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So the "soundman" say to me.....

TraceOnBass

TraceOnBass

Sep 6, 2011
170
2
Upstate, NY
#1
Played a gig Wednesday night and we were being filmed in HD so we brought out full stacks out to play.
The sound guy comes up to me, looks at my rack, scratches his head and says... this thing have a DI? I said I have 2, one on the preamp and another on my EA amp. He plugged into the EA amp and I asked him if he wanted pre or post (knowing full well pre and should of been preamp DI)... Scratched his head again with a puzzled look. So I pushed the pre for him.

He then said turn if barely audible for you. As I gave him a look of disgust he said "if you can't deal with it I'll just turn your whole sound down.". I wanted to unplug his little wire right then and there. The club wasn't in need of FOH other then the PA and my band can easily handle our own volumes.

Long story short, the audio off the board that fed into one of the HD cams sounded like total crap. The guy had easily 20k worth of sound gear/foh speakers and didn't know jack about his job.

I don't think we will be playing there again.
 
#2
Unless you were going into a split to feed the video, that's pretty much exactly what will happen. You can't expect a guy to mix FOH and a broadcast feed at the same time. It doesn't work that way.
 
#4
TraceOnBass said:
They both sounded like crap though... Bass was all mids on his FOH and the guitar was holy cranked, vocals were low FOH. He did a botch job with an insane about of equipment at his disposal. Either way the sound was garbage.
Click to expand...

So did you post this just to trash the sound man? There's a sticky about that.

But in his defense about the mix in the A/V feed, in a small venue when there's lots of stage volume, the board mix will be way off because the best mix for the room is a hybrid of the stage volume and the PA. If (for example) the lead guitarist is loud enough for the room with no help from the PA, then the board mix will have no guitar in it. Rinse and repeat for everything that contributes to the stage volume.

You are much better off using a stereo pair of mics in that situation. Better yet, record multichannel audio so you can synch up and mix it later.
 
#5
Yah sound for video and sound for live pa

2 different things.

using the board mix for the video might seem like a good idea.
But yes, the board mix sounds different than the room because stage volume and the room itself affect the mix.

If you want a pro video, you can go as far as having separate mics and mixer and soundman who is in charge of the video mix only.

Some larger clubs are so complicated they have a separate soundman for FOH and monitors. so adding a video mix you would need even another soundman.

as far as soundman storys, really well known local soundguy made a name for himself for being a soundman for major label touring metal bands.

but at the club rock, reggae, pop ,country every drummer got this amazing mix with gated snares, clicking kick drums and horrible ancient 80's reverb.

apparently horrible metal drum mix works for all genres:rollno:
 
#7
TraceOnBass said:
Just confused how one or the other didn't come out right.

Just frazzled when you prepare for a show, dish out money for film and then get none of the above.
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Obviously I wasn't there, but if you told him to mix both for the room and for the feed, it doesn't surprise me that he didn't do that well at either. IMO, your frustration is largely self-inflicted; it was a seriously flawed plan. But some things you try are very valuable for their educational value; this time you learned a lot about what doesn't work.

Board mixes can be great for large venues, especially outdoors, but they are usually terrible for small indoor shows.
 
#9
TraceOnBass said:
Just confused how one or the other didn't come out right.
Click to expand...

Well, the audio for the filming portion has already been explained.

It's also possible, and this is just hypothetical, that you pissed him off enough with the look of disgust to not care one way or the other.

Be nice to the soundguy no matter how much it pains you to do so. He has the control to make you sound good or bad.
 
#10
Maybe, by not following his advice, your amp was too loud and boomy. Then he'd have to cut your lows out of the FOH signal to balance what you were already puking into the room. I've seen than a hundred times.

You'll figure this out sooner, or maybe not, but don't piss off the sound guy. Your first post makes it clear you think you know more about sound than he does. Treat him as you wish to be treated - with professional respect, courtesy, and even some humility and see how much better you guys start sounding.
 
#11
Pacman said:
Maybe, by not following his advice, your amp was too loud and boomy. Then he'd have to cut your lows out of the FOH signal to balance what you were already puking into the room. I've seen than a hundred times.

You'll figure this out sooner, or maybe not, but don't piss off the sound guy. Your first post makes it clear you think you know more about sound than he does. Treat him as you wish to be treated - with professional respect, courtesy, and even some humility and see how much better you guys start sounding.
Click to expand...

^^ this

I always ask the sound guy if I can assist him.. Make it clear he is in charge. Keeping it positive makes a big difference.
 
#12
Pacman said:
Maybe, by not following his advice, your amp was too loud and boomy. Then he'd have to cut your lows out of the FOH signal to balance what you were already puking into the room. I've seen than a hundred times.

You'll figure this out sooner, or maybe not, but don't piss off the sound guy. Your first post makes it clear you think you know more about sound than he does. Treat him as you wish to be treated - with professional respect, courtesy, and even some humility and see how much better you guys start sounding.
Click to expand...

I didn't even have my amp on when he rolled up on me and said that. So giving a look was my only wrong. He sound checked me afterwards. My volume at sound check was at 4.5 and that's where I kept it the whole show. I'm guessing that it was perhaps all new stage FOH speakers (very large C.Vega's) and he was getting used to the equip.

Trust me I was not puking anything out as I could barely hear myself. I asked a friend how I sounded and they couldn't make out much low end at all.
 
#15
Besides all of the above about "making the soundman feel in control and respected", the ONLY way I've heard good audio from a small club was either a ZOOM or other separate system.

In the late 70's and early 80's, we did a number of live broadcasts on New Orleans 101 Live. Peter(Pace Sound) was in a van loaded with great gear and split every mic at the stage to snake to his van. The radio sound was amazing. Similar at Cosmo Jazz City Studio. He walked into the room, said "Play something". He listened, went back into the booth and duplicated what he heard in the room. It too sounded amazing.

For small clubs with FOH, I use a kickback or two with 12" speakers set to little or no bottom but plenty of mids and highs for me to hear. Competing with the FOH is futile.
 
#16
If it's an important video/promo clip filming and you know you must sound good, you must record audio to tracks and mix it later, then sync this 2 track mix to the video. Any attempt to cut corners will lead you to the same result.

If you're not happy with the provided sound man, there is a solution to this too - bring your own. As long as you're using the venue's guy, you must accept everything he does even if you don't like it, be nice and hope for the best.

A portable Zoom can do a surprisingly good job, assuming the FOH mix is good.

No replacement for a good separate track recording, though..
 
#17
We planned on using our studio recording along with some studio video and cut in and out of just the live video. Thus the use of full stacks for looks and such. The audio off the board was nothing more then to know where to que the the video when editing.

The sound guy could of been intimidated by all our gear we brought.. Idk. He didn't give any chance to talk about it, just fired shots at us.

All in all it just came down to a communication problem with him and us as a band. There was loud loud music playing between sets so it was hard to hear / talk. I'll admit fault it was all just frustrating that's all.
 
#20
Momma says the soundman is the devil.

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