Nothing was miked

[arbiterusa]

If you're good, you sound good without microphones. And you're not playing loudly. I can talk to any other band member in rehearsal without the use of a mic or yelling.

For big gigs (over a couple hundred or anything outside) yeah, you do that, but I've been in very few rooms that needed it.

 

[BooDoggie]

Sound is a fickle bitch indeed... Every room is different... Every day is different... Every crowd is different... I have worked sound for bands in all kinds of bars and even large venues in front of thousands of people, and I can tell you that what your band sounds like to everyone is never what you expect.
There was this band that had a drummer with his own 1000 watt monitor that he cranked up so loud that I could not get a well balanced mix in the room. Then there was the half deaf guitar player that absolutely refused to put his amp anywhere except 2 feet behind him on the floor. I have been asked by bar owners to turn the band down, and showed them by pulling the mains all the way down that the only thing that changed was the clarity of the vocals and that he needed to talk to the guys in the band. I've played gigs with nothing miked but the vocals where we used the refection off of the back wall like a monitor with a really great reverb and everything sounded great. And I've tried to setup a fully miked band in a room with so much natural reverb that it sounded like holy hell no matter what I did.
So, you work with what you have...
It's not always about the sound of the "sound" as it is about the sound of the band !!!
If you lock down a solid groove and don't throw in too many missteps you're fine...

 

[morgansterne]

every practice and every performance needs a monitor for the vocals. Putting it through a couple speakers pointed at the audience and hoping for the best is not acceptable, for me at least.

Nothing wrong with running a vocals only PA, though.

 

[Robert Sperling]

As an engineer as well as bassist, I INSIST everything goes through the board, it simply gives a more cohesive sound and if somebody complains about volume (1 way or the other) the whole band can be turned up or down very easily. I do try to keep it simple for most gigs though...bass is DI'ed off the amp head, guitar cabs are miked,
drums are kick and 2 overheads (it's usually overkill to mike each drum, unless the size of the venue demands it), you get the idea. The point is any band is going to sound like crap without being MIXED properly, and I don't know about you, but I
certainly don't trust my "prima donna everybody's got to hear my guitar solo/stage masturbation above any and every one else" guitarist to adjust his volume to a level where the whole band can heard.

 

[micguy]

You need a sound person. Even if there's nothing miked - perhaps even more so then. In some small clubs, you can sound really good without miking amps (especially the guitar amp), but you have to give the sound guy control. That means....if and when he (or she) says turn down, you turn down. I the sound person says cut some treble...cut some treble. No ifs, ands or butts from anyone. If you're not willing to do that, well, you have ego issues. Which invariably leads to a night of bad sounding solo guitar (or keyboards, or...)

 

[monkeyland]

My opinion is always that it depends on how much the gig pays. At the base level that most typical bar gigs pay we are not going to be bringing subs and tons of other stuff. There definitely won't be an extra sound person. If the gig needs that then the client can hire a production company. In this instance we will bring a PA that can support the vocals, and double as a keyboard and acoustic guitar amp. We will bring whatever monitors we see fit and always run lean and mean. typically in ears for the lead singer and a wedge for the drummer. We will accept the fact that we might not cover the whole room evenly and often see that as a bonus. If patrons want to listen to the band then they can hang close to the band, if they want to chit chat then there will be areas where we won't impede that.

Once it turns into a ballroom or hotel type event then it will be billed accordingly for the needs of the job.

 

[chaosMK]

And thus the genesis of the great volume war. I'm afraid I'll have to respectfully disagree.

I totally understand what you are saying. As a disclaimer I might add that I am mainly working in metal genres. Part of the reason people go to the shows is to experience the volume war firsthand.

 

[Bullitt5135]

...we had nothing miked, just the vocals going through the Pa. No monitor for anyone.

Yikes....that's a recipe for disaster. My old band insisted on vocals-only and two crappy monitors. Nothing else mic'd. Stage volume from guitars was horrendous, so I couldn't hear vocals at all on stage. Constant comments from the crowd that they couldn't hear this instrument or that mic. I quit that band.

Mic everything. Even if you don't use it in the main or monitors, it will be there if you DO need it. Mic'ing the kick and snare is pretty common, though if you aren't running subwoofers, the kick mic is kind of pointless. Everybody needs a monitor...even a crappy monitor is better is better than no monitor. Alto TS210's are a good value if you have limited funds. Even better if everyone has a separate monitor mix. You'll need to do some research about proper gain structure and ringing the feedback out of the monitors with EQ. If you can convince your band mates that their stage volume needs to come from their monitor and NOT their massive Marshall stack, then you will be doing better than most of us. Good luck.

 

[Stewie]

I like to set up the PA speakers on stands right behind us. Depending on the room, the drummer may need a monitor. Vocals/Harp through PA. Everything else is on it's own. Someone needs a wireless(probably you) so they can walk out in the crowd and see what needs to be louder/ softer. Piece of cake, been doing this for years.

 

[Gaolee]

And thus the genesis of the great volume war. I'm afraid I'll have to respectfully disagree. When there are no monitors, my personal opinion is it is better is to turn the volume down one instrument at a time, starting with the loudest, until everyone can hear. In the meantime, find the scratch for some sort of monitor system or stay out of larger rooms.

I play without SR for anything except vocals on a regular basis. It's not a problem as long as the vocals are monitored and everyone turns up just enough, not too much. Sound turns to a sloppy goo when it's too loud. Excess volume sucks.

