Soundo's Lament, or How to operate a "sound guy"
Nov 14, 2018 13:03:10 GMT
Michael Messer, Stevie, and 6 more like this
Post by creolian on Nov 14, 2018 13:03:10 GMT
Hello all,
My career as a "sound guy" started when I was 15, dropped out of school and ran away with the circus as it were. Early on I pushed road cases and loaded trucks ( 76% of what the sound guy does ). This was about 1972 and the sound business for rock and roll was a developing industry. Back then is was basically stacking as many boxes of speakers and using as much power to drive them as possible. The intersection of the drug culture and technology made for some interesting efforts to bend the laws of physics in regards to sound reinforcement. The Music biz draws all types and "sound guys" back then were mostly hard working but hopelessly ignorant frustrated musicians. I got lucky and serendipity led me to Don and Carolyn Davis and their audio engineering teaching company, Synergistics Audio Concepts or Synaudcon. They took a measured approach to sound system design that began with the "talkies" in the film industry including the use of line arrays. This led to the Alembic "wall of sound" system used by the Greatful Dead and now the telemetry auto equalized hanging arrays popular today. This circle of development has led to a much better quality of audio with tonnes less gear... About 1976, I bought the first portable audio spectrum analyser in New Orleans. I entered a partnership with the son of a local musician and began design and installation of commercial sound systems... Churchs, Bingo Halls, Discos, clubs, auditoriums. The spectrum analyzer allowed us to give a visual proof of performance in meeting our contractual obligations. I believe the most valuable thing I learned was that good sound is not "art" nor is it the sound persons place to become the 5th musician in a quartet. Part of my point is, most of us soundos have a lot of on the job training, are good at plugging things in and making them work... But we all can use help when it comes to doing our job. Allow the artist to perform their art comfortable and confident in that every effort is being put forth to ensure success. SET IT AND FORGET IT ! ( whenever possible).
A couple things I learned that I think might be helpful for musicians frustrated by the "artistic" sound person.
The big challenge for muscians is having consistent sound in wildly varying acoustic environs. Of course nothing close to perfection is possible regarding frequency response and reverberation one BIG thing that is easy to be consistent with is volume. Sound Pressure Level or DB meters are cheap and there are even apps for the phone now. A good soundo will have one but many won't... If you have one and know how loud you like to play telling the soundo where to set the volume will save you from sometimes making hearing desensitized adjustments. All soundos are somewhat hearing impaired... Last few years I was working regularly as a film recording eng I mixed as much by meter as ear. Editors in the post process like a big fat signal...
Again, acoustic environs vary. Some just absoulutly positively suck. An inexperienced soundo (or musician) will fight it start to finish and this never does any good. Mic levels set at the threshold of feedback moaning and howling, grimaces and frowns... I cringe thinking of some of the sonic nightmares ive heard. I learned working with older jazz players like Dizzy Gillespie, McCoy Tyner, Roland KIrk that especially in an intimate club environ the last thing they wanted to look over and see was someone getting "busy" with their sound. ( I should note that Rashann Roland Kirk was blind, and I promise that a blind musician will see you adjusting the sound before anyone else.). I'm proud that on shows I mixed you just were not going to hear feedback, no way, no how! ( well ok, sometimes a little, and once during a sound chek I routed a record out buss back into the record buss of the same machine... I had to replace 4 compression drivers)
One last thing I'd Like to add is : be gentle, a soundo needs to learn. I have had a bit of experience and in the interests of bragging I can say I've put the mic on 4 US presidents, a few hundred celebrity types, worked with Marvin Gaye, Stevie Ray, Adam Ant and Motley Crue... have miked hundreds of guitars, even the Kora and Balafon... And I confess, before I owned a reso guitar I really had no idea how to Mic one and that is something I'm still working on. A bit of communication up front can at least get everybody on the same page...
If you get stuck with an inebriate artist of a sound mixer, all i can suggest is get them some earplugs coke and hookers, self solving problem solved... (im kidding...but the dope and sex is for the soundo, and earplugs for you.)
The comedy version of this screed can be seen in the documentary film: Spinal Tap
If you read this far all I can say is I hope it helps. My mission in life today is to make the world a better sounding place...
