Soundprrson vs guitarist

maltingsaudio

Loads of criticisms of the FOH engineer here recently so question for you lot.
What is more important, the sound the audience hears or the sound you hear on stage? And who do you trust?
Mixed a gig today , front of house and monitors with the desk at side of stage but had the ipad. Fortunately the band were not prima donnas and got on and did the job. Standing at the mixer the stage sound was not great. The singer wanted all of me in their monitors to the exclusion of everyone else, the drummer wanted rhythm guitar vocals and” a bit of everything else”, the lead guitarist wanted just him, and the bass player rolled a spliff and said whatever! So the stage sound wasn’t to my ears great. When I moved in front of the speakers to mix what the audience heard everything smoothed out and it sounded like a band should in the space. Audience went mental everyone happy great gig.

stratman3142

What the audience hears is most important to me. Always chat and make friends with the soundmen.

Musicwolf

It's both.  The FOH sound is important but so is the performance and having a 'good' sound on stage can help that.

Getting the sound on stage right for the individual band members is a real challenge for a number of reasons.  On small stages, or with less than optimal kit, it isn't always possible to give everyone the mix that they want.  The other problem is that with inexperienced bands they don't actually know what mix they want.  The 'more of everything' comment is absolutely typical.  When faced with this I normally ask 'what would you like less of?'.  The other one is 'I want to hear the same mix as out front'.  Now if you just give them the FOH mix through their monitor it won't sound the same on stage but even if you could achieve similar balance as the FOH you then find that they want something entirely different.

My observations of several musicians, including my own personal experince, in the studio and live leads me to conclude that we hear things quite differently when we are playing vs when we are listening.

WiresDreamDisasters

You've just got to know what you want.

After so many years, I know that I prefer to have my amp loud and have zero guitars in the monitors - even to the point where I'd rather *NOT* hear myself clearly on stage. I hate the sound of guitar coming through those cheap wedges; it's borderline abusive to make people listen to that on stage!!

slacker

maltingsaudio said:

Loads of criticisms of the FOH engineer here recently so question for you lot.
What is more important, the sound the audience hears or the sound you hear on stage? And who do you trust?
Mixed a gig today , front of house and monitors with the desk at side of stage but had the ipad. Fortunately the band were not prima donnas and got on and did the job. Standing at the mixer the stage sound was not great. The singer wanted all of me in their monitors to the exclusion of everyone else, the drummer wanted rhythm guitar vocals and” a bit of everything else”, the lead guitarist wanted just him, and the bass player rolled a spliff and said whatever! So the stage sound wasn’t to my ears great. When I moved in front of the speakers to mix what the audience heard everything smoothed out and it sounded like a band should in the space. Audience went mental everyone happy great gig.

My criticisms have been of specific sound engineers. I'm also critical of musicians. I have been in volume war bands and have no time for it. Two out of three bands I joined on jmb were too loud. I lead my current band. We don't have volumes wars and its not dictatorial. I often get the bassist and guitarist to turn up and the drummer is a joy to play with.

When we play in a rehearsal room the instruments are balanced an the vocals go through a pa. All the sound man has to do is reinforce what we're doing in the right manner for the room/field.

Danny1969

One mistake a lot of less experienced player make is they tend to have a very "all me " mix in their monitors which means they can hear their vocal / guitar / keys or whatever but they can't really hear what everyone else is doing and thus don't play well as a band. I mean they are in time and in tune but not actually interacting musically with the others because they can't hear them in any detail. 

99% of the gigs I do I have no idea what it sounds like out the front as I'm on ears. I just try and play consistently without any big volume jumps but also easing off a bit under the vocal or when someone else is taking a solo. If you are working for someone at FOH that doesn't know your set and who does what you have to give him /her some pointers.  

ICBM

What Musicwolf said - it’s both. It’s no good having a fantastic sound on stage if it sounds awful out front, and it generally doesn’t produce a good performance if it’s the other way round.

The key is not to make it confrontational - which it can easily become. I’ve done both jobs and the real problems occur mostly when the band doesn’t listen to the soundman because they regard him/her as some sort of servant to their ‘artistic vision’ - but a good soundman who understands what you’re trying to do can *help* you get that across. They aren’t out to make you sound bad - unless you piss them off enough first.

