cheddatom

2 hours ago, WinterMute said:

...Good musicians are worth their weight in gold, good drummers doubly so.

Absolutely! The worst session of my career so far was down to a drummer. It was pretty straight forward rock music. The guy only knew how to play a sort of bouncy indie beat, which worked for one track, but none of the others. I tried to get him to play appropriate beats. I'd sort of beat-box the beat to him on the talk back, he'd say he got it, then when I hit record he'd play the same beat as before. I'd say "no, that's not it" and go show him the beat on the kit. He'd say he got it, and then do the same again. Over and over we went until I gave up and accepted the one beat he could play. Unfortunately, as the guide tracks were to a click, and the guy started drinking white lightening at 9AM, to get him anywhere near in time took a hell of a lot of editing. The band sacked him that night and I played the drum tracks for them the next morning - 6 songs in an hour.

Obviously when he turned up with literally no gear (no sticks even) I should have cancelled the session, but again, I needed the money!

2 minutes ago, WinterMute said:

Just out of interest, and I expect the answer is "turnover", but why would you accept a booking from a band that ill-disciplined a second time?

Yep, I needed the money!

Something common to loads of bands/sessions - people in the control room start singing or playing along the to the song, which I'm inevitably going to stop before it gets to the end, giving those awkward moments when people carry on playing or singing for a couple of beats after I've hit stop. I get that you're excited to hear your songs, but think of the poor red-faced engineer!

The band from the first post were in again this weekend. The "boss" told me that they were only doing a couple of straightforward rock 'n' roll numbers and it should be easy to get them done in the day. I breathed a massive sigh of relief. It turns out his definition of "a couple" is actually 4 songs, and once again, they rushed, and didn't get everything done. 

Everything I suggested, he repeated as though it was his idea, but everyone could hear us both

Every time he played or sang, he told us all "that was pretty much perfect". Every time he said it, I said "even if you do say so yourself". The other band members giggled, but it didn't phase him a bit

Working on drum tracks, I would stop the drummer and start talking to him over the talkback mic, but we'd be unable to hear each other because "the boss" was loudly exclaiming how perfect the drumming was. I had to wait until he'd finished complimenting the drummer, before I could explain what was wrong with the drums, which felt very awkward indeed

They brought a non-band member to the session. He just sat in the control room the whole time and said nothing

We did the Gifford Arms in Wolverhampton on Saturday night. I've been having some serious stress recently and was really looking forward to a few beers, a curry, and playing f|_|ck out of the drums.

Google maps directed us to the wrong side of the pedestrianised high street. 20 minutes of manoeuvring and bickering about signage and fines later, we got to the back door of the pub. The load in was punishing and I was drenched and out of breath by the end of it. Our roadie stood on a bench to hang up some merch, and the sound engineer immediately told him to get down. Apparently it was a health and safety concern. A little alert went off in my head and so I opted for my quieter, dampened snare drum, just in time for him to start telling us that we'd need to keep the stage volume down. There are only 2 monitors, one at each edge of the front of the stage. Our guitarist doesn't use an amp, and all 4 of us sing, so it was quite a challenge to get a sound. 

The engineer insisted our bassist turn down to almost zero, but then fed a load of bass through the stage monitors, making them work far too hard, and making it weird on stage with no low end. We play a lot of gigs, so we're used to compromise and the occasional sub-par PA, but this engineer was talking to us in a very patronising manner, as though it was our first gig. I'm sure he sensed the frustration as after our sound check he tried to win us round "That was amazing guys, is that song on spotify? I love it" etc. 🙄

The support bands turned up, and we start discussing kit share and stage space between ourselves, which is all pretty normal, but then the engineer started speaking to the whole room, over the PA. When he realised we were still talking to each other, he turned up, and literally said "lend me your ears for just a minute" in a tone that I can only describe as "caricature of bingo caller". He wanted to tell everyone the stage times, and the very strict load-out times. Obviously you'd usually get this info from the promoter/rep before hand, and maybe on the night too, but I've never had it announced at top volume over the PA by a sound engineer. It was all very bizarre

Anyway, we trudged off through the rain to find a curry. We failed. I got some chips. I don't think I've ever been that grumpy getting on stage before, but as usual, the crowd cheered me right up. Ace gig, and by all accounts the sound was excellent, so I guess the engineer knew what he was doing (although our bassist turned up quite a lot, and I switched to my louder, un-damped snare drum). 

