Making the most of crap gear in live situations

[Nebulous]

WARNING: rant ahead. Go to the bottom for questions.

So I went out to my first local metal gig last night in what must have been about a year. I wasn't really expecting much, since I had dabbled in live sound afew years back. I left live sound after I realised that there were so many limitations, ranging from bands that didn't have their shit together, too much ego, crap gear, or venue gear that worked one moment, then didn't the next. Too many variables and beer, with not enough support.

It got me thinking. While I've been active in a band for the past three years, we're lucky enough to play a style that allows us to have a permanent venue, or own gear and do our mix at sound check, then leave it.
I would eventually like to get a metal band together, but it seems that the longer it takes me to do that, the shittier the sound is getting at metal local gigs.

Case in point, last night I was at the Corner Hotel, a popular live venue which holds 600 or so people (rough estimate). I had worked on afew occasions at the venue and I know that it can sound very good. The gig last night was a small festival, two stages, about 10 bands. There was time while one band was playing for the other to be setting up.
I do appologise at this point if the engineer from last night posts here or if anyone knows the engineer, but goddamn, the sound last night sucked a massive one.
I am not blaming the engineer (entirely); at this point refering to my statement above about the obvious limitations.

It really dissapointed me that a gig which had so much potential was ruined by crappy gear on both stages (mics randomly not working, kick mics distorting) and as much as I may try to support the engineer, the balance left much detail out of the mix too.

*******


For all you guys who play live gigs regularly, I'm sure you're familiar with the situation. How do you make the best of it?
Book your own shows and only play at decent venues?
Bring massive amounts of gear and let the other bands on the bill use it so that the night is seen as a success?
Do you actively get involved in the preperation and sound check (like make sure your amps aren't overpowering the fucking PA)?

At this point, when I finally do get a metal band together, I'm seriously considering just forking out on a mixer, afew more mics and booking all our own shows, making sure the venue either has a decent full PA, a decent monitor and FOH system and supply our mixer, or just bypass the usual places and book an empty hall, hire the monitors and FOH and build it properly from the ground up for every gig.

 

[Ermz]

Always bring your own engineer. If possible carry around a rack of your own outboard. Bringing your own mixing desk is way too much hassle for most gigs. Most local venues suck, there is no way to get around it.

 

[SoundSpiral]

Always bring your own engineer. If possible carry around a rack of your own outboard. Bringing your own mixing desk is way too much hassle for most gigs. Most local venues suck, there is no way to get around it.

Bringing your own desk isn't going to bee too big of a problem.
We do it on every gig and everything works out better that way.

 

[Skyweaver]

the skill of the FOH guy really makes a difference, theres some pro bands in Melbourne that traveled out to a regional gig - the guy doing the mix was an ARSE..........
their mix sounded like balls slapping on a fat chicks bum.......but then when the locals hit the stage, with their guy and the same gear .....WHOA the sound was completely different..

good guys can do great things with shit gear - shit guys should take up a career in gay porn

 

[Fredrik-Ablaze]

Write a good technical rider/channel-list and demand a PA-spec from the place youll be playing at.
Bring a set of microphones and use them if you need them, if the other bands want to use them; make the guy in charge pay you for renting them to the venue.

 

[MartijnPaauwe]

We have our own live-mixer who has some mics of his own in case he needs them (when the venue doesn't have them) And to prevent any weird kick drum problems with a venue who doesn't trust another live mixer except for it's own amateur "sound mixer" i AL-WAYS trigger the kickdrum (has nothing to do with how hard i hit the kick though ) some guys can even fuck that up though. There was this guy when we played at a little venue in Amsterdam and i was getting feedback all over the place. Guy was complaining that the kick-trigger output forcing the feedback. I did my best not too laugh hard and giving him some reality check that direct outputs can NOT feedback

And not to mention we have a pretty detailed technical rider including stageplan. And we "demand" the venue can give us at least 105db(A) and there are no Behringer,Mackie whatever FOH mixers

 

[arv_foh]

Always bring your own engineer. If possible carry around a rack of your own outboard. Bringing your own mixing desk is way too much hassle for most gigs. Most local venues suck, there is no way to get around it.

+1, I carry my own mic package and rack to any gig that I do

Unless the house desk is lacking in channels or broken, don't bring in your own desk. If they're using a shit PA it doesn't matter whether you are using a Mackie or a Midas.

A good engineer will know the limitations of the house gear and mix accordingly.

Half the time when we get tech riders "demanding" gear, we ignore it. If you can't get a decent mix using our stuff there is something wrong with the engineer, not the gear. Hundreds of bands have sounded great on it. Then again, I'm not dealing with shitty gear either, I have a Yamaha M3000 house console, which is a pretty decent desk.