As a musician I will always try to be accommodating unless it’s really obvious the soundman doesn’t have a clue (or care), but that’s not often the case. I generally prefer to be able to hear something a bit like the FOH mix myself, but if that can’t be done I’d rather hear more of the rest of the band than my own instrument. I’ve said this before several times, but the physical placement of your own gear is critical, and a lot of musicians are oddly resistant to changing it, which can result in real problems - guitar amps pointing straight out into the audience at ear height are a big one, even on huge stages.

Who do you trust? At the end of the day, the most important opinion is the audience. Everyone who goes to a gig knows roughly what a good mix sounds like because it’s like every record ever released - you can hear all the instruments and the vocals clearly. If you’re not at least in that ballpark then someone isn’t listening properly, and it can be either the band, the soundman, or both. If you can’t hear the vocals then no-one is really going to care how good the music sounds. (Instrumental music excluded obviously!)

Often that’s a problem because everything is too loud and you’re then limited by feedback on the vocals - in which case you just have to turn down a bit. A great mix slightly quieter than you’d really like is better than a bad one as loud as the gear will go.

EricTheWeary

My gigging experience was mostly pubs so usually no soundprrson beyond one of the band. 
However, there was a place we played a few times that did multi band set ups that had a decent PA and its own soundprrson. People who knew us said that was always our best sound and watching the other bands their mix was always good. But the onstage stage sound was just a fight and the soundprrson pretty much ignored what we said. 
I think oddly enough it just made us concentrate on playing and getting through the gig and abandoned any sense of subtlety ( not that was a big issue really). But would have been a mare on longer sets or if we’d been more of a jamming band. 
 As Danny says above a lot of band members fight to hear themselves loudest in the mix whereas it's often not necessary. Hearing yourself as the audience hears you makes more sense than being able to hear every last string squeak. 

shufflebeat

I sound-tech with one band in particular quite a lot, regular lineup, same gear, various venues, often unfamiliar.

Sometimes the sound both onstage and at FoH is CD quality, sometimes it's less than ideal and sometimes it's a real challenge. It's never bad but consistently "good enough" sometimes means compromises.

The band understand that I'll do everything I can to make things good but sometimes workable will have to do. They're experienced enough to know the realities of the possible. If you're playing in a bucket there's going to be issues.

When things are great I take all the credit, of course.

ICBM

ICBM said:

I’ve said this before several times, but the physical placement of your own gear is critical, and a lot of musicians are oddly resistant to changing it, which can result in real problems - guitar amps pointing straight out into the audience at ear height are a big one, even on huge stages.

Just had a bit of a bad experience with this last night - went to see Steeleye Span (that dates me a bit, I know... ) and despite the small venue, obviously low stage volume, hi-quality PA and professional sound engineer, there were some real problems with the mix.

The drums were behind a perspex shield and were fine. Bass was through an amp and was also fine.

But where we were (ticketed seats so couldn't move), we were directly in line with one of the guitarist's 4x12" cabs which was flat down on the stage pointing straight out... consequently that guitar was way too loud and too harsh-sounding, and overpowered the vocals, especially Maddy Prior's... which are one of the main things you go to see Steeleye for. A bit disappointing really as he was using a digital direct-to-PA setup (Fractal I think), the cab was not mic'ed, and there was no need for it to be facing forwards at all. The other guitarist had the same sort of set-up, but since he was on the opposite side of the stage we were not in the beam of his cab and if anything he was slightly too *quiet* from where we were.

I won't say it spoiled the gig, but it was far from ideal and could easily have been avoided.

EricTheWeary

ICBM said:

ICBM said:

I’ve said this before several times, but the physical placement of your own gear is critical, and a lot of musicians are oddly resistant to changing it, which can result in real problems - guitar amps pointing straight out into the audience at ear height are a big one, even on huge stages.

Just had a bit of a bad experience with this last night - went to see Steeleye Span (that dates me a bit, I know... ) and despite the small venue, obviously low stage volume, hi-quality PA and professional sound engineer, there were some real problems with the mix.

The drums were behind a perspex shield and were fine. Bass was through an amp and was also fine.

But where we were (ticketed seats so couldn't move), we were directly in line with one of the guitarist's 4x12" cabs which was flat down on the stage pointing straight out... consequently that guitar was way too loud and too harsh-sounding, and overpowered the vocals, especially Maddy Prior's... which are one of the main things you go to see Steeleye for. A bit disappointing really as he was using a digital direct-to-PA setup (Fractal I think), the cab was not mic'ed, and there was no need for it to be facing forwards at all. The other guitarist had the same sort of set-up, but since he was on the opposite side of the stage we were not in the beam of his cab and if anything he was slightly too *quiet* from where we were.

