Live Show Etiquette

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spawnofthesith

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The smaller the venue the more likely they want to gear share. I'm fine with cab sharing, I can make 99% of guitar cabs sound good with the global EQ on my Helix. Drum sharing seems weird to me. Like I wouldn't just grab someone else's guitar to play a show, why would you expect a drummer to use gear they haven't practiced with? The only time it bugs me is when bands EXPECT there to be backline without talking to anyone and show up with no gear. We played a show last summer where this band literally went on tour without a drum kit or amps/cabs.


I've only ever had a venue try and setup guitar amp sharing once... I showed up with my 5153 and the sound guy was like "you don't need that !!!" while pointing to a hot rod deluxe on the stage lol

Drum sharing is pretty common around here for local shows. My drummer usually hates it, but every once in a while he's stoked on what he got to play lol. But in terms of adaptability its never been an issue
 

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JimF

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I suppose it helps that our drummer was NOT a gearhead at all. He was all about vibe and beer and the love of the game and not practicing.
 

GunpointMetal

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I was a drummer - not even a very good one
This is all I need to hear to know that we are having two different conversations. If someone cares about the performance they care that the gear isn't going to get in the way. I think someone who plays like Lars Ulrich could probably jump on any kit and be the same level of mediocre. I don't think Krimh is going to jump on any kit and be able to play highly orchestrated technical death metal at 220+ BPM up to his personal standards without spending as much time moving stuff around as would have taken to just load their own kit on stage. Just like I COULD play my guitar stuff on any standard-tuned guitar, all the notes are there, but I'm not going to want to transpose it live in front of an audience. If you're used to a Les Paul with light strings and someone hands you a Strat with 11s, you're not going to be able to play the same unless you're playing super basic beginner-level blues shit.
 

TedEH

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This is all I need to hear to know that we are having two different conversations. If someone cares about the performance they care that the gear isn't going to get in the way. I think someone who plays like Lars Ulrich could probably jump on any kit and be the same level of mediocre. I don't think Krimh is going to jump on any kit and be able to play highly orchestrated technical death metal at 220+ BPM up to his personal standards
No, I think we're talking about the same thing, and I just disagree with you. Any pro drummer I've met would be able to make that work.

I wasn't saying I'm a shitty drummer, I was saying that if someone at my level of professionalism can make it work, then just about anyone can.

Moving some drums around is NOT analogous to transposing your songs on the fly. It's really not that hard. In 99.9% of drum sharing situations, what's being shared is the shells, and those don't really vary that much. It's VERY EASY to translate a fill for two toms into a fill for one tom. You just hit the first tom more. You still have your cymbals, usually your own stands, and placements might be off by small distances, but that's not a big deal.
 

GunpointMetal

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If you’re bringing all your own stands, cymbal, and snare you’re literally keeping the easiest part of a drum kit to swap for….reasons? If it works for everyone, sweet, if a drummer wants to use his kit (that he’s already setting up 75% of anyways), sweet. I just don’t see anything analogous between sharing a drum kit and backlining cabs.
 

TedEH

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you’re literally keeping the easiest part of a drum kit to swap for….reasons?
Because the shells are the big clunky space wasting part of the kit. It's the reason people share drums kits. If you only ever play big theaters where there's room for 4x sets of drum shells to just lie around, then you do you, but that's pretty rare for a lot of bands.

Also, the space saved in a car, if you're playing a couple hours from home, and only need to pack cymbals, a few stands, and your snare/throne. The space saved by not bringing shells means you can carry other band members and probably save yourself the gas money on bringing another vehicle.

This is all normal stuff. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
 

spawnofthesith

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If you’re bringing all your own stands, cymbal, and snare you’re literally keeping the easiest part of a drum kit to swap for….reasons?

Mic'ing the kits... swapping out cymbals without having to touch any mics is a lot quicker than clearing old kit, set up new kit, mic kit
 

GunpointMetal

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Mic'ing the kits... swapping out cymbals without having to touch any mics is a lot quicker than clearing old kit, set up new kit, mic kit
I've never seen drums mic'd except maybe a snare and kick in situations where everyone is supposed to share a backline kit. Usually not even the snare. If the room is big enough to need tom/snare mics its big enough for some half-assembled drum kits. I guess I'm just so used to playing with metal bands and probably 60% of the bands that we play with are doing some sort of triggering and IEM that swapping kits is way less time consuming than integrating an unfamiliar kit into the rest of the set up.
But like I said up there - if it works for everyone, great, do it. If it doesn't, anyone worth having in a band is going to be able to load/strike a drum kit in roughly the same amount of time as it would take to adjust around a couple of backline shells. Maybe my derision to it comes from literally never liking the instrument setup on anyone else's instrument and not wanting to subject the people I play with to dealing with that.
 

spawnofthesith

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Every city is different I guess, I'm racking my brain for a time we've ever -not- had drums mic'ed up and I'm drawing blanks outside of the odd house show. Played my amp unmiced at a brewery gig once, but even that time there was still a mic on the kick drum
 

sleewell

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we started a DIY venue recently. i encourage bands to use the same cabs all night with their own amps. for drums we try to get people to use the same shells only changing over their breakables. seems to work pretty well. its not required but it def helps. we mic the kick.
 

budda

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not being willing to gear share is fine - so long as you can set up in 5m and tear down in 5m (changeover usually 15m). This leaves the other bands more time to play. Also figure out if you have space to unload all bands gear - it may be load from and to the van, depending on billing and “venue” size.

