sound guy ignoring direct out on amp

[MonkeyBass]

Believe it or not, it wasn't all about you, bro. Guilty conscience?

That was a joke, BTW. Calm down, everyone!!!

Ok cool. I hear you man. I was just hoping I was getting my point across. We're all friends here.

 

[MonkeyBass]

on the other hand, here is what we experience many times...(not to cut on soundmen in general, but...)

we (band) get there about an hour early and load in. The opening bar tender has to let us in and knows nothing about what is going on (not their job so no problem).

We load into or onto a stage that is dark cause there are no lights on. The next band shows up and starts getting their stuff in

Sound guy shows up still drunk from the night before, and starts getting all of his stuff out. Reveals that he is only micing the kick drum and snare; goes to the bar and hits on the bartender a bit; schmoozes with the guys in the other band that were at the party last night; gets around to starting to mic things and spends FOREVER on the guitar players cabs; throes the vocal mics up on the stage; asks if I have a direct box, I don't, but I do have my XLR out from my pre-amp so he then hands me the end of the cable that goes in there;

all along, no one is holding any doors, so the place is filling up with people; people that he schmoozes with on the way to the board; gets up to the board and we all do a basic line check, basic monitor check and he says "I'm good" and is off to drink...

while we are playing he is no where near the board as things rattle and hum; the guitars and snare are way too loud etc. etc.

I have had many LESS experiences with sound guys as you describe in the quoted post...where they are lucid, professional, and care about doing there job.

In the end, it never really bothers me cause I grew up in the punk world where the only demand for sound was that it was louder. I am not picky, and have grown to realize that unless I am playing a gig in a small arena, or stadium where the sound guys are union or at the highest level, I am always going to get "club sound"

I think it is funny that many of my contemporaries will walk into "local rock club" or "sports bar" and expect an arena level mix. Therein lies the problem

As a bass player I've had those sound guys too. Before I did sound I didn't know how to deal with those guys. Now that I do sound AND play bass, when I meet one of those guys I take them DOWN! Not physically, but I'll say things like "this monitor is ringing at 2kHz, are you going to do something about it?" Or something like that. But, I always give them the benefit of the doubt and I think that's hard for good bands and good sound guys to do sometimes. Frustration builds up and unfortunately it seems to be released at the wrong people.

 

[JimmyM]

Actually, I do expect arena quality sound at our small gigs. I know sometimes the PA isn't capable of it, but we expect it to be a good clear mix with everyone represented and the vocals easily heard above all else. But we also make it easy for it to happen with reasonable stage volume and no volume wars. We may be demanding but we have to do our part as well.

 

[MonkeyBass]

Actually, I do expect arena quality sound at our small gigs. I know sometimes the PA isn't capable of it, but we expect it to be a good clear mix with everyone represented and the vocals easily heard above all else. But we also make it easy for it to happen with reasonable stage volume and no volume wars. We may be demanding but we have to do our part as well.

Good to hear that. A lot of bands can't understand why you can't push the vocals above their two Marshal stacks turned all the way up.

 

[KrisHayes]

Interesting.... sound guys ALWAYS go for my DI out on the head. It's by far the least amount of work for them!

 

[AngelCrusher]

OK, yeah we get it. Some bands are unprofessional jerks. Thankless job, etc.

But you didn't address my point from the previous page that I directed at you, nor did you address Marcus Willett's point, which was just 5 or so posts above yours.

I will repeat my point here: You say that you know the room, and bassists get DI'ed in your room, period. You'll handle the EQ, and try to meet the bassist halfway on reinforcing his "basic tone". But what if my "basic tone" necessitates mic'ing? Do you just say "tough s$*%, you're getting a clean dry DI tone"?

Do you have the mic on hand with a stand for the mic?

If so, I doubt many would give you an issue.

 

[bigchiefbc]

Do you have the mic on hand with a stand for the mic?

If so, I doubt many would give you an issue.

