Dealing with the sound guy

John Shadid · Post by **John Shadid** » 15 Apr 2012 11:04 pm

Played my first big outdoor festival this weekend, the strawberry festival in Pontchatoula, LA, and had a blast, but I was sort of thrown for a loop with how different I sounded with my amp (NV1000) being mic'ed and going through another board with EQ. About halfway through the set, I walked over to the sound guy and told him to drop my mids, which felt closer to how I sound (at least in my head) at home or practicing in the studio. Was wondering what you guys who frequently have to have to go through a mixer do to deal with a sound guy who most likely is inexperienced with steel guitars. Also do you prefer to use the XLR direct output or have it mic'ed assuming the mic is going to be a SM-57 or the like..

Jamie Lennon · Post by **Jamie Lennon** » 16 Apr 2012 12:27 am

I prefer Micing and not using the output from the amp. I normally tell the sound Guy to put me dry through the front and don't touch my eq. But sometimes you just gotta grit your teeth and bare it

Lane Gray · Post by **Lane Gray** » 16 Apr 2012 5:45 am

Agreed. Mic it, ask the engineer to leave it dry.
Also warn him/her, if s/he's never seen a guitar on legs, that you'll adjust your own volume for leads and fills; that's what a volume pedal is for.
A good engineer will appreciate not having to worry about you and a hack will either complain that you give him nothing to do or complain that that damn volume pedal is fighting his efforts to work your volume

Ken Morgan · Post by **Ken Morgan** » 16 Apr 2012 7:04 am

You might also ask/tell to leave any house compression off. Channel compression (from my experiences as a player and an audience member) wreaks absolute havoc on what comes out of the front of house when you've got good control over your own dynamics.

Finding and carting a great mic that works for your rig is a great way to go I think, shows some real class, and takes up zero room in your kit.

chris ivey · Post by **chris ivey** » 16 Apr 2012 8:22 am

what jaime said!

Pit Lenz · Post by **Pit Lenz** » 16 Apr 2012 8:54 am

if you want him on your side, be friendly and polite!
A good idea is always to introduce yourself an ask him nicely if he`s experienced with your instrument(s).
If there's the time, invite him to take a short listen at your position to get an image of your idea of your sound. This gives him the chance to understand what you're talking about.
Then, during soundcheck, ask HIS opinion in return wether you should alter your sound/volume or change your amount of FX. After all, it`s him, who sits in the audience and hears your instrument in the theater and not from right next to your amp.
If you give him the feeling to be taken respectfully and seriously, he will treat you right in return!

In my life (as a soundengineer) I came across so many musicians that told me to strictly touch nothing, keep everything flat and use no FX, comp, whatsoever, `cause they have dialed in everything just perfectly by themselves at home.
And so many times, these sounds were OK ,being soloe'd in the cans but were practically usless in a mix in a reverberant club or theater with everybody else banging along.
Makin' my living at both sides of the faders, i have learned (as a musician) to let the man do his job and stick to mine (playing music) myself.

...and one more thing:
If you want him on your side, be friendly and polite....

John Billings · Post by **John Billings** » 16 Apr 2012 9:03 am

Never tell them it's a volume pedal. Tell them it's an "expression pedal, like on a B-3." And carry a revolver in your steel seat.

Dave Grafe · Post by **Dave Grafe** » 16 Apr 2012 9:09 am

Everything Pit said...

The sound you hear on stage from the PA is not necessarily the sound that the main part of the audience hears, nor is the sound you hear sitting right beside your amp the same sound that it delivers directly in front of it and thirty feet away. Often the sound picked up by a mic in front of the amp has a lot more high end than we think we are producing, due to the loss of highs at our off-axis location. Taking a direct line out of the amp complicates the issue, as the limited frequency response of the speaker has a lot to do with what we hear from the amp, and the direct line will not sound like that at all. For some this is a good thing, for others a serious bother....

Just as with musicians, there are great sound techs and not-so-great ones, and their strengths and weaknesses vary widely. Remember "the courage to acccept what I cannot change" and do the best you can from there....

Fred Glave · Post by **Fred Glave** » 16 Apr 2012 9:15 am

Like Pit said, but realize that what comes over the monitor is only what you hear. However, the sound guy may want everyone in the audience to hear what he likes, and that can be scary, so don't think about that to hard.

