Etiquette when sharing a desk

[ferrisio]

Hello, quite a vague request here. I am a recording engineer mainly, but had a 5 year stint as a touring musician in a signed band playing reasonable-sized gigs around Europe. I still do a bit of work with the band, providing the PA and engineering for local gigs up to about 300 capacity. It is good fairly easy work as I know the band/set/sound and they usually play a single 90 minute set with no support.

 

I am travelling with them again more and engineering at larger venues, but some of the gigs booked are at festivals or gigs with multiple bands on the bill. Have any of you pro touring guys OR (from the other point of view) house engineers got any tips to help me work with you better? :)

 

My act is the headline act about 90% of the time, I'm thinking along the lines of - sharing channels on the desk, its a 3-piece band with 2 IEMs and 1 conventional monitor mix, and we only need about 14 channels. What is acceptable to ask to be left alone, what do I have to share?

 

EQs - Can I just dive in and start tweaking the FOH graphic or is it a faux pas? Should I expect the wedges to be rung out? Can I ask the house guy to set up the mics on stage for me? Will he get offended if I get up there and tweak them? (I am very fussy on mic placement!)

 

Anyway, I hope this doesn't start a flamefest or something, I am just trying to better myself and work well with other people, as I have been lucky enough to have been left to my own devices up til now!!

 

Cheers!

[holly]

Really all depends on the situation. Are you foh or monitor or both, change over time, and are you using anolgue or digital? I think that in your situation you will end up with someone on stage setting up the backline/mics for you and you should have a 64 channel desk (if anolgue) so depending on the other bands you should have 14 channels of your own you might have to share a few.

If your using digital it's just a case of saving the settings from the sound check and then pressing recall. (in house engineer will help).

 

All the equipment will or should be rung out and working when you get there.

 

My advise is that you should make sure you have good communication with stage and to carry a digital camera. This way you can take a picture of the desk settings so that you can look at the picture and put your settings back to the same as you had at sound check.

 

Failing this some bands tour there own foh desk and then send a left and right to the main desk.

 

hope this helps

[ferrisio]

Thanks for the reply! I am always FOH, and it is rare for us to have a monitor desk except at festivals. The digital camera idea is fantastic, could be a real timesaver too. Glad to hear it is not unreasonable to have a chunk of channels to myself too!

 

Anyone else? Keep 'em coming!

[holly]

I forgot to warn you if you have a chunk of channels to yourself it proberly means you will need to repatch. Personally I would do this myself at the desk end so make sure that everything is labeled up and that you have a patch sheet

of some kind.

[lightsource]

The digital camera idea is fantastic, could be a real timesaver too. Glad to hear it is not unreasonable to have a chunk of channels to myself too!

 

Make sure the LCD screen on the camera is big enough to 'usefully' see the console settings, otherwise you'll need a printer of sorts to get a useful image.

[ferrisio]

The digital camera idea is fantastic, could be a real timesaver too. Glad to hear it is not unreasonable to have a chunk of channels to myself too!

 

Make sure the LCD screen on the camera is big enough to 'usefully' see the console settings, otherwise you'll need a printer of sorts to get a useful image.

Aha! Thought of that - I take my laptop with me as I tend to download the manuals for desks/kit I haven't used before, so I can just bang the pics on the laptop screen and zoom in to my hearts content. Good tip!

[Rob_Beech]

64 Channels is not overly practical is it, and probably not going to happen, especially if the gig doesn't carry a monitor board.

 

I think this is a very interesting question and I'm looking forward to some good discussion points on it.

 

my views are that each person needs to work together be they a headlining act or support act, its important everyone knows what they're doing and what everyone else is doing. With quick changeover times it may be impractical to repatch and in alot of cases un-necessary. With digital boards this is so simple, a quick recall here and away you go, all the settings are as you want them. You may find with analogue boards that patching in your own eq or other outboard is easier, though often if the system is setup properly you shouldn't need to. Find out what desk is being used before hand, know its limits, know its size, have a crib sheet printed off ready.

