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Share your awesome live soundman experience

Swimming Bird

Swimming Bird

Apr 18, 2006
2,878
621
Wheaton MD
#1
Hi all, I just had a great experience with a sound engineer at a gig last night -- share your awesome sound guy stories! I want to know the venue, when the show was and why the sound guy rocked.



I'll start: At the Frequency in Madison, WI. Three band setup -- solo guy with a guitar + drums, my band with drums, myself and a painter, and the main band, Captured by Robots. So I get there early and the stage is covered with robots. Seriously, there is no room. The solo guy is already setting up and there's no space to put my gear to sound check.

I was planning on borrowing a DI from a friend, but that didn't pan out. All I have are my bass, an old Laney 2x12 tube combo, and my pedal board. Sound guy says no problem, that he's got a bunch of DIs and we'll just sound check right before we go on.

I'm worried cause I have a pretty crazy effects setup and I change sounds very often. I have a hard enough time keeping volume even from sound to sound with practice amps and have no experience with this setup. The drummer and I jam for all of thirty seconds for the sound guy and then it's show time. Basically, I just heard the amped signal out of the Laney except once or twice where I heard a lot of my fuzz coming off the high end speakers.

Just a perfect experience -- he was super professional, nothing phased him and the crowd (including a sound guy friend of mine) said it sounded great. Way to go, Mike the Sound Guy!
 
#2
I own and operate a reasonably large sound system. I can set it up and get a basic mix, but when it matters I use an experienced older sound engineer who lives in my part of the world. He really knows what he's doing and squeezes great sound out of musicians and instruments that need a helping hand.

Then, at the end of the show, he is frequently abused by clueless, inexperienced singers and musicians.

'My friend couldn't hear me', 'I thought I told you not to put reverb on my voice' etc etc

Hats off to selfless soundmen who put up with unjustified crap then come back to do it all again next week.
 
#3
My '80s band hired a soundguy to help us set up and soundcheck our last gig. I had met the guy 20 years ago (he's recently back in town after being out of the country for a few years) but had no idea if he knew what he was doing. We're used to running sound ourselves at that venue, and he started in setting things up differently than we usually do.

It sounded fantastic. He stepped in and in about twenty minutes had everything balanced so well we hardly touched the board all weekend. Our monitor system died, but the stage volume was so low and the FOH sound so clear we were able to keep our vocals together anyway. The kick drum was thumpy, the bass was clear, synths, guitars and backing tracks sounded well balanced instead of an overcompressed mush, all the vocals were intelligible, floating on top of the mix instead of sounding buried or in the audience's face.

Way to go, Jeff! Thanks for stepping in! We'll be changing how we do things when we run sound for ourselves, now, and will probably hire him again the first chance we get.
 
#5
The guitarist from my former band tends to run sound from stage and the stage sound was awesome but I never realized just how good he is at what he does until I saw the band live, after I had left their ranks. All while playing guitar and making sure the sets run smoothly, he keeps the sound even and full (bear in mind this is a large band, at times comprising 8 or 9 members including horns, keys, strings, hand percussion and accordion in addition to guitar, drums and either electric or upright bass.)
 
#7
Back in the 80's my band consisting of late teens to early twentysomething guys won a battle of the bands. Part of 1st praize was to fill in for the house band on a Saturday night at the hot spot in town. This guy was a magician. He made us sound like Van Halen (which in the 80's was a good thing) and we simply were not that good. We were average at best. Since that day I realized a good soundman can make an average band sound great. A bad soundman can make a great band sound like a turd. His name was Tom Fortier (sp) and the town was Tri-Cities, Wa.
 
#8
I find it unusual to not have a soundperson at any gig. I relocated back to Northern Ca. after playing in Vegas for twenty years. 99% of the shows I played had a soundman. When I came up here, I quickly found out that alot of bands attempt to do their own sound. I would rather the band make a hundred or two less by paying a pro and to not have that worry. I feel that it's a mistake that may seem like a short term monetary savings but horrible for making a good impression on people. When things go bad, you may as well have amateur tattooed on your forehead.
 
#11
I'll never forget one experience in particular I had back in 2006. We were on the road and dropped in for a weekend at the 8 Seconds Saloon in Indy. It's a big room with a very wide stage and easily 50 yards from the stage to the board. The sound crew was top notch compared to alot of the clubs were were working. The band was a 4 piece, all of us sang and we used an In Ear setup for monitoring. The crews process for checking everyone's individual mix was so efficient we used it for the rest of that tour when we had to fall back on our own PA. To this day I still prefer that process. On another note I use a rig that most consider extreme overkill for medium size venues. However I run two cabs clean and one dirty. I am very aware of my volume and keep it as low as possible while still getting the right balance of clean and dirty tones. I always know it's going to be a great set when the person mixing gives me the benefit of doubt when they see my rig. An oversized rig does not always mean obnoxious when used carefully it equals even clean tone. Sound guys that get that make the job so much easier.
 

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