Ive played many basements with 5 bands and very little gear share without much issue. The trick is everyone was polite and helped move gear to and from the performance area. This is where it helps to not have shitty bands booked :lol:
 

TedEH

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I think the "I can only use MY gear and you can't" attitude just hits me the wrong way. It reads like ego. Nobody in some random bar is going to know or care that your v30s are more special-er than my v30s. Or if you're not even micing the drums at all at a metal show, your second bass drum is clearly just for show and contributes nothing to the performance. It always sucks to be an opener when the headliner won't take their junk off the stage, won't let you use it, and you have to play in the tiny space left after you've stacked your own gear in front of it. Gear sharing benefits everyone is a hill I'm very willing to die on. It's better for you, it's better for the other bands, it's better for the sound guy, it's better for the audience, everyone wins.
 

spawnofthesith

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My view: gear sharing not preferred, but makes sense for many local music scene scenarios and its not too big of a deal

And if you're a drummer and concerned about using someone elses kit, simply volunteer to be the backliner :shrug:
 

budda

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I think the "I can only use MY gear and you can't" attitude just hits me the wrong way. It reads like ego. Nobody in some random bar is going to know or care that your v30s are more special-er than my v30s. Or if you're not even micing the drums at all at a metal show, your second bass drum is clearly just for show and contributes nothing to the performance. It always sucks to be an opener when the headliner won't take their junk off the stage, won't let you use it, and you have to play in the tiny space left after you've stacked your own gear in front of it. Gear sharing benefits everyone is a hill I'm very willing to die on. It's better for you, it's better for the other bands, it's better for the sound guy, it's better for the audience, everyone wins.
Eh, i dont want to deal with “yeah its 16 ohms” and then see the magic smoke because buddy didnt know his cab was rewired before he bought it.

If you know you’re playing a small venue and the headliner is a big enough act to leave their stuff on stage, yeah try to gear share - or be very efficient at staging and striking so that it doesnt make a difference to your set.
 

wheresthefbomb

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not being willing to gear share is fine - so long as you can set up in 5m and tear down in 5m (changeover usually 15m). This leaves the other bands more time to play. Also figure out if you have space to unload all bands gear - it may be load from and to the van, depending on billing and “venue” size.

Ive played many basements with 5 bands and very little gear share without much issue. The trick is everyone was polite and helped move gear to and from the performance area. This is where it helps to not have shitty bands booked :lol:
Definitely agree with all of this. I'm on team gear-share with the caveat that I'm almost always the one backlining local shows (at least the ones I'm in), so I know exactly what everything is. I regularly borrow amps and cabs when I'm building a wall, but I'll always try to get them into my space beforehand and practice with them. I also check the resistance of any unfamiliar cab myself. I don't care what the label says, I don't know unless I know.

When we get small-medium acts on national tour through interior AK, they're very rarely bringing their amps, drums, etc because it would cost 5x as much as they'll make playing here to do so. The flipside of that is when it's up to me, I make sure we have the best shit I can find for them to use so they sound their best and want to come back.
 

TedEH

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Eh, i dont want to deal with “yeah its 16 ohms” and then see the magic smoke because buddy didnt know his cab was rewired before he bought it.
IMO if that kind of thing is enough of a concern, and your shows aren't diligent enough to work those details out ahead of time, then, like spawn said, just volunteer to be the backliner.
 

budda

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IMO if that kind of thing is enough of a concern, and your shows aren't diligent enough to work those details out ahead of time, then, like spawn said, just volunteer to be the backliner.
Pulled off 5 years of touring rarely ever sharing gear, with gear exchanges at some shows outside of our stuff, and they went as well as small market diy shows seem to go.

I could set up in 3m including stage lights, and cabs stack for storage - not too worried about if theres 1 or 5 other cabs there at that point. And being the touring band, my stuff needs to work for the other dates of the run.

If changeover took too long or bands ran long or the show started late, we would cut a song regardless as well.

In my experience usually its the green or drunken bands that impede changeovers regardless of backline and gearshare :2c:.
 

GunpointMetal

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In my experience usually it’s the green or drunken bands that impede changeovers regardless of backline and gearshare :2c:.
This is basically what it comes down to for me. Unless a band is being foolish the only person who is even slightly disturbed is going to be the sound guy and, as someone who does sound for DIY shows and worked in smaller venues regularly over the last 20 years, tough fucking shit. That’s the job. If the bands can manage change over you can manage a 30 second line check and have the mix almost as good as it’s getting by the end of the first song.
 

Screamingdaisy

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After starting to play live again after a ~10 year break I've found venues all want the bands to all share gear for fast change-overs (sometimes they have backline beater cabs they want everyone to use). Is it bad etiquette if you want to use your own gear (knowing you can setup and tear down quickly)? Bad etiquette if you don't particularly want to share your gear?

In my scene, it was expected for bass and drums to share. Drummers were expected to provide their own breakables (snare, cymbals), however the kick and toms stayed in place.

The one band I've seen insist on using their own drum kit was given a terrible sounding mix.

Guitars, I expect the guitarists to use their own amps and I wouldn't agree to a gig where using a backline amp was required.

I've been on gigs where the guitarists were offered backline, however it's never been mandatory to use it.
 


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