Yes, I always bring my mic (AKG P2) and stand, because we run our own sound a good portion of the time. Of the times when the place has a soundguy, it's been hit or miss so far about whether they're cool with it or not. Some guys just have it in their head that bass is SUPPOSED to be DI'd, and they're not gonna listen to you if you try to tell them otherwise.

 

[MonkeyBass]

Do you have the mic on hand with a stand for the mic?

If so, I doubt many would give you an issue.

This does bring up a good point. Some places just straight up have the bare bones equipment and may not be able to spare a mic. And I wouldn't throw an SM57 on a bass cab. I happen to work somewhere with an extra D6 that seems to work ok.

 

[Chef]

Holy Crap is that Spot On.
BTDT.

Give me back my diary from 1979.

I'm not saying you have to tip the sound guy, I'm saying that sound guys work their butt off for very little money. We make less then the cocktail waitress.

My whole point of chiming in on this thread in the first place was to try to dispel some myths about sound guys. Such as that they're out to get you. They're out to sabotage your sound. That they're lazy. That they don't care about your precious tone. That they make a butt load of money.

My suggestion is you may want to put yourself in that guy's shoes sometime. It's a thankless job and it's a tough job.

I've toured the country as a bass player. Load in, load out. Drive, hotel, load in, load out. I thought that was a tough gig. Then I became a sound guy.

Here's a typical night for a sound guy:

Show up an hour before the band is supposed to get there. Turn on everything, do a main speaker check, track down a buzz that mysteriously showed up. Get the drum mics prepped.

Sit around for an hour waiting for the band because they're an hour late as always (except the one time you're running late then they're at the door pissed off because you made them wait 5 minutes).

The band slowly wanders in, you ask one of them how many people are in the band and what instruments they have. The guy you ask doesn't know so you get a general idea and start pulling mics and stands. The drummer is still not there.

Finally you get the bass and guitar, and keyboards set up when the drummer wanders in. You're now 15 minutes from doors.

So you wait for the drummer to set up his Neil Peart sized drum kit and finally get it all set up. You start the line check and track down that the buzz in the bass channel is from the DI in the amp that the bass player assured you was good. So you use the busted up Whirlwind DI because the venue owner won't buy you a Radial. Hell he won't buy you new mic stands to replace the ones with bad clutches.

As you're working on the monitors the lead singer shows up. Oh ok... Nobody told me there was another guy. Fine. Oh... he has his own condensor mic that he wants me to use. Ok so now I have to ring out his monitor 2 minutes before door open because he can't use an SM58 like everybody else? ok. Go tell the door guy to hold the doors for 5 minutes.

Ring out his monitor, get a basic sound check. Deal with monitor mixes for 10 minutes (still holding doors) because the band can't quit noodling and goofing off to get a monitor mix set.

Finally throw on the house music and tell the door guy to open the doors. Deal with customers asking to play their favorite song through the PA. Explain its a Spotify station and you're not a DJ. Deal with customers asking you where their server went. Explain that you don't know and it's not your job to deal with the servers.

10 minutes after start time the band finally goes on because you had to track them all down. One at the bar, one making out with his girlfriend, one smoking dope in his car...

Run lights, monitors, and FOH mix all at the same time. All the while dealing with people telling you to turn up the guitars only to have the next person telling you to turn them down. The band manager requests that you turn it up only to have the bar tender or club owner tell you to turn it down.

Deal with that for and hour. Tell the band they have one more song in their set. They play two.

Now you're running even more behind so the band after them is pissed. You scramble to get the next band up there. You try to give the band what they want but it's tough or impossible because, thanks to the first band, you're now 20 minutes behind schedule.

Get them up and running in 15 or 20 minutes and deal with the "expert" mixing advise during that set.

Repeat. Except this time a guy brings in a vintage (as in broken) Moog Taurus that takes 10 minutes to get working.

Finally at 1:00AM you give last call. Band continues to play for 10 minutes after last call. Bartender gets pissed.

