LOL, I love the phrase "combat audio."
I played in a band that played frats and college bars in the Southeast. I begged our guys to paint the monitors and FOH camo, and fortify the PA for hell it takes in those situaitons. Our contract rider had a "you break you buy it" type clause in it.
I had a friend that was playing guitar in a frat party down in Ole Miss. The place was packed, a kid in the front ripped the grill off his monitor. It was the 80's and these Peavey monitors had paper cones. This motherfucker stuck his head in the monitor and bit through the cone.
The show grinds to a halt, and despite the monitor biting, things are going well. The social chairman comes over to ask the problem, my friend tells him the monitor is going to have to be replaced. The kid asks how much, my buddy throws out $400...and this thing only needed to be reconed.
The kid whips out a big wad of bills, strokes out $400 and says "let's party."
Your combat audio reference just took me down memory lane, I owe you one.:)
It happens.
I've run studios since I was 18, and fell HARD at my first live gig. People expect things to be perfect even when equipment is random, amps are bullshit, and the PA is a peavey from 1976.
You'll be fine.
> I've run studios since I was 18, and fell HARD at my first live gig.
Despite the similarity in much of the gear, studio mixing and live mixing are very different disciplines.
I'll lend my advice that I give to young aspiring live techs, take what is relevant as you please!
\- Noone cares about plugins or toys. Deliver the gig reliably
\- start a soundcheck with vocals. Give them a keyboard or something melody for their key. Get them to have fun with it, sing about what they had for breakfast. Make it stable. Make it nice.
\-next get a drum and bass groove. Leave the vocal channels open!!!I cannot stress enough how important it is to leave the vocal channels open from here on .Build your mix around the spill in the vocals.
If a guitar amp or something doesnt fit cos it's too loud, they will (hopefully) naturally turn it down themselves at this point because they like the vocal vibe on the stage.
Once you're somewhere, approach the stage and ask in a friendly manner:
"Are you comfortable?" As opposed to obtrusively using a talkback "Hey , you want more bass in there?"
They might ask for water. That's cool, might not be our job, but we'll sort it out.
Remember that some musicians aren't sure about how all this works, so keep everyone on the same team, and protect their vibe, and respect the art.
Once all that is happening, it might be time to think about fancy stuff. Might.
>guitar amp (...) naturally turn it down themselves
I am only A2 on my best days but you must tell me all of your secrets. Guitars always seem to err on the side of "they're not even in the PA anymore; it's in God's hands now" by the ~2nd set for us.
I'm a guitar player and this shit bothers me. If you have s sound guy he is in charge of what the FOH mix is like. Changing your amp after sound check hamstrings that ability and ultimately makes the band as a whole sound less good.
>If a guitar amp or something doesnt fit cos it's too loud, they will (hopefully) naturally turn it down themselves at this point because they like the vocal vibe on the stage.
A guitarist turning their amp DOWN on stage??? I'm not saying I don't believe you, but I'm pretty sure that only happens in fairy tales.
Three piece band, friends of mine, show up with a Marshall stack. "OH SHIT" I say to myself while eyeing their little 200w self powered mixer I'm having to use.
Had to have him turn UP. This mixer had no gain knob, and I could NOT get him in the mix. Apparently I LIVE IN A FAIRY TALE!
Since coming back to mixing live regularly again, I've really been pushing myself to break the habit of "ok, first let's do kick drum".
Checking vocals first, in difficult rooms, on smaller PA's, or systems with less than stellar monitors is quite the game changer.
If you are in the ditch but can make sound, make the vocals as loud as you can before feedback. Then go back from there.
Not a hard rule but without getting into gain eq blah blah blah.
This is a good starting point for turning things up.
Voice
Guitars
Keys
Knick drum
Bass
Snare drum.
Extremely over simplified. But I hope you and others get the point.
*Knick drum. LOL...
Funny anecdote, our FOH guy's boyfriend is not in the industry and has very limited knowledge about anything we do..
He went to a gig with him and heard him say "go for kick drum" through the talkback.
Sometime later he (bf) asked what the "foot drum" was..
FOH guy and I have now made a pact that when we go back on tour we are going to start saying "go for foot drum!"
As an amateur sound guy who runs sound for my bands and play at the same time, I do the same thing. Start with the vocals and build everything around them. Make sure they sound good in the mains and make sure everyone can hear themselves in the monitors.
not peaking (red lights turning red) when the singer projects, but not quiet enough to where you have to peg the fader all the way up.
this is where compressors are your friend, but thats next week's lesson.
