• TalkBass has been independent since 1998. Add your voice.
    Create a free account to reply to discussions, view embedded media, and browse with fewer display ads.
    Join free Log in
    Want zero display ads or expanded classifieds tools? Compare plans.

Sound-man Sabotage?

Jack Wilcox

Jack Wilcox

Guest
Oct 5, 2016
97
131
South Appalachia
#1
There's a little bit of a story here- please bare with me.

Skip to the end for the TL;DR.

I played a small festival stage today, about 400 cap. The PA was a hodgepodge of middle of the line Peavey mains, old Yamaha subs, and older (but very powerful!) Yamaha monitors. All powered by Peavey IPR2 amps with built-in dsp. it's certainly not lacking in power. It easily handled the little outdoor amphitheater with headroom to spare.... when playing house music.

Before sound check, FOH was running some Snarky Puppy and Vulfpeck through the system. Phat, full, clear, sounded excellent! Plenty of heft to the bass.

1:00 PM on a Friday, virtually no one in the audience but other musicians there to support the bands. Good for networking but not much else.

First band goes on: 3-piece blues-rock with a southern twist, unbelievably tight band!..... aaaaand FOH drops the ball. No bass guitar AT ALL in the mix (I know the guy, should have been kicking!) kick sounds thin and lifeless (super unusual for this group), toms nonexistent, cymbals dull. All you can hear is snare, vox, and guitar. A few songs in, I approach the FOH and politely ask for more bass guitar. He places his finger on the fader but doesn't move it, and looks back at me in a "Happy?" sort of way. I give him a "seriously?" look and leave. Several others ask for more bass, no avail. The band's not having a good time, monitor system isn't on. Amps start to fail on Stage Left mains, and what sad mix there was began to sound crackly. They end their set at the allotted time (BIG props for toughing it out) and got the hell off stage.

My band's turn. We're set up in 15 mins, I opt to bring my own amp thinking that if nothing else, I'll carry the venue without FOH. Gave the soundman a DI from the head. SM57 on guitarist's amp, cymbals and snare were swapped over to house kit. Soundman asked us to keep our stage volume to a level where we can comfortably hear ourselves, FOH will take care of the rest. soundman explains that he's had some issues with this system, and asks to borrow 3 xlr's. No idea why b/c we have one more mic on stage than the previous band.

Long story short, the people in the audience said it sounded terrible. No bass, overpowering vox, guitar sounded super thin, drums (once again) lifeless. Same as the last group. The next band is now understandably apprehensive to go onstage.

As our set ends, house music comes back. Reggae this time. It's immediately fat, full and clear. I can feel the subs as I'm wheeling my amp offstage, and I'm 100% positive they were not on while my band was onstage.

I've spent a decent amount of time behind the board as well as in front of it. I know that the FOH can't fix sucky bands. I also know that the band has to work WITH the FOH, since they're the ones providing the actual sound. Having said that, I also know what my band (and the band before us) sounds like, and it CERTAINLY doesn't sound like what I heard and the audience described. Between the three of us, we've played hundred and hundreds of shows with PA support and know how to work with FOH to make their jobs easier, and make us sound better.

Promoter finds us as we're breaking down, says we 'killed it' but his face says it all: sounded terrible. Old man finds us, explains that there's a problem with the crossovers. I don't buy it, given how the house music sounded immediately after our set.

Why on earth would FOH purposefully make a band sound bad? Is it incompetence? Something more sinister to make the headliners sound better? If so, why let the house music sound so full?

2/10 would _not_ play again.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Robb Fesig and jfh2112
#2

Wow, pretty weird. Did the headliners actually sound better, or did you bail before then? I’ve seen opening acts get shorted on lighting (i.e. only something basic, not the fancy intelligent lights), but not sound.

Assuming the guy can actually mix, the only thing I can think of is maybe he had a snake with a lot of bad channels?

Regards,
Wayne A. Pflughaupt

Administrator, Pedulla Club #45
Administrator, Tobias Club #133
Fretless Club #943
Big Cabs Club #23
My Basses
Pedulla Club #45


 
#3
I'm usually not a conspiracy theorist, but this one smells.

The input for an iPod is nothing more than a channel, even if it is an Aux In. The only different is that some channels have faders and EQ, and some don't. There is no good reason why he couldn't make any channel sound as full and rich as the iPod does. Everything down the line from the board runs through the same crossover, amps and speakers. All he had to do was set each individual channel (aka "mix the band").

So, either the real sound guy in the company set up everything and left a real idiot there to twist the dials, or something stinks.
 