 

[seanm]

We recently played a gig where the room was packed. At the back you could hear vocals, bass, and some drums, but the lead guitar was missing.

But it is a bit of a catch 22. The lead guitar was too loud up front. So there was no point in micing the amp since I would have to turn it off in the PA

The drums should have been miced, but I don't own any drum mics... I always relied on the drummer owning some.

 

[Manticore]

We recently played a gig where the room was packed. At the back you could hear vocals, bass, and some drums, but the lead guitar was missing.

But it is a bit of a catch 22. The lead guitar was too loud up front. So there was no point in micing the amp since I would have to turn it off in the PA

The drums should have been miced, but I don't own any drum mics... I always relied on the drummer owning some.

It isn't always popular, but I've found the surest cure for the guitar being too loud up front and too quiet in back is to use a much smaller, lower-power guitar amp and mic it. A fair number of guitar rigs are notoriously directional; they'll have vastly different sound and volume just a few degrees off axis, which makes relying on them for the full house tricky at best. The PA will typically have much better dispersion relative to a dedicated guitar rig. It doesn't look as cool, but you'll get a better sound both on stage and in the house with the smallest possible amps on stage. It won't do to just turn the guitar down as the amp won't sound the same, particularly if it is a tube amp. However, the guitarist will be able to get a saturated, over-driven sound out of an amp with comparatively low power. You will also have more control over the sound on stage by dialing in just enough guitar in the wedges to make everyone happy. (That might mean dimed for the guitarist and near zero for everyone else! )Now, getting the guitarist to even try this little experiment is by far the toughest task.

 

[joebingo]

IEMs or I don't play
If Sound support is in play mic everything
If not, mic what you can set and forget.

Mate, it's a bar gig.

 

[Biggbass]

IEMs or I don't play
If Sound support is in play mic everything
If not, mic what you can set and forget.

Mate, it's a bar gig.

Exactly... You have to be able to monitor yourself and IEMs
are simple an effective, especially in a bar.
Sound mixing in a bar gig is what you can make of whatever is available. We haul our own PA for bars and similar gigs and it's dialed in for various rooms with memory recall. 6 IEM feeds from the mixer make it easy. That's the best way we've come up with to insure consistency in our live sound.

 

[Plutonium244]

After vocals, the next thing in my mic'ing world is kick drum. Trying to carry a decent size room w/o a mic'd kick is near impossible, even if it's just a little.

If the drummer can't hear the bassist standing next to him, he's playing too loud or the bassist 's cab needs to point such that the drummer gets a decent earful.

If you have PA speakers pointed out, you should have at least a couple of monitors pointing in. Drummer should always have one if he/she wants one.

Mic'ing a kick drum and dialing up 2 monitors-- can even be one mon mix-- is not hard to do, or particularly time-consuming. 2-3 vocal channels, a kick channel: 4 channels tops. I mic a little kick even on quieter gigs, there's no rule sez you got to crank it up.

 

[Nephilymbass]

We occasionally play gigs like that. They are typically a one time deal. It's not ideal, but when we're in that situation we try to make the best of it by rocking out and putting on a show.

 

[markoc]

I do gigs like this all the time, Blues based rock & roll trio. What we do is keep our amps tucked in as close to the drums as possible no matter the size of the stage. BL sets the volume levels he wants and we go to him. A monitor or two is nice, vocals only in the PA, but not a deal breaker. If the drummer or I can't hear the singer/guitarist then we are to loud and adjust accordingly.

 

[LT131]

There is probably some club size/stage size/pay scale matrix somewhere. We currently play clubs that seat 60-70 up to venues they will comfortably hold One Million People! Strike that, make it a bunch of people. Small pay, small club, small stage gets no sound guy. simply nothing he can do. We set the PA somewhat behind the band, give the drummer a monitor and keep volume reasonable. It escalates from there. Bigger venues, more dinero, more stuff. We always mike the kick. On tight stages too many mikes, IMO, just complicate things. The guitar player is always too loud. Fact of life, deal with it. You just have to be flexible if you play venues of varying sizes.

If you are playing Metal and your crowd expects loud then great, give them loud but remember that even metal fans ears bleed.

As for sound men, no sound guy is better than a bad sound guy. Too many guys out there try to run sound without any real knowledge of the job.

 

[Ric5]

My band played a show at bar last weekend, now this bar is decent sized. So if you're more than 20 feet away from the band it probably doesn't sound great. So this was our first time playing at this bar and we had nothing miked, just the vocals going through the Pa. No monitor for anyone. After the show the drummer told me that he had difficulty hearing everything. After the show I asked the singer/guitarist if we should mike the instruments next time we play there. He pretty much said screw the people in the back.

In my opinion I don't think bands sound good with this kind of live setup. I mean to you sound good up close buy you move a few feet away it might not sound good. I would have like having the bass drum miked because by the end of the night I couldn't hear it. I just need some opinions on doing live sound.

If you play loud then you have to mike everything which makes it even louder .... the solution to that is in-ear-monitors ...

But in my mind a better solution is turn down ... but to do this you need a drummer who is not a heavy hitter ... but if you can play quieter then you can let the instruments go without being miked and maybe have 2 mikes on the drums ... The last ten years my gigs have been quieter and less miking ...

The real upside is you don't need a sound man and it is easy to tell if the balance is off because you can actually hear everything ...this is nice for the audience as well ... they don't get hearing loss

 

[Nickweissmusic]

Sound is a fickle bitch indeed...

That she is, @BooDoggie, that she is.