| Dear Local Band [rant] [message #285437] |
Thu, 24 January 2008 06:25  |
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![waldo [Casey Williams] is currently offline](theme/path_info/images/offline.png "waldo [Casey Williams] is currently offline") waldo [Casey Williams]
Messages: 182
Registered: August 2004
Location: sf |
Has No Life |
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Dear Local Band --
Thank you for playing tonight. I like your material. In fact, we're looking for an opener for a up-and-coming national act in two months. It's a huge underplay -- they could fill a venue 4x our size -- and you would be a perfect fit, stylistically. It would be a fantastic exposure gig for you.
I would overlook the fact that you played too long tonight, that your keyboard patches are all over the map, that your guitar levels also vary widely. I would also overlook the fact that you set up a mic with onstage fx which you said would be for sax (and so it was at soundcheck), and then used it for vocals for most of the set, ignoring the vocal mic next to it, for which you had me set up fx just to your taste. Hey, I can work with all that. I like your material!
What I cannot overlook is that I had to herd you like cats at both soundcheck and showtime. You were in the building for 2 hours while the other bands soundchecked tonight -- did it occur to you to perhaps take your 2 (two!) 88-key keyboards out of cases in that time span? Did it occur to you to set up guitar pedals? And then when I said 'hey, we're done here; doors opened 5 minutes ago' you were completely shocked!
I can find an opener for the big gig which doesn't fit quite so well, but can get the hell on and off stage like nobody's business. That will work. A band that might derail the gig, embarrassing me, my venue, and the promoter, will not work.
Sincerely,
your wednesday sound guy
p.s. You have 3 vocals! Three! Next time someone asks, just say: 'we have 3 vocals.' It's not an essay question! I don't care how you've experimented in the past. I don't care if you've sung into the kick mic. At soundcheck, the answer to that question is an integer.
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There, I said it. I had to say it somewhere, so I figured it should be the basement. It makes me sad, but perhaps this is the reason that some bands break out, and some don't. Funny, the other band I have in mind (the band that is completely on task) has about twice as much gear and twice as many members. It's just a matter of attitude.
Just another weeknight; still it's sad to see a band shoot themselves in the foot.
waldo
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| Re: Dear Local Band [rant] [message #285443 is a reply to message #285437 ] |
Thu, 24 January 2008 06:57  |
Stephen Askins
Messages: 140
Registered: May 2004
Location: Sydney, Australia |
Has No Life |
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Hi Waldo,
brilliantly written. I dont work with many young bands these days but still see older and supposedly more experienced bands stuff up due to poor attitudes and preperation. My main gripe is bands that send us stage plots that are so inaccurate they shouldnt have bothered. One of the gems from last week was a plot from a tour manager for a Beatles Tribute band that forgot that Ringo sings and that John als0 played electric guitar as well as acoustic!!!!
Stephen Askins
Sydney, Australia
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| Re: Dear Local Band [rant] [message #285489 is a reply to message #285474 ] |
Thu, 24 January 2008 10:45 |
Tom Manchester
Messages: 2450
Registered: December 2004
Location: Delaware |
Has No Life |
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It's not a fix but I usually put a compressor on keyboard and sampler channels with a high ratio and threshold a little above the device's average level. This helps as a safegaurd against excessively high levels or bands who decide to repatch things while the channel is still hot on the board.
My biggest peeve is the bands who say "Ok, we're sending you the sampler level" at soundcheck and you set it. Come showtime they want to make a big entrance so they crank the sampler output up 20db more and it's suddenly slamming the input on your board.
"What did you do? The rig just got 80% better!" -Evan K.
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| Re: Dear Local Band [rant] [message #285569 is a reply to message #285474 ] |
Thu, 24 January 2008 13:54 |
SteveKirby
Messages: 1796
Registered: October 2007
Location: Santa Cruz |
Has No Life |
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| scott foster wrote on Thu, 24 January 2008 09:45 |
Another all too frequsnt one is the clean vs. overdrive settings that a lot of guitarists use, with the clean punching through at 3 or 4 times the level of the overdrive. What's up with that?
