Sound Engineer - Friend or Foe?

What is the single worst thing a band can do to piss off the sound Engineer?

Ans. 1. Not show up for soundcheck. We guys don’t get paid by the hour so if we're there for your sound check, you sure as hell sould be there.

2. The Second worst thing to do is show up for the soundcheck, unprepared!

Sound checks are very tiring. Everyone want’s to be a rockstar these days, or more worse thinks he/she is a rockstar and feel important about themselves. Fiddling around with your processor or sampler and your practice amps is not going to make you a sound engineer, so when there is someone to tell you what to do to make YOU sound better, listen.

A very common mistake bands make is it to treat the sound engineer like he/she was there to do nothing but take your rockstar attitude. Treat them well and you get a good show. Remember you piss them off too much and you have a crappy show booked for you. Even the best sound engineer in foul mood can ruin your show for you, and there is nothing you can do.

As a musician you can help things by being prepared with what you have in your control well ahead of time, the sound engineers did not necessarily have a very good day until you came and landed and started asking for cables and adapters that your guitarist forgot or a crucial part of your drum kit that your drummer very usually forgets. Try and keep things organised, make a check list well in advance and dont be over confident about small things like your batteries for the processor, power adapter, or even converters for your power plugs and cables.

Remember do not put gear on top of mic cables, drop mics, swinging mics around by their cables, throwing around mic stands or stand on the monitors when playing solos, these are things that will so totally piss of the sound engineer, if you really want to do these things, carry your own gear. Avoid spitting or spilling drinks into gear, not only your but stuff that is on stage that doesnt belong to you as well. Its no fun rolling cables that are sticky with saliva or drinks or anything for that matter.

After you are done playing, make way for the next band, do not wait and chat. You would want the most time before you have to start playing so do the same for the next band. Neatly roll up your cables and start helping your drummer take his stuff off because he/she is the one who has the most to do.

And when you are done on stage let the engineer know, there is a lot more to do for the Main PA mix. Some tips that you can follow to make things easier:

1. Never ask for an instrument any louder than you need. It doesnt help, it'll just make the mix on stage difficult for you to listen to stuff that you really need to.

2. Keep your stage amps as low as possible and have then angled so they are pointed to your ears and not the back of your knees, it helps!

3. You really dont need the drums on monitors unless its a very big stage, so watch out when you are asking for drums on your monitors.

4. If all your instruments flood the monitors, you will not be able to hear the vocals. Dont ask for more vocals that you need, and never assume what the other band memeber wants on his monitors, let him ask for what he wants.

Well these are few things which make life easy for you and your engineer. Always remember, your sound engineer is there to help you sound better, listen to him when he is trying to tell you something.

The Cribbing Continued…

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!

Time to crib

Now its time to crib...crib about everything I've seen at my gigs till today...guitarists and drummers are not going to be happy, but hey, this is what happens to an engineer every time you guys get on stage.

A whole days work, sometimes two and finally the bands up for sound check, after a lot of fuss ofcourse. Fuss about what, doode its so hot, doode why is the stage so small, doode what time is the show, doode where can I get fags, doode why do the speakers look small, will the subs be enough, are we playing first, etc. now there are two possibilities I would know the answers to their stupid questions - 1. I was the organiser+security+MC+engineer+audience+a fellow band member, 2. I would have lost my mind and actually tried answering their questions.

Okay after all that they are on stage and begin making some noise, if you thought it was just the band members that were the dumbest, wait, now its their friends and groopies turn, both guys and girls. Before the band could start off properly on the PA system this is what they ask -

1. Why is the Guitar not heard?
2. Can't the bass drum be deeper, flatter, kickier, and punchier? (little does he know those terms are as good as they trying to say can I have a Pizza with a lot of highs and a little reverb and also some delay!)
3. How many dB can your speakers produce? (Not dB spl or any other reference)
4. Can you make the vocals nicer, smoother, crisper, sweeter, hotter, mellower, and what not!

I have one answer, PA is not yet ON!