Nightmare load out through a wasted crowd but paid and home before 1AM

On 10/03/2024 at 02:57, StingRayBoy42 said:

TONIGHT!
The Meathead's Arms in Wolverhampton (a fight every night or your money back) with 5 piece girl singer pop music band!
(We go out under different names because of something something different agencies something... I don't like to ask)
Dep singer, lovely lass, worked with her before, ex-bandmate of the others, she's basically one of the lads.
Unfortunately, she'd not got the memo about no dress code, so she was was dressed up like (her words) a high-class prostitute and the rest of us were in scruffy T-shirts and jeans.
The football was on when we got there- the smell of testosterone, Ben Sherman shirts and poor quality cocaine made for an electric atmosphere.
Load in and setup all pretty normal, nice big stage area so I set up next to the drummer to keep him company.
A fair few people in, mostly ignoring us and waiting for Match of the Day to start so we treated it like a paid practice.
First set we played really well apart from Toxic which we messed up worse than Britney messed up 2007, luckily no-one was listening so we got away with it.
Second set had a couple of dancers and a few tables at the back seemed to be enjoying it.
The drummer and I had a great time while the keys player was frantically doing FOH sound, sorting out clicks, cueing the singer and occasionally playing some keys.

Highlights were the two Dua Lipa ones (Levitating and Don't start now) which are a blast to play, Murder on the Dancefloor (new one which we all complained about but now love) and Crazy in Love/Crazy mashup which I've FINALLY sussed out (It's really very simple, it goes 6, 4, 2. 8, 8, (4) 8, 10, Crazy, loads, 4(*), ending. Simple.) The drummer loves that one and plays it like he's getting paid by the note.

It was the first public outing of my new improved enormous pedalboard (NIEPB) which sounded fantastic - the SA C4 patch for Toxic is brilliant (shame we totally buggered the song up, but the Bass sounded great), the EBS Multicomp gives the sound a fat, round, warm punch in the guts but in a good way and I'm fairly sure the two metres of retina-destroying pink LEDs make it sound extra fabulous.
(It's not quite finished - when a certain online retailer who shall remain nameless bothers to post me the stuff I ordered over a week ago, I can hook up the patchbay AND have all matching red patch leads. Obviously, you can't tell they're red, what with the two metres of retina-destroying pink LEDs, but still...)

Played the 5 String 'Ray which is still a work in progress - I did find myself reverting to using the B as an expensive thumb rest when I switched to autopilot, but Rome wasn't burnt in a day and all that.

Second outing of the weekend for the rainbow Converse, foot fans!

Paid cash, shipping forecast on the way home, back about 1 for last nights curry with a pint of Westons Reserve (8.2% ABV), an Old Fashioned (Lots of ice, much bourbon (usually Maker's Mark but Four Roses tonight), sugar syrup (use maple syrup for a really good one), Angostura Bitters, lots of stirring and a twist of orange peel over the top) and most importantly of all, desperately seeking validation from strangers on the internet.

Cheers. Same again, please.

You did char the orange peel right?

19 minutes ago, chris_b said:

 

The last time I played there I got a parking ticket behind the 100 Club. That was the first time I ever saw a warden back there!!

I think you have to wait until after 5 or 6pm to park there? We've never had a ticket anyway

When we play in London we all go in one van, pay the congestion charge and any parking fees. We never seem to have a problem loading in, or finding somewhere nearby to park. It always seems fine to me!

Burslem is pretty much dead. I doubt this will do anything to help but but if it's going to attract Rayman all the way from Macclesfield you never know! 

54 minutes ago, jimmyb625 said:

Sorry to hear that. We have exactly the same problem. We can get a fairly decent crowd locally, but outside of our "area" we're pretty much unknown.