 

[if6was9]

I mix a couple of times a week at a local venue , where I specialise in metal. I also get to do tons of non metal stuff from indie to rock to acoustic stuff and jazz- pretty much everything, I do a few nights a week there and only every sunday is metal. Metal is by far the hardest thing to make sound good in my opinion.

I find there are 3 types of bands.
Bands that have great gear that sounds great and is a breeze to work with, These guys are used to playing live- have their patches/pedals set so that they don't mess with their tone and volume and know not to go messing with their gear after sound check. These bands know to trust the engineer- if he says the amp is too loud then it is, they can always give you more back through the monitors if you can't hear it.

Then there are bands that have decent gear and have been gigging for a while, they usually take a while to sound check since they've to iron out a few kinks with their set up- EQ, solo boosts, difference between clean and distorted volumes etc.. 85 percent of bands are in this category. they are grand to deal with.

Then there's the bands that arrive with the worst of gear, their set-ups all over the place and its almost impossible to get a good sound out of. The sound checks take forever and the mix still sucks at the end of it, and these bands ALWAYS haver a problem with not hearing themselves. Their amp could be a foot away from them going full tilt with their instument going through the monitor as much as possible and they still won't hear themselves. I hate bands like this- they are never happy and complain expecting their shit Marshall mg50 to sound like a mesa- it never has before and yet they expect it to suddenly when they play live. There are wayyy too many bands like this out there.

Bit of a rant there but basically I'm saying its not always the soud guys fault if the sound sucks. It's impossible to make a terrible band with shit gear sound good

I wouldn't bother to bring your own desk. If the venue has a crap desk then its not very likely they've put much money into the amps and speakers either. Do however bring some mics- especially stuff like kick mics and all rounders like sm57's. Also bring plenty of cables- long working mic cables, guitar cables and speakon cables can be just the ticket to saving the day. A few mic stands can be handy too. Most importantly- let the sound guy know you brought this stuff- its not gonna do any good sitting in your car outside.

As someone already said though, if the P.a is crap it won't matter what you put through it. Where the venue is tiny and the p.a underpowered its best to just roll with it- mic the kick and vocals and balance the rest off the stage. Micing anything else is just gonna eat headroom and result in a bad mix.

Being in a band myself I see that there's alot of crap sound guys out there. Get talking to them during sound check and see if they care or not about the sound.

 

[ze kink]

the skill of the FOH guy really makes a difference, theres some pro bands in Melbourne that traveled out to a regional gig - the guy doing the mix was an ARSE..........
their mix sounded like balls slapping on a fat chicks bum.......but then when the locals hit the stage, with their guy and the same gear .....WHOA the sound was completely different..

good guys can do great things with shit gear - shit guys should take up a career in gay porn

Yeah, very true. I was at a festival once, and there were some pretty good bands playing the main stage (Scar Symmetry, Behemoth etc.) but the sound was pretty bad and messy for every band. The last band and "main act" of the day was Meshuggah, and they clearly had their own guy come do the mixing. Their soundcheck was really laid back and pretty fast compared to the other bands. When they started playing, suddenly everything was clear as hell and sounded amazing, it was almost like the PA had suddenly been changed to a much better one.

I often call a friend of mine when we do gigs if he is able to come to mix. He's managed to get even shitty gear sound good, and he has been working as a FOH for a venue here for quite a while, so he knows his shit. Nevertheless, he's been okay with just having us buy him a few beers and getting to watch the gigs for free.

 

[PhilR]

TURN THE FUCKING PA DOWN!

I've been to so many shows where clueless FOH operators (I won't dignify then with the overblown title of "engineer") try to do too much with too goddamn little. A lot of the time this is trying to cram everything through a PA and ramp the volume through the fucking roof. The last gig I played was mixed by a guy that seemed to have no high-end perception and the end result was if i stood closer than 6 metres from the stage i felt like my ears were going to bleed. Just because you have a 2kw system doesn't mean you have to crank the fuck out of it all the damn time, headroom is a BLESSING. Start at SANE levels and work from there. In an ideal situation the band should never have to turn up louder than they do at rehearsals.

 

[arv_foh]

Metal is by far the hardest thing to make sound good in my opinion.


Bit of a rant there but basically I'm saying its not always the soud guys fault if the sound sucks. It's impossible to make a terrible band with shit gear sound good

I'm with you man... if you can mix metal you can mix anything

Also, you can't make chicken salad out of chicken shit, as the saying goes

 

[poidaobi]

Sounds was pretty shit! I agree.

 

[Nebulous]

Thank god someone with ears agrees with me. I actually saw a comment on the NeO forum saying that the sound was awsome.....

Thanks for all the tips guys. I think when the time comes, I'm just going to be a really picky bastard about where to play and look into getting a decent engineer. I think I may have to look outside of the usual metal crowd for that one.