything to go by.

 

10 minutes ago, ubit said:

We DID get it to work. 

Far canal, guys, could you maybe take this to email or something?

 

[ubit]

2 minutes ago, lemmywinks said:

OP asked a question and he was given some bad advice based on assumptions.

in your opinion. Some of us said keep it simple. You say you have an iPad controlling everything that cost next to nothing. You can't just control a PA with an app. You need other hardware/software as well.

[lemmywinks]

7 minutes ago, ubit said:

We DID get it to work. My point is its completely unnecessary for small pub gigs! You may be talking about much bigger pubs than what I am. The ones we were used to playing in were not that big and as for monitors, we had people right in front of us. No room to have monitors. 

We can play some small pubs with a compact PA (our subs have a smaller footprint than our stands btw) and it works fine, as it does for many bands all over the world on a wide variety of stages large and small. Volume is only an issue if your drummer is too loud. The room for monitors thing isn't an issue any more as we all have crystal clear monitors which fit in our back pockets. If you have no monitors how would you hear keys or vocals, relying on sound from the tops which can be hit and miss in small pubs?

 

Personally if I was in the position of the OP and I joined a band who just handed me a DI box I'd be over the moon. If I left my band that's exactly the situation my replacement would be in. They'd be strolling up to gigs with their entire rig in a bass case

[peteb]

35 minutes ago, lemmywinks said:

I don't play dad rock and we avoid "heavy hitters" as IME that usually translates to no control and stupid uncontrollable volume wars on stage leading to terrible FoH. Some of the best drummers I've played with have been able to control their volume and still sounded great which is key for small gigs and stages, if you have a loud drummer then like I said you've lost before you've started. It doesn't matter what your PA or amp setup is, you're too loud for a lot of gigs.

 

I don't know where you get the idea that isolating the on stage sound from FoH is not "organic" or "immediate", that is just fabricated nonsense. Also the FoH sound is always different to the on stage mix (sometimes drastically) so this could translate negatively to what the audience hear or vice versa. Again it's about handing control to the engineer or whoever in the band is setting levels while being able to hear everything more clearly on stage. Adding in variables and bizarre adjectives like "organic" and "immediate" helps nobody as they are essentially meaningless.

Would it help if I used less confusing adjectives like ‘sterile’ or perhaps ‘crap’?? The point that I am making is that the majority of bands using a silent stage approach in pubs do not sound very good. That is not to say that it doesn’t work in bigger venues, because it obviously does. But not at the Dog & Duck…

As far as drummers goes, you are missing the point. You may be dismissive of ‘Dad Rock’, but that’s what a lot of us play and there is certainly an audience there. If you ever were to venture into that genre, you would find that any decent drummer will tend to be a reasonably heavy hitter. The challenge for them is to then vary their technique or otherwise find ways to get their levels down to work in a small venue / stage area. For example, I have seen drummers change the angle of their snare drum so that they get less rim every time they hit it.

There are always compromises that you have to make when you are playing small venues. I should mention that there are plenty of perfectly good small pub gigs that I have happily done with R&B or blues bands that I would refuse to do with the louder hard rock band (despite being asked).

[lemmywinks]

7 minutes ago, ubit said:

in your opinion. Some of us said keep it simple. You say you have an iPad controlling everything that cost next to nothing. You can't just control a PA with an app. You need other hardware/software as well.

That's my personal iPad which is an old model iPad Mini got for £25 on eBay, I use it for controlling my monitor mix so I can hear everything clearly. You don't need your own but it's handy and makes gigs more fun as you don't ever have to put up with a poor stage sound. Obviously the desk has a separate tablet but you'd need that regardless and there's no need to spend huge money. Tablet based desks (doesn't have to be overpriced Apple junk) are cheap and accessible for everyone now.

 

I'm sure the uninitiated would look at an analog desk and be blinded with confusion, that isn't the point. The OP is joining an established band and is looking for advice on what to take which is why I said to ask them what their setup is. It was literally the first sentence I wrote on the thread. He'd look an absolute wally if they use a decent small PA with IEMs but showed up with an Ashdown Wool-o-matic 8000 because someone on a forum said Mustang Sally sounds more organic and immediate that way. If you join an established band you work around how they work.

[lemmywinks]

15 minutes ago, peteb said:

1 -Would it help if I used less confusing adjectives like ‘sterile’ or perhaps ‘crap’?? The point that I am making is that the majority of bands using a silent stage approach in pubs do not sound very good. That is not to say that it doesn’t work in bigger venues, because it obviously does. But not at the Dog & Duck…

2 -As far as drummers goes, you are missing the point. You may be dismissive of ‘Dad Rock’, but that’s what a lot of us play and there is certainly an audience there. If you ever were to venture into that genre, you would find that any decent drummer will tend to be a reasonably heavy hitter. The challenge for them is to then vary their technique or otherwise find ways to get their levels down to work in a small venue / stage area. For example, I have seen drummers change the angle of their snare drum so that they get less rim every time they hit it.

 

1 -You could use those adjectives but by doing so you would out yourself as someone more interested in fuelling an agenda and point scoring than discussing music and live sound. Up to you, that sort of BS is of no interest to me so take it elsewhere.

2 - I didn't dismiss Dad rock, I just said I don't have any interest in playing it as you mentioned heavy hitting rock drummers. I've played in bands with a variety of drummers, some loud (annoyingly so) and some reasonable. The better drummers I've played with have been able to control volume regardless of genre and yes, like every gigging bassist over 35 I have played creaky old rock for years in pubs. Who hasn't? It's the most common and easy style to get right.

[skidder652003]

 

Edited May 6, 2020 by skidder652003