Dealing with the sound man

I agree, Sam.

The ideal and usual situation I normally encounter as a performer is working with the sound person(s) as a team (a lot of that being MY attitude -- kind, courteous, accommodating, flexible but firm and clear about basic requirements) so that we can collaborate in providing the best sound possible on stage in the limited time and always variable conditions we encounter and the best sound possible for the audience.

The other side of the coin was the situation I described of a recent gig where the brother doing the sound came up on stage with his pad to mix the monitors and THEN went out front to mix the mains.  Very refreshing and the best onstage monitors I've experienced in many years.

PS: I agree that it's the artist's responsibility to give the best performance possible but in typical chicken-egg manner, it's impossible to give the best performance physically and mentally possible that day when one is distracted by bad sound on stage.

Absolutely  But if the stage sound is bad you still have to get on with the job. Even the best sound guy can be caught out by particularly bad venue acoustics.

Thankfully most of us here don't have to depend on a sound man for our stage performances anymore.

I have always believed that it is more important that I hear what suits me than the audience hears what suits a sound man.

In my life I have been in several different jobs where my responsibility was to manage others. One of the hardest things to do is tell a pro they're not doing their job right. When it comes to a performer's sound it should be about the performer's wishes, not the taste of the tech. When in doubt make / leave it as natural as possible. If a cut or boost is requested, try to make that happen without creating harmful consequences.

While singing comes natural to me, it is not always easy. Overcoming terrible eq, too much effects, a guitar sound that is not complementary to the song and style that I am playing, and other factors can make it nearly impossible to perform. 

Years past when I lived the music life 24/7 if I wasn't on a gig I was out listening or jamming, participating somewhere in the local music scene. In the local scene it was common practice to be invited to the stage to do a song or two, or perhaps, because I've always been a soloist, to play a break for a band. There were some stages and sound systems that were a delight. There were others that I had no desire to go on.

Equipment is so much better today than just a short 20 years ago and no comparison to 40 years ago as far as ease of use and ability to get decent sound without much knowledge. That being said it is still easy enough with just a quick twist to mess up a good performance.

I recall going to a singer songwriter show with 4 writers all who had #1 hits. It was an intimate setting with a local radio personality providing equipment and doing the sound. From start to finish there was a ring in the room that was never successfully removed. One of the songwriters was politely, repeatedly, telling the sound man it was a 1k ring. I don't think he knew what 1K meant. I was sitting in a position where I was able to see the mixing board. It was a Mackie mixer with sweepable mids. Every eq control was set at 2:00. Feedback would breakout, and a channel other than the current singer's channel would light up and he didn't recognize that pulling the fader down would eliminate that path until such time as it was needed again.

The more I think about it, the happier I am to have my Bose equipment. The Bose engineers knew when they started the L1 project how important good sound is to the performer and how unpredictable results can be when the performer has no control over their own sound.

O..

 

 

Oldghm posted:

I recall going to a singer songwriter show with 4 writers all who had #1 hits. It was an intimate setting with a local radio personality providing equipment and doing the sound. From start to finish there was a ring in the room that was never successfully removed. One of the songwriters was politely, repeatedly, telling the sound man it was a 1k ring. I don't think he knew what 1K meant. I was sitting in a position where I was able to see the mixing board. It was a Mackie mixer with sweepable mids. Every eq control was set at 2:00. Feedback would breakout, and a channel other than the current singer's channel would light up and he didn't recognize that pulling the fader down would eliminate that path until such time as it was needed again. 

 

Ugh...that drives me crazy. "Local Radio Personality" and even "Studio Recording Engineer" basically says to me "no live sound experience"...it's a whole different world where anything can, and does, happen with so many factors that aren't present in a radio/recording studio scenario. 

Jeff
#YouKnowItsBadWhenTheWifeSaysGoHelpThem

@oldghm

Peter Yarrow is a really nice, wonderful human being.  But I remember a performance of his many years ago when he was micromanaging the sound guys from the stage over a live mic ("you need a little more at 1.5K**", etc).

Then later at a different festival I witnessed my favorite "sound man" story.  

During the singer-songwriter competition partially sponsored by Peter at that folk festival that shall remain unnamed, the sound was excellent until about the 3rd contest performer when Yarrow wandered over to the sound board, played around for 10 seconds with some knobs and turned the sound into UN-listenable mush that no one dared change for a while.  🙂

You would be amazed at how many "professional sound men" (always men) have gotten blank stares when I told them the secret about how I could run sound for 16 acts over an 8 hour period on my 16 channel board (up to 12 live channels of vocals, instruments) at a folk festival (lots of acoustic instruments) without EVER producing feedback. 

And no, it wasn't don't turn on the mains.

It was Post-Its.

I carried a pad of the smallest Post-Its.  I would cut each in half with my small pocket Swiss Army knife's scissors and write the instrument, vocalist's name/location on each strip and "glue" the strip at the channel that held that signal. Simple.