  • Like
Reactions: jfh2112
#4
sometimes a person can be so incompetent as to 'surprise' everyone = conspiracy theories. real time examples are abundant. think USA.

after all is said and done: mixing is an art. lots of folks with equipment think that the gear makes them an 'artist'.

sorry you had a bad experience with another one of those 'wannabe experts'.
 
  • Like
Reactions: D.A.R.K.
#5
You just never know in situations like this. It could be any number of things, individually or in combination, that result in these bad mixes:

- FOH mixer has no skill
- FOH mixer has different hearing, or a different "vision" for what a good mix should sound like.
- FOH mixer has skill and good ears, but a bad attitude (at least on this day)
- FOH mixer has a mandate from someone footing the bill to mix in a very specific manner (vocals/guitars forward)
- Gear is crap and has little headroom in the low end
- Gear is fine, but configured in such a manner as to hard limit/protect subwoofer drivers
- Gear is fine but there is a cabling malfunction (and the FOH mixer isn't skilled or interested in tracking/fixing the issue)

Although recorded music can sound really good through a FOH system, it doesn't always mean that the PA system automatically is capable of recreating this same stellar sound when a performing group is being run through it. You'd think that it would be fine, and it generally should be fine, but this isn't always the case IME.

My take: if I were the one doing the mix and it sounded this far out of balance, honestly, I'd be apologetic to the bands, and if in fact my hands were tied by bad gear or a request to mix vocals/guitars forward (little drums and bass), I'd discretely let someone in the bands know about it.

Earning a good reputation as a FOH mixer means that your mixes are always solid at worst, and stellar at best. As a FOH mixer, I'd have to think long and hard about subjecting my reputation to this sort of adverse situation - assuming that a better mix could be had, but that your hands are tied to do anything about it. I'd sooner risk getting crap from the "powers that be" and at least TRY to get good mixes and then take my lumps from above, rather than tank the mixes of the performers. But that's just me. Too many FOH mixers fon't care beyond the paycheck.

For these reasons, if these are all the facts, I'd have to say that the nonchalant behavior of the FOH mixer leads me to believe that he just didn't care on many levels...which is unfortunate. Also, some mixers perform according to the interest level of the audience, and if there was little audience attending, then they just mail it in. JMHO
 
  • Like
Reactions: Charlzm and Jack Wilcox
#6
I'm pretty much inline with the ones who have posted above. iPod or similar into a PA will tell you what frequencies the PA is able to push out, but it does not tell you very much of it's dynamic capabilities (since all recorded material is limited to almost flat). Hence, there might be underlying problems, such as PA processing done wrong, serious shortage of power etc. Material that's been recorded in a studio has gone through MANY cycles of refinement, so not a fair comparison. Still, I find this scenario dodgy... My guess is that the guy just was not up to the job.
 
#8
Thanks for the reaponses. To clarify: The drummer and I left immediately after our set and haven't heard from the Guitarist, no clue how the rest of the event is going.

Have any of y'all had a similar experience? How did you go about handling it?

I'd really like to say something to the promoter/event manager when I see him next week, but don't want to risk sounding rude. He clearly could tell something was up, but the fact that he didn't say anything to us implies (to me) he has some ulterior motive. Whether that motive is as malicious as sabatoging the opening acts (which I highly doubt) or as benign as just not hurting the soundman's feelings, I'd rest easier with an explanation and/or an apology.
 
#11
Jack Wilcox said:
Have any of y'all had a similar experience? How did you go about handling it?

I'd really like to say something to the promoter/event manager when I see him next week, but don't want to risk sounding rude. He clearly could tell something was up, but the fact that he didn't say anything to us implies (to me) he has some ulterior motive. Whether that motive is as malicious as sabatoging the opening acts (which I highly doubt) or as benign as just not hurting the soundman's feelings, I'd rest easier with an explanation and/or an apology.
Click to expand...

Well, it's an ugly business sometimes. In an ideal world, malicious sabotage would never happen, but unfortunately I've been the victim of and have witnessed it on a number of occasions over the years I've been performing and mixing.

My favorite personal anecdote happened when I was very, very young at gigging and regional touring. Our band got a 40 minute opening set for a fairly large show that was shoe-horned between week long stints while gigging through western Mass, northern Vermont/NH. When we saw the size of the venue, stage, PA and monitoring gear, we were encouraged to leave any non-essential stage gear on the truck. We did a full sound check with the keyboardist and myself going DI only without our stage rigs. Soundcheck was glorious and we looked forward to having a good time. Our set started and the monitor mixer was nowhere to be found, so I wound up playing most of the set with NO stage sound until someone (our manager/agent) started pushing random knobs until we had something that resembled a monitor mix.