 

Put the mics where you want them, its your band, but again don't be silly with this, use some common sense and work TOGETHER. if someone else is micing up the stage, ask them to do it how you want it done. Don't worry, you are not telling them how to do their job, you are just asking them to do it a specific way, dont be afraid to adjust a drum mic after they've done it, everyone works differently, your job is to prove to them that doing what you did works :)

 

 

Then comes the gigs when you have no soundcheck. What do you do? do you get your 14 flat channels and stumble through the first song with nothing in the mix? or do you use the last bands setup as a starting point. You know the vocals were in the mix (and if they weren't you know what to do before you start), vocals, kick drum, bass guitar and you have a show. then push the rest into the mix.

 

 

Rob

[jim b]

Top things to sort out before you even get to the gig:

 

1. Send a reasonable spec out. (Including: stage plan, channel list, preferred mics, locations for inserts, contact details)

2. Do your utmost to speak to the PA provider enough time before the gig to iron out any problems and agree any changes (substitutions will happen) to your spec

 

Channels wise at a festival it probably won't matter as your change over and line check will probably be one and the same. Therefore most of the time it's change what you need to change.

 

FOH EQ is a matter for whoever is running the FOH end of the snake for the provider. Sometimes you'll be given a guest EQ and told to leave the system EQ alone. Basically it's polite to ask what needs to stay the same and what you can change. Being polite and knowing exactly what you need is important.

 

On fast turnaround stages remember that you've got to get out front so you may have to choose to be anal about your mic positioning whilst trusting the FOH tech to line check it all for you or going with the flow with regards mics and actually hearing them before the band hits the stage.

 

The absolute worst thing you can do when guys are under pressure is to turn up late, with a band that is massively different to the spec and to keep changing your mind about placement on the stage.

 

For larger conventional gigs it's a case of being reasonable. The band you're doing doesn't sound like they're the kind of headliner who are pulling in several thousand punters by themselves so it's helpful to remember that the promoter will only be able to pay for a certain amount of kit. This often makes it impractical to not share any channels. As ever the secret is to compromise. On smaller rigs you will have to share channels...try and encourage people to share things where EQs aren't going to be hugely different band to band and which you can chart easily. If you're doing monitors from FOH I wouldn't recommend the lead vocal monitor channel :)

 

In both cases you should rock up to a rig which is at the best the techs can make it in the time available to them. So wedges should be stable and rung out and FOH should sound good. If your band has specific requirements (e.g. a singer who needs a wedge that doesn't sound nice but goes as loud as possible without feeding back) then you should be tweaking from a good starting point.

 

The easiest check to see if your requests are reasonable is "would I think this was acceptable if I was the tech?". Offering to help if things need to be changed never goes down badly.

[Rob_Beech]

Wise Words.

 

A crew are more likely to help you more if you've just given them a chuck onto the stage with the drum riser.

 

As for monitors, this is often the reason we use desks with so many auxes. We can repatch them if necessary. We don't always expect to use all 16 on a band, although its been known.

[minty]

A well worded rider is, imho one of the most important things. I think in many cases this sets the tone for the working relationship with the crew / pa provider etc.

 

A rider that is polite, succinct and that leaves flexibility will generally be better received than one which is full of demands that may not be practical and leaves no room for manoeuvre.

 

Personally I find that if you finish your rider with something along the lines of 'if any this is a problem, or can't be achieved give me a call and we'll sort something out. Tel xxxxx xxxxxx' You can't go to far wrong.

 

Hope that may be some form of help,

 

Martin

[phil dekked]

Good advice ^^^

 

Just to add ...see if there`s a "generic" patch going on that can be re-patched at the desk rather than a mad re-patch on stage? Having a word with the system tech as early as possible is a good start and making sure the rider has been sent and read by ALL the crew will def` make for a smoother event !

If I`m doing the stage end a helpful BE who lets us loosely place mics then wades in to get his placements is great as long as we know that`s what he wants to do. A distant "Voice of God" in the wedges telling us the x,y,z co-ordinates of the drum hi-hat mic is not gonna be well received!

 

So as said above and everywhere else ...make friends not enemies and it`ll be a gas!

 

 

 

.p.

 

 

Oh...

 

I`m doing another community festival tommorow ( engineer / stage hand/ system tech) where no riders / info have been provided. It`s really frustrating and also embarrasing to have to meet / greet performers at the side of stage and then ask " so what are we setting up?" all because the promoters don`t release the info to keep the stage costs down ( we might...horror of horror have to bring more specialist mics / outboard etc etc!). So make sure that the rider communication reaches those who need it most!

 

Rant over ! :(