No sound guy, and no clue.

[Scionreality]

Let me paint a picture for you:

We're invited to play at a local place that closed and re-opened since the last time we played there. It was a nice venue. And, as with all other venues in the area, had all the usual PA equipmant, and a sound tech. In this case, a fairly nice one.

We were just told that this will not be the case. Nay nay! Soundmen stay away! they said. And apparently made him take all his stinkin' equipment with him.

Perhaps the mains and monitors were too heavy to carry, and the EQ/amp were too awkward, but he got most of the board, leaving only a few inputs. He may or may not have come back for the monitors, probably some time in the night.

Basically, we don't know how to setup and run sound, and haven't had to. Until now.

If we can't get a sound tech to volunteer, I'll be doing it my own-unknowlegable-self.

So I'm thinking: It's like an outdoor setup, but perhaps withOUT instrument monitoring, and WITH a supposedly bright room surrounding us.

Any tips for not sounding like geriatric cows humping? How to arrange ouselves so the drummer and I can both at least hear the guitar (pretty critical for cues for us)?

Hearing the drums is no problem, and I've got a fairly loud rig. But the guitarist has a 100W SS Marshal with a single 412 cab, the kind with the slight tilt-back for the top two speakers (don't know much else about it), and I'm just not sure the drummer and I could both hear it, as well as the audience at the same time.

I'm going to try setting us up outside once to test it. And try to check out the venue's equipment this week.

 

[ihateusernames]

what you hear outside will be far from what you hear indoors, in any room. don't waste the energy on that.

with no pa at all how will you run vocals?????

best advice i have - hire a sound company
second best - rent a small pa with monitoring capabilities and hire someone to man it (far riskier)

if you have no monitors and are insist on relying on stage amps to carry the room the guitarist needs an open back cab - no questions asked (played with a 4x12 for 15 years because i had one and had full pa support) they can't cover the stage and audience at the same time unless the guitarist can stand 20-30 feet in front of it, even then there is a beam of guitar and a black hole with none.

if you can have a small pa to carry vocals and guitar then crossfire the amps on stage rather than placing in line beside the drummer pointed out front. most members will have a better chance of hearing things this way.

final best advice - don't play the show (sorry, voice of reason creeped in)

 

[Scionreality]

From what I understand there's a PA, we can do vocals and monitor them, but the band that invited us and told us this stuff said that there aren't any mics, and we don't have enough to mic everything (my cab, guitar cab, kick, rack toms, floor toms, snair, hat, crash's/ride). I was led to believe either the on-stage board where this is all controlled either can't handle more than a few inputs (like vocals), or the other band somehow thinks it's okay not to bother?

I can't get any understandable info from them, so I want to just go to the venue and ask. I hope they'll at least provide the proper equipment, and I'll figure the levels out.

Really, though, I voted "Don't Play" as you suggested, but was kinda talked into it. I'm trying to get our recording engineer/friend to do it, as I doubt we can afford a sound company. ...But I'll make some phone calls about that.

Thanks.

 

[ihateusernames]

for what it's worth i find it absolute overkill in most clubs/bands to mic anything on the kit other than kick/snare/high hat. the high hat and snare mics usually pick up everything else a bit and the acoustics of cymbals work well with nothing more. toms can take a back seat with no micing in a pinch. if it's a big mic pinch just one on the kick and you're set (maybe an overhead if you're ambitious)

if there is pa support for a kick then you can go di with the bass, another mic eliminated.

what is your 'rig'? maybe you can cover the room if needed (i hate this suggestion, but sounds like you're going to be scrambling somewhat)

in a budget foh rig vocals and some guitar is all you need, heck, i played that way for several years because that's what people did way back when hehe.

 

[Moose308]

For what it is worth, I just recently played a gig where not only was I the bass player, but I was also the sound guy. This is what happens when you are the only one with a pickup truck

Like you, I had zero experience with sound. By the end of the day, I thought I had a fairly good grasp on how to do things. It's not that tough.

Just for reference sake, I went out and rented a PA system. 2 mains, 3 monitors, a 1200 watt 16 channel powered mixer, and drum mic kit, for $120 for the day. Not cheap, but not super expensive either. It was more than enough for a medium sized outdoor gig. We already had personal microphones and other assorted gear.

Let me know if you need some advice on setting it all up. It was nerve wracking at first. But once I broke it all down into logical steps, I think I had the drum kit miced, 3 vocal mics done, mains set up, monitors set up, two guitar amps miced, keyboards and another guitar DI'ed, and my bass rig set up, all inside of an hour and a half. Soundcheck and everything.

 

[Scionreality]

ihateusernames:

I think we're somwhat on the same page here. I was thinking of only micing the kick, and letting the rest of the kit go (they are, afterall, loud acoustic instruments).

As far as monitoring, all I need is the vocals and the guitar. I will hear the drums, and myself, and the other two don't need to hear me in order to play (-just to enjoy it, haha).

