Any bad sound guy stories from gigs?

[Ric5]

Aren't all soundmen bad?

[shadow_FIX]

I have two bad instances that come to mind:

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One was when I was younger. Senior in high school, and I'm a timid one to boot. My band at the time had a killer set of originals going, mostly soul/RnB stuff with hints of rock, jazz, metal, and blues added by myself and the guitar player. This was at our first show.

Bad, bad, bad feedback appears out of nowhere about halfway through the set, right after starting one of our songs. Here's the bad part: the song we had started was in Ab, and the feedback was a pretty steady A. Every time I hit the root it sounds awful. Jackhole sound guy had turned the kick up to the point that it was feeding back, and I had my eyes fixed on him the whole song trying to get his attention, but he just sat back and did nothing, then when the song was over, he fiddled a few knobs when he realized something was wrong, thus finally discovering (after severe damage had been done to one of my favorites of the set) what he hath done.

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The other instance was this past summer, my classic rock band was playing an outdoor festival. We had some guys there to run the equipment, but the guitar player had basically taken his son's rock band on as "tech interns" and had them set up the system. Mind you, I was all for this, which meant that I could just sit and watch them work and go do rockstar stuff for a while

Fast forward to an hour of miserable soundchecking in 100* heat. Nothing is working, and after fighting it for a while, a savior from the music gods began to notice that the ENTIRE system was wired incorrectly. After another hour to RE-WIRE the system we finally had it up and running and...



Show went off without a hitch and the sound was perfect!

[Vince Klortho]

I have seen and had lots of really bad sound guy experiences. Hopefully, I haven't caused any during my time as a soundman.

One that comes to mind was when my all-originals band was playing at a festival in Seattle and we were on the last song of our set. The sound guys decided to cue up their music for the break and piped it through our monitors. One of the most difficult things I have ever had to do was to play our song with something entirely different blasting through the monitors.

[iridiumrocks]

We always use our own sound guys and we have a couple of regulars who do a great job. One of them is also a bassist so he tends to mix the bass a little louder in the mix than the guitar. I love it but this really irritates the guitard.

[thedudebrah]

I had one recently. He wasn't bad at being a soundman, he was just kinda mean about it. The first problem was the promoter telling all the bands load in was at 5, while the soundman had been told load in was at 6. We were the first band, so we started asking if we should load in directly to the stage and he started yelling about us being early and how load in wasn't until 6 and a bunch of other stuff out of our control. Mind you, we were very polite as it was our first time at this venue. Once we were finally set up on stage and it came round to checking, he was really snappy through the talkback and took a few cheap shots at us. His partner on the side of the stage was a lot more helpful and gave off an attitude like "don't mind his grumpiness".

When we got around to playing, we actually sounded really good thanks to him. He was good at what he did, he just needed to relax a little.

[stagebanter]

Originally Posted by dickfitts

He starts telling our buddies crazy stories about how he used to do sound for one of THE BIG FOUR metal bands, and how he's all clean now, and how much better off he is...they get talking about our act, and the guy really likes our energy! Really likes what we've got to say, really likes our buddies...has a SNORT of vodka with them. Literally 20 minutes later the bottle is gone (all this is unbeknownst to us, of course), and the sound......deteriorates....somewhat

Am I the only one who thinks this is totally awful?

[MadMark5]

I stole this theory from a guitarist friend, but it has been tested at approx 25 gigs, with 3 different bands taking notes......
If upon arrival at said gig, the soundman is wearing any combination of dickies and a wallet chain, you will recieve intellegent insight into your band's sound, and a mix worth telling your friends about.
No wallat chain? Settle in for the ride

[bryan gibson]

Here's a nice one for a change: we played an outdoor opening slot for some big-hat country dude a few years back. I love these gigs because I get to hammer a low E thru a 50,000 watt system Anyhoo, 30 seconds into the first tune my big "boom" disappeared. Crap-dead amp. Fortunately the sound crew had a sidefill/monitor dude in the wings and he DI'd me straight into the board-on the fly before the song even ended. Their monitor system was bigger than our usual FOH system, so it did the trick nicely Sad part was most people didn't even know I'd stopped playing...

[chatterbox272]

Crappy sound guy gigs I've done:
1. Every time I've played at a local church they've had the same in house sound guy who, because they lack enough mic stands, just puts an SM58 through the handle on the top of the bass amp (I use theirs usually because I can't be bothered bringing mine) so it hangs somewhere around the cap of the speaker and calls that set up. The kicker? it has a DI output at the back...
2. At the Leeuwin Naval Barracks I played at the Remembrance Day ceremony, and the sound guy has 2 Shure PG52 microphones on the choir and one on the band. (for those who don't know, the PG series are shures budget microphones and aren't exactly great. And the 52 is a kick mic).
3. Local Carols by Candlelight gig last Christmas. I ask the sound guy if I can DI because there was some real balance issues with the sound guy we'd had previously. He says no because they have 4 condensors which will pick up everything (a fair enough statement). so he positions my amp where it will be picked up best by the mics. I then proceeded to spend the entire night cutting my F notes short because they were feeding back slightly.

Those are the big pains anyway, I've had more little ones (might have one on friday in fact) but I wont list them all.

[Meddle]

[quote=chatterbox272;13831820]Crappy sound guy gigs I've done:
1. Every time I've played at a local church they've had the same in house sound guy who, because they lack enough mic stands, just puts an SM58 through the handle on the top of the bass amp (I use theirs usually because I can't be bothered bringing mine) so it hangs somewhere around the cap of the speaker and calls that set up. The kicker? it has a DI output at the back...[quote]

I presume you've mentioned the DI to the sound man rather than go for a smug "if he's a good sound guy he should know this amp well" approach.

Secondly, I presume they don't accept donations of equipment, and would much rather you moaned about their lack of equipment (they're a church not a rock venue) than offered to buy a couple of cheap mic stands for them.

[willydee]

One time at small time pub gig to bout 150 people, my band and I and the two other bands on that night were waiting around for the sound guy to arrive. Eventually he did and with all our gear ready to go he soundtracks the other two bands. Then he says my band doesn't have time. Annoying but no biggy. So right bbefore were playing we plug in, play/strum/hit a note/chord/beat or two just to check we can hear it all, and the sound guy comes up to us on stage tells us to and I quote "knock it off, I didn't f****ng tell you to play".

I thought he was joking at first but then SSW how pissed at us he was.

He did this all the band's right before they started playing and there were pops and squeals all night with all the bands!

[chatterbox272]

Originally Posted by Meddle

I presume you've mentioned the DI to the sound man rather than go for a smug "if he's a good sound guy he should know this amp well" approach.

Secondly, I presume they don't accept donations of equipment, and would much rather you moaned about their lack of equipment (they're a church not a rock venue) than offered to buy a couple of cheap mic stands for them.

I did mention it, he kinda shrugged and looked at me like I was an idiot and then walked off. Although in my opinion as an in-house sound guy he should know the in-house gear.

And if I had the money to donate mic stands I would but unfortunately I don't have that kind of money. I can't afford a mic stand for myself, let alone someone else. And church or not, if they're hiring themselves out as a music venue and saying they have a full PA and mics that kind of makes one assume they have stands for them.

[plankspanker13]

Seems to me like you need to hide the 58, and plug into the DI; school the sound-tard, if you must. Maybe it will improve things, not only at the church, but wherever else this individual might be mixing.

[kcole4001]

Originally Posted by stagebanter

Am I the only one who thinks this is totally awful?

Definitely not good.