How to get a good sound check in a festival setting?

Best you can do is have all your own crap sorted, fx levelled, and then roll with it.

 

IME you are lucky at those kind of fast changeover gigs, especially if you not the headliner, to get much more that a level check, ie 'is your signal reaching the desk?" and possibly a monitor level check. After that you get generic FOH settings to start with, beyond which you are at the mercy of the FOH guy. There simply isn't time to give everyone a full sound check.

 

We usually use our own PA and run sound ourselves, monitoring is IEMs. The last time we had a provided PA the monitors were all set up for the headline band and the sound guy was reluctant to alter them for us. For sound check we played half a song while he set the FOH sound.

All I could hear through my monitor was ice pick guitar at ear splitting volume, I got the sound guy to turn it off completely. I still couldn't hear the vocals but at least it was no longer painful. Our drummer said his was the best monitoring he'd heard for ages (he is half deaf so loud is good to him), guitarist said his was ok but way too loud.

It was probably the worst stage sound I've had in 4 years with this band. FOH it sounded fine according to an off duty sound guy and the drummer's wife (who would be the first to tell us if anything was wrong).

It was a relief to get back to our own PA (and IEMs) for the next gig. It was in a pretty neutral room and the stage sound was one of the best I have had in 50 years gigging, I could hear everything perfectly at a sensible levels.

 

^ This is pretty much dead on. I would add that knowing what you need in your monitor can help. You can give the sound guy a quick run down during the previous band's last couple tunes. I'd also suggest not a throw away song but one that the band knows well and features all of the singers and instruments (like if a singer occasionally plays acoustic fir example) so the engineer (which I admit is a much less sexist term than sound guy) has an opportunity early on to mix all of the features of your band.

Outside of that you may or may not get to request monitor adjustments during your set. I'll try and catch the engineer's eye and use hand signals if I can. I personally hate when a band stops and asks for adjustments over the front of house sound.

 

We use IEM and always bring our own setup. Our Drummer is handicapped and needs to play an electric set.
Our IEM Setup is a Behringer X-Air 18 mixer with an 8 channel splitter, all the EQ's set flat. We provide 7 channels
of well balanced, unaltered signal for FOH and we require no assistance with monitoring. That makes it pretty easy for FOH.

When I play someplace else, I usually bring my pedalboard which sends a clean, leveled and usable DI sound to make it as easy as possible for the FOH to get what I want.

 

My best advice is to go the social engineering route: When we show up at the venue, our sound person (good point about sexism of "guy" even though they mostly are) and our BL seek out the sound crew and introduce themselves. They shake hands, they chat a little bit, they show interest in the board and how it works. You do that, you at least get their attention. Beyond that, you are really at their mercy. These days we open with a blues that has a bit of three-part harmony and short solos for guitars and harmonica. The loose structure gives everyone room to make adjustments, and we can shorten or lengthen it easily. We don't expect perfection, but we want it to be as easy as possible to get dialed in and then get on with the show.

 

Good point about not asking for more monitor. Part of our BL's conversation with the sound folks is about hand signals. It takes a moment sometimes to indicate that you want more of someone else's vocals in your monitor.

 

When standing near a subwoofer at a show, lower the bass content on your rig. 150hz and lower rolled off a bit allows you to hear the sub and your rig more clearly. Otherwise, you end up producing a lot of low end and not hearing much of the notes you are playing.

In addition, I would focus on plucking hand position for tone changes instead of EQ changes on the bass. That will help the sound engineer with getting your levels evened out.

 

So that's it! Thanks! An occasional problem that nobody I've dealt with seemed to know how to solve.

 

Sorry to hear about your problems, but really, get used to that. Many, many times you'll get subpar stage sound. Many times that will happen even if the sound check went fine. Focus on your part of the work, smile, hope for FOH to sound fine (it usually does) and roll with it.

 

In your monitor you need... whatever you think you need. For me, I want the whole band, but I just really need the drums and main voice (for song structure). If you sing, you'll need a harmony reference (guitar, keys...).

 

I do sound at a place where we have 6 - 8 bands a night. There's 15 min in between the bands and no time for a sound check. The owners don't want bands to do a sound check either since there's people at the bar. The only band that gets a sound check is the first band if they arrive early enough.

I tell the bands politely to set up and break down asap in order to respect other bands, and listen to me carefully as we have limited time. When I'm checking a mic or an instrument, I ask them if it is loud enough or not in the monitors, and during the first song they cue me according to what they want more or less and that works fine. You're going to get used to it. If you are using effects, make sure you get the levels of your individual effects right. I've seen many bass players disappear when they hit a certain pedal.

The fact that the sound guy didn't know which monitor is which is a shame. It might be because the musician's switched the monitors on stage without letting the engineer know? I don't know but either way you just got unlucky that time I guess.

 

Most of the festivals I do these days have lots of advance prep in line.
like a couple months before the date, I send an input list, stage plot, monitor list.
Then, about a week before the date, I will usually send the same documents to the stage manager.
On the day of show, I will have several printouts of these documents, with the band name & stage time written in GIANT letters & numbers with a sharpie. I will give a copy to the driver, to the stage manager, FOH folks, and the monitor mixer.
They are all usually glad to have the paper.
And as long as they are a good crew, it usually gets sorted out by the 2nd or 3rd song, but we blast off with as much gusto as we can to get make up for any balancing that may occur in the beginning of the set.

 

I always expect them to do it on the fly. If it's anymore than that I'm delighted.

 

CHECK-Keh, CHECK-Keh, A-ONE, A-TWO, A-ONE-TWO, TAP TAP TAP

 

you can try what I've always heard referred to as "British sound check" for the times when you've got no soundcheck - start off with a song that has a drum intro, then bring in the bass, then add other instruments until you've got the full mix sorted out.

The other thing I've done is to always start sets with the same short easy song. A little repetitive, but it will be so familiar that it will highlight any issues right away.