I'll be playing through a Carvin BX1200 and a MESA 410. In this case I wish I had two 210's that I could seperate for better coverage. But then I also with the guitar could do the same, then there would be no problem. Perhaps it'd be fairly cheap to just rent another guitar cab? I'll check.


Moose308:

That's encouraging, thanks. Our setup wouldn't need to be even that complex. Two vocals, I can DI out of my head if I wanted, mic for guitar, mic for kick: 4 or 5 channels? Then just balance them against the drums, since I'd rather not have the drummer worrying about changing his volume.

And there's a couple of decent shops nearby that'll give me a good crash-coarse in using whatever I might rent.


I've got a few options to think about, now. Thanks guys.

 

[Moose308]

One mistake (sort of) I made during my gig was in the use of the monitors. What I did was run my bass rig as a stand-alone unit. I figured I could hear it (I was standing right next to it) and that is all that mattered. However, the guys across the stage couldn't, since most of the sound was thrown forward, not sideways. In hindsight, what I should have done, is ran a DI to the board from my bass amp. If needed, we could have mixed the bass into the PA, but only if needed. The main thing this would have done would have given us the ability to feed the bass into the monitors, so the drummer and guitarists could hear as much (or as little) bass as they wanted. So, bass into the board, just for monitor purposes if needed. All it takes is one XLR cable.

 

[ihateusernames]

hmmm, i'd advise against bass in monitors. it's a skill that might be added last in pa education as it's best left to engineers running big systems, and even then you won't find it much. nationally touring acts with wedges costing multiple thousands of dollars sometimes have bass in monitors.

 

[Vinny D]

You have left out some real important details about this show.

1) What kind of music do you play

2) How big is the room

3) Most important, how much are you getting paid



Classic example of what you can get away with *if* you are a typical *Classic Rock* style band.

In a room that holds approx. 50-150 people you can get away with a *Vocal Only* PA system.
No need to mic everything just use common sense (some musicians even have this ) and keep your stage volume reasonable. Keep your stage setup tight so that your drummer can easily hear at least the bass and a little guitar.
Put just the vocals ONLY in the PA and set the vocal mic's up hot enough so that they will not need to be messed with during your show.
KEEP YOUR HANDS OFF OF YOUR AMPLIFIERS VOLUME KNOBS AND EVERYONE WILL BE FINE

Have a fun show....the end

 

[Scionreality]

Vinny D:

1.) We play hard rock/metal. New stuff, mostly originals, covers from bands like Deftones, Chevelle, Breaking Benjamin. Campus people like it as long as they didn't -really- want to hear screamo. Haha.

2.) If they're using the same room: on the large side, as far as clubs/bars go. Last time we were there, 300 or so people weren't cramped. And the ceiling is high. But it did, for some reason, sound like a much smaller room. Very bright. ...Odd. Maybe the sound guy at the time was just that good.

3.) Diddly.

I really like playing live only if I'm confident in what's going on. If we've gotten enough practice, no major problems, decent sound guy, fun crowd, etc. All the hastles we were facing was making me frown.

And I say "were" because, unfortunately, we had to cancel the performance. I hate doing anything like this because it's bad for our reputation, but my drummer has a family member dying in up-state New York. I say that's a good enough reason.

---SO.---

Thanks for trying to help, all of you.

And feel free to generally discuss what to do in similar situations. It might be very helpful to some other nice bassists who find themselves in the unfortunate situation.

 

[amper]

In a small club, even up to 300 people, assuming you don't have some really strange acoustics going on, you can easily get away with a vocals only PA with no monitors, assuming your amplifiers are of the normal type, even if you're a loud band.

You might want to mic the kick drum, and add a bit of that to the FOH, because the kick sometimes tends to get a bit lost.

I've been doing this for a long time. Our last gig (I'm the sound guy as well as the bassist and vocalist, because I actually went to college for sound and lighting), we played with two Yamaha SM12IV's as our FOH PA, with two vocal mics, a bit of kick drum, and one keyboard for the opening act in the PA. Everything sounded great, with about 100-200 people in the room.

Our PA consists of the aforementioned Yamaha monitors, a Yamaha MG166CX-USB mixer, and a Crown XLS602 power amp. Nothing more, nothing less. The Yamaha MG series mixers are great for this sort of thing, because they have built-in compressors, and built-in reverb.

Mics were two Shure Beta 57A's for vocals and one Beta 52A on the kick. Amplifiers were my V-Type with the 4x12, and our guitarist plays two 2x12's in stereo powered by a Mesa 50/50.

Would I have liked monitors? Sure, but we only have so much money. The new addition of the Yamaha mixer and Crown power amp have really gotten me back into thinking about doing PA work. See the other thread about building a PA system for where I'm going with this...

Too bad you're all the way out in Akron, or I'd be more than happy to help you out in person!