A thought about the sound guys

Bob-Dubery

I was listening to Loudon Wainwright in the traffic this AM. One of the songs was "Road Ode", which is Wainwright's response to Willy Nelson's "On The Road Again".

It has some great lines...
"Open up that draw and there's the Bible
God's honest truth but you're not liable
To use it, you prefer myth and libel
That's 'cos you're out on the road"

But the ones that got me thinking of Tom and Neps and other members of their profession were...
"Willy Nelson has a bus
And a sound guy he can kick and cuss" ?

TomCat

Nice one Bob. Thanks for thinking about us...... ? ?

I look forward to the day when musicians and sound guys are seen as one and the same. I must say I get irritated by the "us" and "you" attitude that is often out there.

I see myself being as much of a musician behind the mixing desk as the guys on stage playing their instruments.

The only difference is that my instrument is the mixing console and the PA.

The sound guy has to develop a "feel" for the music being played by the band and then act as director, producer and engineer to best bring that out for the benefit of the audience.....HeHe......I wouldn't change that for the world..... :woohoo:

As I said in another thread...we only have one shot to get it right....but when it is right it is as good a rush as anything else out there...... 8) 8)

Sean

TomCat wrote: The sound guy has to develop a "feel" for the music being played by the band and then act as director, producer and engineer to best bring that out for the benefit of the audience

Agree with you Tom, what I wouldn't give to have a good sound guy behind our desk :'(

TomCat

Sean wrote:
TomCat wrote: The sound guy has to develop a "feel" for the music being played by the band and then act as director, producer and engineer to best bring that out for the benefit of the audience
Agree with you Tom, what I wouldn't give to have a good sound guy behind our desk :'(

Yup...Really good live engineers are few and far between........ ☹. Funnily enough the majority of them seem to be in churches.....and even there they are scarce.

AlanRatcliffe

Aah, sound engineers - the whipping boys of the music industry. ?

I've had a few offers from bands over the years after helping out here and there, but the prospect wasn't appealing - there's no Ctrl-Z in live sound. Only band I never turned down was the Gilgamesh ensemble, because they were really interesting musically (bunch of classical students and a drama major on Vox) and would always give me fun trying to figure out how best to mic up a variety of unusual instruments (some very... errr... interesting ones I wouldn't encounter anywhere else).

Neps

TomCat wrote:
Yup...Really good live engineers are few and far between........ ☹. Funnily enough the majority of them seem to be in churches.....and even there they are scarce.

I agree with you totally! The funny thing is that I love doing live work much more than doing studio work. Jip, there is no Ctrl-Z (or in my case Apple-Z), but that's what makes it awesome (or thats just me)

People tend to think live work is a quick way into doing studio.. How mistaken they are!! It's 2 TOTALLY different genres of work. I must say though, I've had the scenario where the band thinks 'he's just the sound guy' and then they call back and say 'ummm, can you help us out again', and then I go 'ummm, no thanks, I like to work with musicians and not #$%^&* ' , but there are bands who really understand theat they can be HOT but with bad sound, people will think they suck, So they are starting to see the light.

Byron

Iv'e always wondered what kind of recognition and salary do the guys for major bands get.Also if you take something like the download festival, do you have sound people for every single band or what? Do you get 1 person who does a certain sound job for the whole event?

TomCat

Byron wrote: Iv'e always wondered what kind of recognition and salary do the guys for major bands get.Also if you take something like the download festival, do you have sound people for every single band or what? Do you get 1 person who does a certain sound job for the whole event?

I've been both. I've run a whole festival where I might have mixed maybe 10 to 20 different bands on one session.......After a while you start feeling like a camelion on a Smartie box, or as one person put it "like a mosquito in a nudist colony...I know what to do..I just don't know where to start..."

Either way it has always been great fun for me. Teaches you to constantly think on your feet....