For the record, I hate running live sound.

I have a friend who owns a club that hosts only original bands which is cool.  I ran sound for him a couple of times when he started it about a year or so ago but his system was small and basically only vocals.  In return he let me hang a 2'x4' banner for my studio right on the stage which has been cool.  Well he now has expanded it, bigger & better.  The systems is pretty good.  He ran into a bind and asked me to come run sound last night... 
   It is now fully equipped mic'ing vocals, guitars, DI on the bass, kick, snare, & toms.  I didn't have to bring anything but I had to be there at about 7:30 pm (show started at 9).  I got all the mic's & stands pre set up & as soon as the 1st band got there I rigged everything up and ran a soundcheck.  I had never used this system before and was fighting to figure out what compressors, gates, etc. were wired into what channels?   what is sending the monitor feeds?  Aux 1? Aux 2?    How do I get the drummer more guitars in his monitor?!  ahhhh sh*#@&$(*#&$(*#@&(*!!!    Well I got it...  cool.  Then it was non stop, 2-3 songs in and they sound pretty good.  Their done!  get the mics off the drums and amps, get them out of the way.  Next band up, reset mics, check em, roll!   Wash, rinse, repeat!!!  I didn't have time to grab a beer which was good cause there was no time to take a leak!        The last band finished at about 2 Am, by the time they were done & I was able to wrap up all the chords, cables, mic's and stands it was 3 Am when I left.  He was grateful, said thank you, and handed me $50 (which I wasn't expecting anything but still) that was entirely too much work, for too many hours, and some very tired ears for $50. Hell with that.  They can have that junk.   I'll stick to studio engineering!!

Ya, know there is a Blues Society type club here, and they have a jam (sorta) and bands on the weekend. Of course just stage mics for vocals and drums mics that are always set up along with the drums, bass guitar amp, guitar amp and lights back to the sound booth (sorta) with the sound guy there on the weekends. If they bring in an amp or drums like last weekend, then the mics are hanging for the drums and still the vocals are all the same. But of course it is not a big place anyway, and running anything else mic-ed would be too much anyway.
 
Works fine for the jam on Thursdays, because someone may bring in a guitar amp and others may play through the house amp ( Fender Frontman - which is too loud usually because guitar players are too loud) and the drums are used as they are and the bass guitar amp and all of that except for the keyboard guy who brings in his own small Peavey amp and sits on it with his 61 note Roland keyboard synth.
 
Well, long story short, just use the equipment the way that it is.
 
(The sound guy on the weekends for the bands just turns on the equipment and adjust it since it is already marked as to what is what up there (and that is not all that much but still it works)).
(Well, not all the drums mics are hanging but the set is there, bring your own bass drum pedal perhaps and the rest is only what it is going to be then for the house drums - cymbals bring if a lot of energy whatever - snaredrum but it becomes simple to just come in with drums sticks and play).
 
 
 

I wasn't recording it man, just running sound for the event.  

When I run sound, I usually find making a field recording irresistible.

Oh man, your stories bring back memories...! I enjoy working live, but there's too much hassle. I only do lights if I'm doing live gigs these days. And that's not too often either. I've been thinking about quiting the studio work and go full time live PA and/or light, reading these posts makes me reconsider.
 
 
I think I owe you a beer!

Well ProjectM, if the "something else" you are planning involves the states, look me up and I'll take that beer bud! 

I love doing live sound.

It is a different art.  In a live environment, anything can happen.  Cables get yanked, mics get pointed at the monitors, singers mix up their mics, guitarists crank their amps to 11, and bassists fall down.  No matter how loud the vocals are in the monitor, the vocalist will always wait until showtime to demand more.  The keyboardist will never be able to hear what he/she wants to hear.  Some self-involved zombie will always knock speakers over.  Even people outside the venue want to tell you how you could improve the mix.  There's never enough time for a good sound check.  The band plays at completely different volumes in the show than they did during the sound check.  The guitarist is always personally offended by how he thinks the mix might have sounded.
 