Pit Lenz · Post by **Pit Lenz** » 16 Apr 2012 9:18 am

Dave Grafe wrote:...Just as with musicians, there are great sound techs and not-so-great ones, and their strengths and weaknesses vary widely. Remember "the courage to acccept what I cannot change" and do the best you can from there....

A wise conclusion.
The only thing you can change is their ambition to TRY to make you sound good.

IMHO a

will get you further than a revolver...

Dave Hopping · Post by **Dave Hopping** » 16 Apr 2012 9:23 am

The ideal should be that the person mixing sound should be concerned only with what the performers can't control.A singer does not have effects or EQ modules in his larynx,so he has to have those added by the sound crew at the board.Plus,he needs to hear himself sing,so the sound crew must also provide him with monitoring.In most cases,accompanists like ourselves can control our own EQ /effects/level and provide our own instrument monitoring.The guy at the board needs to be told not only to mix the steel dry,but to EQ the steel flat.

An etiquette question occurs to me....OK,who's the best person to tell the sound guy things like that? Sometimes the less professional sound folk have control issues and don't take kindly to being given direction.

John Billings · Post by **John Billings** » 16 Apr 2012 9:30 am

"IMHO a (smile) will get you further than a revolver..."

Of course I was kidding! The revolver is for crowd control. Worked in a club that had just gone from Rock to Country, and had kept the same soundman. Awesome PA, putrid soundman! Another club had a soundman who was a keyboard player. A friend sat in for me one set, and I went out into the crowd. The mix sounded like I was in a piano bar!

Pit Lenz · Post by **Pit Lenz** » 16 Apr 2012 9:58 am

@ John:

Dave Hopping wrote:...The guy at the board needs to be told not only to mix the steel dry,but to EQ the steel flat.
An etiquette question occurs to me....OK,who's the best person to tell the sound guy things like that? Sometimes the less professional sound folk have control issues and don't take kindly to being given direction.

I beg to differ respectfully, for the reasons explained above.

As to your etiquette question: I think it`s always good to have ONE person communicating up front, preferrably someone in the band who knows a little bit about sound and the technical aspects to be able to talk the guy's language.
He should also be able to tell the musicians to turn up/down and be respected...
Monitor directions are best given by the musicians themselves.
I was in the luxurious situation to play with a 4 piece band, two of us were soundengineers. So there was always one of us free to talk to the mixer.

Another thing comes to mind:
I found it always helpful to hand out a copy of our stageplan with a mic patchlist to both the house engineer and the stage crew to help speed up things. A setlist with remarks to the songs (like Ac. or Tele, Steel or Dobro, when are backVocs?), is very helpful, too.

Cal Sharp · Post by **Cal Sharp** » 16 Apr 2012 10:50 am

Some idiot had me running through a harmonizer one time. In the mains, not in the monitors, so nobody knew until the first break when I got some comments on my unique sound.

Fred Glave · Post by **Fred Glave** » 16 Apr 2012 11:23 am

Cal that's enough to scare the $%@##!!@$ out of anyone. That sound guy should be run out of town! Is there any way to keep the sound guy honest? I guess you could have someone in the audience record.

rpetersen · Post by **rpetersen** » 16 Apr 2012 12:17 pm

I have found on smaller shows that if you push your volume, the sound man almost has to take you out of the mix and the audience mostly hears what comes out of your amp

Dave Hopping · Post by **Dave Hopping** » 16 Apr 2012 1:06 pm

Good one,Cal! Here's another Harmonizer anecdote.Worked (once) with a band whose bass player/backup vocalist put a harmonizer between his vocal mic and the board.OK,fine...except he was right in front of the drummer's ride and crash cymbals.Ever heard harmonized cymbals?

Henry Matthews · Post by **Henry Matthews** » 16 Apr 2012 2:30 pm

Well, everyone has opinions and mine is, if your using an amp that has a pre-amp out, use it. I get a better stage sound and out front sound and even In the studio by using the pre's out of my LTD, my 112 and also the Nashville 400. I have been doing my stage show for 20 years and have had numerous steel players on the stage and the pre out has the best sound and I have tried every kind of mike, DI boxes and you name it. I've had several players that instructed me to use a mike on their amp and once, I sneaked and used the line out and left them mike hanging on the amp. Later, they committed about how good the steel sounded on stage. Never did tell him. One other advantage is you don't pick up extra sounds to clutter the mix. This is JMHO, no one has to agree or argue the point, but try it, you may like it.

