Why have a nice rig just to be run direct?

[JimmyM]

We don't have control over who runs sound for us on a lot of our gigs. We play a lot of gigs where house sound is supplied, we play some where the promoter hires sound and refuses to take our suggestions for a soundman, we do some gigs where there's just barely a budget to pay us, and we do a lot of traveling. And we can either take the gigs and make some money or we can sit at home jackin'. So it's not that simple.

 

[jj4001]

I have been following this thread for a few days and while I cannot comment on a lot of it, because I am not in the same sort of situations many of you are, a couple of things occur to me. If you are not in a position where the guy tasked with running live sound for you understands that he works for you ( and this is also assuming you are not a person who lacks understanding of live sound, yet insists on having your own way) and is willing to mic/DI you per your request, the logical solution is to either get into a better band, play in better clubs or hire your own sound engineer.

Of course what do I know.

This is great advice but the reality is getting paid and growing our audience trumps a mic on my cab 8 days a week. Sure, I want to have my cake and eat it, too but the bigger picture is what matters in the end.

 

[Marcus Willett]

.....the bigger picture is what matters in the end.

Absolutely, and it's rare that anyone...even the most adamant pro-mic TBer would quibble with that.

Thing is, if a guitar player says "man, I really need my amp/cab to get my sound"' nobody calls him a trouble maker, or accuses him of having an attitude, and somehow, somehow soundmen will make it work. If I had a dollar for every time I have seen this happen, I wouldn't need to play any gigs I didn't want to ever again.

 

[Pako]

The last thing you want to do is piss off the sound guy. On occasion I've been asked, "what do you prefer?", but most the time, if you're lucky, there is a DI box on the ground marked bass. If I had time, I would love to educate the sound tech on my gear, my sound, my tone, and all my preferences, but I rarely have gotten that chance. Generally speaking, it's a mad dash to get set up and while I am mainly concerned with my bass, there are a lot of other concerns that the sound tech is working through. And the end of the day, my bass will still sound good regardless and would rather have the attention be spent on vocal and drum mic checks to benefit our overall sound.

 

[JimmyM]

You know, I always hear this "Never piss off the sound guy" stuff, but how come the sound guy never has to mind pissing US off?

 

[Pako]

Because his rig is louder than ours. ( sometimes )

 

[David Hayes]

Because his rig is louder than ours. ( sometimes )

Not necessarily.

 

[Aussie Player]

The last thing you want to do is piss off the sound guy. On occasion I've been asked, "what do you prefer?", but most the time, if you're lucky, there is a DI box on the ground marked bass. If I had time, I would love to educate the sound tech on my gear, my sound, my tone, and all my preferences, but I rarely have gotten that chance. Generally speaking, it's a mad dash to get set up and while I am mainly concerned with my bass, there are a lot of other concerns that the sound tech is working through. And the end of the day, my bass will still sound good regardless and would rather have the attention be spent on vocal and drum mic checks to benefit our overall sound.

Maybe you should remind yourself that the "sound guy" is your employee.

I have many times played straight unaided so they cannot contaminate the sound I spent years searching for and thousands on dollars on.

You are the boss, take control of your employee.

 

[skulletwhip]

I always tell the sound dude before the show that I use a lot of overdrive and distortion. I ask to get a mic on my cab, and failing that, I try to at least tell them that I feel direct distortion sucks and sounds like a bees nest and to please make sure that doesn't happen.

It works sometimes.

 

[Pako]

Maybe you should remind yourself that the "sound guy" is your employee.

I have many times played straight unaided so they cannot contaminate the sound I spent years searching for and thousands on dollars on.

You are the boss, take control of your employee.

If I or the band has hired him, then yes, he is my employee. He will be informed how we want the sound. If I don't have the ability to hire/fire then he is not my employee even though he is providing a service to the bands and the audience. The FOH engineer is also there to serve the audience more than the band. It is a partnership that need cooperation and usually more trust than most want to give.

 

[bigchiefbc]

I always tell the sound dude before the show that I use a lot of overdrive and distortion. I ask to get a mic on my cab, and failing that, I try to at least tell them that I feel direct distortion sucks and sounds like a bees nest and to please make sure that doesn't happen.

It works sometimes.

That's pretty much my approach too. I tell them that I run my amp overdriven for 80% of the show, in addition to clicking on a few different fuzz pedals during the course of the show, so I think that sounds best mic'd, just like most distorted guitar sounds best mic'd as well. But if they insist on a direct signal, well then that's their job to make it not sound like a$$.

 

[Jeff Bonny]

"Why have a nice rig just to be run direct?"

Because with the selection of extremely high quality DI's available these days you can accurately represent the sound of your amp FOH with a DI and it's a lot easier on everyone. It's actually pretty ****ing simple. The real problem is with people who haven't figured out that their FOH sound is worth a one time investment of a few hundred bucks.

You know, I always hear this "Never piss off the sound guy" stuff, but how come the sound guy never has to mind pissing US off?

