Most infuriating soundguy of all time

FishstickFender · #1 07-13-2011, 04:41 PM

So I just got back from a west coast tour with my band and I wanted to vent a little about one of the gigs. This particular band is a stringband, I play double bass with them. Since we are a string band our sound requirements are pretty minimal. It's either single mic or the guys all go DI. Regardless of what they do I just bring a sm58 and stuff it for the bass. Easiest set up ever. At our LA gig we show up and after suffering through a horrible set by a band that has no cohesion with our sound whatsoever we start getting ready for a quick line check. This particular sound guy hands my an xlr and says "Here's your xlr you asked for, I have no idea what you do with it." I inform him that I just stuff the 58 into the tailpiece and that's it, and then SHOW HIM. We get to checking and lo and behold he skips the bass. I ask him if we can check the bass at which point he says he's already got it. So no check for the bass, whatever I've seen it before. We get to playing and since it's a loud bar I can't hear a damned thing, so in btwn songs I ask for some bass in one of the monitors. The sound guy says "No bass in the monitor." I am puzzled but struggle through the set, the whole time thinking of ways that I would love to torture this idiot.
After the set we load our gear out and I ask the soundguy "Just out of curiousity why wouldn't you give me any bass in the monitor?"
His reply: "Because bass players get a little bass in their monitor then they say oh this sounds good and turn up their volume and blow the monitor out."
At which point I remind him: "You realize that I was just running a 58 with no way of turning up the volume in any way, and no way to hear myself because I have no amp?"
His response:
"I don't know what you're running or what you've got between the mic and the board."

... My response:
"Um I showed you before we did soundcheck exactly what I was running, plus you are the SOUNDGUY it's your job to know what everyone is running."

sigh, so the moral of the story is: take as many variables as possible away from these people. My acoustic image is on the way.

fenderphil · #2 07-13-2011, 04:47 PM

sounds like a dick. we had one guy ask our rock band to do an acapella mic check, 20 minutes PAST the time we were supposed to be playing already. no instrument checks.

so we worked up a beat box routine with our voices then turned up our amps and let it rip.

dude was as unprofessional as they come.

Mykk · #3 07-13-2011, 04:53 PM

I can relate. Unfortunate, but an all to common story. Makes me thankful I lug my bass rig around so I can be self reliant on tone/volume.

One of the last shows I played (in central Arizona) the bar owner (also a bass player) was running sound and bar tending. Regardless to say, running sound wasn't his priority and left us with bad microphone feedback problems on stage with no one to correct them.

There are also really nice sound guys out there, I can remember one guy somewhere in northern california who actually helped our band unload, set up, tear down and load our equipment.

MatticusMania · #4 07-13-2011, 04:54 PM

Mind if I ask what venue this was at? I play in LA quite often, and its good to know when I'll be dealing with a subpar soundguy.

FishstickFender · #5 07-13-2011, 04:56 PM

Redwood Bar and Grill in downtown

MatticusMania · #6 07-13-2011, 05:01 PM

Oh, I know that place! Havent played there myself, but my wife's old band played there twice I think. From what I remember, the soundguy appeared to be an older hippie-stoner looking dude. I dont know if they use the same guy all the time though.

FishstickFender · #7 07-13-2011, 05:04 PM

Yeah he was kind of a jimmy buffet looking guy. not much going on upstairs

southgabass · #8 07-13-2011, 06:36 PM

I had a soundman in one venue who thought he was "SOUND GOD" (as they all do but to a different extent)... during our sound check we got a continuous feedback from the drum mics and vocal mics... while I found where the drum mic issue was coming from, he starts swearing its my bass/rig... so we re-hook everything and I even take apart and resolder my bass in front of him.... he has the vocal mics EQ in some fantasy Q setting with a GALAXY amount of reverb... which I feel contributed about 95% to the issues we were having... after about 45 minutes of this we "fix" the problem (that we told him from the start it was)... during the show after getting him to take out the reverb, I keep hearing it come back in and it sounds horrible, during our first break I ask him about it and he says "well reverb is going to make things sound much better" and I responded with "yes a drop of reverb in the bucket is great but putting the damn ocean sounds like ****"... so as well as intermittent reverb throughout the night he also cuts mics on and off at his own discretion, with no rhyme or reason.... so without seeing anything being accomplished we trudged through the BS sound... in the end it was our last gig there for 6-8 months... and we had to really try to get back in cause the owner said "we sounded crappy last time"... so we get back to the venue... NEW SOUND GUY... apperently this guy got canned because they realized he sucked... 3 minutes into sound check we're kosher and blow the lid off the joint

This particular sound guy states that he's been doing sound for 35 years and been a "master guitarist" (thats a direct quote from him) for 40 years.... as we were doing our set up I picked up a guitar and showed a new thing I wrote to the other band members... he came up telling me what I should do with it to his knowledge... I then started busting out my chops and everything.... by the time that was over he was asking me for guitar advice and lessons... kinda hard to believe from a "master guitarist".... but thankfully we wont see him at that venue again (and hopefully none of the others in the area, as a sound guy)

southgabass · #9 07-13-2011, 06:37 PM

sorry for the massive wall of text, I'm at work and in between students had to type, with no time for making it pretty lol

Rockmusician · #10 07-13-2011, 06:54 PM

Several years ago, I was playing a gig and noticed that as we got deeper into the first set, the sound was changing. I run wireless so I wlaked out front and watched the sound man. Whenever there was a guitar solo, he would boost the level on the guitar. When the solo was over, he wouldn't bring the level back, he would boost the vocals. I also couldn't hear my bass or the kick drum. When I asked him to lower the vocals and guitars and raise the bass and kick, he put his hands in the air and said "there are a lot of knobs on this board and it could take a while". I asked him to step aside. I adjusted the levels and spent the rest of the night running sound and playing bass. We never used that sound man again.

