i think just about everyone out there has a story about a sreaming match or a fist fight or near fight with a live sound person. having done sound for years, i would like to read the good and the bads of being at the mercy of someone like me.

hiredgeek wrote:i think just about everyone out there has a story about a sreaming match or a fist fight or near fight with a live sound person. having done sound for years, i would like to read the good and the bads of being at the mercy of someone like me.

If you worked at Go! in the Fall of 2002, I'm sorry that my band never showed up to stay at your house after the show. We met two hot women who let us sleep in their house.

Hot women > sound guy's house, no matter how nice the sound guy is. I know, I am a sound guy!

mb

i just always asked that the sound guy mic my amp and not make me use a di. fuck di. sound guy's response was always, "it's not gonna sound that good." my response was always, "it's not going to sound good anyway."

I never use a di on bass unless the band has mesa half stacks for guitar and some shitty 50 watt solid state combo for bass. If the band seems like they've played more than 10 shows in their career, the bass player is usually flattered that somebody wants to mic their bass amp. And then I don't mix the bass too loud!

i'd rather my sound through the board be something close to the sound coming out of my speakers and not the sound coming from my bass. part of the sound is the amp and the cabinets. it's not just incidental that i use what i use. to bypass them is slightly insulting.

plus, d.i.'s generally sound like turds. and it's not like the sound guy is gonna crank the gain on my bass channel on the board. so everything is gonna sound fucked. chords ain't gonna sound right. nothing is.

that was my point. sometimes have a little of the di on top of the mic is helpful, but usually I'm inclined to give musicians all the rope they need to do with as they please. the good ones make out fine.... House guys tend to be flabbergasted when they just see "Bass mic" on an tech advance sheet with no di line, and this always surprises me.

Just don't ask me to "turn it down". Cause my volume knob controls my tone. Unless the venue is huge, there's no point in mic'ing my amps anyway.

toomanyhelicopters wrote:Just don't ask me to "turn it down". Cause my volume knob controls my tone.

I would never ask anyone to turn down.

toomanyhelicopters wrote:Unless the venue is huge, there's no point in mic'ing my amps anyway.

There is if you want anyone besides the people standing right in front of you to hear you, Mr. I'm-so-loud guy. Even in a small room with cutting-heads-off stage volume, I still usually end up with at least a little guitar in the mains.

And unless I'm extremely limited in channels, I just about always use mic and di both for bass. Mic is the primary, but di is good to have to blend in for attack, in case the rig sounds shitty, or y'know, just in case. Given the choice between the two, mic is the way to go.

Unfortunately, my live sound stories are pretty boring or just not stories -- like the woman I was working with who didnt like drinks near the console (who does?) that often ended up with her hurling a full high ball glass against the wall. Some sound people have bad attitudes. Of course, that usually kept people from doing what she didnt want them to do, so I guess it wasnt totally pointless. But see? Not really a story.

It seems like I'm never there when people OD or have real bad tantrums or anything. Or maybe they do and "bad" tantrums just dont bother me. I dunno.

Best sound guy story we have currently happened almost two years ago in Madison at the Klinic.

Our friends in a local pop band asked us to come play with them and another band on a Valentine's Night in February of last year. We show up and the first band is playing--a quiet, subdued, kinda vanilla alternative band. The crowd was pretty much their draw and their draw alone--a bunch of older, well-dressed, college professor-looking types enjoying the innocuous light rock music. Meanwhile, we from the loud, abrasive, disco-noise band, were having a conversation IN NORMAL SPEAKING VOLUME IN FRONT OF THE PA SPEAKER about how our friends may have asked us to be on the wrong show. We went to one of the guitarists in the band (who were headlining) and said, "uh, dude? These people are gonna HATE us." "Don't worry about it, man, it's cool. Just do what you do and it'll be fun." OK, your funeral...

During the opening band's set a little later on we hear the sound man ask the bassist to turn down because he's too loud. They're still playing quiet enough that we can talk in normal voice over them. Uh-oh.

So they finish and we start to set up. Our guitarist/keyboardist starts strumming his guitar to get a level and he's told, "yeah, that's gonna have to be cut in half." He's not strumming nearly as loudly as we normally play. Yale plugs in his guitar (he's the really loud one) and is immediately met with a "TURN THAT DOWN!" So he turns down..."more"...down farther..."MORE"...he's now down to 1/2 on the volume knob, and any lower the signal will cut..."MORE"...

"Uh, we can't, the amp won't go down lower."

"Well then, the guitars aren't going in the PA."

"That's fine dude, just put the vocals through."

"Look, i'm just up here trying to do my job, so calm down and don't give me attitude." (Huh? We were being very cordial to this guy...we're ALWAYS cordial to sound men, because we understand that they are underappreciated a lot, routinely get shit on by jackass kids that have been in bands for 6 months tops, and besides, be nice to the sound guy and you gain huge points with the club, typically. Why make enemies for no reason?)

But at this point, we know there's gonna be trouble. We get balanced to a level as quiet as possible while still being able to get feedback when we want it, proper tone, etc. We decide to open with one of our songs that has a long, quieter, no guitar intro in order to delay the inevitable.

Meanwhile, the opening band's draw, about 50-60 people strong, have cleared out, leaving maybe 20 people tops. Whatever. We play our first song, and sure enough, halfway through we get to te loud rockin' part and (while still playing at a volume quieter than we've ever played) all but about 6 non-band people bail and the sound guy is yelling at us to "calm down." The douche has a kid doing a monitor mix (ha!) at a board in back by the drums, and he's leaning over telling me to calm down, and at one point GRABS MY RIDE CYMBAL AND CHOKES IT while we play. I was very close to throwing shit at this kid.

Anyway, we finish the first song, and the 6 people left go absolutely apeshit and yell at us to turn it up. We politely refer them to the gentleman in the back and launch into a few more songs before the plug is finally pulled after 5 songs. The soundguy comes up on stage and starts bitching us out for clearing the room (even though most people had left before we started playing) and we can't help but giggle the entire time. "Think you're funny? I've been in this business 20 years. I've seen bands like you come and go!" "Yeah? We know people who have been in the business longer who love us."

Eventually, he askes us what the name of our band is. I say, "AluminumKnotEye."

By the way, the headlining band thought it was hilarious and gave us big hugs after the set.

The next week, after the booking guy at the club asked what happened, i sent him a polite but firm email saying that, hey, sorry, but apparently we were booked for the wrong kind of club, and that's fine, but we're not going to change our style for anyone, and it's cool that your club caters to a more subdued crowd, and we are fine with not playing there again. He emails back with a "no, no, you guys are welcome any time! It sounds like the show was something out of the Mission of Burma chapter of Our Band Could be Your Life. Next time we'll get you a different sound guy and different bands to play with and it'll be fine."

We played there a few months later and lo, it was fine.

A few years back my friends and I played an open mic at a crappy little now-defunct bar to do some wierd math rocky improv crap. When it was our turn I decided to crank my 1959 Bassman Reissue because the bar was loud and the rest of the band was loud. The soundman was most displeased, and since I had two lagers and a shot of Jagermeister in me, I reacted a little irrationally and told him that he could kindly remove the shit from his ears. I got into a spat, nearly a fight, but my friends cooled me down.

A GOOD story- A band I was in while in college played my college's annual music festival one year. The soundman was awesome. I was the geeky techy guy of the band and I told him just want we wanted, he listened, he understood and he delivered. Great guy! I wish all sound guys were like that.