I won't say it spoiled the gig, but it was far from ideal and could easily have been avoided.

I saw The Span about four years ago and I remember them as surprisingly poor, certainly badly under rehearsed. The one guitarist had a Variax and either had it on one setting all night or I couldn’t tell the difference if he didn’t. 

When I saw The Specials the other week we were to the side of the stage and mostly got a reasonable PA mix but also had Steve Craddock louder than anything else as he was on our side and had his Blackstars behind him ( although I couldn’t see well). The dep rhythm guitarist was largely unheard by us, presumably because his amps were beaming over the other side of the stage and the sound guy was getting the mix where he was so nothing going through the PA. 

I think I’m more just reminiscing than adding anything but I do see that guitarists are a bit of a problem. Sound engineers mixing for where they are stood rather than the whole audience also a slight pain in the ass. 

Bezzer

EricTheWeary said:

ICBM said:

But where we were (ticketed seats so couldn't move), we were directly in line with one of the guitarist's 4x12" cabs which was flat down on the stage pointing straight out... consequently that guitar was way too loud and too harsh-sounding, and overpowered the vocals, especially Maddy Prior's... which are one of the main things you go to see Steeleye for. A bit disappointing really as he was using a digital direct-to-PA setup (Fractal I think), the cab was not mic'ed, and there was no need for it to be facing forwards at all. The other guitarist had the same sort of set-up, but since he was on the opposite side of the stage we were not in the beam of his cab and if anything he was slightly too *quiet* from where we were.

Sound engineers mixing for where they are stood rather than the whole audience also a slight pain in the ass. 

And how exactly would you like them to do that? The mixing desk is fine in a set position, usually pretty central. You can only mix to that. Anywhere else you’d get the same issue but more so.

The issue described here seems to be that the onstage volume was completely inappropriate for the venue meaning a proper mix through the PA became impossible.

You cannot mix for the whole audience if you cannot mix the sound appropriately through the PA. Which you can’t do if some instruments on stage are already at PA volume. 

Snags

Mostly I'm with Bezzer, although for a proper big gig you'd hope that the desk is in a sensible place, they do a walk around during sound checks, and have enough knowledge to allow for the room anyway etc.

For a multi-band smaller/medium-sized venue, that's not practical. Although I was at a place the other week which is tiny - maybe 200-300 tops if standing very close, and ~100 seated at small tables/rows at the back. It was probably half-full in the seated configuration for a chilled evening, and the sound guy would regularly walk down to the middle of the room and adjust the mix from his phone. OK, it solo/duo acts and simple stuff, but the sound there is always excellent, both for the audience and on stage.

EricTheWeary

Bezzer said:

EricTheWeary said:

ICBM said:

But where we were (ticketed seats so couldn't move), we were directly in line with one of the guitarist's 4x12" cabs which was flat down on the stage pointing straight out... consequently that guitar was way too loud and too harsh-sounding, and overpowered the vocals, especially Maddy Prior's... which are one of the main things you go to see Steeleye for. A bit disappointing really as he was using a digital direct-to-PA setup (Fractal I think), the cab was not mic'ed, and there was no need for it to be facing forwards at all. The other guitarist had the same sort of set-up, but since he was on the opposite side of the stage we were not in the beam of his cab and if anything he was slightly too *quiet* from where we were.

Sound engineers mixing for where they are stood rather than the whole audience also a slight pain in the ass. 

And how exactly would you like them to do that? The mixing desk is fine in a set position, usually pretty central. You can only mix to that. Anywhere else you’d get the same issue but more so.

The issue described here seems to be that the onstage volume was completely inappropriate for the venue meaning a proper mix through the PA became impossible.

You cannot mix for the whole audience if you cannot mix the sound appropriately through the PA. Which you can’t do if some instruments on stage are already at PA volume. 

Sorry, that was a bit of a throw away line at the end. I was only looking at this Discussion because I thought I’d drafted something and not posted but it turned out that I had. Doh. 

No, I appreciate that given each band and each venue having some kind of perfect hifi sound in each nook and cranny of the building isn’t possible. 

