jcamanei wrote:Never met an intentionally dickhead soundguy.

You haven't toured like I have toured, then.

dontfeartheringo wrote:

jcamanei wrote:Never met an intentionally dickhead soundguy.

You haven't toured like I have toured, then.

In my experience, you don't have to tour far to find one. Oddly enough, the smaller the place, the bigger the dickhead.

m.koren wrote:If he tells me to turn down, I know it's going to be a lame show. What annoys me about most soundmen is the way they want to make a live mix sound like a cd and they seem to want/expect total control. It just ain't that kind of a beast, soundude.

I'm fine with that if you're fine with that. Remember that 'total control' includes making sure you have enough vocal in your wedge, so when ya keep begging for "more vocal?" remember it ain't that kind of beast anymore. Before your buddy in the front row is blasted by your 4x12 and comes back to me every 5 minutes, says I can't do my job, and tells me he can't hear the xylophone, he'd better remember it ain't that kind of beast anymore.

I'm not saying you're wrong. It is very much a control thing. It's not a self-satisfying or macho thing to get me through the day. The fact simply is the more control I have, the more problems I am able to fix. If you want the control on stage and want to mix yourselves, by all means go for it. Where it gets hairy is when you take away my control and demand I get things done as effective or efficiently.


"Soundguys" are no more crap or notcrap than "people." However, in the context of a C/NC Show checklist, "Soundguy" is not crap (and should be near the top.)

Their are 2 kinds if sound guys.
Maybe more.

The ones that also play music and the ones that don't play music are two of them.

I play music and am a good sound guy but I sometimes have to work with one of the other kind and he is not a good sound guy. He mixes badly and never listens to anything the band says. He has never needed to hear out of a monitor. He has never rocked. Aside from that he is filthy and smells like a homeless person.

skatingbasser wrote:

m.koren wrote:"Soundguys" are no more crap or notcrap than "people." However, in the context of a C/NC Show checklist, "Soundguy" is not crap (and should be near the top.)

most people are ass-bags... most soundmen are not, but about one in four dosen't know what they are doing/is a total control freek, and when you run into this on the road it can ruin a whole show, and really the band can do nothing about it...

Soundmen you are not crap with HUGE waffles, for when you are crap and will not let me crank it...

I run into a good share of sound guys who are kind of burned out and a little deaf and they are really not interested in doing anything one degree different from their routine. That bothers me. A man should take pride in his craft. If somebody has, gasp, two amps for his guitar and would like them both miced, the sound guy should look at that as a chance to change up what has to be a monotonous job.

Or weird instruments. I’ve witnessed two different sound guys try to tell bands not to bother using instruments they weren’t comfortable micing. One was a melodica—can’t remember the other.

I know good sound guys, too. My band’s bass player is a sound guy and he does a great job. But he’s a working musician…

i once played in a band with someone who always blamed a bad performance on the sound guy. he would start on this blame mid-performance too... he'd just stop playing mid-song because he couldn't hear himself the way he wanted to, and would look at the crowd with a confused/upset look (as though it's the crowd's fault that this is all happening in the first place). i'd have to keep playing through.

i never was all that upset with a sound guy. tell him to not touch any knobs/sliders while youre playing, and to just adjust it right in the sound check.... if you have a guitar, make sure it's volume knob is at about halfway during sound check so you can adjust either way if need be (and still have space for volume swells if youre into that).

I'm also annoyed about the whole D.I. thing with bass. I am DEAD SURE that I don't want a D.I. bass as my sound. Not the highs, not the lows, not the mids, and certainly not the ugly transients that go with it. The soundguy then goes and sends the D.I. alone out to the FOH. He insists that that's what bass is SUPPOSED to sound like (that's what they've actually told me a fair number of times). And yeah, it's amazing how few of them are actually musicians.

m.koren wrote:I'm also annoyed about the whole D.I. thing with bass. I am DEAD SURE that I don't want a D.I. bass as my sound. Not the highs, not the lows, not the mids, and certainly not the ugly transients that go with it. The soundguy then goes and sends the D.I. alone out to the FOH. He insists that that's what bass is SUPPOSED to sound like (that's what they've actually told me a fair number of times). And yeah, it's amazing how few of them are actually musicians.

fuckin' A right.

everytime i played a show where there was a soundguy i ask him to mic my cabinet instead of running a D.I. i was usually met with the response of "it won't sound right/it won't sound good." i fired back with, "i'm ok with that."

If a sound guy with a 10kW PA tells a guy with a 30W guitar amp to turn down, he's a bad sound guy.