I never done gone did Soun Engineering?!!?

NeMiSiS

I was curious,we have started gigging again, and for any of the bigger venues, I want to be able to hand the Sound Engineer a breakdown of the songs. Containing the following: Time, bpm,strucure (verse, choras, bridge, solo etcs), backing vocal parts.. and basically.. anything the could better explain the tune to someone who has not heard it before..

What I was wondering was, is there an accepted format for this kind of thing? Because if there was a Lighting Engineer, I would assume you could hand him the exact same thing. But my main question is about the accepted format for something like this, I'm sure it has to be done in some form or another .. think festivals etc.. hundreds of bands, the engineer wouldn't have the foggiest idea of their tunes..

No replies along the lines of "It's a waste of time cause they will never use it", please.

Oh, and an example breakdown or template would be cool if anyone has ever done something like this before..

Thanks
TK - JekyL

MagnumForce

If you have the songs recorded then give him a CD of your setlist and maybe make a list of how you want each song to sound, what general sound, how things are mixed etc and when in the song you want various things to happen.

What are some examples of what you want done by the way?

Festivals with loads of band, each band would do a sound check to get a general sense of the sound they want and the settings would be saved, as the equipment at such an event would be pretty sophisticated and have the ability to save eq settings and mix levels etc for each band, then the sound engineer just has to press a button and maybe do a bit of tweaking to make sure everything sounds alright with a whole audience there. Either that or each band would have their own man who would know their sound and songs very well

NeMiSiS

Examples would be like.. linear notes .. as in a template.. for a song.. We don't have the songs on cd, so can't do that.
TK

Frankiestylee

MagnumForce wrote:

If you have the songs recorded then give him a CD of your setlist and maybe make a list of how you want each song to sound, what general sound, how things are mixed etc and when in the song you want various things to happen.

What are some examples of what you want done by the way?

Festivals with loads of band, each band would do a sound check to get a general sense of the sound they want and the settings would be saved, as the equipment at such an event would be pretty sophisticated and have the ability to save eq settings and mix levels etc for each band, then the sound engineer just has to press a button and maybe do a bit of tweaking to make sure everything sounds alright with a whole audience there. Either that or each band would have their own man who would know their sound and songs very well

You guessing all that?

MagnumForce

Frankiestylee wrote:

You guessing all that?

yep! but its all common sense really, if i was doing live sound for a festival, i would use equipment that could store presets. Or get whichever bands who brought their own man to do it because they'd know the songs, that would be the preferable option. I cant see why anyone would do it a different way.

NeMiSiS wrote:

Examples would be like.. linear notes .. as in a template.. for a song.. We don't have the songs on cd, so can't do that.
TK

yeah but what exactly do you need to happen at certain times during the songs?

NeMiSiS

Right, maybe too clarify.
A CD would be no use whatsoever, because I could not present it to the Sound Engineer and go "have a listen to this" because he/she may not have 40 minutes to spare.

What I would like to happen is, you present them with this 'piece of paper. It breaks down the song into it's verse/chorus/bridge/, breaks down where the backing vocals are, where the solos are, the starts and ends of the song, and what participates in each part of the song. For example if you had a bridge, where say you were using the Toms for a beat, you would have "Bridge, emphasise Toms', or **** like "Lots of reverb on vocals here", or "Quiet Bridge, emphasise on guitar number 1", for levels and ****..

I would imagine this would look something like a barre chart running horizontally, our singer says he has done something like this while he did sound engineering (not alot mind you), but said it would be up to 7 - 8 pages per song, I don't want to be handing a bible to a sound engineer.

