We played a theater gig last night and the house soundman "couldn't make it," so he sent a friend of his to fill in. For the entire first set, my monitor mix was too low, and despite my pleas to crank it, he never got it loud enough. I was missing cues in a couple of songs because I couldn't hear the guitars. It was a very uncomfortable situation. I had to play very quietly just to be able to hear, and on break, audience members told me they couldn't hear the drums. He also had me too low in the mix.
During soundcheck, I began to get the impression that this soundman was an idiot. He said we were too loud on one of our acoustic numbers. What?
Before the first set, he set up my vocal mic on a house mic stand that must have weighed one pound, a real low end POS that immediately fell off my drum riser, knocking my almost new Sennheiser to the floor. I got my heavy duty mic stand out of the car and used that. During the first set, we had interference from a local cell tower, and the soundman had no idea how to deal with that at all. That finally sorted itself out.
Finally, during the break, he got my monitor feed to the right level and the rest of the night went well. But, it took him too long to get it all right. It was clear that this guy, although he tried his best, was clearly out of his element. It just confirmed my belief that I have experienced way too many incompetent soundmen in my career. At least he didn't have an attitude.
Any other bad soundman stories?
USA Guitarist/Drummer, semi-pro working musician, music journalist, author, radio DJ.
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Enough said
A band I was in did a youth club gig in a local church hall. We took a soundman but when we got there the caretaker insisted in doing the sound himself.we started to sound check and it was horrendous. The caretaker had to go and take a phone call. Before he came back our guy fixed the left channel that was inoperable and set up the gains and eq. When the caretaker came back he didn't even notice.
Supportact said: [my style is] probably more an accumulation of limitations and bad habits than a 'style'.
I do sympathise as I've had similar frustrations before with bad sound/monitor mix etc and it is annoying. But unless you're at superstar level with your own crew, sometimes you just have to deal with these issues.
I've also experienced one who insisted on DI'ing the bass not the amp and then giving me a completely different sound - the exact opposite sort of EQ curve, all mids and no deep bass - that I use because I know it works well with the band, and point-blank refused to allow me to use the amp DI. After that I've always taken an EQ pedal so I can put it *before* the DI if I get another idiot like that. He also told me I was too loud. We've got a recording of that gig, and unsurprisingly the bass is almost inaudible and sounds shit.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
Most if the venue FOH guys I have worked with have been pretty decent. In the last 3 weeks I've been in Leeds, Cirencester, Bristol and London and all the guys running PA and monitors have been spot on, professional and friendly. Sometimes you will get someone who is a little less capable because people get sick, have family issues, transport issues etc. In these cases you have to remember there isn't a pool of capable FOH / monitor mixers sat on hooks all weekend with nothing to do. Anyone very capable will already be working. Just as any capable and pleasant professional musician will be working. Some of those guys do brutal hours too. I was giging the O2 Academy in Islington on Sat night. The FOH engineer was there when we loaded in at 3 and wasn't due to finish to 4:30am!
There was an issue we had, just before covid. It was a theatre gig north of London I think before covid happened. We loaded in, soundchecked and everything was great so retired to the dressing room and waiting for the call to the stage on the comms. When we walked onstage I could hear in my IEM's that all the mics were muted as there was no spill in my ears at all. That's normal though and we took our positions, picked up guitars etc and waited for the mutes to lift. But we waited and waited until it was really embarrassing ... from the audience point of view 4 guys and a girl just walked on stage and just stood there not playing anything for 5 or 6 minutes. A couple of people in the audience started to laugh cos it must have looked bazaar ! Finally we had to should across the theatre to the FOH at the back "everything is muted"
The engineer came into the dressing room at the interval. He had set up some mute groups and forgot to un-mute them. as you can't see the groups on the first layer of a typical digital desk he couldn't work out why we weren't playing anything. Great engineer other than though though, we all make mistakes.
They have a Diploma in Advanced Volume Engineering.
Most pass with a 2,1,2,1
A couple of friends who were there said they couldn't hear me properly either. I probably *should* have turned it up...
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
That's who I want to do my sound.
PA Hire and Event Management
I find it difficult to comment on anything I didn't experience myself but can only suggest that there are no end of variables (including skill of sound-techs) that contribute to good or bad sounding gigs. Sometimes you just turn up and switch everything on and it's Abbey Road, other times you can be fighting room, system and band all at the same time.
For me there's a special skill in making a decent sound from a bad situation and that usually comes along with knowing what you're after and knowing your tools. Even then it's a collaborative effort and every individual is a potential weak link. I find this conversation disappointing, while not claiming it's not justified, because if it was a football team I would expect them to lose. The issues you discuss are very important but the approach is going nowhere.
For the record, as a player I've also complained bitterly about crap sound-techs. It made me feel better.
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"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein