We seem to take an eternity and I'm looking to speed things up. For example, last night's gig, we met at 'HQ' where we store most of the kit at 5:45pm and loaded up the van. The venue was local, so only a 15 min drive. We finally had everything up and ready to soundcheck at 7:45pm - so that's 1h45 to unload the van and set up. We're always rushing to try to squeeze a soundcheck in before the kick off and plenty of occasions we've started late and still not managed it.
How long do you take ? - and do you have any plan ? We just seem to unload the van all at once, so everything is in a pile inside the venue, then we all do our own thing - and get in each others' way.
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Offset "(Emp) - a little heavy on the hyperbole."
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We only do a line check and then go, there's not really any reason to move any knobs from where they've been for the last ten gigs with our simple setup.
We always choose an opening song where I have some hanging chords, so I can move the odd fader on the fly.
Yes, some of that. There seemed to be no point at which the drum kit was sufficiently set up that he could help with anything else.
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A couple of years ago we hired a village hall to practice setting up. As a result we identified what kit we actually need at a venue, ie complete set up plus spare cables, and boxed it accordingly. We also agreed who looks after what - I do PA speakers and lights, bassist does desk and wireless transmitters, keys does mains cables and speaker cables, drummer does drums and drum mics. If there’s space then we lay the boxes in a line in front of the playing area so that it’s easy to find the cable you need.
Tear down we’ve found it quickest if we all stop for 10 minutes after playing while we relax and talk. Then we pack personal gear, followed by our share of the band gear. We all end up folding cables and picking up the litter. We can tear down and load in 50 minutes.
It takes us about 2 hours to put a full PA in comfortably befor the band arrives and about an hour to take it out.
In in my experience, barring real equipment problems, the drummer always takes the longest to set up and always looks the least bothered that he/she is taking a lifetime to set up.
we unload thendrummer first and start getting his crap unpacked, we all set up his stands etc for him so he can stick them where he likes...
I then set up my rig... then we get the PA up... and finally we unpack the bass player from his box and he sets up his rig... 30mins tops...
again, no real need to soundcheck... we all know our levels...
We normally get 15-20 minutes changeover/set up time and most of the time we can set up within then, there's normally some kind of backline issue somewhere usually the backing track. Guitars and stuff are usually straightforward with heads and cabs as we're not at the digital stage yet we take a bit longer. So I would say 25 minutes in total for us to set up our gear and be ready to play.
Or.... are you all committing (to my OCD brain !) the cardinal sin of setting up, checking there is noise, and play - and mix from the stage yourselves (and only then if someone moans that the vocals are too quiet or something !) ??
Offset "(Emp) - a little heavy on the hyperbole."
Although whenever I’ve played a venue with an actual sound person they haven’t been that interested beyond initial noises and then refining over the first couple of songs.
Unless one of us has got a new guitar or amp then we don’t need to do any more.
Takes me about 40 mins from pulling up depending on the access.
Band usually takes about 20-30mins to set up by which time I’ll have mic’d the kit, cabs and connected any di’s. If it’s my band then hopefully the singer will have set up the lights in that time.
Then I’ll load up a saved mix (or similar if it’s new band) and run through some line checks and approximate eq tweaks for about 5 to 10mins. Play a couple of tunes and adjust the mix. Being digital has made the adjustments very very quick as i know I’ll be in the right ballpark and have better eq options available to correct any issues.
I never skip or rush through the mixing though - for the sake of a few mins it’s worth it imo.
For me it’s less stressful to just arrive a bit earlier but some bands I drop for arrive last minute and throw it together and I hate that.
Two things come to mind that make it quicker - having a rough mix already saved that just needs eq, gain and overall levels tweaking, and making sure everyone is fairly disciplined with bringing their gear in and placing it where it should go and cracking on instead of a big pile of mess that slows it up as they trip over each other.
When I setup my YBTB rig, it's done in 45 minutes, tops. That's on my own.
Electric drums, PA, 2 Guitars, Bass, Keys, 2 Mics, Lights, Trio+ and FX board, R16 mixer for levels...and I still manage to sound check everything myself.
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