soundian

I don't like giving out peoples numbers without their permission, but I will direct them to this thread as soon as one of them comes on MSN.

No No I've made my point and it's off my chest, character assassination over!

See, I knew you still loved me.

You know me Tunk, tough love is all you can expect.

Ian what happened to the hugs and bozies I got years ago?

Yeh I agree! But she also agreed there would be no ticket sales, if we knew there would be ticket sales we would definately have went for a %. She made an absolute killing that night, she could have at least tried to "look after us".

Ah, so she didn't fulfil her end of the deal then.

Forget what I said, carry on with the character assassination.

(just for old times sake)

Keep this on-topic please folks. There's a good discussion to be had here that won't happen if the thread continues to be sidetracked by silliness.

I think all the good discussion's been done.

Personally I'm just hanging around to see what sbask gets up to next.

We went down with ABDC a few years ago on the agreement of 300 plus a rider, she said thats all she could pay cause we couldn't guarantee a crowd, and we had to provide support as well. Turns out she sold 200 tickets at 8 a pop, plus more through the door, we never got a penny more, she wouldn't even give our support a rider, and we weren't allowed anyone on a guest list.

You got what you agreed beforehand didn't you?

Although I agree that not giving you a few free guesties and maybe a pint or two for the support is a bit stingy, since they can easily be hidden in the books, the contract was fulfilled.

You're in the music business, you got burned in a business deal. Chalk it down to experience and learn from your mistakes.

I once played Glasgow on a Sunday, then Aberdeen on the Monday. Do 2 day tours count? We were on time for both gigs

That wasn't a tour, you played Glasgow then just happened to play your home town (i.e. within easy reach of your bed, shower, clean clothes, parents fridge) the next day.

Touring is the second most tiring thing I've ever done after festivals (aye, the whole festival, not just one set and the rest of the weekend off) but I still think there's no excuse (barring road accidents/severe weather/loooong journey etc) for turning up significantly late. In fact, since playing gigs is the whole point of the tour it amazes me how many so-called professional bands fail to arrive on time, even ones with tour managers.

Some of my (least) favourite excuses:

"The agent never told us what time to be here."

Try phoning to check, you dickweeds.

"We thought it was a late show."

See previous answer.

"We never realised Aberdeen was so far away."

Maps were invented hundreds of years ago, use one!

Alternatively, see previous answer.

"There's no motorways this far north."

See previous answer.

Also, since that loses you 30 minutes tops, why are you 3 hours late?!

In short, there is no excuse* for bands being late to soundcheck if they were playing Glas/Edin the night before. Even leaving those places at 1pm still gets you to Aberdeen on time.

*Except unforseen circumstances of course

If you have decent equipment and a competent engineer the FOH sound is largely down to the band themselves.

I was once working a gig, I think I only checked the headliners so all the other bands were on the fly.

One of the bands sounded god-awful. I tweaked and tinkered but nothing I could do could salvage the sound. An acquaintance was kind enough to point this out to me (as if I hadn't already figured it out) and put the blame squarely on my shoulders. He was so insistent that I even began to mentally review my prep to see if I'd maybe made a mistake somewhere.

The next band came on, used pretty much the same backline, mics etc. No real tinkering on the desk. Sounded sweet. The PA was sounding how I expected it to sound.

The moral of the story is: SISO (or GIGO if you're more polite than me)

Arite, keep yer hair on? He was only saying.

Jeez you Sound engineers guys...

(awaits a drummer influenced retort)

I was merely pointing out that there's a difference between giving me grief and requesting something.

At the end of the day it's a two-way thing, but the final decision on what is possible/acceptable/advisable rests with me. I have my employers equipment, profits and wishes to attend to first before I get to anyone else's, including mine.

What if the band are deeply unhappy with the sound you've given them, do you still refuse to change anything on the basis that they are lower down the "food chain" than you? Or do you just ALWAYS know best?

I said I wouldn't take a lot of grief, not that I wouldn't listen to, and try to comply with, reasonable requests.

Yeah, I don't think it's ideal for anyone involved.

But hey, you seem to cope pretty well. Would Drummonds ever change that policy?

I'm not sure what they're thoughts are under the current regime. Normally Drummonds only used to close for higher ticket price gigs (normally the artist requests a closed coundcheck for these anyway).

