fucking live sound engineers...
- Thread starter drew_drummer
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Dalinkwent48@aim.com
Be Creative, Get Laid
Maybe he was a little frustrated that after he had done his setup he realized that you wanted him to add 1 more thing in there? theres nothing i hate more then getting a whole show set up and then when its all said and done...the "talent" comes up with a few more requests....even for basic shit it still bugs the hell out of me because while they were sitting jerkin around they could have asked me then instead of waiting for me to finish everything. especially considering the fact that before i even start working i go over every single aspect of everything to make sure everyones on the same page.
Jarkko Mattheiszen
The FU guy.
The reason a lot of the FOH guys might seem like irritated, arrogant, elitist fucks is mainly (in my experience, anyway) because they're used to doing their job as a live engineer as well as they can, only to be crapped over for making a 40 second fuckup on a thing they weren't supposed to be doing in the first place. It seems you have very little understanding on the live aspect of engineering, and thus, like a lot of artists, hold little respect to the amount of effort your FOH guy goes through. I might sound like a bitter, whiny bitch who can't deal getting yelled at, but I actually do enjoy doing live sound quite a bit, and I've learned to take the criticism without taking it personally
I was once told the best compliment or thanks a FOH guy can get is that no-one comes to complain during or after the show. I quickly realized that's pretty much true, and that tells quite a lot about the job.
arv_foh
Brian K
The reason a lot of the FOH guys might seem like irritated, arrogant, elitist fucks is mainly (in my experience, anyway) because they're used to doing their job as a live engineer as well as they can, only to be crapped over for making a 40 second fuckup on a thing they weren't supposed to be doing in the first place. It seems you have very little understanding on the live aspect of engineering, and thus, like a lot of artists, hold little respect to the amount of effort your FOH guy goes through. I might sound like a bitter, whiny bitch who can't deal getting yelled at, but I actually do enjoy doing live sound quite a bit, and I've learned to take the criticism without taking it personally
I was once told the best compliment or thanks a FOH guy can get is that no-one comes to complain during or after the show. I quickly realized that's pretty much true, and that tells quite a lot about the job.
+1 fucking million
and a little "thank you" for making your band sound good never hurts either, because 90% of the bands never say 2 words to us, we bust our nuts for you and most of the time don't even get a "thanks"
There is always someone complaining about something, no matter how good it is.
"The monitors aren't loud enough" "The crowd is telling us there needs to be more vocals in the mains" etc, I'm pretty sure the people in your fanbase aren't fucking sound engineers... and half the time when people bitch about the vocals it's because they are standing right in front of the stage.. well guess what? Sound travels outward so you might hear them better if you moved back a few feet
The sound guy could have been a dick and sent you way too much signal so your camera mix was fucked the entire time... but he didn't and you complain about a 40 second fuck up in a live mix... well it's LIVE and stuff fucks up all the time. That's part of a live show, anything can go wrong at any moment. If the mic cable would have went bad during your set would you have blamed the engineer too and went on a rant about it online? Goddamn man.
Jarkko Mattheiszen
The FU guy.
Exactly. My favorite stereotypes (which I've run into) are the drummer who constantly wants something louder in his monitor until everything is cranked and then wants everything to be taken down back to where it originally was, and the guy who sits in the table in the corner behind the PA and comes to complain halfway through the set that the only thing he can hear is the bass frequencies.
Once I got this middle-aged, drunken guy coming to tell me every five minutes or so that "the bass isn't plugged into the mixer thing, plug it in" no matter how much I tried to convince him otherwise. It was a good friend's band in a very, very informal event, so when he said the bass isn't plugged in for the sixth time or so, I soloed the bass channel and said as loudly as I could "SEE? THE BASS IS PLUGGED IN, WHADDAYAKNOW!" No more complaints for the night
ahjteam
Anssi Tenhunen
i've done over 350 live shows....and I would definitely guesstimate about 80% of soundguys barely even know how to move a fader and plugin a mic.
Dalinkwent48@aim.com said:
I wish you people would stop fucking insisting that we forced the engineer into this situation. SHE KNEW ABOUT IT FIVE DAYS PRIOR TO THE GIG, AND EVEN GAVE HER BLESSING!!
Bullshit. I didn't have a go at them... I didn't even raise the issue with them; I just bitched about it here. Like I said above; you guys weren't there, and can't possibly have a frame of reference to make the statements you're making.
Done with this now; it's a dead horse. I wanted to vent.. I vented.
arv_foh
Brian K
Yeah I love that, when people walk up to me 30 seconds after the band starts playing... obviously I'm still dialing in the mix, dipshit.
My frame of reference is having mixed hundreds of bands and having worked hundreds of shows.
and did you say "she"? Well that's the problem, right there.
I keed, I keed. Although I've never heard a *good* female sound engineer it's not to say they don't exist.
well, I must admit I'm thinking it MIGHT be the problem here. Maybe drew has never seen a *good* female sound engineer either, and subconsciously believing no such thing can exist, and coming up with these things like "you guys weren't there". After all, he thought she just *seemed* like an asshole so this might as well be the reason. As just to beat the dead horse.
arv_foh
Brian K
HeadCrusher
Member
Haha, yeah. Also I love it when the drummer makes comments from the stage like "Add more highs to the snare" or "I only want the kick of the kick drum on my monitor."
We have to submit the to the urban dictionary or something, haha.Öwen;8868587 said:
JamesNorman
Member
- Oct 8, 2009
- 313
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haha, i had a vocalist the other week, must of been bout 16, in a metalcore know it all band...... and he was like can you take the top mid out of my vocal. SO i said 'what frequency you thinking of like?' he then said 'erm like the top mid' so i did it just to make him self feel better........
Then put it back in when he went onstage, then he came off in the middle of the room and 'was like thats sounds well better!'
No different to hen he told me to change it.
And another pet hate is guitarists with wireless units that come and stand off stage and are like 'turn me up man carnt hear myself' then everything else is well quite.
Thats what moinitors on stage are for you cunt.......
Then put it back in when he went onstage, then he came off in the middle of the room and 'was like thats sounds well better!'
No different to hen he told me to change it.
And another pet hate is guitarists with wireless units that come and stand off stage and are like 'turn me up man carnt hear myself' then everything else is well quite.
Thats what moinitors on stage are for you cunt.......
Notuern
Bloody vaginal belch
- Oct 20, 2007
- 3,625
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Yeah, i hear that.. but when you get some bigger gigs everything seems to work out great!
I played a small festival here in Sweden, and i never had any problems with the monitoring.
A year before that i had a terrible experience though: 2 minutes in to the first song there goes of a huge pop noise followed by a loud squealing sound so we had to stop playing for troubleshooting... it was my monitor that blew.
Played the entire gig without hearing my self AT ALL, people told me afterwards that it sounded awesome anyways though(Even though i know it didnt, all that matters is that they thought it did!
).
