Is bad live sound affecting the industry? How to compensate for bad sound?

ruvann · 2011-11-15T13:54:47+00:00

I don't want this to come off as a "rant" or anything, it's not what I aim to do, I firstly just want to tell you about the problem I see and hear in SA, and then would love to get AS MUCH feedback and discussion about this topic, as possible. So please chime in and share your thoughts, insights, experience and suggestions. I don't want to make this genre specific. We're all here because we love music, and I think we all want to see the music industry in SA grow and we all probably faced this problem. So we went to Shivas Rock this Saturday and there were a couple of bands there. I don't spend time in the crowds these days, I usually stand back and just ... LISTEN... to the bands. I WANT to hear good bands, I WANT to discover good local music and support it, but this just seems a bit hopeless since the live sound these days is too bad to actually hear any music. For example, the first band that played on Saturday didn't have half stacks for the guitars, and had a small bass amp. Literally, and do DO mean LITERALLY, the only thing you could hear was cymbals. ??? Funny thing is that you couldn't hear vocals with the first band but you did hear vocals when the last band played.... ??? This make me wonder if the engineer actually hears the problem and just doesn't care or if he's gonna stick to the excuse that "he doesn't KNOW the bands 'sound' so he can't provide GOOD live sound" which I think is BS! The last band used half stacks and had a bigger bass amp and you still couldn't hear any guitar detail, you just heard the bass pump on the palm muted stuff. When we had a PA system for practice, a couple of years ago in one of my previous bands, I usually had to set up the PA, and we miced small 50W Laney guitar combo amps, direct output from the bass amp, and we were actually able to hear the guitars, bass and vocals ??? This is why I question the engineers. I had to do a sound for a gig once, and it was literally my first time EVER doing a live gig's sound, and it was the first time I've even seen that specific mixer. It was a Yamaha 01V digital mixer. Man was a scared of spoiling everyone's night! ? but you could actually hear everything. It really at least was good enough. You were able to HEAR the lyrics! I REFUSE to believe that we don't have talented musicians and I REFUSE to believe that musicians in South Africa can't write good music. I REFUSE to believe that this stigma surrounding live bands in SA, saying that all SA bands suck and is below international level, is true. One thing that I always say is that the musicians needs to be their own "sound engineers". They're also responsible in how good/bad their live sound is. But I've heard of engineers that believe a PA system isn't an FRFR system and "shapes the sound" sort of like a guitar cab. ??? (Even with flat EQs on the mixer) I'm just pretty sure that I'm not the only one that feels irritated with the fact that you can't discover music at live gigs because the sound sucks too much. I've went to too many gigs where the bass guitar is literally louder than the lead guitar, but the sound engineer just sits back and plays around on his cellphone. ??? WTF! That time I had to do live sound, I was literally CONSTANTLY busy with the sound and trying to make improvements, trying to anticipate changes in the music where the balance might be thrown of a little and then compensating for it, etc. That's why it say engineer's excuses are BS! Or at this one gig you weren't able hear any guitars or vocals, the overhead mics are turned up so the cymbals are louder than the snare and the engineer is actually outside having a smoke! I kid you not! Yes, the acoustics of the venue also has it's role but seriously, a person can at the very least get an "okay" sound and make the vocals be heard, etc. This entire problem looks like it's a big factor in what seems to me, to be the demise of live gig scene and I think it's also affecting the artist's true potential of building a fan base and creating some sort of following. One thing I would LOVE to try out is to use an electronic drum kit and trigger something like Superior Drummer and also have my guitar signal from my Axe-FX go direct to the PA and you take away the engineers job of having to balance a drum kit since it often seems to be a bit too difficult. I've heard some local gigs that have great sound and the engineer really did a good job, so please don't think that I'm saying something like ALL engineers are bad or anything like that. ? But I'm pretty sure we've all had those gigs where you felt so disappointed afterwards because the sound was so bad and the very obvious MAJOR problems were just left alone and nothing was done to improve it. I've seen so many engineers just stick a 57, on axis, dead center in front of the speaker, right against the cloth and that positions almost NEVER sounds good! A step that I've taken so far, is to make suggestions to bands I know, on ways to mic their guitar cabs and it has definitely helped them. What are your thoughts on sound of live shows in SA? Do you think it kinda hinders artist's potential of getting fans? What would you suggest to up and coming artists to improve their live sound as much as possible, in less than ideal conditions? What can we as an entire music community do to make a change, make progress and improve the "gigging conditions", to increase the chances of artists making a couple extra people in the crowd FEEL the need to support the music because they can actually HEAR the music? If bad sound results in just ONE lost fan, it's one fan too many!

Malkav

majestikc wrote The sad thing with this whole thread is that no one has had anything good to say, or has come to the defence of some of the local sound guys, which just shows how dire the situation actually is, it doesn't seem to be 50/50 with us few complainers having one too many bad live sound experiences.

Neil at ROAR in Observatory in Cape Town is a great sound engineer, I know that when he's behind a desk I don't have to worry, professional attitude, good ears and more than willing to help you get the right on stage sound to pull off a confident gig.

Happy now? ?

AlanRatcliffe

Not sure if he's still around Cape Town, but Kevin Winder always made me very happy. Last time I saw Johnny Clegg, his engineer did a great job.

That's the thing: there are good engineers out there, but the talented guy usually move up to working for the bigger bands, sound hire and promotions companies. You're not going to get to use them unless you're in the same leagues. And even when you are opening for the big guys, it's not in their best interest to have the support act outdo them ...and guess who signs the engineers cheque?

Malkav

Alan Ratcliffe wrote That's the thing: there are good engineers out there, but the talented guy usually move up to working for the bigger bands, sound hire and promotions companies. You're not going to get to use them unless you're in the same leagues. And even when you are opening for the big guys, it's not in their best interest to have the support act outdo them ...and guess who signs the engineers cheque?

