Wordpress...

Now also on wordpress! ta da! Not sure why at the moment, but wanted to check them out and so I've imported this over there. Maybe it will have its own content outside the remit of this blog. We'll see :)

Fostering a good relationship with a band...

...... or "how to break through a layer of musician grumpiness".

For whatever reason, when a band rolls in for a sound check they quite often come across as petulant and pissed off. Perhaps they've been to work before the gig, maybe they don't like the look of the venue or the gear, or maybe they're just naturally grumpy gits. Whatever it is its best to figure out how to deal with it, and quickly. The sooner you can create a rapport the better because then you will help each other out more readily.

Get them on-side and you will likely:
* find they set-up quicker.
* find they communicate important details (at all/more readily).
* have more patience and respect.

Okay, so obviously a good vibe is important. However, achieving it may be a touch more difficult. So engage with them - pick the relevant things; the band, their equipment, your equipment, the venue, the other bands, bands they like etc etc

Mix equal parts:
* self effacing
* humour
* professionalism

Well, perhaps not equal parts, whatever works for you personally. Perhaps the self effacing would be best in minimal amounts, just enough to catch them off-guard from the stereotype of the disinterested techie. Because, thinking about it, I've seen as many grumpy sound guys (proportionally) as I have grumpy musicians.

The main advice, therefore is the following: smile for fucks sake!

Big-O

P.S If you never smile at these things then why are you doing them? Music is meant to be enjoyable?

Not much so far/ new plans

The best I've had so far is one reply from one of the people behind tuska open air, Finland. That was, unfortunately, a no thank-you email. Since sending those letters out my time at the Vine has also ended, the company behind the pub was no longer willing to pay for the nights (a deal we were lucky to have in the first place!) unless we could raise £1000 of business behind the bar each time we were there. That was unreasonably high - remember it has the dodgy reputation. Those who don't know about it or who can be convinced to come down regardless were all loathe to make repeat visits. I for one also got sick of feeling on edge whilst setting up there due to the dodgy characters that inhabit that pub. We never had any trouble, but we were very lucky.

So I suppose I'm actually pleased to be out of there, but it does leave me without a regular spot for doing live sound. Which brings me to this blog; there's now much more free time to work on the content. So expect to see more features and featurettes in the future. Get reading, get commenting!

Mr Big-O

I've written to the festival big boys

I've written to the big players of the festival world - audio rental companies where possible and promoters where not- in order to try and procure some work/work experience over the next few months. I am serious about doing live sound as my actual main source of income, my job, my livelihood. It inspires and motives me, I enjoy it. It is also much less embarrassing to tell people I work in live sound as opposed to what I do now (which is food retail work in case you were wondering).

So in the next few days I'm waiting to see if I get positive, helpful replies or indeed any replies at all. Here are the players involved: Chris Beale Audio Ltd (Glastonbury/Reading & Leeds/Latitude), Metal Camp, Tuska open air, Wacken open air, Jersey music festival, Graspop and Download. Others I didn't try but could consider for later are: Moor music festival, Rock Am ring, Roskilde, etc I know there's many more!

I certainly meant to update more often than this. Things have been slow recently I guess, with more cancelled gigs and none of the promised new equipment appearing. So really recently the only news of note is that I've got a contact at Leeds Rio's who may be able to get me some work, potentially being in charge of a few different sound guys for the two venues (upstairs and downstairs at Rio's) whilst he is away on a tour. I've also had a word with another member of Subculture's staff about working there. Just keeping asking people, showing I'm keen - keeping myself looking for opportunities.

The other recent activity is some research. I've been looking into the people, gear, techniques and organisation of major music festivals. Complicated but interesting! To this end I have a couple of great resources here and here.

Enjoy!

No show

This was supposed to be an update on Saturday's gig at the Wellington but it was cancelled a few days in advance - I was told this by the bar staff when I arrived at the pub on the night!

