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Wow, opened a little can o'worms! I just noticed we aren't supposed to start threads bashing sound guys (my bad).
After re-reading my OP. Couple things I need to clarify.
1) Appreciate the advice and critique, I really do.
2) We were invited last year to bring our own gear and sound guy.
3) Dude lives at the venue(it's a commune), took it apon himself to set up his pa (he was performing) and offered his services after we had already set up, so I explained that we didn't know he would be there and since we were already set up with a pa we were familiar with...
4) We are not pros yet, only played a few paying gigs. We do have a solid 3 hours of material that sounds great if we do the sound. When we don't do the sound we've always had problems, because there is no music scene here, so no sound guys. Usually just some poor guy who's never even seen the pa before.
5) This is one of the best opportunities around here to play for ~200 people in a beautiful outdoor setting where we can turn up a little. Everybody knows everybody, it's going to be alot of fun.
6)I just asked the question to get some advice from people with lots of different experiences, which is what I got. I think it's interesting, good and bad.
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Oh, c'mon, you've read enough of these articles to know that doing your job well and being as friendly as you can makes absolutely no difference...you're the sound guy, and that alone undoes all the good works in your life and makes you tantamount to the Prince of Darkness...
...but why should you care, we're just a bunch of mouth-breathing troglodytes who can't even manage to buy a guitar with the correct number of strings!
wait what? that's weird; how did at least the size of his PA compare to yours? did you both have "real" systems with subs and multiple monitor mixes and all that?
so is your soundguy also new or is he a lot more experienced than you guys as a band?
just trying to get a handle on the story here, if grumpy guy was setting up some awesome line-array system and you guys insisted on using your own peavey mixer head into a pair of harbinger 2x15 DJ cabs instead...
HaHa yeah I don't think either of our PA systems were that great!
His system was smaller size than ours, but he had some homemade looking cabinets, so they could have been better quality than our Beringer/Mackie system. No we don't have subs and our monitor mixing is somewhat limited, I can't remember if he even had monitors?
Our soundguy is just a friend who likes to hang out when we practice occasionally. He has taken some sound engineering classes though. We feel pretty lucky to have him around, and we sound better than when I did the sound.
Have you stopped and tried to see this from Grumpy's point of view? You admit he's not a bad soundman I'd guess has been at it a while. This is a small event he's certainly not getting rich doing and you guys roll in totally blowing him off with your own rig and a kid mixing who's (ain't this one helluva set of credentials) taken some sound engineering classes and mixes better than you do. You pretty much stepped right up and kicked the guy in the nuts man. You don't see that? Do you care? I don't know this specific situation but I know lots just like it and he might have been looking forward to mixing that day as much as you were to playing. And on top of all that you blew an opportunity to maybe learn something from him. Everything I know about sound reinforcement has been given to me by audio guys I've worked with.
So we played the gig last night and bombed pretty bad! The sucketh knob overflowith. Maybe this thread can be moved to the Live Sound for amateurs forum.
First and foremost the dude somehow kept a good positive attitude the whole night. My main complaint from last year was a non factor this time.
Ok, not going to bash the soundman, but I will share what I learned. You are right Jeff, he did look forward to doing the sound as much as we looked forward to playing. Guy had a hard night, set up a pretty elaborate pa for what was supposed to be 4 bands, and only 2 showed. Sound for the first band was ok FOH, but you could tell the musicians were having a difficult time hearing themselves. I complemented them as they were packing up and heard nothing but grumbles about the stage sound. When we took to the stage we set up quick (drums were set up before) and were ready for sound check in about 10 minutes. Sound check took over an hour! 1 of 4 monitors worked and it sounded like it didn't have a horn. Dude kept trying to put bass and drums in the monitor even though we were requesting only vocals. All the leads to the snake were unplugged and re-set up for no reason, we could have used them pretty much exactly how the previous band had them save for adding another mic and our drums. We decided to "share" the one monitor and just start even though the sound coming out of it was pretty bad.
"Sharing" lasted one song, and our lead singer needed it pointed right at him (understandably). 4 piece band, we all sing. Sound from one monitor got worse as the set went on. A couple times he would come on stage while we were playing and ask how it sounded, but between songs often was not at the board!
Lead singers confidence was shot right away, and he started making mistakes. This trickled down and we all just sucked really bad. I was trying to use some of the advice given in this thread and stay positive, but watching all the cars leaving the show from the stage made that hard. The whole time I was thinking about our perfect little pa with our individual monitors sitting in the trailer. To make things worse, we were asked if we could play for three hours instead of 1 and a half.
With about 20 minutes left, I thanked the sound guy through the mic and asked if he could please just give us vocals (again) and BAM the sound got better! We finished strong for the remaining 30 people.
No, I don't think any of it was done with bad intent. I was very nice to him the whole night, but I saw multiple other people be mean and rude. At the end of the night I felt really bad for him. Bottom line is he was using a new (to him) board, borrowed subs and mains, the monitors were his personal "pa'' equipment and they simply did not work for 90% of the gig.
If we were real pros, I'm sure we could have done a little better. Had we set up our pa, I know we would have done a way better job.
Flame away, just don't ban me, I promise to re-read the forum rules and follow them.I Love Talkbass!
Al Kraft
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Sorry to hear that despite your best efforts (which you are to be commended for) it was a train wreck with the sound guy. Some people just aren't up to the challenge and we all operate at different levels of experience, skill and talent.
For my money, the sound folks have to show up as prepared as any of the performers and need to be at an equal or higher skill level for things to go fabulously. This fellow, well intentioned though he may be, should probably limit himself to plugging in the microphone at the podium for local PTA meetings.
If you get asked back and want to play there again, I think you have a fair basis to insist that your band gets to do your show, your way including FOH/PA. Treating people with respect goes both ways, and you paid your dues relative to earning respect from the venue.
For my money, the sound folks have to show up as prepared as any of the performers and need to be at an equal or higher skill level for things to go fabulously. This fellow, well intentioned though he may be, should probably limit himself to plugging in the microphone at the podium for local PTA meetings.
If you get asked back and want to play there again, I think you have a fair basis to insist that your band gets to do your show, your way including FOH/PA. Treating people with respect goes both ways, and you paid your dues relative to earning respect from the venue.
If the venue respected the bands they would pay them. This is the second year they did it for free, all they got from it was people leaving thinking the band sucked.
For us this is not about money. While I can see your point, my experience with free gigs has been mostly positive. Especially if we do the sound.
Thanks again. After the show one of the organizers asked if we could play another fund raiser in September! I respectfully declined...