Um, because when it turns into a pissing match he can **** you a million times worse than you can **** him? I mean look at the places you typically get a bad soundman: bars with house guys where you have little or no pull to give the techs any real grief. No?

Honestly though I think this whole "bad soundman" discussion that's been going on since like forever is a little out of balance with reality. Sure they're out there but I never see truly awful ones on the bigger gigs I tech and even in the bars I play they only account for a small minority. In the bars I see a lot more shyte musos with halfassed gear playing through insufficient PA's than really lousy soundmen.

 

[JimmyM]

Um, because when it turns into a pissing match he can **** you a million times worse than you can **** him? I mean look at the places you typically get a bad soundman: bars with house guys where you have little or no pull to give the techs any real grief. No?

I have a fuzz box and an octave pedal. If a soundman pisses me off, I can kick both on and hit a super low note without rolling any treble off my bass

Honestly though I think this whole "bad soundman" discussion that's been going on since like forever is a little out of balance with reality. Sure they're out there but I never see truly awful ones on the bigger gigs I tech and even in the bars I play they only account for a small minority. In the bars I see a lot more shyte musos with halfassed gear playing through insufficient PA's than really lousy soundmen.

9 out of 10 of my gigs go really well with soundmen. It's that last 10% that sucks the life out of me.

 

[monkeyfinger]

I have a fuzz box and an octave pedal. If a soundman pisses me off, I can kick both on and hit a super low note without rolling any treble off my bass


9 out of 10 of my gigs go really well with soundmen. It's that last 10% that sucks the life out of me.

Yeah, then the soundman cuts your monitors by 50%, turns your bass tone into a kazoo, and turns off your mic for the rest of the night. Good move.

Really, is it 1 out of 10 times you get a malicious soundguy? I am not talking lacking skills, lacking time, overworked, but a guy who tries to screw you? From what I gather you play a lot of gigs. Enough for me to imagine that you run into attila-the-soundman about once a month. Is that really the case?

 

[JimmyM]

Yeah, then the soundman cuts your monitors by 50%, turns your bass tone into a kazoo, and turns off your mic for the rest of the night. Good move.

Come on, dude...I'm no idiot. Last song of the night.

Really, is it 1 out of 10 times you get a malicious soundguy? I am not talking lacking skills, lacking time, overworked, but a guy who tries to screw you? From what I gather you play a lot of gigs. Enough for me to imagine that you run into attila-the-soundman about once a month. Is that really the case?

When I was bringing a mic, it was closer to 1 in 5 gigs, and it absolutely was malicious (or fear, take your pick), especially the guy who sneaked an XLR cable onto my amp while I was at dinner. But now with the REDDI, it's less about maliciousness than incompetence. But let's see...in the last 6 months, I've had a soundman crank the subs so super loud that I couldn't use my upright at all (and before you try to blame it on me, this NEVER happened in the last 8 years I've been playing upright), I've had one get mad and start yelling at me when I told him the music was drowning out the vocals despite him sitting in a room far above the audience and never coming down to hear what the audience heard, I've had one try to insist that I plug my REDDI into a BSS DI because "The REDDI doesn't have a ground lift" even though it does, I've had two that got mad that I unplugged their DI and plugged my REDDI in when they had already given me a perfectly fine piece of crap DI, and I've had a dude try to insist that I plug directly into his DI from my bass and completely bypass my pedals, which he gave up on when he saw I had a REDDI. But then he starts berating our keyboard player for insisting that he take 2 lines out of his powered mixer, and then he says, "I don't like you having control over your sound, but if you promise that I can trust you, I'll let you do it." And then he starts yelling at the lead singer of one act for pointing his mic toward the monitor and causing feedback, even though the guy never once pointed his mic toward the monitor.

So if I'm exaggerating at all, it's slight at best.

 

[monkeyfinger]

Arrogance overcompensating for inadequacy. I've seen that happen on both sides of the stage.

 

[Jeff Bonny]

Arrogance overcompensating for inadequacy. I've seen that happen on both sides of the stage.

....at the same time.

 

[shaft311]

I guess the differentiation has to be made.

There is a huge difference between an engineer working front of house at a venue that gets national, professional acts day in and day out. Those guys bend over backward for you.

Then you have the local pub/bar guy who hates that he has to be there and gets paid peanuts.

Plenty of us have worked with both of these. A huge majority of the complaints are directed toward the latter.

 

[fokof]

"Why have a nice rig just to be run direct?"

To hear myself

 

[dukeorock]

Maybe you should remind yourself that the "sound guy" is your employee.

I have many times played straight unaided so they cannot contaminate the sound I spent years searching for and thousands on dollars on.

You are the boss, take control of your employee.

Yeah, right! Technically, I suppose that's true, but if you're an opening act at House of Blues or a bigger club, your best bet is to try to strike up a friendship with FOH as soon as you get there. Flattery, whatever it takes. Get them on your side as quickly as possible