From: "Rick Dempster" <rick.dempster@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx>, "Tim Moyer" <wmharps@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: [Harp-L] passive agressive sound guys
Date: Tue, 12 Dec 2006 14:45:23 +1100
Sound men started to think they were part of the band back in the mid
seventies (at least in my corner of the world) Since then, the inroad
for these guys has led all the way to bands that have a DJ/mixer onstage
as part of the lineup. Now, in any gig where there is a soundnman, we
always have the situation where, unless you let him 'do his thing', you
are excluding him from what he thinks is his rightful position. My
bands(including the drummers) never want mics on drums, excepting maybe
an overhead, and certainly not one on the 'kick'. If the room is a room,
and not a stadium, or an open air festival, we don't want mics (or DIs)
on the amps either. Good soundmen are like gold, and again, like gold,
are rare and hard to find.
"It's better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it"
was an expression I heard frequently in my one visit to the US 25 years
ago (especially heard in Missippippi & Alabama, and especially if you
were in one state and travelling to the other;"what? you aren't
carrying....?") Lke most technology, when you have it, you think you
need to use it.
I prefer the soundmen who do exactly what you want, and then take the
privelege of going to the bar and awaiting your next command.
RD
>>> "Tim Moyer" <wmharps@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> 11/12/2006 14:06:22 >>>
fjm wrote:
> So who's the customer here? The band and the
> venue or the sound person?
I recently played a gig as a sideman with a professional gigging act
in a medium sized venue (~1000) with its own sound reinforcement and
sound man (who doubles as the DJ during breaks). We arrived and set
up, and the only one running "live" sound on stage was the
guitarist, who plays through a Blues DeVille 2x12. The rest of us --
acoustic guitar, bass, and myself -- ran straight to the board
without amplification on stage, and the drummer's kit has built-in
mics. This is a really nice setup because the stage volume is low,
and we were all using in-ear monitors so the mix was the same no
matter where you went on stage, and you could control it yourself
from a monitor mixer on stage. All the sound guy had to do was
watch the show and keep the sound balanced in the room.
I was lulled into a false sense of security by the fact that I could
hear everything I was doing. I played well at a relatively low
level of "exertion" so I didn't choke notes from trying to play loud
enough to hear myself. I ran my microtrack recorder right next to
the sound board, so it heard what the sound man heard.
And it was a disaster. Throughout most of the recording you can't
even tell there's a harmonica on stage, though I was basically
filling the keyboard players spot with fills and lots of accordion-
type stuff through a harmonizer and chorus). This is a fairly set
act, and there are only a few places throughout the night where I
get solos, usually trading fours or eights with the guitar. The
only time you could hear me at all were during these solos, where I
swell to ear-splitting volume over the top of everything else,
usually a bar or two into my solo. The guitar is mixed similarly,
though this is a very guitar-centric band. Most of the time, all
you can hear is the main vocal (rarely the harmonies), bass and kick
drum.
The only good thing about all this is that the guys I was playing
with heard me through their monitors, and were very happy with what
I did. They didn't know until they were on their way home,
listening to their DAT recordings, how bad things sounded. I'm glad
nothing spoiled the good time while we were having it.
I think it was Shakespeare who wrote, 'The first thing we do, let's
kill all the sound men...'
-tim
_______________________________________________
Harp-L is sponsored by SPAH, http://www.spah.org
Harp-L@xxxxxxxxxx
http://harp-l.org/mailman/listinfo/harp-l
>>> "Tim Moyer" <wmharps@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> 11/12/2006 14:06:22 >>>
fjm wrote:
> So who's the customer here? The band and the
> venue or the sound person?
I recently played a gig as a sideman with a professional gigging act
in a medium sized venue (~1000) with its own sound reinforcement and
sound man (who doubles as the DJ during breaks). We arrived and set
up, and the only one running "live" sound on stage was the
guitarist, who plays through a Blues DeVille 2x12. The rest of us --
acoustic guitar, bass, and myself -- ran straight to the board
without amplification on stage, and the drummer's kit has built-in
mics. This is a really nice setup because the stage volume is low,
and we were all using in-ear monitors so the mix was the same no
matter where you went on stage, and you could control it yourself
from a monitor mixer on stage. All the sound guy had to do was
watch the show and keep the sound balanced in the room.
I was lulled into a false sense of security by the fact that I could
hear everything I was doing. I played well at a relatively low
level of "exertion" so I didn't choke notes from trying to play loud
enough to hear myself. I ran my microtrack recorder right next to
the sound board, so it heard what the sound man heard.
And it was a disaster. Throughout most of the recording you can't
even tell there's a harmonica on stage, though I was basically
filling the keyboard players spot with fills and lots of accordion-
type stuff through a harmonizer and chorus). This is a fairly set
act, and there are only a few places throughout the night where I
get solos, usually trading fours or eights with the guitar. The
only time you could hear me at all were during these solos, where I
swell to ear-splitting volume over the top of everything else,
usually a bar or two into my solo. The guitar is mixed similarly,
though this is a very guitar-centric band. Most of the time, all
you can hear is the main vocal (rarely the harmonies), bass and kick
drum.
The only good thing about all this is that the guys I was playing
with heard me through their monitors, and were very happy with what
I did. They didn't know until they were on their way home,
listening to their DAT recordings, how bad things sounded. I'm glad
nothing spoiled the good time while we were having it.
I think it was Shakespeare who wrote, 'The first thing we do, let's
kill all the sound men...'
-tim
_______________________________________________
Harp-L is sponsored by SPAH, http://www.spah.org
Harp-L@xxxxxxxxxx
http://harp-l.org/mailman/listinfo/harp-l
_______________________________________________
Harp-L is sponsored by SPAH, http://www.spah.org
Harp-L@xxxxxxxxxx
http://harp-l.org/mailman/listinfo/harp-l