 

Still, at least those 50 people will have enjoyed it and hopefully will get some interest coming your way in future.

Yeh we definitely won some new fans. It would have made sense if we'd picked up another gig in London, which was on the cards, but didn't happen in the end

We drove from Stoke to Margate on Saturday. 5 hours with a couple of stops. Olby's Soul Cafe is a brilliant venue! Great PA and the engineer was brilliant too. Unfortunately the choice of some unknown band from Stoke to headline a night in Margate didn't work out so well. The old story of a local support band bringing most of the crowd, then taking them with them after the set. All that way, writing off two full days, to play to less than 50 people... still, at least we got paid and had a laugh

Duffy's bar in Leicester on Saturday night. It was rammed and super sweaty. I'd annoyed the sound engineer yet again! This time I moved the drum monitor before he'd arrived. It turned out this monitor was knackered, and rather than fix it, he'd found just the right angle to balance it on a bar stool and keep it working. It'd been working for months apparently! After the show I politely recommended that if he didn't want to fix it, he should put a "do not move" sign on it. 

Anyway, I played without a monitor and it sounded fine on stage. Great gig!

2 minutes ago, dmccombe7 said:

Can't have been too bad then as quite a decent sized crowd and they look as tho they are well into it.

Sound Engineers are a hit or a miss and this guy sounds as tho he doesn't really know what he's doing.

Just move on and if you return there either take your own SE or just accept its gonna be a difficult sound check again. Maybe whoever he was on the phone to could come along and do the sound for you. 

Apart from the fact your vocal mic was muted i'd put this down as a successful gig.

Dave

Yeh it was definitely a successful gig!

This soundguy normally works at the other local venue, which was his excuse for all the problems, although both venues have the same desk... Anyway, issues with the bar and door staff mean that our fans would never go to this venue again (even longer story!), so it's not going to be an issue for us in the future

We played at The Sugarmill in Hanley (Stoke) on Saturday night. It's our first headline gig here and the local venue so it felt like there was a bit more pressure than usual, that plus the lack of gigs since November, and it would be my first time on BVs, all gave me some nerves

When I arrived, I greeted the soundguy. We're on first name terms and I thought we were pretty friendly, but the first thing he said is "what ridiculous gear have you brought this time then?". I explained it's just my usual stuff but he seemed really annoyed for some reason. I set up the kit and the whole band were ready to go in 10 minutes as usual. Then the soundguy spent 30 minutes plugging everything in. While he was mic'ing the kit I showed him my nice new cymbal. He's a drummer so I thought he'd be interested. He said "oh, so that'll be dominating the whole room then!". I said "not really mate, it's the way you play them" to which he replied "Yeh, which is F&*KING LOUD!!!". I asked if he'd ever done the sound for us before, and he confirmed he hadn't, so he'd have absolutely no idea how loud I'm going to play my cymbals. I just let it go. 

So, all mic'd up, he tried to get sound. He had the main outs from his mixer routed to the centre vocal wedges. I explained that it all sounded weird and that my drums shouldn't be feeding back but he just cracked on, sweeping EQ on the drum mics for a solid 15 minutes. Bass was checked just fine, but guitars (just DI'd) sounded weird and kept feeding back. I asked him to turn the stage monitors off just to check there wasn't an issue, and this is when he finally figured out the mains were routed to the two centre wedges. Half an hour to who knows on the phone and he reckoned it was sorted, so we went back on to sound check. All fine except the lead singer can't hear himself. There's sound out of the centre wedges, but it's quiet and muffled. The soundguy told me I needed to play the drums quieter. I explained that it's never an issue and we play similar sized venues all the time. He finally came up to hear the vocal in the wedges and agreed it sounded wrong, and so after another long phone call figured out that he should have used a different cable for these wedges. FINALLY everything worked and we did our check in less than 10 minutes, but from setting up to completing sound check was pretty much 2 hours. 