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This is what happens when the guitarist gets tired of being constantly scolded to turn it down, and does. Many single preamp + OD amps like the Mesa Boogies are very interactive between the gain stages and turning down the global master affects the OD stage more. At some point lower down on the global master, it's impossible to get the OD sound as loud as the clean sound. Even if you don't go that low, the OD sound is more compressed so the clean sound can jump more with playing dynamics. The solution is to put something with level controls in the series effects loop of the amp. Then you can turn the amp's global master up to where the amp behaves reasonably and leave it there, using the level control on the fx unit as the actual master volume. It might be bad gain structure, but the amps are noisy anyway, and makes life much easier when there is a consistent change between clean and OD channels.
As others have mentioned, the worst are the multi-fx floor pedals. The levels of the different patches are all over the map. I've had the same experience of modeling amps like the Line 6. This is so basic, I can't understand why Roland et. al. can't equalize the patch levels to some reasonable degree. I mean if a performer wants to set a screaming Marshall patch at a lower level so he can play behind the vocals, more power to him. But that is something that someone with a clue does deliberately for a specific application. The other thing with those pedals is that they are soaked in time based effects. Sound's cool in the store, but useless on stage. Jar of bees buried in reverberant mud.
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| Re: Dear Local Band [rant] [message #285577 is a reply to message #285569 ] |
Thu, 24 January 2008 14:23 |
gordon mcgregor
Messages: 59
Registered: June 2004
Location: glasgow uk |
Should Get Out More |
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The quieter lead sound has been a pet hate of mine for years, I don't play guitar but a quick look at the parameters on the edit pages of your multi efx box usually reveals a make up gain or at least an overall level setting that can be set and stored with each patch. As far as keyboard patches go then on Roland and Korg synths there's usually a performance setting for each patch that has a patch level setting amongst other things like touch sensitivity, pitch bend etc and I'm sure others have something like it as well. It really is a PITA if a one off band hasn't sorted these issues but I'm sure its going to continue as more and more efx units and keyboards with evermore settings to play with get produced.
Gordon
No Madam I'm not your usual Gasfitter
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| Re: Dear Local Band [rant] [message #285606 is a reply to message #285437 ] |
Thu, 24 January 2008 16:30 |
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Matthew Whitman
Messages: 156
Registered: January 2007
Location: Dallas, TX |
Has No Life |
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That was a good read, Waldo. Thanks.
I have to keep reminding myself that not all bands are out to "make it". Its hard for me to comprehend, because like most of the folks on this forum I take what I do very seriously.
For some bands, especially ones comprised of people with steady day gigs, the club scene is merely a playground on which to play Rock Star. For these types getting a burger and a beer is infinitely more important than doing even a quick line check. I remember a guitar player who routinely powered up his amp, tapped the end of his patch cord, and upon hearing "urt urt" sat down until time to play. That was what he called his "soundcheck".
Perhaps we should call this the "9 volt effect", named for people that refuse to replace even a simple and ubiquitous component in order to keep a reliable rig. Once again, I don't get it, but thank God for the great bands that, from time to time, come through and make our jobs a little less stressful.
-MW
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| Re: Dear Local Band [rant] [message #285638 is a reply to message #285437 ] |
Thu, 24 January 2008 18:13 |
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Andy Peters
Messages: 6823
Registered: April 2004
Location: Tucson, AZ |
Has No Life
Contrarian |
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Waldo,
Perfect, except you forgot something.
"After your set, rather than immediately striking your gear, you all split to the dressing room or wherever so you could chat up the girls about how amazing your set was. In the meantime, I had a headline act waiting to go on, so headliner's roadie and I struck all of your gear. I'm sorry that we had to put it outside but we had no place else to put it and you weren't around to deal with it yourself."
-a
"It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue."
"On the Internet, nobody can hear you mix a band."
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