Any sound guys out there?

[GhostOfPoveglia]

I posted a thread a while back about in-ear monitoring and have another question that's somewhat related, but more directed to people who run sound/have run sound at small to medium sized venues.

I was also hoping to get a general discussion started about what does/doesn't piss off the sound guy at shows and how to interact most effectively with him/her.

My main question is, if I bring my in-ear rig to a show but am not using my own mics, how much of a problem would it be (as far as set up time/having to re wire things) if i needed the house mics to go to my splitter by the drum set first instead of directly to the stage snake -> FOH board?

Or alternatively, if i wanted to save time, how hard would it be for FOH to send me a full monitor mix (guitars, bass, drums, etc.) to my mixer -> headphones instead of it going to a wedge by the drum set?

I hope this all makes sense!

Armon

 

[sage]

**disclaimer - I'm not a sound guy**

I'm going to assume that you're at the "we play a few in town shows every so often" stage of your band's existence. If that's the case, the best way to deal with this is to either email the sound guy in advance with your concerns or go to a show at the venue (what? support my local scene? interact with real people?) and offer to buy the sound person a tasty beverage and ask the question in person. A lot of house systems are very similar, but they have little idiosyncrasies. You're probably safe with an active XLR > 2XLR DI box leading into your monitor thingy if you're just looking to hear your voice. It should have no impact on the sound system whatsoever. Especially if you bring your own cables, you won't be messing with buddy's program at all.

I always bring my own mic. I prefer it to the bog standard SM58 that all the clubs use. I also prefer not having herpes and don't wanna use the same mic that some cold sore infested bastard just got done making out with. No soundperson has ever complained.

 

[GhostOfPoveglia]

I like to think we're a little beyond that stage but it's neither here nor there.

And yes, I was planning on going to a couple of the venues we play most often to see what the sound guys there have to say about it, I was wondering more on a general basis if there were any glaring problems with my potential request.

Thanks!

 

[Baelzebeard]

I think I answered your technical needs in your other thread, and Sage's advice is, well sage, so do that.

Doing what you want would really only take a few minutes to implement, but if unexpected it will frustrate the sound guy because they work on a very tight timeline as-is, and piling on at the last moment is stressful for them. I have been doing live sound for about 18 years, so I do speak from experience.

 

[Ryan-ZenGtr-]

A common approach is to run a seperate monitor mixer from the pre fader buss sends on the main FOH desk, and create the individual monitor mixes from those sources.

It's no bother at all to create a full mix for your in ears and send them out of the desk via a DI box to your transmitters, instead of the monitor power amp.

 

[robare99]

I have a StudioLive 24.4.2, I mic everything, and I run wedges with individual mixes, but have on occasion had the odd band member with in-ears, and a couple bands that run in-ears for everyone. It's no problem at all to patch it in and give everyone their own mix. I load in usually at noon. If you had sent me an email beforehand, I could leave the wedges in the trailer.

If you all have iPhones/iPads, I can easily give each member full control over their own personal mix via the QMix app.

I can see how it might be an issue or a pain with a fully installed system, depending on access to the aux's via the rear, but for me it's easy to do.