May 05, 2005 11:55 am If they value you playing there, just demand better sound guy or to bring your own, if not, go play somewhere else.
I have run great sound in rooms with cheap gear, peavey poweramps and speakers...it is possible.
Let me rant.....
Posted on May 05, 2005 11:50 am
vdalehubbard
Lost for words with all to say.
Contributor Since: Sep 12, 2003
Okay, going to get some steam off of me.....
Don't you just want to punch people in the face that know nothing about sound but yet they think they do? Like my situation. I play somewhere 3 times a week or more. The sound rated from 1 to 10 is about a 4 maybe a 5. They use cheap equipment with expensive speakers. That makes a lot of sense. Then, they spend time every week trying to "make it sound better". You come in the next time, the sound sounds like a 3 year old went playing around on the board. Why do soundchecks without the band!! AHHH!! They use no compressors, cheap mics, cords that have been taped together at places, Peavy crap that over heats all the time, but got some good o' Bose speakers!! They are made for home entertainment NOT FOR A ROOM THAT SEATS 200!!!
Okay, I feel better.
My question, I actually have one. With this situation and people that don't listen to you and think they know best. They come to you after they have %$#$ed it up. What do you do?
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May 05, 2005 11:55 am If they value you playing there, just demand better sound guy or to bring your own, if not, go play somewhere else.
I have run great sound in rooms with cheap gear, peavey poweramps and speakers...it is possible.
May 05, 2005 11:57 am Yeah, we've had great sound. Then to have the same people mess with it to "make it better" and it goes flying in the crapper.
We don't have a soundguy, I play so I can't do it. Majority of the time we have nobody looking over the board so it's left to us to adjust it when we practice.
May 05, 2005 04:40 pm Yeah, that is really annoying.
What's even MORE annoying, though, is people who talk gear all the time but have no clue how to mix. If the sound is bad, they blame it on the gear. If it's good (say, they're watching someone else do it), they attribute it to better gear. It's like they have no ear so they try to compensate by knowing all the brands and talking the talk. What limited mixing knowlege they do have they stick to like gospel instead of using their ear.
Whenever I'm playing I wish I could be mixing at the same time since the sound guy usually doesn't know what he's doing. This is why I want to be a mixing engineer...
May 05, 2005 04:50 pm When I mix i like to ask the band what type of sound theyre going for. Most of them just say "oh yea, Powerful guitars and really big kick drum", but its sought of reasuring that you know what they want and what you should be aiming for.
Man porp im with you on that one!
May 05, 2005 04:55 pm live sound just isn't fun for me....too much pressure, too many ppl tellin' you what you 'should' do....bla...i'd rather not bother. gimme a quiet studio instead.
May 05, 2005 05:26 pm I used to love doing live sound...now it's just staying up too late...it sucks.
May 05, 2005 09:22 pm The sound guy at my local venue (who is damn good by the way... if I ever make it big I'm taking him on tour with me) always says "I don't come to your job and tell you how to salt the fries, so don't come in here and tell me how to mix."
I love it, especially since he has the skills to back it up.
May 05, 2005 09:53 pm I might as well blow some steam too...
The bassist in my band is extremely anal about guitar tones. Every practice, he spends a good 20-30 minutes messing with everyones tones. The bad part is half the time it sounds terrible. Just today, our rythm guitarist simply said he didn't like the sound. That didn't go to well with our bassist. He goes all "I know what good guitar tone is!!!". But it doesn't stop there. He messes and critisizes all of my mixes, if hes not there telling me what to do (thats when other people critisize it). He doesn't understand anything about how different instroments need "space" in a mix. Also, he thinks that if a guitar sounds bad alone, it will always sound worse in the mix. Doesn't understand that all three guitars (including bass) can't all have full low ends, and still all be heard. It's not quite to the point where were thinking of kicking him out of the band, but it close. I feel better now that I got that out...
May 05, 2005 10:39 pm I've been working on my movie (www.invisible-bridges.com ) and we've had plenty of instances of "What the hell were they thinking?!"
In no perticular order:
Had a guy scheduale to be a supporting actor and he called to say that he was 5 minutes away from the location.... he never showed up... we havn't heard from him since.
had a girl scheduled for a major supporting role move and not leave a forwarding phone number.
her replacement was scheduled... called the night before to say she called off work and was looking forward to it... she never showed up and we found later that the day prior she shaved her head...
had a guy who "had access to" a miniDV camera complain that we wern't taking the project seriously if we wern't willing to pay him $100 a day to be the camera operator. (everyone is on deferred payment)
in the early stages we had a "prduction company" working with us. they said "their good camera" was in the shop when I first met them... at auditions they brought a tiny miniDV camera to record the auditions and I asked if the good camera was still in the shop... they looked at me and said "that _IS_ the good camera"... it's smaller than my cameras lense... They quit later that day because they wanted full production credit and control... yeah... the writers will just give them a script and thank them for making their movie... :/
"Geer-Geeks" are worse in video because the equipment is more complicated and much more expensive. we get people who ask me what type of camera I'm using all the time
THEM: What type if camera you got?
ME: Panasonic WV-F250... dockable camcorder
THEM: ... you really should use a three chip camera.
ME: ... it is... and it's dockable
THEM: dockable? ... to what?
ME: ... to other decks.
THEM: you should record digitally
ME: I do
THEM: miniDV?
ME: DV25
THEM: WTF's that? DVCAM?
ME: hard disk
THEM: ... firestore?
ME: iBook G4
THEM: ... WTF why not just get a Pansonic DVX100a? it's 24p
ME: 100a has 500 lines... F250 (though 10 years old) ths 750. and HD converson house wants 30i
THEM: 30i sucks it looks like video WTF do you need 750 lines for? NTSC is only 500 or so
ME: ... it looks like video because it IS video... we have lights for everything else... ... lines...*sigh* CCD needs 20% more than recording medium ...called the kell factor...
THEM: WTF... you could probably save money with a 100a though it's only $3000
ME: F250 was docked to S-VHS and was $600 on ebay... plus a few hundred more in accessories.
OR:
ME: *pulls dockable camera out to begin shooting*
BYSTANDERS: what news crew are you with?
etc.
We have had some really great strokes of people being nice though. Last weekend we had a nightclub stay closed for an extra hour so we could finish a shoot.
We had a girl leave her house unlocked while she went to school (college) so we could use an outlet for an outside shoot next door because my inverter died.
all of our locations are free... some homes, a number of small businesses, a cemetery sexton recommended a specific cemetery to us for use that was freak'n awsome.
... I suppose I should say what I do about those annoying people... It's gottnt to the point that people have once chance to get me to trust them... I'm not picky about it either. they show up.. they listen, and they don't #@&$ around. Music and movies are "glam jobs" you do what needs to be done or you should stay home. If some one hurts the project more than they help, then it is mine (and the other producers) duty to make them go away.
ie. If you get bad sound at a specific venue regurarly then stop playing there or a bit. get your own rig. use that. and get a big guy to guard it from "them"... the "authorized personnel only...and I don't care if you are the club owner ... your still arn't authorized" it's your stuff and your sound and they shouldn't screw with it. It's your responsibility to protect it.
I think the contractural term is "sound control" so you need contracts that state you have complete sonic control and you need to enforce it.
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