My Schism trainwreck live

Chowowbus · #1 09-25-2009, 08:00 PM

Ok, so Tuesday our band decides to show up at a local open mike night here in Olympia Wa. We have a 6 person Tool tribute band lugging all our ridiculous amounts of gear and tell the skeptical sound guy that we will be set and take down in two minuets. What a huge friggin mistake.
We have no time for a sound check, so we start off with Sober, which is an easy crowd pleaser.

Then comes Schism….oh god…bass solo time comes in which I engage my Boss ME 20b delay and distortion coupled with my Digitech Whammy 1 octive up and instead of carefully crafted whale song, I get this horrible feed back and “QUAAACK quack quack Wreeeeeeeooo!!!!”

it truly sounded like a distressed duck in a canyon with the delay on

...it sucked so bad the crowd recoiled in horror

… …. It was horrible and loud! My band mates looked at me with wide eyed *** is going on?

Like troopers we carried on, but none of us really recovered Schism. We finished our mini set up with the Pot, which the crowd enjoyed. Lots of ‘you guys did great, except for Schism,” after the set. We laughed our asses off.
Lessons learned? No more open mike and always do a sound check, no matter how rushed you are. Oh, and laugh at things like this, because its funny.
Though Id share! Happy friday!

MusicBokonon · #2 09-26-2009, 10:33 AM

So what went wrong in your rig? Hopefully nothing serious if you're able to finish your set.

XXL · #3 09-26-2009, 10:47 AM

...or when doing an open mic show stick to songs like Cold and Ugly,Intolerance, Stink Fist. etc.

Chowowbus · #4 09-26-2009, 12:36 PM

I think that I was standing so close to my cab that the distortion started feeding back with the whammy pitched up one octive. When I pitched down, the feedback stopped but the delay kept it in the loop. No damge done.
It was really cramped on stage so my cab was right up against my butt.
Your right XXL, we should have stuck to the simple less effects driven songs such as stinkfist.

Bassmingo · #5 09-26-2009, 01:41 PM

heh, thats a bummer. a tool trib is the one band you dont do "no soundcheck" gigs. tool songs require each member to be able to hear each other as, depending on the song, one instrument leads and the rest work off that. there are parts in schism where the bass works off the vocals for chrissakes!

i've done sound for a tool trib so i know whats required, never played in one though, that'd be fun.

MusicBokonon · #6 09-27-2009, 01:02 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bassmingo

heh, thats a bummer. a tool trib is the one band you dont do "no soundcheck" gigs. tool songs require each member to be able to hear each other as, depending on the song, one instrument leads and the rest work off that. there are parts in schism where the bass works off the vocals for chrissakes!

i've done sound for a tool trib so i know whats required, never played in one though, that'd be fun.

Yeah totally. Not soundchecking before a Tool gig is musician suicide.