• TalkBass has been independent since 1998. Add your voice.
    Create a free account to reply to discussions, view embedded media, and browse with fewer display ads.
    Join free Log in
    Want zero display ads or expanded classifieds tools? Compare plans.

Challenging Situation

lfmn16

lfmn16

Inactive
Sep 21, 2011
15,462
35,794
charles town, wv
#1
Played out on Saturday night and had the worst sound man ever. The purpose of this thread is not to beat up on sound men, but to see how others would have handled it.

Guitar, bass, drums, singer; play mostly old school hard rock. Good size stage, massive PA system (way too big for the club IMO); club holds about 150 people. Soundman starts out with guitar; sounds great. Bass next; sounds amazing. Drummer next; perfect balance, then drums too loud, then the kick drum sounds like a cannon, stepping all over the bass frequency and it's all we can hear in the monitors.

First, ask sound man to turn down kick drum, he claims he does and says is that better; I said no. he then says he has it completely out of the monitors. It's so loud it doesn't sound like he turned it down, but don't want to hold up the show so I say OK. The whole set I can barely hear myself. I turned up; didn't help. I turned the bass down and mids up; helped a little.

On the break I went up to the sound man and explained the situation, he said he would have to turn everyone down in the monitors (I don't know why he had to turn everyone down and not just the drummer, but I didn't want to get into an argument). I said go ahead, we have plenty of stage volume. We go back up second set, I can't tell any difference. I ask him to turn the instruments down again and he says there are no instruments going through the monitors.

We all talked to him, but it didn't help at all. I think a big part is that he is a drummer in a metal band and just likes the drums way out front. Everyone in the band agreed with my assessment, so it wasn't just me being a dick. We had some musician friends in the audience and they said the sound was great out front.

We were all very calm and friendly with the sound man, but it didn't help at all. After the gig I told the band that I wasn't trying to be a dick, but I would never work with this guy again. We're going to talk to the club owner about bringing our own equipment and sound man next gig; otherwise we're not playing.

Again, I am not trying to turn this into a sound man bashing thread, but would like some realistic ideas for handling this in the future (please no "I'd drag him out back and beat the crap out of him"). We play mostly small to medium size clubs and bring our own equipment and sound man, so it's not usually an issue.

Thanks.
 
#8
Are you sure it was coming back through your wedge? If it was a small room with a big system, there's a good chance you were being impacted by wash coming back on stage from FOH. Add stage volume on top of that and it can create a mess when you are using wedges. If your feedback from folks in the crowd was that it was great sound, there's a good chance that there's nothing the soundguy could have done about it. Been in that situation before as a soundman and as a musician. It makes being on stage a pain, but the only way to get around it is to elimate the wedges and go for in-ears so you have control over what you're hearing, rather than being subjected to the acoustics of the stage and/or house.

It honestly sounds to me like he was cranking drums and creating a great house mix, but it happened to be spilling back onto stage an messing with what you could hear. If you have "plenty of stage volume", as you noted in your post, you probably created your own situation by being too loud on-stage. Loud stage volume plus the wash from FOH and I can see why vocals and other things would be difficult to hear onstage. It doesn't sound like a sound-guy problem to me based on your description (assuming he really did pull the drums and instruments back in the wedges, like he said).
 
#9
Disclaimer: Not bashing soundmen but..............

I don't like the modern way drums and bass are mixed with the kick being so massive pretty much burying the bass! Give me a SM who can setup a cd quality mix without being so loud! At the same time, band members who know how to keep the stage volume at a nominal level. Let the PA do what it was designed to do.
 
#10
Barisaxman said:
It honestly sounds to me like he was cranking drums and creating a great house mix, but it happened to be spilling back onto stage an messing with what you could hear. If you have "plenty of stage volume", as you noted in your post, you probably created your own situation by being too loud on-stage. Loud stage volume plus the wash from FOH and I can see why vocals and other things would be difficult to hear onstage. It doesn't sound like a sound-guy problem to me based on your description (assuming he really did pull the drums and instruments back in the wedges, like he said).
Click to expand...

It's possible. We played there several months ago with our own equipment and the sound was great. The drummer is a real hard hitter so we can only bring the volume down so far. Any suggestions that I ask the drummer to play quieter will be ignored - he won't; but in his defense, we've never had this issue before in any room. Everything is exactly the same as last time we played except for the PA and Sound person.

I don't want to go into all of the other things the sound man did wrong, but there were enough mistakes that it was pretty clear he is a sad excuse for a sound man. He never had a single idea for solving the problem.

Thanks for your suggestion.
 

Latest posts

Top Bottom
Back