The main reason we want this is... In the long run we want our own engineer, who tours with us etc, comes along to all the gigs, but if there was the case where the house engineer didn't dig this idea.. which I'd imagine would happen quite often as in "My rig, My desk, My Monitors, My baby", we could present them with this .. song guideline booklet.. and let them work from it. It would work if you gave it to te lighting engineer too, you could have the shades you wanted if they were available etc etc

My main point is, there has to be some kind of standard formatting with this kind of thing? There must be some kind of standard, as I can't imagine we are the first band that wants.. somewhat more of a say in our sound other than a 7 minute sound check and "Can you all hear each other"

Oh also, MagnumForce, I used to worked with Kiera Knightly for 3 months, and it was a hell of a view to come to work to

TK

Savman

What you're asking is not the done thing in the small/indie gig scenario. Such is life in the music biz, in any part of the world. You have to pay for that kind of service and rightly so because you're giving the Engineer more work and/or responsibility.

For example, when I'm out doing the live sound gig, the very least of my worries is if the structural arrangement of the songs. It's only when the sound has been perfected to a tee and needs no tweaking would I even contemplate going artistic with reverb. Usually it takes 2-3 songs to get a band sounding right, those first few songs are essentially line-checks in most cases especially when you've had a nice big support act of three fooking the settings right up before you come on stage.

In theory what you suggest is do-able and the right way to do things, in practice it's not so straight forward. But if you're playing the right gigs and on the right level you can demand such luxuries

MagnumForce

NeMiSiS wrote:

Oh also, MagnumForce, I used to worked with Kiera Knightly for 3 months, and it was a hell of a view to come to work to

TK

Aw, ya wanker!!

Yeah, as Savman says, theres not much point in goin to say a gig in The Hub in temple bar or Eamon Dorans or something and handing the dude a huge pile of paper for him to read and apply as you play cos in my experience they will just tell you to **** off, especially if a few bands are playing. You should just be happy with getting him to get you an overall nice sound (which in itself is usually a hard job, speaking from both sides of the desk), and if you want things like reverb on vocals perhaps run the mic through a reverb unit onstage with a foot switch, or a reverb pedal or whatever, and when the singer wants reverb, give it a press and voila instant reverb. For solos, have the soloing guitar turned slightly down using the volume on the guitar so when the solo comes around he/she can just turn the knob and give it that little bit of extra volume (just make sure you tell the enginner that your doing this incase he's a prat and thinks of adjusting the levels when you turn the volume up)

But seriously like, i can imagine the response you'd get form some of the sound engineers ive met if you handed them 8 pages of instructions per song. If you had your own guy who toured with you and you came across a venue who don't allow you have your own guy do live sound, which there is alot of, im fairly certain that the house engineer would have no problem in most cases with your dude overseeing and co engineering. Venues just like to have their own guys there to make sure their **** isnt misused and all that bollox

NeMiSiS

"and if you want things like reverb on vocals perhaps run the mic through a reverb unit onstage with a foot switch, or a reverb pedal or whatever, and when the singer wants reverb, give it a press and voila instant reverb. For solos, have the soloing guitar turned slightly down using the volume on the guitar so when the solo comes around he/she can just turn the knob and give it that little bit of extra volume (just make sure you tell the enginner that your doing this incase he's a prat and thinks of adjusting the levels when you turn the volume up)"

I know all these things, I've been playing a longtime now.. I'm gonna ring a few people I know and ask.. would they have a better idea of what I'm on about. I think we will just have to get our own engineer. It wouldn't be 8 pages per song, I would try get it down to 1 page per song. In my experience sound egineers don't like to be "told" much of anything, I have met a few excellent ones though, but few with the a proper "professional" attitude. I don't mind paying a few quid to have a good sound, and in some ases we have given an engineer an extra few quid for helping us.. achieve that.. usually afterwerds as a thank you Rather than a reach around or a rusty trombone etc..


I best stop before I start ranting.
TK

Sorry I missed this post :
"For example, when I'm out doing the live sound gig, the very least of my worries is if the structural arrangement of the songs. It's only when the sound has been perfected to a tee and needs no tweaking would I even contemplate going artistic with reverb. Usually it takes 2-3 songs to get a band sounding right, those first few songs are essentially line-checks in most cases especially when you've had a nice big support act of three fooking the settings right up before you come on stage. "

This is true, and I can understand where you're coming from. If we play a venue where the Engineer has a familiarity with our sound and songs, this happens alot more quickly, as in.. by the second song.. or the second chorus in the first song. Unlike the gig we played lately where the guy "tweaked" the settings right until the last song, had a thing against turning our amps over about 4, even when I tried to explain to him that unless he gave our drummer some kind of monitor, it would be impossible for him to hear us at that level.. but alas.. this was not to happen.
Actully I take back my previous comment, I can actully remeber more "good" gigs than bad, maybe it's a selective memory thing, and the really good ones.. I remeber really well. Anyway I think the moral of this story is, we are in need of Sound Engineer, of which I will have to track down.