As for coping, you need 3 things:

Preparation: I quite often go in early if I know I can have a lot of stuff set up before the bands arrive. Then I can EQ etc while they're setting up so no-one has to wait around much and I'm not rushed into making poor judgement calls.

Experience: I've done over 2000 gigs at a rough count. It's all rather mechanical nowadays. If I've prepped properly then it's easy to get soundchecks done quickly and painlessly.

Attitude: The food chain goes (according to me)

1) Person paying me money

2) Promoter (if different)

3) ME (and any other senior tech peeps)

4) Bands

5) Security

6) Punters

I will not take a lot of grief from anyone lower in the food-chain than me. I make this fairly plain by my attitude and I'm not scared to reinforce the point if need be. As a few people on these forums have found out.

C'mon, Ian, you love your job really!

Every job has it's good points and it's bad points. Having to soundcheck with members of the public present is definitely in the latter category.

Why do you want to change Scottish to English?

what about the old gem, one one was a race horse, one two was one too, one one won one race, one two won one two?

i'll bet soundian loves that old classic!

Fairly useless for level checking but great for checking the integrity of the signal path.

It always makes me smile so it'll do for me.

Bands Checking Mics, that grinds my gears.

Just say "Check. Check. Check." so you can get a good gain structure and ultimately, you should sound better.

if your doing heavy vocals, dont wisper into the mic, put some force into it, if your going to be doing some quiet, soft vocals, then do them as your going to do them,

fair enougth alot of the time the engineer will sort it when you play your sound check song, but this is all time that could be spent by the engineer EQ'ing and adding compressors and what not,

and bands that try and be funny with there checks, its nothing anyone hasnt already heard, and makes you look highly unprofessional.

Personally I don't leave checking vocal mics to the amatuers, I do it myself. I get the levels to where I think they need to be and find the max I can push them to.

As for compression, on the rare occasions when I have a compressor that isn't dog meat and a rig that actually gives me some headroom, I can pretty much set and leave the comp settings for most vocalists.

What grinds my gears are the cunny funts that shout "3,4" after I say "1,2". Highly original you drunken morons!

Oh...one thing that REALLY pisses me off, when bands have a certain time to be onstage, ready to play but at that time, one member is fucking off to get a drink/have a shit, its like, fucking hell, do you realise you are meant to be starting NOW! You had all this time to get a drink and sort yourself out and you choose your stage time to do it.

This is just one of THE MOST irritating things ever.

That annoys me as well.

It's not difficult to be on-stage on time, technical problems aside, so why so many bands fail is beyond me.

If I've got a strict curfew I tell the bands that I don't care what time they start their set, but they're going to finish when they're scheduled to finish. That seems to work.

Hmm, ok - I was slightly confused from reading up on the gaps between the inner and outer rooms. Some seemed to say that the best sound insulator would be air - thereby leaving the gap unfilled. Others seem to say that filling the gap with rockwool type stuff is the way to go. This sounds more plausible to me to be honest. I'm not sure that treating the internal room is the way to go, as it's unlikely I'll be doing any recording in it - just making loads of noise!

An airgap only works if the airgap is sealed. Like double glazing. Since it's unlikely that your outer room is sealed the next best thing is to give any sound that makes it into the airgap a hard time.

Sound like travelling through solids, that's why you use neoprene to decouple the touching solid structures.

Sound likes travelling through air, that's why you put up walls.

Sound hates travelling from air to solid and vice-versa. That's why a sealed airgap would work, you force the sound to dissipate a lot of energy in the transition from air-solid-air-solid-air. Rockwool etc forces more of these transitions but, since it isn't as dense, is less efficient at it and there is also an element of physical coupling. It will stop so much sound "leaking" out of gaps though.

You'll need something in the room for your own benefit as well. You know how "echoey" empty rooms are. Cheap/free carpet and anything else that'll absorb and/or diffract the sound instead of reflecting it will do.

How long should your set be?

Ideally, few minutes less than the promoter has asked you to play!

If your set is significantly less than the time you've been allotted let the promoter/engineer know. Starting the gig 15 minutes later is infinitely preferable to having a huge gap in the evening.

Aberdeen Crematorium

Seems to be F on google maps.

this site is pretty good for buying foam, which I know can be VERY expensive.

eFoam, all sorts of foam: Acoustic Sound Proofing Foam

If you were doing the room within a room thing AND used this foam to treat the inside walls then I think you'll be doing well. Insulating the space inbetween the two rooms would be even better!! (you could just use standard house insulation or rockwool for this? pretty sure B&Q had a good sale on just now at something stupid like 1 per roll?)