Off to the races, be best y'all (SMH)
Jeff
My career as a "sound guy" started when I was 15, dropped out of school and ran away with the circus as it were. Early on I pushed road cases and loaded trucks ( 76% of what the sound guy does ). This was about 1972 and the sound business for rock and roll was a developing industry. Back then is was basically stacking as many boxes of speakers and using as much power to drive them as possible. The intersection of the drug culture and technology made for some interesting efforts to bend the laws of physics in regards to sound reinforcement. The Music biz draws all types and "sound guys" back then were mostly hard working but hopelessly ignorant frustrated musicians. I got lucky and serendipity led me to Don and Carolyn Davis and their audio engineering teaching company, Synergistics Audio Concepts or Synaudcon. They took a measured approach to sound system design that began with the "talkies" in the film industry including the use of line arrays. This led to the Alembic "wall of sound" system used by the Greatful Dead and now the telemetry auto equalized hanging arrays popular today. This circle of development has led to a much better quality of audio with tonnes less gear... About 1976, I bought the first portable audio spectrum analyser in New Orleans. I entered a partnership with the son of a local musician and began design and installation of commercial sound systems... Churchs, Bingo Halls, Discos, clubs, auditoriums. The spectrum analyzer allowed us to give a visual proof of performance in meeting our contractual obligations. I believe the most valuable thing I learned was that good sound is not "art" nor is it the sound persons place to become the 5th musician in a quartet. Part of my point is, most of us soundos have a lot of on the job training, are good at plugging things in and making them work... But we all can use help when it comes to doing our job. Allow the artist to perform their art comfortable and confident in that every effort is being put forth to ensure success. SET IT AND FORGET IT ! ( whenever possible).
A couple things I learned that I think might be helpful for musicians frustrated by the "artistic" sound person.
The big challenge for muscians is having consistent sound in wildly varying acoustic environs. Of course nothing close to perfection is possible regarding frequency response and reverberation one BIG thing that is easy to be consistent with is volume. Sound Pressure Level or DB meters are cheap and there are even apps for the phone now. A good soundo will have one but many won't... If you have one and know how loud you like to play telling the soundo where to set the volume will save you from sometimes making hearing desensitized adjustments. All soundos are somewhat hearing impaired... Last few years I was working regularly as a film recording eng I mixed as much by meter as ear. Editors in the post process like a big fat signal...
Again, acoustic environs vary. Some just absoulutly positively suck. An inexperienced soundo (or musician) will fight it start to finish and this never does any good. Mic levels set at the threshold of feedback moaning and howling, grimaces and frowns... I cringe thinking of some of the sonic nightmares ive heard. I learned working with older jazz players like Dizzy Gillespie, McCoy Tyner, Roland KIrk that especially in an intimate club environ the last thing they wanted to look over and see was someone getting "busy" with their sound. ( I should note that Rashann Roland Kirk was blind, and I promise that a blind musician will see you adjusting the sound before anyone else.). I'm proud that on shows I mixed you just were not going to hear feedback, no way, no how! ( well ok, sometimes a little, and once during a sound chek I routed a record out buss back into the record buss of the same machine... I had to replace 4 compression drivers)
One last thing I'd Like to add is : be gentle, a soundo needs to learn. I have had a bit of experience and in the interests of bragging I can say I've put the mic on 4 US presidents, a few hundred celebrity types, worked with Marvin Gaye, Stevie Ray, Adam Ant and Motley Crue... have miked hundreds of guitars, even the Kora and Balafon... And I confess, before I owned a reso guitar I really had no idea how to Mic one and that is something I'm still working on. A bit of communication up front can at least get everybody on the same page...
If you get stuck with an inebriate artist of a sound mixer, all i can suggest is get them some earplugs coke and hookers, self solving problem solved... (im kidding...but the dope and sex is for the soundo, and earplugs for you.)
The comedy version of this screed can be seen in the documentary film: Spinal Tap
If you read this far all I can say is I hope it helps. My mission in life today is to make the world a better sounding place...
Off to the races, be best y'all (SMH)
Jeff
This is a shot of the Deads wall of sound. It was essentially a separate system for every input on stage resulting in a large number of line arrays... I never saw or heard the GD, but at least this illustrates the meeting of technology and LSD ( its based on rock solid science and I'll bet it sounded better than most today.. )