Having said that clearly this is better at times than others wether that’s the band’s fault or the sound person’s fault. If I’m going to the same venue and hearing sludge one night and a nuanced sound another that’s not just about the building. 

rsvmark

Interesting thread all. I have a very big gig (for me) coming up supporting a big 80s/90s band. 1000 capacity venue. As I am not used to these scale of things I was wondering what I should ask for and how to approach it.

Normally I have wet/dry set up but was thinking about dropping the dry amp to simplify and for speed. Was also worried about whether the sound guys would even bother with it. Then judging from the comments above there is a balance between cranking the amp to get the sound but not too loud to avoid catching the audience in the beam.

in terms of monitor mix, I do a little Bv’s so need them, lead vocals so I know where we are in the songs, and drums for rhythm. If I can then clearly hear my amp, either raw or topped up in the monitors, I should be fine I think. What I won’t have is other bv, rhythm guitar and bass guitar. 

ICBM

Bezzer said:

The issue described here seems to be that the onstage volume was completely inappropriate for the venue meaning a proper mix through the PA became impossible.

You cannot mix for the whole audience if you cannot mix the sound appropriately through the PA. Which you can’t do if some instruments on stage are already at PA volume. 

Correct - although it was the directionality not the outright volume which was the problem - but it was very definitely something the sound engineer could do nothing about, since from where we were, the guitar cab was slightly louder than the whole PA.

The guitarist was using controlled feedback occasionally - with a semi-hollow guitar, so he was doing his best to keep the volume down - but in which case, he should have had the cab pointing somewhere else, either tilted back or sideways off the stage.

maltingsaudio

rsvmark said:

Interesting thread all. I have a very big gig (for me) coming up supporting a big 80s/90s band. 1000 capacity venue. As I am not used to these scale of things I was wondering what I should ask for and how to approach it.

Normally I have wet/dry set up but was thinking about dropping the dry amp to simplify and for speed. Was also worried about whether the sound guys would even bother with it. Then judging from the comments above there is a balance between cranking the amp to get the sound but not too loud to avoid catching the audience in the beam.

in terms of monitor mix, I do a little Bv’s so need them, lead vocals so I know where we are in the songs, and drums for rhythm. If I can then clearly hear my amp, either raw or topped up in the monitors, I should be fine I think. What I won’t have is other bv, rhythm guitar and bass guitar. 

The answer to you question is speak to the sound engineer well,beforehand . He won’t/shouldn’t mind as it will make his job easier. There is no reason on a gig like that, that your monitor mix can’t have everything you want. However think about the levels of each source your asking for and what is your priority. What I mean by this is don’t have the bass so loud in your wedge you can’t hear your vocals for example. The other thing to mention in a nice way, is on soundcheck get a monitor mix which works for you, and don’t let your nerves make you keep asking for tweeks.

Danny1969

rsvmark said:

Interesting thread all. I have a very big gig (for me) coming up supporting a big 80s/90s band. 1000 capacity venue. As I am not used to these scale of things I was wondering what I should ask for and how to approach it.

Normally I have wet/dry set up but was thinking about dropping the dry amp to simplify and for speed. Was also worried about whether the sound guys would even bother with it. Then judging from the comments above there is a balance between cranking the amp to get the sound but not too loud to avoid catching the audience in the beam.

in terms of monitor mix, I do a little Bv’s so need them, lead vocals so I know where we are in the songs, and drums for rhythm. If I can then clearly hear my amp, either raw or topped up in the monitors, I should be fine I think. What I won’t have is other bv, rhythm guitar and bass guitar. 

You might find you are setting up in front of the main bands gear, so you probably won't have a lot of room. I wouldn't worry about beaming and stuff or using a wet / dry combo. Just keep it simple so all they need to do is put a mic on one speaker. 

If it's a big stage and you do have a lot of room then have some hi hat in your monitor as well as vocals and guitars. 

maltingsaudio

Danny1969 said:

You might find you are setting up in front of the main bands gear, so you probably won't have a lot of room. I wouldn't worry about beaming and stuff or using a wet / dry combo. Just keep it simple so all they need to do is put a mic on one speaker. 

This brought an immediate flashback to those pre digital days when the headliners got channels 1 to 26 on the desk leaving 6 for the support band and paper cue sheets showing the position of the eq knobs for each channel to be applied on changeover!

rsvmark

Thanks guys

DrumBob

I'd say they are both equally important. If you can't accurately hear what's going on onstage, it can be a disaster for the band and the crowd. I have a thread up here now on the bad experience we had with a soundman this past weekend.