After this check the soundguy approaches me to tell me that my bass drum is a nightmare. "oh, what's the problem?" I ask and he complains it has "no top end". I screwed up my face and said "we're not playing metal mate". Then I went home to change and try to forget the sound check

The actual gig was awesome, loads of people in, loads of people singing along, an encore... just an awesome gig all round. A couple of my mates were there, and they said it sounded OK but that my vocal mic was muted! All that practise and all those nerves for nothing!

A wonderful session of lead vocals yesterday. This singer hates headphones and asked if there was a way to record without. Some engineers would refuse, others would try to set up a super accurate out of phase monitor system, I just handed him the SM7b, put my earplugs in, and turned the monitors up loud. He was nervous that it wouldn't work as he's never seen it done like this, but I know the guy, and he's LOUD, so when I played it back with the vocal solo'd, you can hardly hear the track at all, just his screaming voice! Ditching the headphones really loosened him up and we got some very "live" performances

1 hour ago, nilorius said:

Some one - please don't take it personal, but what is it so bad with those small energy drinks ?

Something about the smell of them makes me nauseous but I'd rather not impose my weirdness on clients... will do the "no hot food" thing though

It's a bit of a weird setup, very little chance of any spillage

7 minutes ago, Dan Dare said:

Why not a sign saying "No food or drinks in the control room"? It's safer if there aren't cups of tea and drinks cans waiting to be knocked over the gear. As long as there's an area where people can eat and drink, that's quite reasonable. 

The problem is that I'm addicted to tea, and constantly have a brew on the little coffee table in the control room

The band played lots of Dua Lipa, Lizzo, Bruno Mars etc at the last wedding I went to, it was great!

There's a kitchen but it's small and no seating... I'll buy some stools and print some signs

16 hours ago, tauzero said:

Back on the subject of etiquette, has anyone mentioned personal hygiene? Also consider what to eat on the night/morning before going into the studio - garlic and onion sandwiches might not be appreciated, nor anything flatulence-inducing.

The drummer on Saturday dropped a terrible fart in the control room, flat out denied it, then asked where the toilet was and disappeared for 20 minutes 🤣

The smell of energy drinks and rustlers burgers really gets to me, and this is the diet of the modern greebo. Subsequently, the greebos have corresponding BO. I try to avoid these bands but it's tough when I've not met them before, and I need the money.

Would a sign saying "No hot food or energy drinks in the control room" come across as rude?

45 minutes ago, SteveXFR said:

 

My daughter has one of his sticks from a recent gig in Bristol. She really enjoyed them. A bit emo for my tastes but very good at what they do

He's one of my best mates, but honestly without bias he is my favourite drummer to watch. The guy's an absolute monster and capable of so much more than he shows with Static Dress, impressive as that is. His youtube is pretty cool https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLscwUeSlpdZdDUa86tx46g/videos 

20 minutes ago, Erax Sound said:

...Most modern metal (especially if it's djent) will have been quantised within an inch of it's life...

I really don't get why they don't just program the drums for this sort of stuff. Loads of producers replace/layer samples and it's all so quantized and consistent it might as well have been programmed, and surely would have been quicker and cheaper!

My mate is the drummer in an up and coming metal band Static Dress and they make a point of leaving his real performances alone. I personally think it helps set them apart

2 hours ago, WinterMute said:

...I always track at least drums and bass together with guide guitars and vocals if possible, I'll only OD bass if really necessary, but the groove has already been established between the players, it fells better generally. If I can get the whole band together then the majority of the backing track goes down in one go and the overdubs are done to fix errors or add parts. Generally vocals are the only exception.

 

This does mean musicians have to be good enough tp play a whole song all the way through without errors however, this is not a given.

I take the same approach, if the band are up to it

Another day, another session, drummer turns up without a ride, no worries, I'll loan a cheaper one from my collection, even though I specified to bring cymbals. Wants to play to a click but can't do it. Hits one of my clip on condenser mics and tries to fix it himself, won't admit to hitting it. Thankfully the mic is fine else the session fee would be wiped out!

Oh well, it takes all sorts and I've got to pay the rent!