Still its not too bad, the promoter tells me he has plans to run a huge all day charity event there with 3 P.As! One upstairs, used for a variety of electronic bands, two downstairs. The main P.A downstairs by the actual stage area will be used for full bands. Acoustic acts/power trios will be using the P.A in the far corner of the room. I'd like the challenge of running the two downstairs P.As - having one band set up quietly (an ask I realise!) whilst the other band plays. It would be chaotic, but fun - I hope!

Next you hear from me I should have actually done some engineering - this Wednesday at the Vine.

Cya later, Big-O

Gear at the vine

We've quite a DIY set up at the vine at the moment, but generally speaking it serves us well. We have a Prosound 800 amp for the front of house, with matching speakers and a Prosound 400 amp for the monitors, again with matching speakers. The front of house speakers are usually (safely) daisy-chained into speakers that are wall mounted at either side of the stage. Which come in handy! I find that without these we're desperately under powered for getting vocals audible above the drum kit and small combo amps. I'm hoping to convince the promoter to upgrade the speakers and purchase one more Prosound 800 - then we can run the amps in bridge mode with one amp for the left and for the right of the desk's output.

Speaking of the desk, we use a Soundcraft Spirit FX8. Its sturdy but the fx are a little on the unpredictable side. I'd like to move back to the Yamaha EMX series as we used at Dr Wu's. Or perhaps one day on to a digital desk. Imagine that!

Mic wise we use some cheap dynamic mics at the moment. The performers often accidentally switch these off when they're fiddling between lines and then they begin gesturing at me (and look pretty sheepish when I step over and move the big slide switch back to 'on'!). We're planning to upgrade these very soon to some Shure PG48. Hopefully these will gives us more distortion free headroom. Fingers crossed.

Well I've got to get to band practise, more on these updates as and when they occur!
Cheers, Big-O

No gig tomorrow eve..

... but I get to do sound at a new venue on Saturday - The Wellington pub, Leeds. Unless we can borrow the acceptable but hardly stellar soundcraft desk from the Vine I shall be using a dodgy old one that outputs slightly lower on one side of the master stereo output than the other.

James (Broken Heart Underground promoter) will just tell me to solve this challenge by adding to the deficient side by using an aux send. However this solution reduces the number of stage monitors to one, which could potentially be unacceptable for the acts - I think we're talking full guitar-band style setups so this is likely. I also forsee that it could potentially lead to this side being overpowered. In conjunction with the losing a monitor downside I don't like this solution.

Instead I think I will underpower the amp channel that is serving the stronger output on the desk. Using an external source for music I will try and balance the amp volumes to compensate for the low output. I think I will re-check this with a vocal mic, as I've a suspiscion that this problem may only occur on the input used to bring the external source in- I can't remember as its been a while since I've used this desk.

post no 1 : hello guys

Alright you out there,
This is the first post of my new live sound - and related things - blog. In this blog I'm going to talk about the gigs I've done sound at, the gigs I'm going to do sound for, plans, equipment, challenges (a.k.a 'problems'), solutions, venues, promoters, bands etc etc.

Hopefully people can find this interesting and perhaps even useful, who knows?

As a quick introduction: I'm Owen (a.k.a Big-O/Owen McLove) and I have part time work as a live sound engineer in Leeds. A big thanks to James Reains of www.myspace.com/brokenheartunderground who has provided me with work at Dr Wu's, Mr foley's, The vine (upstairs and downstairs) and Mr Wu himself, Ben, who started me out in live sound with a university work placement at the now defunct Dr Wu's bar of Call Lane, Leeds.

Currently I'm looking to expand my horizons. At the moment I'm learning from the bands I get to work with, trying to work in a few different venues on different gear. Just increasing my level of experience with different equipment, different rooms, different styles of music - and other kinds of entertainment that require sound reinforcement.

So if you think you can help me in any way, let me know. I'm particularly looking to work with a different set of challenges such as theatre or venues that have extra outboard processors with their PA equipment. In addition to that I'd love to be behind the scenes at some of this year's upcoming European metal festivals.

Cheers, Big-O