Ideas for riders

[paulears]

With frustrated hat firmly on, I'm putting together a new rider for gigs with "PA supplied".

 

We require 4 independent mixes and floor wedges/iem feeds. Please note this does not mean 4 mixes, two for us and two for the DJ/support. It does not mean 4 wedges all linked together and it does not mean wedges plugged into the empty socket on the back of the PA cabs.

 

Please note that after the soundcheck it is NOT ok to swap mics for different makes or types and after the soundcheck is done adding a compressor to each monitor send is BAD.

 

On the subject of compressors, please note that most of our music was from an era where compressors hadn't been invented and we don't like them - at all. We quite like the sound of our drums and vocals all squashed. Worse is that to help the person trying to balance our sound, when moving from lead to harmony vocals we move into or away from the mic to allow the mixer to do their job. Adding a cranked up compressor does prevent this working and sound horrible, although we realise the idea of a set an forget mix is appealed. It just doesn't work. Also not the keyboard player is busy. Standing on his volume pedal really does mean he's like the next bit louder, and the volume control on top does get wiggles a lot. Over zealous compression means he cannot do this. If he stands on the pedal hard and hears no change he thinks he has broken something and starts to fiddle. We'd like to prevent this. The idea of our soundcheck is to make it how we want. Please don't try to improve it when we've gone, because you won't!

 

PS we really don't need the bass guitar and kick drum to act as a defibrillator if any of us peg out it will be from natural causes not the shock of hearing your innards jump!

 

Try to remember that when our music was first being played PA systems did not have bass, did not have a mic on every drum!

[Wilflet]

 

 

Please note that after the soundcheck it is NOT ok to swap mics for different makes or types

 

it really worries me you feel that needs pointing out.

[StevenW2]

Seems to me it's not so much how the rider is worded but that you should be travelling with your own engineer and not relying on house engineers!

[Doug Siddons]

One of the downsides to digital, seeing as every channel has comps and limiters ect on it well we may as well use them those flashing lights/bars look really good and proves we're doing stuff and know our onions! http://www.blue-room.org.uk/public/style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif

 

In earlior days we could only afford a couple of outside gates and comps so used them much more sparingly

[paulears]

Wherever we can we do take everything but often there would have ended up being lots of PAs and no room. As it was the space was filled with two separate systems so sharing makes sense plus on flying gigs it's common to have back line and drums provided too- the size restriction on instruments means a guitar can go in the cabin under the musician allowance but a bass is too big. We do take our sound man but frequently they will not be allowed to mix. When we do it all ourselves were usually happy but PA provided contracts are a toss up and not much you can do. Did you know beta 58s are rubbish? Old dented grill sm58s sound better. News to me!

[Wilflet]

<br /> We do take our sound man but frequently they will not be allowed to mix.<br />

<br /><br /><br />

 

well theres your problem, surely this is something you need to nail down at the contract phase.

 

Sending a rider worded like that falls down if

a) the PA provider/promoter for the event dosnt pass riders intact onto those on site (on smaller scale shows where some acts wont be sending a coherant rider/it may have been a phone call/email/text Its not uncommon that as an onsite person what I'll receive is a spreadsheet with inputs and mics/stands to be prepped for all the acts, maybe with contact details for each act/engineer on the bottom, long wordy bits like that the office would probably interpret as "dont be an idiot" and not pass on)

b) The type of "engineers" likely to mess you up with "knowing best" are probably going to disregard your rider anyway.

 

If youve got an engineer that knows your sound he really should be doing the shows whoevers PA it is.

[Hugh]

What sort of shows are you doing? I am shocked, I thought the days when bands own engineers were not allowed to mix were long gone, you should make it a condition on your contract that your engineer mixes the show. I regularly do FOH for a very well known 60,s tribute band, anyone who tried to prevent me mixing the show would be laughed at. The band insist on using their engineer, because otherwise you often get someone trying to turn it in a Heavy Rock or Drum and Bass show. Mixing is about being appropriate, not thinking people will be impressed if you can move more air than anyone else. Any engineer who is so insecure in their own work that they can't cope with letting someone else on the desk should not be babysitting a system. If it is the venue insisting on this, then I can only assume that the system frequently gets damaged because it is wholly inadequate for the type of shows they put on.

[RichM]

With the band I currently do FOH for it's very simple, if I don't get to mix then they don't play. It's been a while since I've had to go through this argument though.

[paulears]

At the venue we operate, we really don't mind visiting people work our kit. Fair enough, we do get waspy when they abuse it, but in general that is rare. However, a small proportion of shows, usually the private function ones, can cause problems - despite a comprehensive rider, and phone calls to check. Obviously - and I need to make sure readers recognise the rider was very tongue in cheek and a retort to a few of the issue we've had. We still do have events where we cannot get access to mix - and even giving them a detailed running order for each song with hints and clues fails. Hugh's comment on Heavy Rock and D&B is exactly the problem. Our band is also a 60s tribute, and that gut wrenching bass sound is 100% wrong for us. I usually spot it when you hear the PA people doing the 'one-two' with a huge emphasis on 'CHEW', with the bassy end to the W, as in oooo. We're more interested in the 'tt' sound, clear bright harmonies up the top. Worse still is the fact that at many corporates, the PA position is where a theatre style monitor mixer would be, and the best they can get is by walking occasionally in front of the speakers, then going back and making changes by guesswork. Being frank, you can put what you like in the rider, but when you don't get it, RicnM's walking solution just isn't on. Not if you expect a repeat booking that is. For these PA supplied gigs, I can't use my IEMs, because if they mess up the monitor mix, you are stuffed. Our drummer uses the IEMs to protect his hearing, and as he also does the falsetto singing, he needs to hear himself. Slapping a compressor on his IEMs means as soon as he sings, the music drops out - and there's nothing he can do. We always prefer to take our PA, but the extra expense means that some smaller venues are then out, because we cannot afford the extra hire cost of a van, fuel and other extras. A locally sourced PA often means the promoter can make the event pay.

