Bands - do you have -A- soundman?

[pounce]

Bands - do you have a single soundman who always works with your band? this sound person might be a travelling tech who often also works as a stage manager for a small tour. alternately, you could simply always hire the same guy but still have a relationship with that person. perhaps it's some friend or relative that you have deemed able to run the sound who is always the single person to do it, although not a professional like the above two options. the last, and very common situation, is that you are at the mercy of whoever is the house sound person. just thought i'd toss this out there in the live forum.

[LouMan]

We're pretty lucky in that we have a regular guy. He's just a guy I know who is a total music freak. Everything he knows about doing sound he learned from us (for better or worse).

I'm the "tech" guy in the band so it's usually up to me to connect, test, and troubleshoot the PA. He's gotten to the point where I can pretty much trust him to hook everything up and we're ready to go.

In my opinion, it's the only way to fly. It's good to be able to just point at your monitor and have someone know to turn it up or down. Plus, he gets to play with the delay unit and sets up all kinds of in-tempo echo trails (a big deal for a pissant bar band I think).

Lou

[Droolbucket]

No and yes.
The band I play in does not have a sound guy... we mix ourselves from the stage. We had problems finding a good sound guy, and when we did have a sound guy, we'd price ourselves off the market in order to pay him. We use wirelesses so we can go out during sound check and adjust, and make changes on the fly. We're all good at turning up for solos and back down for rhythms, vocal mic technique, and NOT TURNING UP as the night goes on. If we see someone in the audience we know, we'll ask if everything sounds okay.
I also run sound for other bands, if they need someone. I'm not a great sound man, but I can get the mix 80% of where it needs to be. If a band is fairly undisciplined about keeping consistent levels, paying me is better than having no sound guy at all.
For whatever reason, good sound men in our area are few and far between, and the ones with the golden ears have quit doing live sound. My brother, who is a fine bass player, also has a great ear, and has been doing sound for quite a few years. It's not something he aspired to, but he helped a friend's band out when their sound guy was sick. They were so impressed that they hired him as their regular guy, and they pay him well. When he goes on vacation, they hire me. Luckily, my brother has EQ presets for all the rooms they play in on a regular basis, and the musicians are all extremely professional, so it makes it easier for me to get them in the ballpark.

What was the question again?

Droolbucket

[Spock]

OK, I filled in the poll as a friend/relative (I didn't learn my own lesson well). We mainly mix from stage, but we use the wife at the sound check to let us know what needs to be fixed.

If we play at festival or bigger place, then we let the house guy do the job. He knows his rig better than we do, or anyone we would bring. So while it might take him a song or two to get us dialed right in, someone else would take a song or two to get really rocking on a setup he hasn't seen before.

[Johnny]

In the past, I had bands who would hire the same guy for each gig. At one point, we had a manager/sound man who was fantastic at both jobs. He knew all the material, he helped form our setup and soundcheck system, he instituted a docking protocol for bandmembers who did not perform their assigned breakdown duties in a timely manner. Ah, the luxury.

Since nowadays I mostly gig in Churches and conferences, the soundman works for the venue. I have a weekly gig at a large Church whose soundman is first-rate, so it's nice to have settled into a groove with someone.

[Southpaw]

For my dance band (60's, 70's, and 80's pop/rock covers) we travel with our own PA and our drummer's wife (hereafter to be referred to as Mrs. Drummer) manages the mixer all on her lonesome. In the few years I've been in the band, she's gone from being a total novice to setting up the whole shebang herself. We do all the heavy lifting and she handles all knob-tweaking.

We have 4 powered speakers (two for monitoring and two for FOH), a 16 track mixer, a 16 channel snake, all the mic cables and SM57/58's we need. We used to try to manage all the mixing and stuff ourselves but that never sounded right in the end. Adding Mrs. Drummer into the group was the single most important step we made in improving our sound.

We generally get our monitor mix down first - at as low a volume we can manage. Thankfully, our drummer is nice and quiet! Once we have that done, I'll head out into the room (I usually go wireless) and I and Mrs. Drummer work out the best FOH mix.

We generally play private parties, weddings, and corporate functions. We've only had a pro sound guy run sound for us once (at a festival in Seattle) and he was really cool and gave Mrs. Drummer all kinds of really good advice.

[bbkong]

Do we have a sound man?

No.

Are you volunteering?

It's a helluva commute, but if you really wanna...

[dwoz]

For my dance band (60's, 70's, and 80's pop/rock covers) we travel with our own PA and our drummer's wife (hereafter to be referred to as Mrs. Drummer) manages the mixer all on her lonesome.

Thankfully, our drummer is nice and quiet!


Well, when "mrs. drummer is the soundperson, it kindof goes without saying that the drummer plays quiet.


I'm not sayin'....I'm jest sayin'.....


er....


:-)


dwoz

[dwoz]

also...lest that be taken as a sexist slur...

I also played in a band where the lead singer (a woman) had her own "mrs. soundman".

:-)

dwoz

[Southpaw]

Well, when "mrs. drummer is the soundperson, it kindof goes without saying that the drummer plays quiet.


I'm not sayin'....I'm jest sayin'.....

Ha ha ha! Yeah. Actually, both Mr. and Mrs. Drummer are the coolest people I've ever met. Very relaxed and go with the flow types.

It's funny actually. This is the first band I've ever played in where no one's an asshole or an idiot. The drummer never overplays. The bassist plays the bass like it's a bass and not a four stringed guitar. The other guitarist and I never fight about who gets the solo (actually, it's usually a matter of, "Dude, you take this solo!" "Uh, ok."). The singer isn't a total ego case. And we only ever play songs that all six of us like.

I keep expecting to wake up and find out it's all a dream. :)

[Palewailer]

I mostly play in dinky little blues dives. Half the time, we don't even bother with monitors, let alone a soundman.
When we play bigger venues, we have a a couple of regular guys we use.

[Tim Armstrong]

No and yes.
The band I play in does not have a sound guy... we mix ourselves from the stage.

Same here, for 95% of our gigs. We're a 3-piece band, and we tend to gig the same few places a lot, so we've gotten it dialed in pretty well.

Cheers, Tim

[Azraphael]

I answered no. We don't have the same sound person for all of our shows, but the house sound tech is a major factor for us when booking shows. We've eliminated a couple of clubs in the area from our list of places to play due to underqualified sound people... both of which forbid an indie act from having their own person at the board, since the PA is the property of the club...

That said, our usual haunts actually have some very qualified people working in them, and in most cases the people are (by now) familiar with our stuff. It works out reasonably well in the end.

To us, unfortunately, having a dedicated soundguy is one of those luxuries like roadies and guitar techs that we simply can't afford at this stage in our career.

Cheers,

Dave

[solomon2]

I can't vote unless you allow me 2 votes. There is usually a cousin of the leader who does sound and sorta knows what he's doing, but not always. But then the family issue takes precedent over any and all complaints. But many times the band has to work for different clients and either they or the venue we play makes it necessary to hire out a sound company. Thats where the fun begins. Like last week when we got to the gig and the hired sound guy had a pair of Bose 802s for the mains. Minor gripe, as a bass player. I'm last to get into the mix and many times even with a channel to spare, I won't be miked or put in the system. They put the bass drum in the mains but rarely my bass. I've also learned to depend on myself because of the large number of freelance clubdates I do. I 12" Avatar cab, 350 watts, I'm good to go, mains or not.