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Author Topic: No need for a sound guy (or gal)  (Read 10717 times)

Debbie Dunkley

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No need for a sound guy (or gal)
« on: August 13, 2017, 07:06:28 PM »

https://www.thegearpage.net/board/index.php?threads/pa-system-what-to-buy.1855952/

I wonder why anyone even bothers to use sound people because it seems we are all redundant. A speaker per side and maybe one sub and we are easily replaced.  :(
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Rick Powell

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Re: No need for a sound guy (or gal)
« Reply #1 on: August 13, 2017, 08:43:37 PM »

https://www.thegearpage.net/board/index.php?threads/pa-system-what-to-buy.1855952/

I wonder why anyone even bothers to use sound people because it seems we are all redundant. A speaker per side and maybe one sub and we are easily replaced.  :(

It goes both ways. The biggest sound provider in my area just announced he will no longer do any jobs under $500, which pretty much eliminates the bar bands. There will always be a call for pro sound with real people running it; the dividing line might just be pushed north at some times.
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g'bye, Dick Rees

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Re: No need for a sound guy (or gal)
« Reply #2 on: August 13, 2017, 08:47:45 PM »

First get rid of the sound tech, then get rid of the musicians.  Finally, get rid of the DJ's:

http://www.edmnightlife.com/robot-dj-used-by-nightclub-replaces-resident-djs/
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Brian Jojade

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Re: No need for a sound guy (or gal)
« Reply #3 on: August 14, 2017, 12:33:26 AM »

For low paying jobs, not having a sound guy makes sense.  If the job only pays $500 to start, spreading that across one more person becomes hard swallow.

For small bar events, set and forget works satisfactorily, so why pay extra for someone to mix?
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John Fruits

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Re: No need for a sound guy (or gal)
« Reply #4 on: August 14, 2017, 06:56:18 AM »

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Ivan Beaver

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Re: No need for a sound guy (or gal)
« Reply #5 on: August 14, 2017, 08:25:44 AM »

For low paying jobs, not having a sound guy makes sense.  If the job only pays $500 to start, spreading that across one more person becomes hard swallow.

For small bar events, set and forget works satisfactorily, so why pay extra for someone to mix?
Several decades ago (the 80s), I would typically get a call like this.

"Hey-we are getting paid $XX for a gig at so and so.  How much PA and lights can we get for that?"

Yes I would take everything they were making (and it was often less than what I should have been getting paid), but I would throw in some extra lights to make them look better, knowing they were not making anything.

It all comes down to what is important for the band.

Some were more interested in making an impression (in hopes of getting mroe work), and others just wanted a few dollars.  The guy wanting to get the most "take home", were the ones with the worst sound and maybe 2 lights.

Sometimes the audience cares, other times they do not.

As usual-it depends

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Ken Braziel

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Re: No need for a sound guy (or gal)
« Reply #6 on: August 14, 2017, 12:09:06 PM »

I'm of two minds here:

1. For many years before I became a professional sound person I was a semi-professional bassist. None of the bands I was a part of ever really took off, and I had worked briefly with a sound company in the early 90's so I had some skills (I also did a lot of studio work at the time, so my knowledge of mixing was more than rudimentary). I got myself a wireless setup and became the sound-guy for the bands I was in, walking out front to check the mix during sound-check and randomly during shows. I also worked within the bands to get us all "self-mixing" (backup vocals further from the mics than main vocals, stuff like that). Side-effect was that whenever one of the bands did have the luxury of a sound engineer I could work with them on exactly what the band needed on-stage.

2. Now that I've been working professionally as a sound engineer for over a decade, I have my own company  and a LOT of our gigs are coming from places that thought they could get away with letting the bands provide their own sound. Our main gig is at an outdoor mall, nearly 50 shows through the summer on two stages. We were originally hired for the "main stage" shows only, but after a lot of complaints about the smaller stage's sound they hired us to cover that one as well. I recently did a show with a band that hired me for another mall that normally lets bands mix themselves, they were blown away by the quality and we're now in negotiations to work the show next summer (if they can find the $). I did the same thing at a more local outdoor series with very similar results, so we may wind up being much more busy next year.

So I'm thinking: let the bands mix themselves. If they're good, they'll "graduate" to having someone professionally mix them when the gigs get bigger. If they suck at it, it will drive more gigs our way at the venues they play as those venues realize they need a pro at the helm to get consistently good sound.

At our main venue, we have a lot of bands that do what the one in the link is talking about - they provide their own monitoring system, and either have splits for ours, or they hand over control via tablet and we mix FOH that way. My main concern is when they get so used to having their own monitoring that they don't thing we need a full band sound-check - I ALWAYS push for that, so I have a good balance at the start of the show & don't have to mix it "festival-style" (though I do a lot of festivals & can get a good mix by the end of the first song).
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Dave Pluke

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Re: No need for a sound guy (or gal)
« Reply #7 on: August 14, 2017, 06:06:27 PM »

Quote from: Other Discussion Board
"I run my bands sound from stage with in ears in."

Hmmmm.  I wonder if the poster has ambient mics in the room, feeding into the IEMs?

Dave
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Debbie Dunkley

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Re: No need for a sound guy (or gal)
« Reply #8 on: August 14, 2017, 06:29:23 PM »

Hmmmm.  I wonder if the poster has ambient mics in the room, feeding into the IEMs?

Dave

He would have to at the very least - right? How could anyone be able to know or come close to knowing what was coming through FOH with earbuds in without an ambient mic or two?
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Peter Kowalczyk

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Re: No need for a sound guy (or gal)
« Reply #9 on: August 14, 2017, 07:21:50 PM »

In the bar-band scene, mixing yourself from stage is a rite of passage.  When the entire gig's pay barely covers your bar tab, having an engineer is a luxury few at this level can afford.  In reality, it enforces a 'less is more' approach:  No, we don't need to close-mic all the drums and the guitar amps in a 100-person bar.

My band has made the jump to IEMs, and in doing so, I feel so much LESS comfortable mixing ourselves than before, but we just did exactly that for a couple of bar gigs. We 'Soundchecked' with me tablet-mixing in the room and not playing to balance the levels, and then I asked a friend in the crowd to let me know if the mix was way off (they had no comment all night).  My guitar amp and the snare drum were mic'd for our ears, but I weren't put it in the PA.  I would pop an earbud out periodically to make sure things were okay.  Not ideal, but it worked okay... 
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ProSoundWeb Community

Re: No need for a sound guy (or gal)
« Reply #9 on: August 14, 2017, 07:21:50 PM »


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