fucking live sound engineers...

[drew_drummer]

Sometimes these people are dumb as fuck. We did a gig recently, and our bassist who is studying TV/Film technology wanted to record the whole thing on tape. Fine.. no problem.

Sound engineer sends a mix to the camera from the desk; and to their credit, it sounds pretty good.

Problem is; we don't play bullshit horns in the air metal to make fat kids who can't get laid feel better about themselves. We make post-metal to make grouchy psyche-headzzz (tm) who can't get laid feel better about themselves.

Anyway... gets to a quiet section in one of our songs. Suddenly... the volume is rising. WTF? I don't remember going over to my amp whilst playing a complicated riff, and turning the volume up with my toes.

And then there comes the drop... a bit blast of distorted guitar... all mangled and clipped by the camera's input stage, because the DUMBASS on the desk, had fed too much signal to the camera.

So a huge portion of the song is all crappy and clipped... then of course they realised their error... and turned the gain back down. Which in some ways is even worse.

I guess they work with too many one dimensional fuckwit bands!

/rant

 

[Loren Littlejohn]

Your camera can accept a line level input but has no limiter on board? Or was it to the point that it didn't matter?

 

[Notuern]

Im pretty sure that he was busy making you guys sound good from the stage, and forgot about your little camcorder over there.
But yeah.. so far ive only met stupid dipshits as live engineers, hopefully, some day it will be a Sneapster doing the work!

 

[drew_drummer]

If I ever meet a Sneapster live sound guy, they're getting a drink!

But yeah; the camera wasn't really the aim of the show.. just annoying, because the sound is otherwise perfect; apart from this 40 second block where it is really loud. I don't honestly know if the camera has a limiter built in or not, or whether it was even active. I didn't set the darn thing up.

 

[Loren Littlejohn]

If I was you (and I'm not ), I would just score a used zoom H4 and fuck dealing with stupid sound guys.

 

[drew_drummer]

We actually have one of those in the band (the drummers) for recording our rehearsals. They're fucking great!

 

[ahjteam]

Considering it was recorded with a crappy cellphonecamera, I think the quality turned out pretty nice (I mixed the gig):

 

[Jarkko Mattheiszen]

I'd really not bash the sound engineer for that. His job is to make you guys sound good in the venue, and if a song of yours has a part that is just too quiet to the audience, it's his job to make it audible (unless I got something wrong and he actually did fuck up pretty badly). Driving the FOH mix to your little cam corder is definitely not his number one concern when the gig has started. If you wanted to capture the gig and make it actually sound great, you would have brought someone to do it with a dedicated small mixer split from the FOH guy. Didn't they tell your bassist that in school?

Whenever the band brings me a minidisc recorder before the gig and asks if I could record their performance, I say I'd be glad to, but I really can't guarantee it will sound like what they expect, since I'm having my hands full to make them sound good to the audience.

 

[drew_drummer]

I'd really not bash the sound engineer for that. His job is to make you guys sound good in the venue, and if a song of yours has a part that is just too quiet to the audience, it's his job to make it audible (unless I got something wrong and he actually did fuck up pretty badly). Driving the FOH mix to your little cam corder is definitely not his number one concern when the gig has started. If you wanted to capture the gig and make it actually sound great, you would have brought someone to do it with a dedicated small mixer split from the FOH guy. Didn't they tell your bassist that in school?

Whenever the band brings me a minidisc recorder before the gig and asks if I could record their performance, I say I'd be glad to, but I really can't guarantee it will sound like what they expect, since I'm having my hands full to make them sound good to the audience.

No; in the venue the volume did not increase; or else it didn't seem to to me. It's like they turned up the send control on the mixer, rather than the master volume. Anyway... even if this were just from a live 'venue' sound perspective... I still think it's a bit of a shit thing to do. We go quiet in that section for a reason.

 

[drew_drummer]

actually could have been caused by a limiter, with the threshold set too low... this causes the limiter to "grab" the signal and pull it up whenever the program material gets weaker... such as when everything drops out except for a guitar, or when the song suddenly gets softer, etc.

the result, in addition to parts that are meant to be quieter actually becoming louder than the rest of the program, can be a crackling distortion.

I did think about that; but I really doubt a limiter would take 5 seconds to realise things need to be louder... then a further 40 seconds to realise... wait... I better back off....

 

[James Murphy]

actually could have been caused by a limiter, with the threshold set too low... this causes the limiter to "grab" the signal and pull it up whenever the program material gets weaker... such as when everything drops out except for a guitar, or when the song suddenly gets softer, etc.

the result, in addition to parts of songs that are meant to be quieter actually becoming louder than the rest of the program, can be a crackling distortion.

 

[James Murphy]

ha.. i did a delete/edit/repost, but you were too quick for me.

 

[drew_drummer]

If you wanted to capture the gig and make it actually sound great, you would have brought someone to do it with a dedicated small mixer split from the FOH guy. Didn't they tell your bassist that in school?

Btw... this is a very fair point. I was fucking annoyed at him anyway for just going ahead and arranging this like.. a few days before the gig. Nice amount of notice!!

Bloody bassist n00b.

 

[arv_foh]

If you don't like it, bring your own engineer, and your own board, and have him mix it. I could give 2 shits about your camcorder mix, my priority is making the band sound good for all the people that are watching in the venue

He's a nice dude to begin with if he gave you a feed off the board for free, I would have charged you since you're a. using my mix and b. since I sell live recordings to the bands

Reading shit like this pisses me off.

and maybe it was an accident?? Maybe he bumped the send or something. Since dude obviously wasn't familiar with your music I can think off a slew of reasons why this could happen

 

[drew_drummer]

It was unprofessional; end of story.

 

[egan.]

This is just silly. It was "unprofessional" that he made a mistake on something he wasn't being paid to do that happened concurrently with his actual job? That's a ballsy claim considering he gave you an "otherwise perfect; apart from this 40 second" mix.
No good deed goes unpunished I suppose. If anyone is unprofessional in this situation it's your band for making special arrangements late and then publicly talking shit about a guy that did you a favor. Sorry brother.

 

[drew_drummer]

I don't really see your point to be honest. It doesn't matter one iota that we took the feed from the mixing board. It could've been for his own personal use, it could've been for the promoter, or whoever. They wanted it louder in the venue... but rather than turn up the MASTER fader of the mixing desk, he turned up the SEND control.

That is a silly move for anyone to make.

 

[updog]

Probably was an accident.

I can't see what's the problem though?? He may have failed at doing a favor, but it definitely was not unprofessional of him... It wasn't part of his job.

Be happy for what you get. And stop overusing these ;;;;;;;

 

[egan.]

^^^^
This.
Making a 40sec mistake in a peripheral task makes you human not unprofessional. He wouldn't have made any mistakes had he just told you to fuck off which was well within his rights.

 

[drew_drummer]

Meh. Maybe. But it's frustrating when you put in all that work for nothing. I still think it was unprofessional though. You guys weren't there... you didn't see the way the engineer spoke to people, and their general demeanour. If they were a nice person, I'd probably think it was an accident too. But they were a bit too much of an arsehole for my liking. General attitude problem.