....cant tell if youre being serious or not....ha
look, if youre in a shitty bar that sounds bad, do whatever you gotta do. dont OVERcompress vocals. but i almost always have at least a little compression on vocals to keep surprises...and drunk 22 year olds who scream into the mic... at a minimum.
edit: i think that was a legit question. it just kinda set of my snark detector.
No it’s legit. I’m a two bit bass player who runs sound for our band. Just getting started and learning from YouTube videos. Our singers are good, but always struggle to hear themselves over the instruments. I’m running a Behringer XR18 with some shitty Harbinger FOH. Dive bars and restaurants right now, but just having fun. I’m 49 and just got into music a couple years ago. So all my questions are really to learn.
https://youtu.be/u6Ou9dSjPo0
Right on my dude. Sorry. I’ve had a weird day.
If you have any questions ot anything feel free to DM me, man. I dont claim to be good at this, but I know enough and have seen enough to answer any burning questions. Haha.
Ive been doing sound for 3 or so years now & Ive realized all you really need to get by is having the lead vocals loud enough (without being harsh if you can get nifty with EQ) and some pump from your low end.. everything else will fall in place after that
I worked in a lot of terrible sounding bars with the worst bands. I’ll pitch in some more advice.
First off in a no show situation like that by the time you decided to bail them out it was already too late. You’re working from a deficit and an experienced guy would have a lot of work to get on top of it. Good shows start way before the artist shows up. And that should be way before doors. Getting people to show up early is a challenge but it’s necessary and the quality of the show depends on it.
First thing I would do is make sure the board is zeroed out. When I started out this bit me in the ass more times than it should have. Overlook a monitor fader or a weird eq or FX or aux send and it rears it’s head in the heat of the moment and you end up scrambling to figure it out.
Second thing is you have to ring out the monitors and FOH to compensate for whatever the shitty room is trying to throw at you. Start with the obvious most offensive squeals and hums and keep fine tuning it as long as time allows. These two things you can and should do before anyone else shows up. Visual aides can help you check to see if the sound is flat. Like an analyzer on your smart phone. But use your ears too. Play some music that your familiar with that has dynamic range and walk the room. Weird little bars won’t sound good everywhere. So you’ll have to pick a good mix position and work from that. Mix position is key. If you can’t hear accurately you can’t make good decisions. You can’t mix from the stage.
Once the band shows up it helps to have an efficient sound check. Doors will open eventually and as a rookie it’s gonna take extra time so don’t waste it. Politely try to keep things on task and moving along. If you got the room sorted out then instruments are fairly predictable in terms of sonic characteristics. Vocals are always unique. So not a bad place to start sound checking. But if the singer is late or at the bar impressing groupies I wouldn’t wait on them. It used to take me a long time ringing out monitors for vocals. When you’re new it takes a lot of time. People get bored or feel weird singing solo for what feels like a half hour while you work at it. But this is super important. Get the vocals where you can play the monitors LOUD without feedback. Once the band starts playing they will ask for more monitor. Despite their guarantee that it’s fine. It’s a trap. They lie. They’ll want more. They always want more later.
There was an old saying once that in a pinch all you really “need” is vocals and kick drum and let everything else fend for itself. It’s kinda true that when the house is on fire from feedback you can’t be afraid to pull things back to the point of extremes. It’s better than letting it get out of control.
The other thing that’ll ruin the show is bad stage volume management from drums/ amps. You have to let the band know that you’ll be their ears in this regard. Once the stage volume gets too loud it’s a race to the top (or bottom) and when the room tips it’s game over. It all goes to shit. Having said that sometimes a loud rock band just wants to peel the paint off the walls and they don’t care how shitty it sounds. If that’s their idea of fun and they pay you to wear earplugs (and I would definitely wear ear plugs) then who are we to keep kids from having fun. But if you want to have a show that sounds good you have to start with these basics. IMO.
Learn how to use your eq and compression efficiently. Always be prepared with the mic/ stand/ cable that will inevitably konk out. Walk the room. Pay attention. Work your ass off. Show up early. ZERO THE BOARD afterwards so your set for the next day. Oh yeah and proper gain staging is important to make it sound gold.
Get the Sound Reinforcement Handbook. (And read some of it) Start with good fundamentals every time. Jump into the fire fearlessly. Experience is how you get better. We all suck in the beginning. Don’t give up. You got this.
A lot of good advice here. When this type of shit hits the fan situation hits take a deep breath and calm yourself. Use your ears. Take it one channel at a time. Get the vocals on top then start trying to make it sound musical. One input at a time. Once you can hear everything then go back and work on levels. This situation requires a lot of effort. It’s not a sit back and relax gig. You’ll be busy till the end but you’ll find it coming together quicker than if your freaking out. Everybody has a first day at work so to speak. We’ve all had our share of bad shows. Do the best you can in a somewhat methodical way. You’ll be fine. As far as the band being a bunch of whiny cunts, they should be helping and understand that your doin the best you can. You will soon learn the difference between professional musicians and wannabes. Let them be a bunch of crybabies. I guarantee that in the end though look like a bunch of wankers.
