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Who does the sound tech serve?
- Thread starter darwin-bass
- Start date
If it's the club , you'll check the amp's limiter from time to time if it's not always red
If it's the band , you'll ask the local guy to turn down the limiter on the amp and have control on the subs and front fills
If it's the promoter , you'll have to make everyone happy , wich is impossible , so you'll put your hair on fire and run to the exit
The band, venue, and audience. Even beyond providing good sound/mix, they are there to handle issues as they arise that could totally halt a performance or even damage the hearing of people in the room.
i'd argue it is slightly more complex than that. no matter who pays them, there is an expectation of what the job entails, and this particular job entails making multiple parties happy.
Good one!!!If it's the club , you'll check the amp's limiter from time to time if it's not always red
If it's the band , you'll ask the local guy to turn down the limiter on the amp and have control on the subs and front fills
If it's the promoter , you'll have to make everyone happy , wich is impossible , so you'll put your hair on fire and run to the exit
Like Pogorny wrote, the sound tech is responsible to whoever is paying them.
If they work for the band, yes, do the band's bidding.
If they work for the venue or promoter, good luck
I worked as a stage manager at a couple of festivals for over two decades and there are sound companies out there who get hired because they deliver great sound every time. One sound company I worked alongside many times did the New Orleans Jazz Festival for a number of years, two White House inaugurations and even a Disney movie premiere held outdoors in LA…but the company is based in Massachusetts!!! You don’t get called for gigs like that if you can’t deliver.
It sounds bananas that someone (bass player in this case) would think the soundman's job is to make them, the individual player, sound good. Their job is to make the band sound good for the crowd (the customer).
I'm amused by the sentiment that it's the soundguy's job to make the band sound good, but also, they shouldn't have a musical opinion. But literally, the intuition of whether something "sounds good" or not IS a musical opinion. Furthermore, it's possible for one person's version of "good" to be another person's "bad".
Which is all a long way of saying "hire people who do work that you like." Also, pay them.
These are not mutually exclusive. I would suggest that to make a band sound good, each instrument and vocal should be mixed to sound good.
Been in the audience multiple times and even while wearing earplugs I couldn’t take it and had to leave. I don’t know why this is a thing but I hate it.
I’ve had good and bad sound techs. Apart from reputation you never know what you are going to get. Doesn’t matter who is paying them. If you get a good one, you win.
who's signing the sound tech's paycheck? The band? The venue? Someone farther up the foodchain in the SR company's hierarchy who is not beholden to either the band nor the venue?
The signature on the paycheck is who the sound tech is "serving" ...anything above and beyond that is the technician's choice, to take a moral high ground and Do The Right Thing
...or not.
I did lots of club sound in my time. You work for everyone. The venue, audience, performers.
How that balances is dynamic. On a good night, with a good act, these all work together. On other nights compromises are in order.
If a vocalist is bad then so be it. If you bury them you will hear about it. So I didn’t do that. Back them off some? Sure. Verb? Sure.
It’s who the band is. Gate badly ringing drums? Yes. Soften 3k ice pick guitar? Def. Manage the low end so it is full and balanced? Yes please! Maybe I should come out of retirement….
How that balances is dynamic. On a good night, with a good act, these all work together. On other nights compromises are in order.
If a vocalist is bad then so be it. If you bury them you will hear about it. So I didn’t do that. Back them off some? Sure. Verb? Sure.
It’s who the band is. Gate badly ringing drums? Yes. Soften 3k ice pick guitar? Def. Manage the low end so it is full and balanced? Yes please! Maybe I should come out of retirement….
Not sure. Ill let you know when a sound engineer actually sends me a signal to the foldback and when he puts some bass guitar into the FOH PA system..
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IMHO, the OP is based on the flawed presumption that there is one party who serves and one party who is being served. That's not the reality, IME.
Band and the sound tech have different roles to play...and they are supposed to cooperate...in order to achieve the goal: pleasant experience for the audience.
Band and the sound tech have different roles to play...and they are supposed to cooperate...in order to achieve the goal: pleasant experience for the audience.
s0c9
Supporting Member
Confucius say:
A bad sound guy can totally kill a great bands sound, but a good sound guy can’t polish a turd, no matter how much the guitar players GF wants them to!
A bad sound guy can totally kill a great bands sound, but a good sound guy can’t polish a turd, no matter how much the guitar players GF wants them to!
They ultimately serve whoever pays them and secondarily the audience while keeping the artist happy producing their vision. It's a tough job.
Wait, you're telling me that a bass drum that sounds like a cannon causing an earthquake isn't appropriate for some genres of music?
It's a wide gamut and there are a lot of variables at play. A sound tech can be a drooling slob that is only there for the free drinks. He has hearing damage and damages other people's hearing in the process. That's the kind of guy that preceded me at my first audio engineering gig at a club in Kansas City. Then on the other end of the spectrum you have someone like Claudia Engelhart, with over 30 years of experience who has exclusively managed Bill Frisell's front-of-house mixing since the mid-1980s.
I was the live and recording sound engineer at Birdland Jazz Club in NYC for several years in the mid-00s. I did not only serve the club owner, I did not only serve the band, I did not only serve the audience, and I did not only serve myself. It was a confluence of all of those things together. If you're working in a club, you're answering to the owner, sure, and you're work within their limitations, such as dB limits, etc. But in my opinion, a professional engineer is, at the very least, serving the musicians and the audience first.
I was the live and recording sound engineer at Birdland Jazz Club in NYC for several years in the mid-00s. I did not only serve the club owner, I did not only serve the band, I did not only serve the audience, and I did not only serve myself. It was a confluence of all of those things together. If you're working in a club, you're answering to the owner, sure, and you're work within their limitations, such as dB limits, etc. But in my opinion, a professional engineer is, at the very least, serving the musicians and the audience first.