(My personal favorite...) There's no one around to help you haul all that equipment up three flights of stairs.  There's no one to help you take it all home at the end of a very long night.

Chuck,
 
that sounds like it was a nightmare of a night. Unfamiliar board, bands demanding that you know it like the back of your hand, one band after another..... yikes!!!
 
It reminded me of a battle of the bands,  one band I played in was involved in.  The preliminaries were held at this huge outdoor pavilion place and they had rented a really nice PA and crew to run it. (for 2 days) Preliminaries on Saturday and finals on Sunday afternoon..... until the weekend of the event.....Saturday was beautiful.... sun shining 30 freaking bands from a several state area all set to play and it started early and went late. Fortunately we pulled an early slot because we had a gig that evening quite a distance away. I called the head judge during one of our gig breaks.... the names of the 6 finalists included our name. We made the finals.
 
Next morning....Sunday, it was raining.  We decided to go anyway because the stage was covered and hated to miss the chance at the prize money.  At the event site, the crew had moved the mixer and other gear up to the stage. Since not many people besides the bands had shown up and it was still raining, the finals were canceled for the day and rescheduled.
 
Unfortunately, the PA rental was unavailable and the promoter/owner of the event was in a bind.... 6 bands, a rescheduled finals, and no PA. So he asked the bands in the finals if anyone had a big PA.  Turns out we had the largest PA with speakers and power and board size so he offered to rent the PA from us regardless of whether we placed or not. The other bands griped at that but were told they could either play our system or choose to stay home.  We insisted that our FOH guy was on the board since he knew the system and the other bands were more than welcome to have their FOH guy right there with him.
 
This worked OK until the other band from our town which has also placed into the finals started their 30 minute set.  They had stacks of marshalls and cabinets galore on stage.... and they were LOUD.  So loud in fact that, I was standing at the board listening, and I could barely hear the singer. Just guitars..... their sound man was yelling that we were intentionally sabotaging their show. Dave our FOH guy threw up his hands and pointed to the board..... everything was turned down except for that one mic the singer had.  Note: we had miked all the other bands into the system..... guitars, bass, drums, and it sounded good. But these guys were so loud that they could not hear the monitors and we out front could not hear the singer...... until they stopped playing, and in between the songs it was obvious that the system was cranking the vocals as best it could....
 
If I remember right, at that time we had 4 bass bins with 8 speakers, 4 midrange cabs with 6 speakers and 6 horn/ tweeter cabs and somewhere around 3000w triamped into them.  The system would kill..... and it sounded good.
 
Anyway, back to the band.... they were so loud that half the band was playing the chorus to the song and the other half,  with the singer, was play the verse..... and they didn't realize it for several seconds....   We told their sound man to tell them to turn down the stage volume and we could make it sound good. They eventually did towards the end of their set.
 
They ended up coming in with a second place win despite this problem with volume...... our band took first place in the show and wow did the other bands complain about that once they heard the results. Sore losers. Our band was formidable competition due to our "care less if we win attitude" and our stage show... we were there to have fun. We were 3 piece so we had to do something besides try to play good... the stage show was original and funny stuff...
 
The venue owner booked us again..... for a weekend several weeks later. Actually he again needed the PA system more than us but since we not only played some serious rock and roll, we also played country and even bluegrass, and the event coming up was a bluegrass event..... he told us, we could play if we wanted but didn't have to and he'd pay us the same either way..... so we sat the weekend out except for one country/bluegrass set on Saturday night.... yeah we threw in some rock too.... That event was a 3 day event.... Sunday evening, Mike Cross, a NC artist of some renound was scheduled so we packed up and cleared the stage on Sunday afternoon. We had a gig Sunday night so we missed Mike's show..... he's a one man bluegrass celtic music artist historian..... on vocals, guitar and fiddle. Hate I missed that show.
 
I was bluegrassed out by the time we packed up Sunday, and I didn't want to hear another banjo for a very long time.
 