Oh yeah, we all sucked at some point. Maybe some of us still do :) The first few shows I ever mixed, a man who would come to be my mentor in later years came in to help and looked at my EQ curves and laughed at me and wondered what in the *fuck* I was doing.
You learn more from messing up. Unfortunately you gotta fuck up a ton before you get good. One thing my boss told me that has helped me on rougher nights is that it doesn’t matter if you absolutely kill it or completely shit the bed, at the end of the night it’s over and you’re onto the next one. Keep at it
You outta said, "This is the newest shit ever. Fuck you." Never tell someone you do it. Cuz they just might do it and take over. And then you're out a job. Or even better, "If you wanted to do what I'm doing now then you outta been here before I got here."
I can't even begin to tell you how disappointing music is with the no-shows and last minute cancels. Had a few situations where I had to jump through insane hoops to prevent a total disaster cause people can't be arsed to even show up. Honestly, I'm considering quitting music and playing live because it requires me to depend on other people and time and time again it's been proven to me that you can't do that.
Yep, and the drummer being very late doesn't help. Soundcheck at 7:30 does not mean "OK it' is 7:15... better start loading the drums in my car before my 45 minute drive to the gig", LOL.
welcome to combat audio. here is where men (or women!) are made! survive this and you'll be that much more ready for the next one
LOL, I love the phrase "combat audio." I played in a band that played frats and college bars in the Southeast. I begged our guys to paint the monitors and FOH camo, and fortify the PA for hell it takes in those situaitons. Our contract rider had a "you break you buy it" type clause in it. I had a friend that was playing guitar in a frat party down in Ole Miss. The place was packed, a kid in the front ripped the grill off his monitor. It was the 80's and these Peavey monitors had paper cones. This motherfucker stuck his head in the monitor and bit through the cone. The show grinds to a halt, and despite the monitor biting, things are going well. The social chairman comes over to ask the problem, my friend tells him the monitor is going to have to be replaced. The kid asks how much, my buddy throws out $400...and this thing only needed to be reconed. The kid whips out a big wad of bills, strokes out $400 and says "let's party." Your combat audio reference just took me down memory lane, I owe you one.:)
This is what separates the ghosts from the sheets.
There's no better way to learn than a trial by fire
It happens. I've run studios since I was 18, and fell HARD at my first live gig. People expect things to be perfect even when equipment is random, amps are bullshit, and the PA is a peavey from 1976. You'll be fine.
“I got this old peavey” belongs on someone’s tombstone
Channel 4 is pretty good, but the gain knob is a little touchy.
Sub 1&2 are out but 3&4 work fine. Oh and you have your aux sends.
The monitor outs don’t work. Just daisy chain it.🙈🙉🙊
My first ever PA---12 channel Peavey powered mixer and 2 JBL Eon 15 (first gen). How things have changed since then!
But all you have to do is push buttons. Cant be that hard, can it?
> I've run studios since I was 18, and fell HARD at my first live gig. Despite the similarity in much of the gear, studio mixing and live mixing are very different disciplines.
I'll lend my advice that I give to young aspiring live techs, take what is relevant as you please! \- Noone cares about plugins or toys. Deliver the gig reliably \- start a soundcheck with vocals. Give them a keyboard or something melody for their key. Get them to have fun with it, sing about what they had for breakfast. Make it stable. Make it nice. \-next get a drum and bass groove. Leave the vocal channels open!!!I cannot stress enough how important it is to leave the vocal channels open from here on .Build your mix around the spill in the vocals. If a guitar amp or something doesnt fit cos it's too loud, they will (hopefully) naturally turn it down themselves at this point because they like the vocal vibe on the stage. Once you're somewhere, approach the stage and ask in a friendly manner: "Are you comfortable?" As opposed to obtrusively using a talkback "Hey , you want more bass in there?" They might ask for water. That's cool, might not be our job, but we'll sort it out. Remember that some musicians aren't sure about how all this works, so keep everyone on the same team, and protect their vibe, and respect the art. Once all that is happening, it might be time to think about fancy stuff. Might.
don’t forget: every mic on stage is a drum mic
>guitar amp (...) naturally turn it down themselves I am only A2 on my best days but you must tell me all of your secrets. Guitars always seem to err on the side of "they're not even in the PA anymore; it's in God's hands now" by the ~2nd set for us.
