bass players how to treat a sound man article

violatedppl · #1 10-23-2005, 01:46 AM

I was just wondering if anyone else has seen this. to me it made perfect sense, alot of good info for the noob to dealing with soundmen

DaftCat · #2 10-23-2005, 03:46 AM

Where is the article? Link?

The Antipop · #3 10-23-2005, 08:37 AM

I read it. Wasn't bad.

It would be illegal for me to scan it then post it right?

christle · #4 10-23-2005, 09:41 AM

Pretty much illegal. However you can find it in Bass Guitar Magazine - the one by Guitar World.

KeithBMI · #5 10-23-2005, 09:43 AM

Good stuff.

I also liked the currrent issue's article about getting the best live sound.

P.S. I wrote that "Shady Coincidence" Letter.

Man... I have way too much time on my hands.

KeithBMI · #6 10-23-2005, 09:46 AM

Here is the link to the article this thread is about.

Soundmen Aren't Servants!

What would you guys (and girl) do without me?

christle · #7 10-23-2005, 09:52 AM

Well I feel silly...however BG also did a similar article. Their's wasn't as good as the BP one.

KeithBMI · #8 10-23-2005, 11:03 AM

He could be talking about the one in Bass Guitar or Bass Player.

We don't really know.

cb56 · #9 10-23-2005, 12:58 PM

Ok so we should all turn down so as not to piss off the delicate soundman. Not be able to hear ourselves on stage so our technique goes to hell and hopefully we are playing in the right key. Meanwhile the drums and guitar are 5000 times louder in the mix and people are wondering what the hell it is you do in the band. My slider on the soundboard all the way down? No problem, my rig will carry the room. I played a gig once where I shut my amp off, and the soundman was still complaining I was too loud.

Mitchell Royce · #10 10-23-2005, 03:50 PM

It seems that the article assumes that the soundman knows what he's doing and automatically will make any bassplayer sound good. In my experience that just isn't the case. Most soundmen I have known will focus on the drums, then the singer, then guitar and the bass will just fit in there somehow. The soundmen in my area are mostly leftovers of 80's heavy metal bands, which I guess explains their behaviour.

Nick man · #11 10-23-2005, 06:02 PM

My favorite gigs are the ones where we get there, tell the sound guy to put some vocals in the monitors, plug in, turn up, and let our rigs handle the room.

Alvaro Martín Gómez A. · #12 10-23-2005, 06:20 PM

Did you see who wrote the article? It's a shame he didn't show such a nice attitude when he showed up at TalkBass. Maybe he read my advice.

brianrost · #13 10-24-2005, 07:15 AM

I can see this becoming just another "Soundmen all suck, turn up your amp and screw him" threads.

cb56,

I've also done a gig where I ended up with my amp off because the guy put bass in the monitors (against the band's wishes, plus he claimed it wasn't there!!!) and it was bleeding into the room. OK, I wasn't happy but I could hear myself well enough and the gig was successful (packed room, paid well) so in the end it was nothing more than fodder for a funny story to tell other musicians.

I agree 100% with the article. Yes, you'll run into inexperienced or incompetent soundmen but you can always choose not to play the room again. That's better than butting heads with the guy over and over.

I once opened up for Robert Plant while subbing with some friends. They were offered a whole string of opening dates after that (their regular bassist played those) largely because Robert's CREW found them super easy to work with...set up and soundchecked in 15 minutes! The soundman told us about some much better known bands who had been rejected for the tour because their sound requirements were too complicated...one wanted to use more channels on the board than Robert's band! That was a real powerful lesson for me.

JimmyM · #14 10-24-2005, 02:10 PM

I work in a situation where I have to work with a number of different soundmen all the time. We do our best to make it easy on them because we figure that if you make it easy on the soundmen, they will make it easy on us. And they do for the most part. There are times we'll butt heads over volume issues, but we're not interested in killing the audience with stage volume, so it's usually just a nit-picky whiner who can't bear to hear an amp in the first row or two.

Here's the deal...if the soundman works for you and was hired by you to mix you, then you can call the shots about volume to him, as long as the venue agrees. If the soundman was hired by the venue, then he works for the venue and not you, and you can either play ball or not. If you choose not, just remember that HE has the ear of the club manager, not you, and his impressions of you will certainly be the deciding factor in whether you come back or not.

A few weeks ago, the band that I'm leaving this week was playing, and the soundman hired by the venue was being plagued by monitors that were feeding back, caused by a couple guys in the band being monitor volume freaks on an underpowered system. After one huge burst, the drummer stops the song and gets on the mic and says, "Whoooooa! Sorry folks, but we just can't continue like this. We have to get this fixed or we just can't play anymore with that feedback killing us, so Mr. Soundman, let's take a little time here and get this fixed." The next day found him begging them to keep us in the rotation, and the only thing that saved us was us being the biggest draw of any of the bands there. I still think we're on thin ice and will eventually get canned for him doing something else equally snotty, which is part of the reason I'm leaving. So complain if you must, but accept the consequences if you do.