Then after convincing about two dozen “band techies” that the PA is not yet on and there is more I will do before I let your friends on stage go for the mass slaughter!
The show finally begins with the “band techies” half convinced that I know what I am doing, and with me fully convinced that they have no clue of what happens at the console! Now that’s not the end of it, 5 min before a band goes live, a guy with long, curly, shabby, unkempt hair turns up carrying attitude that Roger Waters FOH engineer wouldn’t dare to, “Yo dude, sup!” he says, “I’m the next bands sound engineer, I’m mixing for them today. Cool gear!” The first few times this happened, I wondered if these guys fell off trees around the venue once the speakers were run full volume.
Anyway by the look of them, most of them were dazed by the number of knobs on the console. Few guys who tried to be honest, actually made statements like “Do you use all these knobs? I just mix at their practice session so it’s one keyboard amp, one guitar amp and the whole five piece band plugs into it. But don’t worry I’ll manage this console” Now how the hell am I supposed to let the console to them. So after a small conversation, I talk them into giving me instructions on the mix and I will execute them on the board, thinking it will make work easy. But hell no, I was wrong. I get instructions worse than what the “band techies” were giving. I have been asked to do all kinds of stuff, most of them sounded like pizza orders, here are a few – 1. Can I have a little spice on the guitar! 2. Can you make the vocals sweet! 3. Will it be possible to make the keyboards louder than anything else (when the keyboardist was actually not playing anything important or even consistent), When i ask why? Because he is a good friend, I never liked the guitarist or the vocalist!
Well I thought after being a live sound engineer for 5 years and a band member for over 7 years and all the qualification I earned, I was good at what I do, but hell no! This needs a lot more patience than any other job and yeah, no qualification is ever going to teach you how to manage these guys!
1 comments:
"The first few times this happened, I wondered if these guys fell off trees around the venue once the speakers were run full volume."
That was utterly hilarious!
I was researching sound engineering as a career option when I stumbled upon your blog. Enjoyable it surely was.
Cheers!
Post a Comment