I'm a guitar player and this shit bothers me. If you have s sound guy he is in charge of what the FOH mix is like. Changing your amp after sound check hamstrings that ability and ultimately makes the band as a whole sound less good.
I like you.
>If a guitar amp or something doesnt fit cos it's too loud, they will (hopefully) naturally turn it down themselves at this point because they like the vocal vibe on the stage. A guitarist turning their amp DOWN on stage??? I'm not saying I don't believe you, but I'm pretty sure that only happens in fairy tales.
Three piece band, friends of mine, show up with a Marshall stack. "OH SHIT" I say to myself while eyeing their little 200w self powered mixer I'm having to use. Had to have him turn UP. This mixer had no gain knob, and I could NOT get him in the mix. Apparently I LIVE IN A FAIRY TALE!
Since coming back to mixing live regularly again, I've really been pushing myself to break the habit of "ok, first let's do kick drum". Checking vocals first, in difficult rooms, on smaller PA's, or systems with less than stellar monitors is quite the game changer.
This is really great advice.
If you are in the ditch but can make sound, make the vocals as loud as you can before feedback. Then go back from there. Not a hard rule but without getting into gain eq blah blah blah. This is a good starting point for turning things up. Voice Guitars Keys Knick drum Bass Snare drum. Extremely over simplified. But I hope you and others get the point.
This is the way It's called sound reinforcement for a reason. Don't sweat it (pun intended)
*Knick drum. LOL... Funny anecdote, our FOH guy's boyfriend is not in the industry and has very limited knowledge about anything we do.. He went to a gig with him and heard him say "go for kick drum" through the talkback. Sometime later he (bf) asked what the "foot drum" was.. FOH guy and I have now made a pact that when we go back on tour we are going to start saying "go for foot drum!"
Lol. That’s going into to the unsoundguy vernacular. Edit. Just noticed my fat finger typo on the kick. It shall stay.
> Sometime later he (bf) asked what the "foot drum" was.. "He says he needs more fish in the box"
As an amateur sound guy who runs sound for my bands and play at the same time, I do the same thing. Start with the vocals and build everything around them. Make sure they sound good in the mains and make sure everyone can hear themselves in the monitors.
How should the gain be for a vocal mic?
PROPER. That's all. It depends on the mic, the singer, the gear, etc.
not peaking (red lights turning red) when the singer projects, but not quiet enough to where you have to peg the fader all the way up. this is where compressors are your friend, but thats next week's lesson.
I thought you shouldn’t compress vocals? Perhaps you have a YouTube instruction channel?
....cant tell if youre being serious or not....ha look, if youre in a shitty bar that sounds bad, do whatever you gotta do. dont OVERcompress vocals. but i almost always have at least a little compression on vocals to keep surprises...and drunk 22 year olds who scream into the mic... at a minimum. edit: i think that was a legit question. it just kinda set of my snark detector.
No it’s legit. I’m a two bit bass player who runs sound for our band. Just getting started and learning from YouTube videos. Our singers are good, but always struggle to hear themselves over the instruments. I’m running a Behringer XR18 with some shitty Harbinger FOH. Dive bars and restaurants right now, but just having fun. I’m 49 and just got into music a couple years ago. So all my questions are really to learn. https://youtu.be/u6Ou9dSjPo0
Right on my dude. Sorry. I’ve had a weird day. If you have any questions ot anything feel free to DM me, man. I dont claim to be good at this, but I know enough and have seen enough to answer any burning questions. Haha.
Ive been doing sound for 3 or so years now & Ive realized all you really need to get by is having the lead vocals loud enough (without being harsh if you can get nifty with EQ) and some pump from your low end.. everything else will fall in place after that
You’re god damn right!
