Small festival sound

[paulears]

I have got quite used to how small scale festivals (1000-3000 people size) work in the sound department, and I no longer get fed up when the monitors, and often FOH are terrible. It niggles a bit, but they are usually under the control of somebody who either doesn't understand music - especially older age group music, or just is fed up with 4 days in a field and bored rigid.

 

Yesterday was promising during the line check and quick monitor mix. Yet after a few numbers, he clearly got bored and slapped the compressors on and gave up as we're too hard work. He was also one of those fiddle with input gain people, and levels in the mons went up and up - even worse, when the guitarist asked for more of him in his - I got it in mine. I grit my teeth and press on.

 

We got a little group of people afterwards relating an audience perspective. We're a 60s tribute - so it's really rock and roll light stuff, not a mega bass metal show. Apparently it was bass city out front - a 30 year old marched up to the guy mixing, took a picture of him on his phone, not looking at the stage or touching the desk, and ripped into him. Are you deaf - the drummer is singing and nobody can hear him. I wish I'd seen it. The audience apologising for the front of house guy - clearly bemused by what it should have sounded like, but we didn't take our sound guy because this was one of those no outside engineers on the desk jobs. Trouble is that doesn't work for us. Quite a nice sound system actually, but it would be lovely, just once, to have an older FOH person who knew the music and could mix it sympathetically. The band before us were another from the same era, but British rather than American, and they had the same issues.

 

There is clearly a new slap-dash one-size fits all approach - do the sound check/line check - then turn on a compressor on every source, put the faders in a row and don't touch. Keyboards with volume pedals are a killer for this - our keys player stomps on the loud pedal and ...... nothing happens, then when he eases right back, his background noodling comes through everywhere full volume. I'm singing a harmony part and I can suddenly hear everyone listening to me, and the actual tune has gone.

 

So far, I think the score is about 6:0 this summer to the sound guys - they won every time and not a thing we can do about it. I've tried being persistent between songs "can I have..." but that sounds horrible for the audience and clearly often they simply wave and do nothing. I've now developed the system of just trying to guess what I'm playing. I played 6 bars in the wrong key yesterday. It was over-running and we had to savage the set list while playing. Two similar songs, and I started the wrong one. 6 bars before the others were staring madly at me and I realised. What I do know is that if I were out front, I would not do this to bands. The girl who had a go at him says she recorded it on her phone - I hope she puts it on facebook.

[Stuart91]

we didn't take our sound guy because this was one of those no outside engineers on the desk jobs.

 

Wow - I didn't realise that was a thing.

 

It's never occurred to me that forbidding band engineers access was an option. Sure, we've had to throw the occasional drunk/completely incompetent person off, but a blanket policy forbidding anybody else from touching the desk? Wow.

 

What you should perhaps do in these situations, Paul, is bring your own sound guy along, and have him stand over the shoulder of the house engineer and dictate every change in setting. I suspect they'd stand aside soon enough.

[timsabre]

My experience of smaller events, especially with multiple stages, is that you get the less experienced crew on the smaller stages while the best people do the "main" stage (or if the PA company has multiple shows out that day). They know what all the knobs do but they do not know how to mix a band. Frustrating though.

[Stuart91]

less experienced crew on the smaller stages while the best people do the "main" stage (or if the PA company has multiple shows out that day).

 

And I suppose the less experienced crew aren't as likely to be able to deal with a band engineer's requests, or "encourage" a beligerent one to keep a lid on things. I can see the reason for a blanket policy.

 

But from Paul's description, it seems that by any objective standard, what they provided sucked. So there's got to be a better option somehow...

[MarkPAman]

If your sound person turns up to a festival I'm on, then I'll grab my iPad and act the monitor engineer, at least for the first few numbers to get the band happy faster.

 

Then I may take a break, as I probably need one! In my experience these days, the money's not there to pay a 2nd technician so I can be mixing/line checking, pretty much 9 - 12 hours straight through. Shouldn't happen, but as you say, it is what it is.

[paulears]

It was what it was - just annoying when they work like this - and hide an HD24 in a rack too, to record the gig. Ironically, an older guy in charge backstage and he was really good - but one of the others earlier in the afternoon said to the audience "This one features Anna (or other girls name)" and then they say the song, with her remaining the BV and the guy singing BVs plain as hell in the mix. The sound guy understood his desk, knew how to do the round of Vox and instruments in our own and others mixes - yet once we started, his attention wavered - presumably as they were ready for a hard de-rig after our set. This is the text I've just seen posted on our Facebook page.

Well done for tonight's gig. Second time we have seen you (the first was a few years ago in the rain at Kentwell Hall. That was still an amazing show though!). I enjoyed tonight and glad to win your CD (which we listened to on the drive home!), though I think the festival were shockingly bad at getting the sound levels right for you. We could not hear your drummer sing at all (a shame as he sang one of my wife's favourite Beach Boys songs!). The sound people were rubbish for XXXXXX as well, the vocals were hard to hear. Apart from that well done!

