General Music Chat

I think its some kind of FCC requirement that any town that has cable TV has to provide a 'studio' for local use.
So that's what we had last night, through a client of our bass player who produces a show.

Tech problems:
1) One of the band members who plays guitar and keys (I will be doing keys on some songs, to, but was not planned for this video taping) forgot his bag of mics, cables and most-importantly, the power supply and sustain pedal for his Yamaha keyboard. We sent him towards the local GC, but there was not enough time due to traffic - Red Sox game in town. As 6 of our songs HAD to have keys, we had to drop those and pick some more songs that we had not rehearsed for at least a month.
2) Studio problems - see story below.
3) Sound - sound guy (volunteer) could not figure out how to get vocals-only to the PA speakers we had set up in the studio for the audience. He could only get the full mix, which resulted in massive feedback from the instrument mics.

Sorry, this story is long!

We arrived promptly at 5pm, to find the tv studio room filled with stacked chairs and tables, risers folded up against the walls, etc.
Took some time for the producer to show up. Only after some try outs did we figure out the risers wouldn't work at all - they were all 4'x8' or 4'x4', and only the 2 4'x8's were the same height. Putting those in the middle for the drums took up too much space, so we set up on the floor, had to wait for a guy to drag out rugs from storage.
Then we had to wait for the light guys (Larry and his brother Daryl - don't know what happend to the other Daryl) to get the backlights set before we could start moving stuff into position and setting it up. After asking us what colors we wanted - I told them red and blue -they fiddled around in thier accessory box for more than 15 minutes before I told them 'any colors at all!' 'Larry', after hearing for the 3rd time how much space we would be taking (there's 6 of us in the band, 2 on either side of the drummer and singer in front) was getting all confused about the lights and I pretty much took charge and said 'until you finish the backlights, we CAN'T set up the drums and see how close we can set up, so finish what you're doing!' Our drummer called me over and tried to 'calm me down', but I told him - if no one said anything, these guys would be farting around until air time. It was already 6:45 by this point!
They got done by 7 with the backlights and we quickly started putting stuff in place and plugging in, but couldn't get the mics done until the sound guy had everything ready to go in the soundroom, so this was finished at 7:45. We did 2 quick songs for soundcheck, then with the 5 minute warning, the 10 audience members were allowed in (luckily we had not invited more as there was no room) and we did 1 more song for sound.
Of course the audience would only hear the instruments for the next hour!

Somehow we got through the hour, with just enough time after the last song for band introductions. I think everyone except the lead singer made a mistake or two at some point, but we hope we get 3-4 songs we can put on our website.

Moral of the story: when playing out, doing your own setup, etc is expected, but when you have to rely on others .....

Follow-up: they gave us DVD-Rs of the broadcast before we left Tuesday night. I haven't looked at mine, but the others did.
Audio was totally garbage. BU vocals, bass and most drums absent, other instruments nto balanced and tone was bad.

We'll use some of the video to make a montage and we're giong to record a few songs in our practice space (mix instruments live, then overdub vocals) so we've got something for our website.

It's a requirement I feel.
The guys help haul the equipment. Steven and his son set the drums / mics after we set up our own 6x6 riser. Floyd Steven & Jax help by setting their own equipment and Floyd helps me run cable but I do %90 of the tie in myself so I know it's done right ( right meaning my way of course )

At our last gig I was setting up lights & fog @ 07:30 for an 11:00 show time.

I refuse to do a gig where there is not enough lead time ... it's our reputation as "professional" at stake, and as you know, there is no end to variables.

We thought 3 hours was plenty of set up time - not knowing they would have nothing ready when we arrived.
When our bass player said something (after) to the producer about the light guys taking over 2 hours to set up, she responded that it takes them 8 hours to set up for a typical tv show! If that's the case, how come they didn't start at 9am??!!

It's a requirement I feel.
The guys help haul the equipment. Steven and his son set the drums / mics after we set up our own 6x6 riser. Floyd Steven & Jax help by setting their own equipment and Floyd helps me run cable but I do %90 of the tie in myself so I know it's done right ( right meaning my way of course )

At our last gig I was setting up lights & fog @ 07:30 for an 11:00 show time.

I refuse to do a gig where there is not enough lead time ... it's our reputation as "professional" at stake, and as you know, there is no end to variables.

Ditto that! and i don't even have a band

We thought 3 hours was plenty of set up time - not knowing they would have nothing ready when we arrived.
When our bass player said something (after) to the producer about the light guys taking over 2 hours to set up, she responded that it takes them 8 hours to set up for a typical tv show! If that's the case, how come they didn't start at 9am??!!

Absolutely ...
They sound like they were really half assed to me brother.
I'm sorry you had a bad experience but you know we all tend to learn the most from our bad experiences.

Funny - last night after our normal practice, we're all standing around discussing all the reasons why it sucked on Tuesday night, and the singer says 'we weren't prepared, it was too soon to do it'. I had said the same thing when they booked it, but I was the new guy, so ... Although these guys had started a few months before I joined them (and some had played together in another band), I didn't first play with them until May 1. They booked the tv thing a month later, leaving us 5 weeks to get ready - 1 practice per week (we did 1 extra Sunday practice) and during that time one guy could only do the first hour of each practice as he had to be off the road (DUI thing) by 9.
At least now, I think they are being a little more practical, realizing that we need to get a full 3 hours of songs down fairly well before we start commiting to anything.

Great post, and I'll add my real life experiences.

We practice at a house that was recently re-modeled. We went to a local rehearsal studio for a few weeks. What I found, is it took us an hour to set up. A few people would arrive late, we had to mess with the PA, set the levels. If you're a 3 or 4 piece, this doesn't take long, but we're 8 with a full horn section. I'm finding more and more, that 1 hour of rehearsal time is spent setting up.

For a gig where we bring sound, we actually show up in the afternoon, set everything up, then come back at night.

On recording, this is why I use a Rode NT4 stereo mic plugged into a camcorder. You can't tell how the mix from the board will sound, unless you can spend hours testing it. The mix will also be dry with no effects. They do make new mixing boards designed for digital recording. What you do here is record the songs on your own, then go into a studio and play along to the music as the video is shot. Here's the recorder I'm talking about.
http://www.samsontech.com/zoom/products ... rders/r16/

Last night I found a way to attach my Rode NT4 to the bottom of my Sony HDR-CX560V so it's one unit. This will let me walk around and film action shots at live performances. I have a couple pictures of it here. Yep, velcro and rubber bands.
http://www.quatraine3.com/uploader/file ... 912001.JPG
http://www.quatraine3.com/uploader/file ... 912002.JPG

I usually have the camcorder on a tripod and the mic on a stand.
The Rode NT4 with a camcorder or the Zoom Q3HD are the best choices when it comes to live sound recording. The Q3HD could use a better lens, but the audio turns out great.

We talked about hiring a sound company who bring their own PA system and soundman for gigs - but unless the gig is paying quite a bit more than our normal asking price, this won't be real practical - and if the sound man doesn't know the music, the band, and who is singing/playing what, will it be any better? We've got a good powered board, mulitple options for speakers, and a separate in-ear monitor system.
Where do you find soundmen willing to work with a band long enough to GET paying gigs to pay them?