Bad sound guys: The bane of digital guitarists

[metropolis_4]

Playing a show in a new venue right now and it’s a small independent low budget kind of thing. The guy running sound is not a professional. He’s doing his best, but the system is also not very good.

There is one single monitor feed and it’s post-EQ so we all have to share one mix, and every single change he makes on the channel strips to set FOH changes our monitor sound.

I’m only hearing myself out of a wedge monitor buried in the mix of the rest of the band so half the time I can’t even hear what I’m playing. And my tone is mixed so thin and bright it sounds like complete and I hate it.

I’ve dialed out everything I possible can on my side cutting everything above 8k by -12db but I can’t compete with the board mix. He’s got my mids scooped, low cut and highs boosted.


This is where digital gear and going direct seriously sucks. When you have no control and are completely at the mercy of the house system and the sound guy and your sound is constantly changing

 

[pipelineaudio]

I don't know what this has to do with digital. You would have the same trouble if it was an all analog chain.

If you mean it has something to do with not having your own power amp, that would be the same whether analog or digital

 

[spawnofthesith]

Behringer x air stuff is all on a massive sale right now, could grab one of those and some XLR splitters and do self controlled in ear mixes?

 

[ian_dissonance]

Behringer x air stuff is all on a massive sale right now, could grab one of those and some XLR splitters and do self controlled in ear mixes?

If you care about your monitoring and don’t want to deal with inexperienced sound guys, this is the move. I will always try to get ahold of the venue or sound guy when it’s a new place to figure out if I need to bring stage volume with me, but we’ve been doing our own monitors for 10 years now and I wouldn’t join a group that wasn’t on board with that setup.

 

[spawnofthesith]

If you care about your monitoring and don’t want to deal with inexperienced sound guys, this is the move. I will always try to get ahold of the venue or sound guy when it’s a new place to figure out if I need to bring stage volume with me, but we’ve been doing our own monitors for 10 years now and I wouldn’t join a group that wasn’t on board with that setup.

Yeah finally just grabbed an XR-18 last week and its awesome. Usually at shows we just get aux sends and have the sound guy mix our in ears and in MOST cases it usually works out great (with the exception of a soundguy last december not understanding what an aux send even was). We've had a really janky "backup" rig for our in ears that was just a tiny ancient behringer mixer and a headphone amp but that only allowed for one shared horrible sounding mix on the rare occasions we've had to bust that out. Glad to have the x air now, and the ability to record our sets with it too is icing on the cake

 

[2dor]

Yeah finally just grabbed an XR-18 last week and its awesome. Usually at shows we just get aux sends and have the sound guy mix our in ears and in MOST cases it usually works out great (with the exception of a soundguy last december not understanding what an aux send even was). We've had a really janky "backup" rig for our in ears that was just a tiny ancient behringer mixer and a headphone amp but that only allowed for one shared horrible sounding mix on the rare occasions we've had to bust that out. Glad to have the x air now, and the ability to record our sets with it too is icing on the cake

That's the next thing I'm eyeing atm - an IEM setup with the XR18 and the MIDAS 16-out stage box to go with it.
I've only seen good reviews of this setup.

 

[spawnofthesith]

That's the next thing I'm eyeing atm - an IEM setup with the XR18 and the MIDAS 16-out stage box to go with it.
I've only seen good reviews of this setup.

Nows a great time to buy! all the x air stuff is almost 50% off at most retailers right now. We've been procrastinating grabbing one for a while but figured now was finally the time lol

I do have a suspicion that behringer might be releasing an updated versions of all that stuff though hence the sale

 

[KHAAAAAAANNNNNNN!!!!!!!!]

Playing a show in a new venue right now and it’s a small independent low budget kind of thing. The guy running sound is not a professional. He’s doing his best, but the system is also not very good.

There is one single monitor feed and it’s post-EQ so we all have to share one mix, and every single change he makes on the channel strips to set FOH changes our monitor sound.

I’m only hearing myself out of a wedge monitor buried in the mix of the rest of the band so half the time I can’t even hear what I’m playing. And my tone is mixed so thin and bright it sounds like complete and I hate it.

I’ve dialed out everything I possible can on my side cutting everything above 8k by -12db but I can’t compete with the board mix. He’s got my mids scooped, low cut and highs boosted.