Therefore, no translation was ever needed to grab the right fader. 

Once the mix was settled for a group, I would analyze the stage plot for the next group, determine the microphone/stand moves I would need to do and draw circles and arrows for those moves on the plot and write in which channels the next group's performers would be in and would have the new strips in place on the mixer before the previous group was finished. 

And of course, if someone wanted a different microphone or moved their position from the stage plot, I would merely have to move the Post-it strips and VIOLA!

Blank stares (and frequent howls of feedback) from those "pros"...

Before that I used to use strips of tape on mic stands to denote the channels -- and of course the "talent" would switch stands on me -- a'capella groups are notorious for that.  After the Post-it trick, no worries any more.

** 1K refers to the region of the sound frequency range where many vocal characteristics and a lot of "ring" typically lives.  FYI: Mackie believes that the sweet spot for vocals is 1.5K so that's where they place the mid-point of their Mid range control on many of their boards like the 1204 and 1604, etc that have Lo, Mid, Hi EQ.  This is also good information to know if you're working with digital boards which now typically have 4 bands of EQ with boost/cut, center frequency and Q (parametric EQ) and low and high cut/boost.

If I saw a board with every EQ control past the mid-point it would tell me that the operator doesn't know what they're doing.  Using subtractive EQ ("left" of the mid point or CUT) for offending characteristics is always the preferred method -- in other words, don't raise the mids and highs to "get rid of the bass", cut the Low!

For a more complete picture of the sound spectrum and EQ impact on various instruments, please enjoy the chart and description from our friends at Sweetwater:

https://www.sweetwater.com/ins...hey-impact-your-mix/

https://www.sweetwater.com/ins...requency-cheatsheet/

Chet posted:

If I saw a board with every EQ control past the mid-point it would tell me that the operator doesn't know what they're doing.  Using subtractive EQ ("left" of the mid point or CUT) for offending characteristics is always the preferred method -- in other words, don't raise the mids and highs to "get rid of the bass", cut the Low!

Post-its...not a bad idea. I use a strip of labeling tape usually, although if they swapped around I may have to cut the tape to re-arrange

On the "cut never boost" theme, that's more of a system EQ thumb-rule than a channel strip restriction. If you get (assuming you have one) the system EQ set properly, you can use the channel EQ as it's intended: to shape the sound of the input signal for tonal pleasantness or effect. Might be boosting, might be cutting, depends on what's needed.

But yeah, all channel EQ's at 2 o'clock? Kinda gives it away. Commonalities in absence of a system EQ? Sure, like all the channels having the highs dialed down to tame rabid piezo tweeters, or the lows boosted to compensate for ****** woofers, I can see that. But that's another argument for good speakers...you know, the ones that, all things considered, you could set the system EQ ruler flat and they'd still sound pretty darn good...although, can anyone really defend not having at least a halfway decent 31-band or para-EQ to insert on the mains these days, assuming they don't have a digital board?

Jeff

 

Lol...second time in two days I've seen the Bose forum asterix out the word "trappy-but-starts-with-a-C"...I always thought that was a substitute for a bad word but I guess now it's a bad word smh

Jeff

Does it make sense if I tell you I know a lot about me, that I don't fully understand or can't properly explain?

Of course a sound man should't let a micro managing artist turn the sound to unintelligible mush, but short of that, an experienced artist might need to micro manage their vocal eq in order to sing with strength and authority. 

I've said many times before, for me, good vocal eq is not exclusively about how I sound, but the strength I feel when singing through the system. The system must capture and amplify the sound I am making, or trying to make, as the case might be. The system and my voice should be as one. Whatever noise I make should come through just as I made it. There are many different types of singers, from melodic talking voices to screamers, low to high voices, nasal, to chesty, to guttural and others. I have a friend that I have shared a stage with many times and his vocal eq does not work for me, so on those occasions we have worked the same stage with our own equipment, we use our own mics and channels. We have done a couple of shows together with a Model II, we carry our own T mixer. If I have to change from my natural force or enunciation to something else in order to produce a tone that pleases my ear and throat, then I am in a strain. I don't like to be in a strain on stage. 

I've played many many times when I wished the sound was better but didn't say anything, but on those times it has been unbearable, one has to speak up. Being a sound man can be a thankless job so any exchange should be as pleasant as possible. When possible, a chat before going on stage to outline preferences might be in order.

In the instance of the radio personality and the Mackie, It was a 1604 mixer and at that time period I was using one a couple nights a week opening for  a friend. I knew when I looked at all the controls at 2:00 he was mixing with his eyes, not his ears.

O.. 

 

 

Oldghm posted:I've played many many times when I wished the sound was better but didn't say anything, but on those times it has been unbearable, one has to speak up. Being a sound man can be a thankless job so any exchange should be as pleasant as possible. When possible, a chat before going on stage to outline preferences might be in order.

 

Absolutely agree 100%