I've actually heard stories of bands technical riders, for the bigger acts, stating things like the opening band cannot be at the same volume as the headline band etc. All to add to the effect/power of the moment when they do take the stage.

epictring

Chad Adam Browne wrote
Alan Ratcliffe wrote That's the thing: there are good engineers out there, but the talented guy usually move up to working for the bigger bands, sound hire and promotions companies. You're not going to get to use them unless you're in the same leagues. And even when you are opening for the big guys, it's not in their best interest to have the support act outdo them ...and guess who signs the engineers cheque?
I've actually heard stories of bands technical riders, for the bigger acts, stating things like the opening band cannot be at the same volume as the headline band etc. All to add to the effect/power of the moment when they do take the stage.

That is.. sad..

BMU

epictring wrote
Chad Adam Browne wrote
Alan Ratcliffe wrote That's the thing: there are good engineers out there, but the talented guy usually move up to working for the bigger bands, sound hire and promotions companies. You're not going to get to use them unless you're in the same leagues. And even when you are opening for the big guys, it's not in their best interest to have the support act outdo them ...and guess who signs the engineers cheque?
I've actually heard stories of bands technical riders, for the bigger acts, stating things like the opening band cannot be at the same volume as the headline band etc. All to add to the effect/power of the moment when they do take the stage.
That is.. sad..

And dumb. When I saw Avenged Sevenfold the local opening act was deafingly loud, too loud to hear. A7X came on and the volume was actually lower. (Still loud though.) I was surprised. The lower volume helped the sound be crisp and clear - a lesson I dearly wish local clubs could learn. Made me a very happy concertgoer.

Malkav

BMU wrote
epictring wrote
Chad Adam Browne wrote
Alan Ratcliffe wrote That's the thing: there are good engineers out there, but the talented guy usually move up to working for the bigger bands, sound hire and promotions companies. You're not going to get to use them unless you're in the same leagues. And even when you are opening for the big guys, it's not in their best interest to have the support act outdo them ...and guess who signs the engineers cheque?
I've actually heard stories of bands technical riders, for the bigger acts, stating things like the opening band cannot be at the same volume as the headline band etc. All to add to the effect/power of the moment when they do take the stage.
That is.. sad..
And dumb. When I saw Avenged Sevenfold the local opening act was deafingly loud, too loud to hear. A7X came on and the volume was actually lower. (Still loud though.) I was surprised. The lower volume helped the sound be crisp and clear - a lesson I dearly wish local clubs could learn. Made me a very happy concertgoer.

I know people who've been on the receiving end of this type of contract and had their volumes reigned in before opening for big acts, they claim it's just a norm ?

FruitarGeek

That would explain a lot.

Any of you go to the U2 or Coldplay concert? Cause the same thing happened there. The sound for the opening (local) acts was horrible. Could hardly hear the guitar and vocals, but as soon as the big bands come - oh there we go, the sound is fixed! Obviously the opening acts don't share the same engineers as the big guys, but still, their sound shouldn't be THAT bad

@Chad - Yes, Neil at ROAR, by far my favourite engineer. I never fear when Neil is near ?

Bob-Dubery

I've been having a good think about this, and having given my head a good scratch I must say that I can't remember too many gigs in the last 2 years or so with seriously bad sound. Note that I don't go to many heavy metal gigs.

Two problems that I do see
1) Band is on stage, doesn't have a sound guy, has sound checked as best they can but really has no way of knowing how things sound in a room with lots of bodies in it. But even then I usually think that things could get better but not that they're counterproductively bad.
2) Venue wants the band just to provide some ambience and background noise (gig I was at yesterday afternoon). I might be missing the point at such shows and maybe nobody is really there to listen to the band and just wants some pleasant noise in the background.

Something that might be of relevance here. Richard Thompson retains his own sound guy, Simon Tassano, and plays 99.9% of his shows with Simon on the board. Now, often when Thompson tours (solo or with his band) they don't take a PA on the road with them but rely on the PA at each venue. On a recent tour diary sort of thing Simon described a working day on the road. This starts with him getting into the venue in advance of the rest of the band because he wants to debug and calibrate the PA first. He said a lot of venues have quite good gear but they haven't installed it properly or haven't maintained it properly or some other cowboy fiddled with the cabling at a previous gig and so the wise sound guy will anticpate this situation and get there early to check that things are connected properly and so on. Simon is a modest man but his boss said that they've played many a gig where they're left the PA in a better state than it was in when then they arrived.

Simon also takes a couple of rack-mount units to every show with him, so although he's still having to use the venues PA there are important functions for which he has equipment that he's familiar with. I've seen him at festivals, shutting the desk down before his boss goes on stage and plugging in a couple of units that he's got in a carry case.

They also take their own mics and will always use those instead of whatever the venue supplies.

Averatu

Unlike your experience XBob, I really cant remember even semi decent sound at a gig in the last 2 years. Yet people who attend our rehearsals in our little cage always comment about how good it sounds. We have our amps and a 80watt Peavey mono monitor PA. But them some bands are also to blame. Many times I've heard an engineer ask a guitarist to roll of the treble or reverb on his amp or such, only to be net with the 'hey man thats my sound' attitude. The fact is most of us tweak our amps and effects in our practice space in isolation, when in fact you should be tweaking with the band, say roll off the bass a tad to make space for the bassist, he but the low mids to make space for you. Roll of the 2.5k to make space for the vocals. It should be a new dissipline called 'band sound'.

Averatu

Actually I lie, as I mentioned elsewhere, the sound at the last Blackout Fest in Kempton Park was really good, but that was also the coldest I've been in a long time.

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