 

There is also a snag for us in that there just are not any experienced sound people available in our area - indeed, this summer I'm severely stuffed for finding people for our band, and the summer theatre. Being a holiday area, every one of the audio people I know, are working. We have just lost our regular sound man, so we have a few bookings where we have the choice of using the PA supplied ops, or nothing. Our local college, who are running a sound foundation degree don't have a single student interested, and although the local network is really quite good, nobody is free. We have a booking coming up in Abhu Dhabi and none of our preferred people are available. Our sound man has just given up the industry, and become an estate agent - because the money is so much better!

 

So many younger sound people have only got experience of loud, and heavy bands, and we don't want them. We want people who look at the venue, and decide that an overhead and snare will be fine, and not waste time on mics that will never have a fader raised!

 

 

I'm pretty surprised that few students seem to understand older music.

 

The reality is that money is tight, and travelling a round trip of 600 miles with two vehicles rather than one means PA supplied is attractive. We're using a VW vehicle our local hire place have, that has seating in comfort for 5, crew bus style - but we can fill the back without the PA. We are now considering something like a mix-wiz, and a Behringer A/D so we can use the P16s we use with the X32 we normally use with our PA - then we could do the balancing ourselves, and feed the L+R to them so we can set the balance of vocals ourselves, then give the PA people an Left and Right, pre-mixed. It would be fairly simple to then do the shift in lead vocals between songs. The extra kit would fit in the van. It's sad that some people cannot seem to mix more than one genre of music, because they don't understand the differences.

[Stuart91]

I can see how carrying a full PA is out of the question for many gigs, but could you look into carrying your own mixer, mics, and IEMs? If you incorporate a mic split too, you could have the option of mixing your own monitors from stage, and letting the house guy do FOH, or just feed left and right, or run into the PA directly if they seem incompetent.

[paulears]

The trouble is the size of the flightcase for the X32 is not that large, but still pushes the space, plus the rack with the in-ears and S16 is still quite chunky - especially as ours also has monitor amps in it. Too much for the space available.

[J Pearce]

Instead of a mix wiz and AD, how about a X32 compact or even X32 rack (due immenently I believe)?

If the show is largely the same every night then the P16s could do your monitors and you could then send preprocessed stems from the X32 rack to the house engineer.

The X32 could sit in your monitor rack.

[paulears]

Good idea - BUT - I'm not really going to convince a key band member that digital mixing is for him ....... yet. We already have a Soundcraft LX7, a Peavey FX24 and an A+H laying around, so no extra expenditure needed.

 

 

I still think I'm going to really add 'NO compressors' to the real rider.

 

If there is anyone from my part of the world reading this (as in Lowestoft/Yarmouth/Norwich), who is NOT a metal merchant and fancies mixing for us - do give me a shout - some foreign stuff coming up in November, with UK stuff until then.

[kurzweil_dude]

I see your frustration, but get it out your system before you construct your rider.

Writing your frustration into a naggy rider is only ever going to cause more issues.

As a house eng, when you receive a rider from an act that's written sarcastically to the point of negativity and over patronizing it sets a sour taste before the gigs even begun.

Instead try give a brief outline to the sound the acts trying to achieve, diagrams and well constructed instructions will help with the apparent moni issues you've been having.

 

EG

Replace:

We require 4 independent mixes and floor wedges/iem feeds. Please note this does not mean 4 mixes, two for us and two for the DJ/support. It does not mean 4 wedges all linked together and it does not mean wedges plugged into the empty socket on the back of the PA cabs.

With

We require 4 independent mixes and floor wedges/iem feeds.

Mix 1 (SR Bass), Mix 2 (C Vox & Rhythm GTR), Mix 3 (SL Lead GTR), Mix 4 Drums IEM.

 

One other thought is don't write pages of instructions on how to mix the band, its beyond patronizing. You're talking to someone whos paid to engineer, they're going to generally have a fair idea of what they need to do. If you start patronizing them, they're gonna be a whole lot less likely to comply and work with you effectively.

[the kid]

I see your frustration, but get it out your system before you construct your rider.

Writing your frustration into a naggy rider is only ever going to cause more issues.

As a house eng, when you receive a rider from an act that's written sarcastically to the point of negativity and over patronizing it sets a sour taste before the gigs even begun.

Instead try give a brief outline to the sound the acts trying to achieve, diagrams and well constructed instructions will help with the apparent moni issues you've been having.

 

EG

Replace:

We require 4 independent mixes and floor wedges/iem feeds. Please note this does not mean 4 mixes, two for us and two for the DJ/support. It does not mean 4 wedges all linked together and it does not mean wedges plugged into the empty socket on the back of the PA cabs.

With

We require 4 independent mixes and floor wedges/iem feeds.

Mix 1 (SR Bass), Mix 2 (C Vox & Rhythm GTR), Mix 3 (SL Lead GTR), Mix 4 Drums IEM.

 

One other thought is don't write pages of instructions on how to mix the band, its beyond patronizing. You're talking to someone whos paid to engineer, they're going to generally have a fair idea of what they need to do. If you start patronizing them, they're gonna be a whole lot less likely to comply and work with you effectively.

 

 

Not ever read Richard Cheeses rider then :P

 

There is a bit of an obscure line between what is ok to ask for and what is not/excessive imho, and to explain "we have had issues in the past so please call us" this at the top is 100% ok.

 

A band insisting on 4 simple wedges is more than ok,