I'm sceptical. The "soundproofing" looks like ordinary foam to me, so I assume it'll have all the soundproofing capabilities of ordinary foam. The lack of tech specs for it is not a good sign. Not that it's going to have much effect unless you entirely cover the room in it.

Filling the voids is essential though. Whatever sound gets out of the room needs to have it's energy dissipated or it'll travel through every space it can.

not sure about the on stage sound I never actually asked them how it was, but there were no complaints

but FOH sounded great.

After working with me for so long they realise complaining gets them nowhere.

Kudos for getting FOH sorted for them with just a line-check. They ain't easy.

I had a gig recently, Mumford and Sons, they were a great band, but they took AGES to soundcheck, so long so that Stanley never got one, they got a quick 5 minute line check, enough time to let me do a rough mix...truth be told, they had the best sound of the night. Sometimes a wee line check can work in your favour, especially if you are a tight, professional band like them who KNOW what your a guitar should sound like.

As far as I'm concerned after the first song or two soundchecks are purely for the bands benefit, sort out monitors and set backline levels.

So, was the sound on stage the best sound of the night?

Aye - that's fair enough, squeezing 5 bands into an hour and a half (7.30pm doors for Fat Hippy nights) is completely impossible. But the agreement is 2 bands get soundchecks, first one at 6pm, second one at 7pm. We were due to soundcheck at 6pm, but didn't get to do so till 7pm-7.20pm ish, so the other band didn't get a soundcheck at all. If soundcheck time is 6pm, it should be 6pm that the band gets to go onstage and start plugging in etc. Not 6pm that the engineer starts pricking about, putting the drum kit in place etc.

I mean, I left the bastard pub at 5.30pm to go to soundcheck, to then have to stand about on my own for a while, then with my aggrieved bandmates for about an hour. It's a hard life.

Maybe they don't pay him to be there before 6? Tom used to slip me some cash to come in early on FH nights but he can't afford that now Drummonds charges a hire fee.

I assume you offered to help set up the backline to speed things up a bit, or did you just watch and bitch?

I think sound engineers should give enough of a shit, that the mix sounds good on and off stage. It's their job really.

I have another example. We played Snafu ages ago, supporting Underground Heroes. Sound engineer was nowhere to be seen during the time we were meant to be soundchecking. He just hadn't turned up - whether it was his fault or the venue's or a lack of communication between venue and Steven Milne, I don't know, but he wasn't there anyway.

We did as best we could with the amps on stage and had a wee blast at a couple of songs, but with no vocals as the mics weren't turned on. Steven was there but didn't want to mess with the sound desk, so we just went with that and were told we'd get a line check prior to going on.

When it was time to go on, said sound engineer said "just go for it, and we'll sort it as we go" No line check was given. We started off not bad, but all I could hear was my bass and drums. I was borrowing Underground Heroes bass amp which was fucking enormous, and very very loud (apparently, bass was very high in the front of house mix as well). I would personally have got through that set okay with just that, but our singer couldn't hear his own guitar or any instruments for that - he asked for it to be turned up on his monitor. The engineer pretty much cranked it up very very high, and it just caused massive feedback. So, he asked to have it turned down a bit. Engineer turned it off. And so it went. He didn't seem to have the ability to turn it up gradually. Our set turned into a shambles after that cos our frontman/guitarist was completely put off by the shit onstage sound and we actually ballsed up a song that we never make any mistakes in, ever.

Why didn't you pick up on the fact that the bass was too loud onstage and your singer couldn't hear his guitar when you had your wee blast at a couple of songs?

I'm not going to defend him on the rest but that was a mistake on your bands part.

Gig etiquette according to me.

Arrival time:

Don't be late. If you're going to be late make sure someone tells the sound engineer your ETA.

Soundchecks:

Be ready to set up as soon as the stage is clear.

Don't play long songs, you're just wasting peoples time after the first 2-3 minutes of a song generally.

Get off-stage quickly, ask the sound engineer what you need to move and where to put it.

Gig:

Be in the venue in plenty of time.

Wait until the stage is pretty clear before setting up.

Stick to your allotted set length.

Get you gear off stage asap, pack it off-stage if possible.

After gig:

Say thanks to the relevant people.

In short: Show respect for other people's time and equipment.

First thing I'd do would be uninstall then reinstall firefox.