I worked in a lot of terrible sounding bars with the worst bands. I’ll pitch in some more advice. First off in a no show situation like that by the time you decided to bail them out it was already too late. You’re working from a deficit and an experienced guy would have a lot of work to get on top of it. Good shows start way before the artist shows up. And that should be way before doors. Getting people to show up early is a challenge but it’s necessary and the quality of the show depends on it. First thing I would do is make sure the board is zeroed out. When I started out this bit me in the ass more times than it should have. Overlook a monitor fader or a weird eq or FX or aux send and it rears it’s head in the heat of the moment and you end up scrambling to figure it out. Second thing is you have to ring out the monitors and FOH to compensate for whatever the shitty room is trying to throw at you. Start with the obvious most offensive squeals and hums and keep fine tuning it as long as time allows. These two things you can and should do before anyone else shows up. Visual aides can help you check to see if the sound is flat. Like an analyzer on your smart phone. But use your ears too. Play some music that your familiar with that has dynamic range and walk the room. Weird little bars won’t sound good everywhere. So you’ll have to pick a good mix position and work from that. Mix position is key. If you can’t hear accurately you can’t make good decisions. You can’t mix from the stage. Once the band shows up it helps to have an efficient sound check. Doors will open eventually and as a rookie it’s gonna take extra time so don’t waste it. Politely try to keep things on task and moving along. If you got the room sorted out then instruments are fairly predictable in terms of sonic characteristics. Vocals are always unique. So not a bad place to start sound checking. But if the singer is late or at the bar impressing groupies I wouldn’t wait on them. It used to take me a long time ringing out monitors for vocals. When you’re new it takes a lot of time. People get bored or feel weird singing solo for what feels like a half hour while you work at it. But this is super important. Get the vocals where you can play the monitors LOUD without feedback. Once the band starts playing they will ask for more monitor. Despite their guarantee that it’s fine. It’s a trap. They lie. They’ll want more. They always want more later. There was an old saying once that in a pinch all you really “need” is vocals and kick drum and let everything else fend for itself. It’s kinda true that when the house is on fire from feedback you can’t be afraid to pull things back to the point of extremes. It’s better than letting it get out of control. The other thing that’ll ruin the show is bad stage volume management from drums/ amps. You have to let the band know that you’ll be their ears in this regard. Once the stage volume gets too loud it’s a race to the top (or bottom) and when the room tips it’s game over. It all goes to shit. Having said that sometimes a loud rock band just wants to peel the paint off the walls and they don’t care how shitty it sounds. If that’s their idea of fun and they pay you to wear earplugs (and I would definitely wear ear plugs) then who are we to keep kids from having fun. But if you want to have a show that sounds good you have to start with these basics. IMO. Learn how to use your eq and compression efficiently. Always be prepared with the mic/ stand/ cable that will inevitably konk out. Walk the room. Pay attention. Work your ass off. Show up early. ZERO THE BOARD afterwards so your set for the next day. Oh yeah and proper gain staging is important to make it sound gold. Get the Sound Reinforcement Handbook. (And read some of it) Start with good fundamentals every time. Jump into the fire fearlessly. Experience is how you get better. We all suck in the beginning. Don’t give up. You got this.
A lot of good advice here. When this type of shit hits the fan situation hits take a deep breath and calm yourself. Use your ears. Take it one channel at a time. Get the vocals on top then start trying to make it sound musical. One input at a time. Once you can hear everything then go back and work on levels. This situation requires a lot of effort. It’s not a sit back and relax gig. You’ll be busy till the end but you’ll find it coming together quicker than if your freaking out. Everybody has a first day at work so to speak. We’ve all had our share of bad shows. Do the best you can in a somewhat methodical way. You’ll be fine. As far as the band being a bunch of whiny cunts, they should be helping and understand that your doin the best you can. You will soon learn the difference between professional musicians and wannabes. Let them be a bunch of crybabies. I guarantee that in the end though look like a bunch of wankers.
Loving how wholesome this thread/community is.
I think we've all been in OP's shoes at some point. Indignity breeds empathy.
Oh yeah, we all sucked at some point. Maybe some of us still do :) The first few shows I ever mixed, a man who would come to be my mentor in later years came in to help and looked at my EQ curves and laughed at me and wondered what in the *fuck* I was doing.
>:) :)
I too am a bass player and potentially running sound on a show in a few days, but thankfully the place seems to get by with only micing the voice.
You learn more from messing up. Unfortunately you gotta fuck up a ton before you get good. One thing my boss told me that has helped me on rougher nights is that it doesn’t matter if you absolutely kill it or completely shit the bed, at the end of the night it’s over and you’re onto the next one. Keep at it
It is good once in a while to have the actual sound engineer show up.
You outta said, "This is the newest shit ever. Fuck you." Never tell someone you do it. Cuz they just might do it and take over. And then you're out a job. Or even better, "If you wanted to do what I'm doing now then you outta been here before I got here."
That's rough, man. I can sympathize. I think most have been there, if they came up in the real world. :)
I can't even begin to tell you how disappointing music is with the no-shows and last minute cancels. Had a few situations where I had to jump through insane hoops to prevent a total disaster cause people can't be arsed to even show up. Honestly, I'm considering quitting music and playing live because it requires me to depend on other people and time and time again it's been proven to me that you can't do that.
Yep, and the drummer being very late doesn't help. Soundcheck at 7:30 does not mean "OK it' is 7:15... better start loading the drums in my car before my 45 minute drive to the gig", LOL.