Atttention soundmen of the world: Get your shit together!

The BBQ Pit
41

I’m just going to start off here with my biggest gripe about playing live shows: If we say we need more fucking vocal monitors, give us more fucking vocal monitors!

I play in a hard rock band, and we’re loud. Our audience knows it, our sound guys (the ones we work ith regularly) know it, we know it. We never expect to get any instruments through monitors, unless we decide to bring in an electric piano for slower songs, and then we usually just run it through the bass amp; the two rarely are both in a song simultaneously, so that works out ok…

But when we tell the sound guy before the show, “we have two main vocalists; even if it looks like I’m the lead singer after the first song, by halfway through the second song John’s going to be singing lead, so if you could be sure we’re at equal levels in the monitors and mix, that would be awesome,” don’t think we’re lying to you. Don’t put his vocals at half the volume of mine in the main mix, because when I switch to backups it’s going to sound dicking rifuckulous to have the harmony at twice the volume of the melody. And soundmen of the world: you do realize that if the vocalists can’t hear each other on stage, it makes it damn hard to harmonize?

There are several venues around my town that we’ve played numerous times, we know the soundmen, they know us, everything works great. But if you’ve never run sound for my band before, and you’re just standing holding a beer by the sound booth before the show, don’t blow me off when I try to come talk to you about our stage setup. This is YOUR FUCKING JOB, I am YOUR CLIENT. You’re probably getting paid more than I am for your time here, so consider this an initial client meeting; it’s your job to determine the needs of your client, and then do your best to fullfill those needs.

Another main gripe about the people behind the boards, but this one’s directed to mixing engineers: I know there are some of you who know what you’re doing. The fuckwits in your profession, however, were enough motivation for me to build my own recording studio so I never have to deal with one of those moronic, thickheaded asshats again. If I walk into a recording studio, prior to laying down any tracks, and say, “This song’s all about power riffs, so I want to record two sets of my distortion guitars, mix them hard left and right, to get a big stereo sound,” don’t you FUCKING DARE mix them both dead center. What the fuck are you thinking? Even after I call you up after listening to the mix, and, speaking VERRRRRY SLOOOOOWLLY explain that one of the tracks should be all the way to the left, and the other all the way to the right, you give me a final mixdown with both tracks DEAD FUCKING CENTER. You do realize that I’m paying you to do this, right? If my boss had to tell me 4 times how to do what I’m supposed to be a trained professional at, and I still couldn’t get it right, I would be fucking fired. No ifs, ands or buts. FUCKING FIRED.

Oh yeah, and mastering engineers? Get off your high fucking horse and come to grips with the fact that the volume wars have been around for decades, and they’re not going away. You asked me to bring in a recording for reference. That doesn’t just mean use that as reference for EQ curve and compression- MAKE IT FUCKING LOUD. I know it’s going to be peaking constantly. I know that loses some life from the recording. I know I’m losing dynamic range. I KNOW. When it comes down to it, your holier-than-thou “I’m supposed to make it sound as good as possible,” attitude means I’ll never hire you again. You’re supposed to make it sound great, but you’re also supposed to make it into a finished product… and today, as for the last 30 years, that means a LOUD product.

Finally, don’t thank that just because I look like I’m 18 (actually 23, I look young, what can I do) and play in a rock band that I don’t know what I’m talking about. I started doing multi-track recording when I was 14 years old, I’ve read stacks of books, commentaries, and websites on the topic, I’ve engineered, produced and mixed several full-length albums and countless demos, and intently study production techniques on every piece of modern music I can get my hands on. I know what I’m talking about. I know how to play every instrument in your studio, and how to use every piece of equipment. If you have have something to teach me, and you treat me with respect, I will respect you in return. I didn’t learn everything I have so far by being an asshole.

Thank you. That felt great.

42

Yes, he did. In fact, I was describing his setup. The only mitigating factor in that particular sound debacle was that the sound guy may not have been familiar with the peculiarities of the room, which was a renovated warehouse and not a music venue. About a week and a half earlier, I was at a big, expensive party in a high-quality, expensive music venue with a built-in house PA that featured not only a Mission Control-level sound board, but also a second, smaller sound board stage right that was apparently being used for the monitor mix. Two bands played: one did gospel and soul, the other blues, so no stage volume issues. They sounded like ass.

43

I’m finding this with more and more movies. We’re constantly changing the volume; when the characters speak we have to jack it up, and when the music or sound effects start we have to turn it down. It’s mystifying as to why they think I don’t want to hear the dialogue.

44

Ah, so you’re the asshole who makes every new recording that comes out sound like shit. Pleased to meet you.

45

Pleased to meet you too. But you know what? Those nice, high dynamic range masters are exactly the reason why, unless you have a whisper-quiet vehicle, you can’t enjoy classical music CDs in your car. I spent several years working for an NPR station that played mostly classical music, and we had to compress the shit out of it to make the quieter passages audible.

The volume wars were happening before I was born, and an aging mastering engineer in a hole-in-the-wall studio is not going to change that fact. Anyone in the music industry knows that we stand on the shoulders of assholes, but they determined what is expected. I’m not going to be the one to explain to the people who buy my album why they have to turn their stereo up all the way to make my album match the volume of everything else on their iPod.

So give me your five-minute diatribe on why you shouldn’t over-limit and over-compress. Believe me, I’ve heard it all before. But if I’m going to be writing you a check when I leave your studio with a CDR, drop the holier-than-thou bullshit and realize the music industry is an industry.

46

There’s a cause and effect here - many bands are bad with sound as a direct result of dealing with bad soundmen.

I play bass. I’ve experienced many times the soundmen turning the bass down so low in the mix as to make it inaudible. This has happened in gigs I’ve played and in gigs I’ve attended as a fan - one show in particular the Motet playing at the Showbox in Seattle - one of the best bass players around at a huge venue, and he might as well have been a mime for all the audience could hear on the floor.

So yes, I’ve been the bad band guy who gets fed up and turns up his amp after the audience tells me at the break that they can’t hear squat. In my current band, the lead guitarist begged me not to bring my 300 watt 4x10 cab to a small venue run by his friend, saying we didn’t want to be one of ‘those bands’. I agreed to use the house system, but I couldn’t even hear myself, and there was no bass at all from our recording on the floor. My guitarist was livid, and told me “if we ever play that place again, just bring your amp, and turn it way the hell up.”

What can also be bad is the Good Sound Guy Who Thinks He’s Smarter Than You. I’m specifically talking about the instance where a song highlights a particular instrument, so the musician turns their volume a notch to compensate - and the sound guy correspondingly turns it back down again for the audience. Arg!

I’m afraid we’re predisposed to assume the worst now. When Random Sound Guy tells us he has our levels set perfectly, we want to say ‘suuuuuuuuure you do.’ I’m sure this causes Random Sound Guy to hate the Random Band Idiots as well. It’s a vicious cycle. I always try to start assuming the best, but I’ve rarely gotten it.