I meant to add that the reason for my opinion is that the sound guy can do so much more with you mix using direct, that is if he knows what he's doing in the first place.

Jamie Lennon · Post by **Jamie Lennon** » 16 Apr 2012 3:08 pm

Ha I'm actually waiting to go on stage at an award show in Ireland. And on sound check the mix on the steel was so bright. So I asked sound Guy to put me dry and he said he will eq it to how he thinks it should sound for the room.

All fun!

John Billings · Post by **John Billings** » 16 Apr 2012 3:10 pm

The revolver seems to be sounding like a better and better option! 8^)

Jamie Lennon · Post by **Jamie Lennon** » 16 Apr 2012 3:11 pm

Plus my effects rack broke! Amp reverb only ! Fun night

Twayn Williams · Post by **Twayn Williams** » 16 Apr 2012 3:50 pm

Being polite to the sound person is only common sense. It's like being polite to the police -- they got the gun!

mtulbert · Post by **mtulbert** » 16 Apr 2012 4:11 pm

It is amazing to me the attitude that some of these sound guys have. In our band, I am the sound guy and the steel player. Typically we set up our sound gear and play a CD that we are totally familiar with to get the speakers "tuned" to the room.

At that point I set up our instruments and eq accordingly to get the best mix and not have the instruments fighting with each other. Since our rhythm is only bass, drums and acoustic guitar it is not to difficult to get this done.

With our lead guitar player I do nothing as she has a pedal board and will change the tone herself during the night to fit the song that we are doing.

I do not use a lot of effects on the steel and usually set it and forget it for the night.

Vocals are on a separate bus and if we increase in loudness during the night, I just pull up the vocal output.

Rpeterson, please take no offense, but I would go nuts if that were the case with you cranking on the stage. I value my hearing and we try very hard to keep the stage volume at a constant level. If you get louder, chances are the band will follow and at the end of the night you are all probably playing very loud.

We constantly check ourselves during the night to make sure that nothing is getting out of hand.

As an old engineer, I never failed to listen to new musicians on a one to one basis to see what their instrument sounded like and if I had to make some eq adjustments, I told them what I was doing and wanted to make sure that they were ok with it.

I never had an issue with a picker in all the years I did this. I never looked at as competition, but as a team effort to provide the best sound.

Where the issues arise in this day and age is the fact that alot of sound guys are not musicians or have ever played an instrument.

Regards to all

M

Donny Hinson · Post by **Donny Hinson** » 16 Apr 2012 5:05 pm

The problem with all sound men (that don't work for the band) is that they really have no idea what the band is supposed to sound like. I think that in most cases like this, the singer/front man should go out in the audience and see if what's being heard from the musicians is what's supposed to be being heard. After he has related his suggestions to the sound man on the band's sound, then one of the other band members (like the steelman) should go out in the audience and make sure the singer is sounding right. That done, it's a pretty simple matter to mix the two (band in toto, and singer) together.

Of course, these days, the sound man usually seems more interested in individually miking every piece of the drummer's kit. And, as the old saying goes "Just because you can do something doesn't necessarily mean you should do something. In other words, you shouldn't need 25 mikes for a 5-piece band. $:\$

Dave Grafe · Post by **Dave Grafe** » 16 Apr 2012 5:56 pm

Some idiot had me running through a harmonizer one time. In the mains, not in the monitors, so nobody knew until the first break when I got some comments on my unique sound.

At least he had the sense no to run the effects through the monitors where they could screw up the singers who need them the most.

There are appropriate and inappropriate uses for harmonizers, and good and bad harmonizers available for such use. Many are very limited devices but any of the H3000 and later series of Eventide Harmonizers can be used to deliver killer reverb and delay, as well as all manner of doubling and pitch-shifting applications. If he was using effects that were trashing your sound that is one thing, but the simple fact that he had your guitar "running through a harmonizer" without explaining what he was doing with it does not in itself indicate the inteligence of competency of the mixer, and in fact might suggest to some that they actually had a clue.