 

If you look at much of the modern music, it's a band and a vocalist, with sometimes BVs. Older music might mix in a brass section, but much of the stuff from the 60s - Beatles, Beach Boys, Kinks and others had lots of people singing at the same time - and not always BVs In our band, for instance, the person who sings the first exposed line is NOT the lead singer, because from verse 1 he is doing harmonies, the lead being passed to someone else. We actually provide a set list with these changes on it, but they don't get it at all. 4 faders in a row, with compression doesn't allow people to back off the mic and the result is a mess. It's often quite amusing to find the audience singing along loudly and the FOH person wondering what is going on?

[alistermorton]

Not just small gigs - I saw manic Street Preachers recently at Wembley arena and it was the muddiest bass heavy sound I've ever heard them with (and I've seen them several times before, including at the same venue) with vocals sometimes being completely lost (kind of important, that, being able to hear the vocals).

[i_hate_fisicks]

I've never understood why there are so many people working in sound who are so useless at it. It winds me up on many levels as both an engineer and musician.

 

I've never heard of a no engineer policy either, what madness is that. Most events I've worked on there are so many guest engineers that if a band doesn't bring one, then I relish the chance to mix.

 

If you don't want to mix the bands, go and work conferences or something!

[Shez]

I've never understood why there are so many people working in sound who are so useless at it. It winds me up on many levels as both an engineer and musician.

 

Yep, me too.

 

I assume money comes in to it somewhere. If the festival (or whatever) happens and nobody dies, then it's considered a success. There are a couple of companies in these parts that do quite a lot of these events and are generally terrible but keep being booked year after year. I can only assume they're cheap as I can't conceive of any other reason for the repeat bookings. Everybody grumbles about the sound but either that never makes it to the ears of those in charge or they just ignore it. Baffling.

[sandall]

If you don't want to mix the bands, go and work conferences or something!

Please don't - if you can't tell who's singing on a small stage, you are probably going to make a dogs-dinner of a top-table as well.

[themadhippy]

The x32 and its ilk are to blame,now any idiot can afford a desk they can use with there existing disco rig and call themselves a pa company for the weekend,returning to there 9-5 job during the week.

but we didn't take our sound guy because this was one of those no outside engineers on the desk jobs

No engineer=No band

[Seano]

I've never understood why there are so many people working in sound who are so useless at it.

 

That is something that is *far* from unique to sound.

[Stuart91]

I agree with Sean, every industry has its idiots. However it's interesting that we appear to suffer so many, in relatively prominent positions. Whilst 1000-3000 is still a "small" festival, it's a lot of people to be disappointed by incompetence.

 

I'm not sure why anyone would choose audio as a career if they have no interest in mixing a band. It's certainly not for the money, holiday entitlement, or sociable hours. I appreciate that the guy mixing Paul's set on Saturday may not have been a fan of the genre. I find myself mixing plenty of acts that I wouldn't buy on iTunes, but I enjoy the challenge of doing it properly. Whether it's thrash metal or classical, it's always an engaging exercise. Just ignoring the vocal mix seems like a dereliction of duty to me - if I'd had reports like that about any of my staff their "jacket would be on a shoogly nail" as we say.

[timsabre]

It is often due to the punishing schedule of festivals - the crew are all knackered (or inadequate provision/rotation of crew, however you want to look at it).

Last night you were doing a get out till 2am. Up at 6 this morning to load this one in, running round like a loony getting everything working. Show starts, phew chance for a sit down for a few hours before the get out starts again. It's not a lack of interest in the audio so much as complete exhaustion.

 

Shouldn't be like that, and I'm sure most people didn't sign up for that when they went into live audio, but a lot of them are. Someone I know once referred to it as "the hamster wheel of live events" and it does feel like that sometimes, especially in festival season.

[Stuart91]

Good point Tim, I know I certainly don't produce my best mixes when utterly exhausted.

 

It's funny though how this wouldn't translate elsewhere. If I hired someone in to tile my bathroom, and they made a wonky, crazy-paving mess of it, I wouldn't be happy, and I wouldn't be consoled any by tales of how horrible their schedule had been over the past few weeks.

 

Whoever organised the festival Paul played at must know that the sound was poor. Their options for next year, I suppose, are to pay more money for a company that will organise a better crew roster/ more staff, or to rebook the same people and hope that things fall a bit more in their favour next time around.

 

Why does it always seem to be the latter option? Yes, there's not much money around, but if your audience can't hear the vocals on the headline act then they're a lot less likely to come back next time, surely decent sound pays off in the long run.