Finally the last band stops playing. You grab all your mics before someone steals them. Put all your stuff away as you work around all the gear still left on stage because the last band is in no hurry to get out of there even though the sound guy just wants to get home and sleep.

Finally you get all your crap put away, shut it all down, and go home. Total for the night $150 if you're lucky.

Come back the next night only to discover a few of your extension cords were stolen.

It's still better than working retail.

 

[Chef]

Yes.

Actually, I do expect arena quality sound at our small gigs. I know sometimes the PA isn't capable of it, but we expect it to be a good clear mix with everyone represented and the vocals easily heard above all else. But we also make it easy for it to happen with reasonable stage volume and no volume wars. We may be demanding but we have to do our part as well.

Good to hear that. A lot of bands can't understand why you can't push the vocals above their two Marshal stacks turned all the way up.

 

[HolmeBass]

This does bring up a good point. Some places just straight up have the bare bones equipment and may not be able to spare a mic. And I wouldn't throw an SM57 on a bass cab. I happen to work somewhere with an extra D6 that seems to work ok.

It's odd you mention this. There was a time when I would have agreed with you. Then I played a club down on the Outer Banks, really a restaurant that has music on the weekends, and the music guy- books the band, and runs sound- was skilled. He ran the monitor mix for Leftover Salmon for years.

Anyway in this band I always DI'ed off of my head. He asks if I want to mic the cab and run a DI, so I feel very special and agree. Then he puts an SM57 on the cab. He tells me he gets the lows from the mic and the highs from the DI. Inside I am thinking, "Wow, that's completely backwards" but then I also think, "Twelve years of experience running sound for Leftover Salmon, and at least he's taking two signals, keep your trap shut." So I did.

He got one of the best recorded live bass sounds I've ever been privileged to enjoy. So there really is more than one way to skin a cat.

 

[walterw]

As for monkeybass's saga, i can only add that he's describing a sweet, cushy house gig! Try all of that, but with having to carry in the entire PA and set it up beforehand, then break it all down and load it out afterwards!

 

[Chef]

This is why we're down to Bose Sticks+Subs.

 

[Calaverasgrande]

Actually, I do expect arena quality sound at our small gigs. I know sometimes the PA isn't capable of it, but we expect it to be a good clear mix with everyone represented and the vocals easily heard above all else. But we also make it easy for it to happen with reasonable stage volume and no volume wars. We may be demanding but we have to do our part as well.

Personally "arena quality sound" is a perjorative to me.
The best sound I have ever heard has been in medium sized clubs like Yoshi's in Oakland or Slim's (Boz Scaggs venue) in SF.
Most every arena show I have been to has great monitors with sidefills, drummer monitor and wedges. But the FOH is phasey and pushed sounding. Even at huge events where "money is no object". There is just a physical limit to how big a PA can go without killing the front rows. So the sound dispersion and bandwidth is compromised.

In the clubs they can get a decent subwoofer level without killing the first three rows, and they can better control the dispersion of the near and far throws.
YMMV, but I'll say the Melvins sounded 10 times better at Slim's than at Oracle arena.

 

[lemongrenades]

To MonkeyBass and all the other soundguys out there, "THANK YOU", sincerely. I have been following this thread, reading it's ups and downs. While I am in the same boat as most of you in that I do care about my bass tone at shows. And I take pride when I sound good and don't hit any clams. Let's face it, no one besides you, the one other bassist in the crowd, and your girlfriend (because she has to hear it on the way home), gives two craps about your tone.
Dial up a decent stage volume, swing the bass around a bit (please don't just stand still, it's a show) and play like you mean it. You should feel lucky if you get a DI or a mic. I realize most of you probably know this. But it's all I could think as I read some of these posts. Good luck fellas. As always, thanks for the info, even the negative posts could be a lesson.