Alvaro Martín Gómez A. · #11 07-13-2011, 07:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by FishstickFender

why wouldn't you give me any bass in the monitor?"
His reply: "Because bass players get a little bass in their monitor then they say oh this sounds good and turn up their volume and blow the monitor out."

It happens ALL THE TIME where I live. According to soundguys here, a bass amp alone can compete against a full 12-piece band cranked through a full monitor system spread out on stage. Not to mention those ones who let the bass to be heard ONLY through the PA subwoofers.

Lesfunk · #12 07-13-2011, 07:41 PM

Those who can't do... Mix.

bound'n'blocked · #13 07-16-2011, 12:36 PM

I was playing last year for a local 4th of July show. Our band, and then Andy Griggs, who was a country artist with a couple of top 5 hits. We are a 4 piece...guitar, bass, drums, and a singer and me on background vox. I've been doing sound for over 25 years so I've seen pretty much everything, and wanted to make this easy for the company that was running sound for the show. They had traveled in and the promotoer apparently had gotten a package deal with the headliner and the sound crew. We have our own sound guy. He had sent the "ask for the Moon" input list, but when I got there I realized these guys couldnt give us half of what he wanted. I said that we just needed a seperate lead vocal line and guitar line, and I would use the bass player's line and take whatever he had in the wedges and live with it, if we could give our singer what he wanted. The sound company guy was cool with that and said he would run me a line for my vox and dial me and the singer in. So three lines above the headliner and he was done. We started soundcheck after they had Griggs' band dialed in and finished and I asked for a little bit of my vox from the monitor guy. He gave me guitar. I said it was guitar and he said no, thank you, that he had turned up the vox. This went on for a few minutes. I told him to come over and put his head next to the wedge. He did and about that time we hit the lead break of the song (Cheap Trick's "I Want You to Want Me). It about took his head off and he said Hmmm, that must be guitar. He walked back to the monitor board and stood there for a minute, and then pulled all of the faders back down to the bottom, effecitvely wiping out Andy Griggs' band's mix! About an hour worth of work for that band wasted.

We finally got dialed in, but I dont know if he ever got the headliner back to their settings.

BnB

ggunn · #14 07-16-2011, 02:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lesfunk

Those who can't do... Mix.

Oh, BS. I know lots of competent sound men and lots of good musicians, and some of them are the same people. That said, there are also lots of people who cannot do either. I have been victimized by incompetent sound guys, too. Usually we bring our own guy who either works with the house guy or moves him aside, whichever is appropriate.

Stilettoprefer · #15 07-16-2011, 04:32 PM

At church we rotate between 3 sound guys (each week we have a different one). One dude is just stupid when it comes to dialing in a mix (and I mean STUPID) At practice Thursday he put vocals REALLY hot into the monitors. So hot that non of the guitarists (3 of us), bassist, pianist or drummer could hear ourselves. We fought with him for 15 minutes and he finally turned the vocals down a touch and put bass and drums really hot into the monitors, so hot that we (guitarists) still couldn't hear ourselves. I'm the only one playing electric guitar, so I can't just put my head down to hear myself, so I ask for more of my guitar in the monitors. The idiot CUT ME OUT OF THE FREAKING MONITORS!!!!!! After 10 minutes of fussing with the guy I just gave up and trusted my fingers for the rest of the evening. This coming Sunday I'm gonna have to trust my fingers for the duration if the service because he just takes the mix from practice.

I might have to invest in a cheap wireless system so that I can go up and set the mix every three weeks because I'm tired of dealing with blatant stupidity.

oldcatfish · #16 07-17-2011, 05:14 PM

I play at churches too. And with one of them a few weeks ago, the congregation just looked dead. I mean dead, not like the occasional sleepy crowd you get from time to time.
After we played most of the service we figured out why. The soundguy forgot to turn on the powered sub---which daisy chains into the main speakers. So all the congregation heard were the acoustic drums...and the muffled backwash from the band monitors. Then when he figured it out, he accidentally shut off the monitors...which for the band was even worse. A total train wreck.

modulusman · #17 07-17-2011, 05:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ggunn

Oh, BS. I know lots of competent sound men and lots of good musicians, and some of them are the same people. That said, there are also lots of people who cannot do either. I have been victimized by incompetent sound guys, too. Usually we bring our own guy who either works with the house guy or moves him aside, whichever is appropriate.

I agree. Two of the better soundmen in my area are good musicians. One is a bass player with a music degree that can play circles around me. He owns a sound company that uses Meyer gear as his A rig. He didn't get a $100,000.00 in PA gear by doing a lousy job.

ATLbassist · #18 07-18-2011, 01:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by southgabass

I had a soundman in one venue who thought he was "SOUND GOD" (as they all do but to a different extent)... during our sound check we got a continuous feedback from the drum mics and vocal mics... while I found where the drum mic issue was coming from, he starts swearing its my bass/rig...

Did this happen to be in Athens at the old Tasty World? I ran across almost the exact same situation there several years ago.

southgabass · #19 07-18-2011, 04:44 PM

No this was down in Albany at a place called the Crow Bar.. great place, crowd, etc, just not THAT particular sound guy... generally when we play up in north GA we bring our rig and run the sound ourselves (which usually works out seeing as though we aren't booking the clubs that carry their own PA currently, although that could change lol)... but it could be the same guy... who knows lol