I hate sound people

[No Soul]

Most of them just plain out suck and are jerks. And even for the few that arent jerks they just plain dont know what they are doing. Of all the places Ive played in the Bay Area I can say theres only 2 places where I liked the sound. The first is probably because they have A LOT of metal bands comming throuhg, and new exactly how to set us up. The other place was cuz they let us set up the mix ourselves.

 

[Christopher]

You know sadly, this is often the truth in many places. The problem lies in that it takes years of experience and hands on training in order to be a good soundman yet most clubs pay about as much as you'd expect to see a roadie get paid. So you're not getting real sound people at these venues just poorly paid wannbees.

I've worked with a lot of people over the years and seen a whole lot of "sound people". Some guys are just the tops. When you get a qualified sound technician or engineer you know right away. Sadly when you don't you know that just fast.

There are those of out there who really do spend years learning and relearning to get good, it's just hard to find us.

 

[Dylan7620]

yes, lot of people who dont know what they're doing and dont really know what a "mix" is. if they can hear every part going on at the same time then they call it a mix.

 

[Christopher]

If you've got guys mixing that well, you're better off than most I hear. Getting all the instruments to be heard is a hard step for a lot of guys. Getting guys who not only know what they're doing but who know how to mix different bands for genre specific stuff is next to impossible at the price point most venues are willing to pay!

 

[eleven59]

At our first show, the overall sound wasn't bad, though the bass was a little too loud sometimes. The main problem was the vocals. The lead singer was too quiet, I was too quiet (backing vocals on two songs, lead on one), and our bassist, who sang two notes on one song was way too loud.

Our other two shows were better, though the places were small, the monitors sucked at the one place, my mic was off for a bit at the one show, the drums weren't mic-ed (understandably), and the amps were running through the PA either, so it's not like a good mix was hard, since we always set our amps to be a good mix with the drums unamplified. We've found a place that we like playing at, though we did have a problem with feedback on my mic (we had to bring our own mics, they don't have any, that's the only problem with the place) and there was no one at the soundboard the entire time, until the guy who organized the show (and has told us he knows nothing about gear) went over and tried to fix it (obviously didn't work).

 

[Dylan7620]

yea, the battle of the bands i played at in may had a makie team come in and do the sound... they actually knew what a stage plot was! we sounded fucking huge, it was awesome

 

[Christopher]

I've always been a huge believer in the old premise that the best sound man in the world is the one you don't notice. That goes from both sides of the stage, performer and audience. Most people only notice the sound tech or the quality of the rig when there are problems.

Anytime there are the simple things like feedback or mics left off or whatever you can almost always chalk that up to incompetence. In some venues though, it has more to do with how terribly under equipped or just plain lousy the rig is.

 

[Shawn]

Most of them just plain out suck and are jerks. And even for the few that arent jerks they just plain dont know what they are doing.

 

[No Soul]

Even the ones that supposedly know what they are doing.
Theres this club in Oakland that my band used to play at a lot, and the sound man there won a grammy for his engineering work for some album, but foookin eh, he couldnt do a half way descent live mix to save his life. Im always so tempted to tell him when we play there to not mic anything!

 

[eleven59]

Even the ones that supposedly know what they are doing.
Theres this club in Oakland that my band used to play at a lot, and the sound man there won a grammy for his engineering work for some album, but foookin eh, he couldnt do a half way descent live mix to save his life. Im always so tempted to tell him when we play there to not mic anything!

Any idea who he is or what album?

For what it's worth, studio engineering and live sound are totally different (thankfully I've done both. My live sound was terrible, only because it was a half-broken Yamaha board with some banged up SM-58s through a Peavey PA with blown-out subs, with no monitors, in a gym Not to mention the singers kept wanting everything quieter...but don't you dare take away their microphone, "don't turn me up, just make everyone else quieter" )

 

[Shikaru]

Our local sound guy is horrible. I'm not sure he has any idea what he's doing. He did the sound at all of my band's early shows, and seeing as we'd never had anyone else, I wasn't too bothered. But just a few weeks ago, we played this sort of, local festival type thing, and they had a professional sound company providing equipment. The sound was just phenominal. Although they didn't mic up my gutiar cab very well, it was feeding back a lot. Although when they did the sound for the other local metal band playing, they sounded terrible. Muddy as hell, couldn't make out anything that was going on. So it was good, because it made us look better

I've got a bit of video from that gig I may post sometime if I can find somewhere to host it.

 

[No Soul]

Any idea who he is or what album?

Dont remember. It was something that nobody here would be interested in thats for sure. Some pop vocal blah blah blah stuff. For what its worth he works at iMusicast in Oakland California. If any of you guys are from the Bay Area, or are planning to play here, be warned. Not only does the sound suck (despite them having some really good equipment) but most of the people that work there just suck period. If you want a good list of venues and promoters and all things music that suck in the Bay Area, just let me know

For a while I started thinking the problem was the nature of the music my band plays (high gain metal guitars, crazy triggered doube bass drums, growling vocals etc etc) but then I remembered back to my ska and reggae days...

Once again, sound people suck.
I actually rank them one step bellow a 16 year old guitar center salesman.

 

[Jason]

i cant understand how people can suck so bad at sound like wtf? Its not that hard at all like wtf? i just cant understand it at all

 

[No Soul]

i cant understand how people can suck so bad at sound like wtf? Its not that hard at all like wtf? i just cant understand it at all

They are like Mechanics, if they arent working on their own shit they dont care.

 

[Christopher]

I've definitely got my hands full on Thursday with my own shit. We're doing our CD release party show in small park / ampitheater kind of thing. I'll be playing lead guitar, mixing the whole band from the stage, and oh yeah, recording the whole thing with my Pro Tools rig from slighty off stage. I think I'll end up spending about twice the time we're on stage setting up!

 

[Ancestor]

Yeah, heh, I feel for you, dude. I've never had a decent sound guy. I always try stay one step ahead of them. Close mike the drum heads when they're not looking, give them one volume for rhythm, but keep the lead volume a secret. And, monitors? Forget it. Get used to playing without them, cause they usually aren't there.

 

[Shawn]

We played a show at the Old Port Tavern in Portland, Maine one night back in July 2001 and the sound guy was an hour late and to top it off while we were already set up and ready to go for quite some time, he sits his ass down to eat soup for a half hour and finally we do a soundcheck that lasted 30 seconds. We were pissed. We sounded okay but could've been alot better had he have been there earlier. He was a moron too. The worst soundguy I have ever seen.

 

[Ancestor]

Oopsey daisey. I forgot there is one badass sound guy, JD from the Mug. He does a killer job. There's probably good ones besides him that I don't know about.

 

[Donnie]

Man, the soundguys that I work with here are bad ass. They know their shit and understand that you want to sound good and they make it happen.
There have been a couple that sucked balls though. One didn't want to run my 9 string through the mains. He thought it was going to destroy his system. They don't get it that when I tell them that it doesn't put out the low frequencys of a bass. Yet he runs the bass through the pa.

 

[Chris D]

They don't get it that when I tell them that it doesn't put out the low frequencys of a bass. Yet he runs the bass through the pa.

^ if that wasn't so sad it would be hilarious!

I've found that writing snotty letters to the venue owners helps (written from the point of view of a disgruntled audience member)
After all shitty sound=bad reputation amongst gig-goers & bands=less punters, promoters seeking alternative venues etc... The problem arises because venue bosses seldom understand that the soundman is such an important job.

It ain't hard for wannabe soundppl to read up on theory & practice (google) and if it's unfamiliar genres that stump them they should do the friggin homework.
Hell, some of them don't even know the difference between microphonic & acoustic feedback!