Thanks for the replies.
TK - JekyL

MagnumForce

I played a gig in The Hub and the guy was terrible! The mix was terrible on stage, couldnt tell you what it was like off stage, but he wouldn't give me any of the other guitar in my monitor, or my guitar in his, no matter how many times i asked him, I was doing backing vox and he kept taking it out of my monitor for no reason whatsoever, so whenever i went to sing i couldnt hear a thing! what a wanker.

Bak in the seventies my Dad was doing vox in a band and apperantly at one gig, the sound engineer decided that, to save power or prevent feedback or something unexplainable, whenever he wasn't singing, he would turn down the mic, both in the monitors and off stage, so whenver he went to sing, the mic was off. now thats a prat!

they're not all bad though. If i could somehow be on stage and at the same time at the desk, i would.

NeMiSiS

"Bak in the seventies my Dad was doing vox in a band and apperantly at one gig, the sound engineer decided that, to save power or prevent feedback or something unexplainable, whenever he wasn't singing, he would turn down the mic, both in the monitors and off stage, so whenver he went to sing, the mic was off. now thats a prat!"

This is not disimilar to our last gig.. not at all dissimilar.. I wonder was it the same guy..

TK

Gaspode

NeMiSiS wrote:

"Bak in the seventies my Dad was doing vox in a band and apperantly at one gig, the sound engineer decided that, to save power or prevent feedback or something unexplainable, whenever he wasn't singing, he would turn down the mic, both in the monitors and off stage, so whenver he went to sing, the mic was off. now thats a prat!"
TK

HotDamn, I've had that sound engineer too. Liked to turn off all the stage lighting too between songs so you couldnt see your hand in front of your face never mind a set list.
I wonder sometimes if it was my own da, he was forever nagging me about leaving lights on when Iwas a kid.......

Frankiestylee

I guess it's all about what you pay for. Don't expect sound engineers to bend over backwards for you (i.e. learning off your song structure etc) unless you're paying them decent money and you're at a certain level. Remember for let's say every good band that books a venue like Eamon Dorans there's going to be 3 **** bands that play... if I was a sound engineer I'd do my best to give them the best sound, but I wouldn't entertain breaking my bollix for an unknown quantity. Unless there's a certain amount of quality control in venues I don't think you can expect a sound engineer above the standard level.
As for monitor levels, surely you'd have that sorted during your soundcheck. There are also limitations in some venues that you have to bear in mind... again, you get what you pay for, so if I'm paying some makeshift pub I won't expect more then a bit of a straight up monitor mix if any monitor, whereas if I'm playing the Village I'll expect it to be exactly as I require.

All in all I think this thread is really aimed at a higher level then most people here (myself included) are playing at... and I believe that when you reach "that level" you should have your own sound engineer. If you can't get your own sound engineer then perhaps you haven't reached that level yet.

Savman

Frankiestylee wrote:

There are also limitations in some venues that you have to bear in mind... again, you get what you pay for, so if I'm paying some makeshift pub I won't expect more then a bit of a straight up monitor mix if any monitor, whereas if I'm playing the Village I'll expect it to be exactly as I require.

You'd be amazed how easy it is to get an exact monitor sound in makeshift pubs etc. If you have any kind of mix you should utilize it!

Frankiestylee wrote:

when you reach "that level" you should have your own sound engineer. If you can't get your own sound engineer then perhaps you haven't reached that level yet.

The truth and every blessed word of it!!

NeMiSiS

Expect a "Sound Engineer wanted" post in the new year so !
TK