 

[MonkeyBass]

It's odd you mention this. There was a time when I would have agreed with you. Then I played a club down on the Outer Banks, really a restaurant that has music on the weekends, and the music guy- books the band, and runs sound- was skilled. He ran the monitor mix for Leftover Salmon for years.

Anyway in this band I always DI'ed off of my head. He asks if I want to mic the cab and run a DI, so I feel very special and agree. Then he puts an SM57 on the cab. He tells me he gets the lows from the mic and the highs from the DI. Inside I am thinking, "Wow, that's completely backwards" but then I also think, "Twelve years of experience running sound for Leftover Salmon, and at least he's taking two signals, keep your trap shut." So I did.

He got one of the best recorded live bass sounds I've ever been privileged to enjoy. So there really is more than one way to skin a cat.

Huh... that's a good idea. See, never thought of that.

 

[MonkeyBass]

As for monkeybass's saga, i can only add that he's describing a sweet, cushy house gig! Try all of that, but with having to carry in the entire PA and set it up beforehand, then break it all down and load it out afterwards!

I've done plenty of those gigs as well. I had to work my way up through the ranks to land this cushy house gig.

And as you can see, I still don't like the cushy gig. I'm just getting too old for it to be honest.

 

[Vince Klortho]

It behoves the bassist to convince the soundguy he might just have a clue or three, ...

Yes, if he/she actually does. I ran sound for many years and saw all types. Thankfully, a majority of bassists do have a clue but, unfortunately, far too many don't.

One example : I was setting things up for the first band of a show and the bassist tells me he wants two DIs because he's going to run stereo. We had a stereo system, extra DIs, and enough channels so I snickered and said OK, I'll humor him so I plopped the DIs down by his amp and ran the cables to the snake. Later I was setting up something else and walked by his amp : he had inserted a Y-cable and split the signal to the two DIs and that was his idea of stereo. I actually laughed out loud.

 

[Jim C]

To MonkeyBass and all the other soundguys out there, "THANK YOU", sincerely. I have been following this thread, reading it's ups and downs. While I am in the same boat as most of you in that I do care about my bass tone at shows. And I take pride when I sound good and don't hit any clams. Let's face it, no one besides you, the one other bassist in the crowd, and your girlfriend (because she has to hear it on the way home), gives two craps about your tone.
Dial up a decent stage volume, swing the bass around a bit (please don't just stand still, it's a show) and play like you mean it. You should feel lucky if you get a DI or a mic. I realize most of you probably know this. But it's all I could think as I read some of these posts. Good luck fellas. As always, thanks for the info, even the negative posts could be a lesson.

Wow; thanks for the kind words.
BTW, those of us who are bass players and soundmen have the same fears as non-soundmen. The bottom line (to me) is that it sounds like me out front even though my sounds is coming from a MI cabinet about 6' from where I'm standing and your using a big PA. Also at reasonable stage volume, horrible room acoustics are not nearly as bad as out front.
For me, the old 9:30 club was the worst as the there would be threats of horrible bass tone from my 2 other fellow soundmen if I wasn't available to:
cover the night of their choice to take off, give somedbody a ride home, how about buying my girl a drink, etc.

 

[darwin-bass]

My approach.

Get there early. Help the sound person unload and set up PA system. Help unwind the snake. Talk to the sound tech and let them know how many vocal mics we need, how many instruments there are in the band. Help to run XLR cables from the stage box to the places where the band members will be. Hook up direct boxes for keyboards. Say "Test 5 Check" into the vocal mics to confirm they are on / connected. Listen to the monitor speakers and let him know when they are working and "loud enough".

In the process, the bass ends up being hooked up however I please. I'll use the amp DI if I can, sending a PRE EQ signal to the board so I don't mess him up by trying to dial in some tone that works only through my speaker (my monitor).

After the gig, help tear down. Wind cables the way the tech wants them wound. Pack mics away. Help load gear back into the van / truck / trailer.

I've never had a sound person have any problems with using my amp's DI.