From randal.muir@bigpond.com Mon Aug 30 19:44:44 2004
Subject:Re: Getting around inept Sound mixers

This is a very important point. We shouldn't let the risk of offending
someone's ego prevent prevent us from doing a good job.
-Randal


>
> --- In CloneWheel@yahoogroups.com, tonysounds wrote:
> > Dave can attest to that better than I, but I suspect this was one
> of those....um....hip hop rock mixes that you speak of.
> >
> > Why do soundmen think that basing the mix around the drums is
> musical?????
>
> Or that 110-115 DB is musical?
>
> My band was booked into one of the few clubs in town that has its own
> PA.. and I mean a monster, with mains to the ceiling PA, with an amp
> array under the stage and a snake out to a board, mics and cables
> onstage. We'd been in there listening - not playing - before, and
> knew how loud the sound guy liked it. And like was mentioned above,
> the drums, esp. the kick, were the loudest element. Too much rap..
>
> Well, the reason we got booked is because the management wants to
> change their luck - away from college kids and fights in the car park
> to boomers. And my band has a good boomer demographic / song
> selection. AND we play at a very decent level. Our audition, a
> private party, we used our own setup, even our mains speakers, and
> kept a lid on the volume.
>
> So we got this gig. Access to the monster PA and the deaf, young
> sound guy.. what to do?
>
> What we did was this - we brought everything but our mains speakers
> and the wedges. We used our OWN mics, connected to our OWN board,
> connected to our OWN monitor amp, and..
>
> Used our 1/4" cables to connect our monitor amp to the existing
> wedges at the front of the stage.
>
> Used our reverb as normal on the mix, voices mostly.
>
> Used two of their mic cables to connect our stereo Lo-Z mixer outs to
> two mic inputs on their snake. Left our mains amp off.
>
> We had a chat with the sound guy and told him what we were doing and
> exactly why. And we cautioned him to not run our levels nearly as
> loud as we'd experienced in our previous visit.
>
> WE controlled the mix in the mains and the monitors.
>
> And we cautioned the club's new manager to come in periodically and
> keep a lid on the volume.. after all, it was only two faders.
> Manager respected us for taking control of OUR sound. Sound guy
> didn't like his prerogatives grabbed from him, but WE had little
> faith that if we'd let him do what he was used to doing that we'd be
> happy and not having to fight for every change onstage and in the
> mains.
>
> So - we got our accustomed mix in the monitors and mains, and the
> audience wasn't blasted out by this 20 year old's idea of what
> classic rock music sounds like, which was wrong from the start.
>
> Result? A reasonable rock band volume, just enough for dancing but
> not so much that our audience was having to scream across their
> tables.
>
> Audience loved it, management asked us back.
>
> www.east2westrocks.com
>
> Karl
>
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