We figured that the sound crew was looking for us to grease their palms, and when that didn't happen, they just walked. But the set came across fine and it was a great gig for us, regardless. As a green player, it was a bit disconcerting to hear nothing but the bass and drums echoing off a back wall 250 feet away from the stage as the only sonic reference to start a show.

Anyone who has gigged long enough, or full time, will have a number of these stories. Life in the big city. Live and learn, and it is valuable to be able to still put on a good performance even under the worst of monitoring situations, no matter how bad it sucks. This stuff happens. Sometimes it's just necessary to soldier on. JMHO.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Jack Wilcox
#12
Yep, happened to me twice when I was young.

Big indoor club, we weren't loud enough for people at the back to even hear. Monitors "went out" partway through the set, when they came back "on", the feedback was ear shattering... When the headliner came on, everything "magically" worked. We left after their first set.

Year later, different club, same headliner, same soundman.
We didn't have any monitor or feedback issues, but we weren't nearly loud enough.
When the headliner came on, the soundman pushed the mains to the point where the first 20 feet in front of the stage was a mishmash of mids, nothing was intelligible, and I swear I could feel my eardrums moving when the drummer hit the cowbell. We left after two songs...

Two weeks later, two ladies came up to me at our first break, and told us they were the last folks that were still there after the second set, at which point they left too. Seems the headliner's soundman wasn't sabotaging us, he was just deaf.

TL;DR: Maybe the soundman was mostly deaf. There's a good chance the headliner didn't sound too good either.
 
#17
FenderB said:
Thought about this since your answer, not sure I do understand what FOH does mean. In one of the post jimfist talks about "FOH mixer". Who, where or what is that? My apologies JackWicox, not trying to hijack your post.
Click to expand...


"FOH Mixer" is lingo for "head soundman", or the guy that mixes for Front of House (what the audience hears). Sometimes, on larger productions where several soundmen are present, "FOH" is used as a generic term for the guys controlling the sound. There's lots of regional terms as well, so lingo may not always translate.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Robb Fesig
#18
FenderB said:
Thought about this since your answer, not sure I do understand what FOH does mean. In one of the post jimfist talks about "FOH mixer". Who, where or what is that? My apologies JackWicox, not trying to hijack your post.
Click to expand...

The FOH mixer is the mixer that controls the mix for front of house (Front of house being the speakers the audience hears). It is specifically mentioned because there can be more than one mixer being used. Monitors often have their own mixer, and if it's being broadcast, there might be a third mixer too.

FOH mixer is usually out in front of the band, typically near the middle of the venue. The soundman works from there to try to get an even sound for the entire venue.
 
  • Like
Reactions: FenderB
#19
True story: Played a gig as a guitarist in a thrash band in the Providence, RI scene in 1990 or so. It was not a huge club, but big enough to have a decent system.

The headlining act was a band that had worked the northeast heavily for years and were well-respected. They weren't even a thrash band, really, kind of a crossover post-punkish outfit, but the chance to open for them was there and we jumped on it.

The FOH was done by the BL of the headlining band (Neutral Nation) and even though we were just skuzzy nobodies that dude made us sound awesome!

It was the only show our crappy band ever had good sound, and it was the last Neutral Nation gig they ever played. It was their goodbye gig as they were disbanding. Otherwise, I would have become a follower just because of the way he treated us and his ability to make us sound great.

Of course, they rocked it and sounded awesome, as well.
 
  • Like
Reactions: hrodbert696 and Robb Fesig
#20
BusyFingers said:
True story: Played a gig as a guitarist in a thrash band in the Providence, RI scene in 1990 or so. It was not a huge club, but big enough to have a decent system.

The headlining act was a band that had worked the northeast heavily for years and were well-respected. They weren't even a thrash band, really, kind of a crossover post-punkish outfit, but the chance to open for them was there and we jumped on it.

The FOH was done by the BL of the headlining band (Neutral Nation) and even though we were just skuzzy nobodies that dude made us sound awesome!

It was the only show our crappy band ever had good sound, and it was the last Neutral Nation gig they ever played. It was their goodbye gig as they were disbanding. Otherwise, I would have become a follower just because of the way he treated us and his ability to make us sound great.

Of course, they rocked it and sounded awesome, as well.
Click to expand...

Funniest thing... I just did a search for Neutral Nation and they are getting inducted into the Rhode Island Hall of Fame next week!

Neutral Nation
 

Latest posts

Top Bottom
Back