Anyway, thought you might enjoy that story.
 
Mike Cross on You tube>>>>  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HsNvrlzSSaA

I've been frequently amused by the circumstance that the bands that can not draw enough fans to earn enough to compensate the sound tech are the most familiar with the mime of the mythical clueless sound tech.

I long ago learned to recognize that the bands who treat techs like dumbasses just do not know any better.

To bad the place has a separate bar room area too with pool tables and sports TV, so if some dudes come in and start playing too loud at the jam, people head into the bar room and soon they are playing to about an empty room. Some bands do that and well, soon you see which bands or people can actually sit in and not run the overloud volumes and can hear the singing and such and individuals who sit in on those jams. Of course, the weekends with the bands, and all of them never get too loud when playing and also play in balance (volume whatever) - otherwise I doubt they be there ever again.
 
If a band can not adjust to the place then I doubt they have any reason to think a place is going to put up with it.
 
In other words, some musicians are artists and some belong in another job or not playing music at least.
 

But there is always the baseball bat.

 
 At any rate, it is also cheap draft beer nite also. Otherwise.....................??
And still it may be .....................??
 

That band was in a bunch of BotB ... most were not in bars and were sponsored by radio stations and towns in conjunction with their street festivals and such. I think we entered about 5 or 6 during our time.... we won all  in first place except one. 
 
One of them was particularly interesting... I called to register and the guy asked me Country or Rock? He stated there were 2 categories with separate prizes and judging.
 
I spoke to the other 2 guys and called him back. We want to enter BOTH categories. He said you have to pay 2 entry fees. No problem....  We paid, we played and we won 1st place in both categories.... we got both 1st place prize monies and also got to play the street festival a short time later. Thousands of people were there dancing in the street.... it was a hoot.
 
While I do agree many  BotB are rigged... we found that the ones we entered didn't seem to be because we knew no one at the events.  Hometown bands do seem to have the edge.

Karyn
I love doing live sound.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
 
This :)
 

Hi,
 
(remember I am not a musician that plays an instrument like you do! Theater and film and stage!) 
 
Had a couple of interesting bits while running around with Gong. Michael (eventually became the bass player for University of Errors with Daevid) was the sound engineer for 2 runs through here in the West Coast, and it was interesting to watch him do his thing.
 
He obviously knew what the band needed and wanted for their sound, and the first thing he did in Eugene, was to run up to the board and turn all the slides to half way, when the band started warming up a bit and doing a sound check. Easier to adjust from there, than come up with nothing, and you have to know how it relates to the rest of the band, is what I thought he said.
 
You have Bloomdido on his wind instruments, and he HAS to be heard, and can not be blown out by the drums and guitar like most rock avenues do around here in the West Coast. Three times Ozric Tentacles came through here and three times the keyboards were there only during a solo! The rest of the music wasted!
 
Honestly, too much of the mix is a problemin the decisions by the folks that make up the band ... or a George Martin, or Tom Dowd, that know what music is, and how to make it sound more interesting and better!
 
We do not look at music that way, from the outside! Ed, as technically good as he is, in my eyes, only sees one thing, ahd since he plays in it, I am not sure he knows how to separate himself from it. Can't blame him really!
 
This was probably one of the things about Gong that was right in their tours ... they knew how to setup their sound and make sure that everyone was heard, and there was not a "superstar" that had to be louder than anyone else, which is the real problem in most rock shows ... which takes away from the guitar player, for example, who can only play for 57 seconds during the solo and the rest of the time he doesn't play? I wonder how Tchaikovsky setup his "solos"? Forget that, this is rock'n'roll!
 
Live sound is only as good as the band and the person doing it. If the person doing it is sensitive to the musicians in the band, you will hear them all beautifully.
 
The rest is just egocentric behavior, and I probably would leave, though I can imagine that at least 75% of all the bands out there is what this is all about. It's not even the music!
 
 
So, is Chuck telling us that he can't stand putting up with this egocentric behavior that is not even about the music?