This is where digital gear and going direct seriously sucks. When you have no control and are completely at the mercy of the house system and the sound guy and your sound is constantly changing

That suck dude. But this is not a "digital direct" problem. It's a shitty sound tech/PA situation. Everyone is in the same situation as you. You need to remove yourself from the shared monitor and have your own speaker. FR or into the poweramp of something like a Katana. You can't solve everyone's issues with this gig. But being a pro with many varied types of setups means you need to have options.

 

[2dor]

Nows a great time to buy! all the x air stuff is almost 50% off at most retailers right now. We've been procrastinating grabbing one for a while but figured now was finally the time lol

I do have a suspicion that behringer might be releasing an updated versions of all that stuff though hence the sale

Pricing on it hasn't changed where I'm at. It's 634 EUR at Thomann - haven't seen it cheaper in the past 6 months.

 

[pipelineaudio]

Behringer stuff is new right now for less than half the average price of their used gear on ebay and reverb...sure its all sold out and backordered, but damn! This is some good news

 

[ragingplatypi]

 

[OrganicZed]

View attachment 26562

To be fair, how many people have you met who actively sought to become a sound tech? It seems like the majority of people that I’ve met who do sound are musicians who got roped into it as a side thing.

 

[Sascha Franck]

Why don't you bring your own monitoring? I always do.

 

[metropolis_4]

The x air stuff would be great if this was a band I was invested in, but it’s just a one off series of shows this weekend and then done, so not something I’m going to invest in a system for.

It is what it is. When you have no control over your sound and your monitor is constantly shifting because the feed is post channel strip it sucks; makes me long for the days of having an amp

 

[Sascha Franck]

makes me long for the days of having an amp

As said, get a monitor. Problem solved.

 

[HomespunEffects]

This is where digital gear and going direct seriously sucks. When you have no control and are completely at the mercy of the house system and the sound guy and your sound is constantly changing

Some have said “this isn’t a digital issue” but they are missing the posited statement quoted. The complaint isn’t with digital equipment, just that it doesn’t work well without proper monitoring when going direct.

Especially on the low budget shows, bring a combo even if it stays in the car. This is another example of the best gigs are church gigs because they work with this stuff two or three times a week and they have the modeling and monitoring stuff down to a science. The IEM mix can be better than FOH because some give the musicians an on stage mixer.

 

[sleewell]

hauling a cab and amp in these situations all of a sudden becomes so worth it


It's kinda funny to see people bring a super expensive modeler setup and then super expensive in ear system rig to the gigs the op is talking about where they are totally unprepared and not knowledgeable about them. Guitar and combo amp would probably work better and would be less stuff to haul around but yea digital is totally saving us haha jk

 

[BahamaDada]

It's kinda funny to see people bring a super expensive modeler setup and then super expensive in ear system rig to the gigs the op is talking about where they are totally unprepared and not knowledgeable about them. Guitar and combo amp would probably work better and would be less stuff to haul around but yea digital is totally saving us haha jk

I'm currently just the bassist, but I told the band (full digital with a separate in-ear rig we haul to every gig) if I were one of the guitarists I would totally just bring an amp and a pedalboard. Throw in some RedBox or other device into the chain and be set for InEar AND stage sound. In 90% of the time the stages are so small and the rooms so acoustically bad, that all I hear in the IEM mix are cymbals and crashes bleeding in our vocal mics. For bass I really don't care enough, but I could never play guitar this way.

 

[deathbyguitar]

To parrot what others have said about the X-Air stuff, I have an XR12 (well actually MR12 but they're almost identical) and use it for IEMs with my Fractal. If you don't need a trillion inputs or a bunch of individual IEM mixes it's a pretty good solution. You can create 4 different mono mixes or two stereo ones out of it if you tell the headphone out monitor Bus 3+4 instead of the main mix. I'm probably mis-remembering some of that...just know that the XR12 has additional output routing options than meets the eye

 

[metropolis_4]

To be fair, how many people have you met who actively sought to become a sound tech? It seems like the majority of people that I’ve met who do sound are musicians who got roped into it as a side thing.

True, but it depends on the level of the venue. The people who do actively seek to become a sound tech tend to be better at it and tend to get better jobs.

The best sound tech I know is a guy who isn’t a musician at all but has had a passion for mixing sound since he was a kid. He works in the big venues in the casinos in Vegas