Musician Forum - Band Discussion Board - BandMix

Subbed as host at an open mic last night as the regualr host was away. Small turnout because the weather was lousy.

One guy shows up (late), to play with a woman who had signed up as well as by himself. Older guy. QUite a good guitarist, but that's beside the point.
I was playing guitar for a singer and he come up to start messing around with the mixing board after her first song. I quickly pushed his hands away and asked him what he was trying to do. I adjusted the EQ (barely) and after he said 'much better'.
Then when I was setting up the woman he was going to play with, he didn't want to use my guitar cable, wanted his own. Wanted to plug straight into the board instead of my DI box. Wanted all sorts of adjustment on the EQ. Hogged the keyboard away from the woman on her 3rd song!
After they were finally done, there was one more player, and this same guy ran up to the 2nd mic and started singing backup, and when the song ended this guy was trying to get the player whose song it was to keep going, he kept singing.
I started a second round of songs (but THAT guy was not getting up again!) An older guy was doing his 2 songs and this guy grabs his guitar and goes to plug into the board, I ran up and told him 'no', but he continues on to the seat that was back there and was going to try plugging into the bass player's amp! I got in his face and said 'NO!" What don't you understand? No!' and he went back to his table and sat down.
At the end of the night, I was packing up (all my loose gear was on one table) and he came walking around saying he had lost his reading glasses. I finished packing up, loaded out to my car, came back in to make sure I hadn't left anything and my spare mic pouch with a Sennheiser on it was on a table over to the side where this (same) guy had put his 2 guitar stands and some other things. He says innocently, 'Is this your Sennheiser?", I grabbed it and left - there is o way that mic was ever anywhere except on the table with my gear, so he must have grabbed it when 'looking for his glasses'. F*cking bastard!

That guy sounds like bad news.

My rule ( for myself and any non band member clueless enough to think they can just walk over to the PA and turn knobs )....ALWAYS ASK FIRST.

A cpl days ago Sarah and I played at a memorial for a local musician. We played our set and then took our seats to listen to the host band that he used to play with.

They started up their first song and both the vocalist and the violinist were too low in the mix.

I walked to the stage as they were playing and ASKED if I might adjust the mix. I got the go ahead, raised the vol and rolled off some bass on those channels and on my way back to my seat I got several thumbs up and "thanks" from folks in the audience ( many of them being musicians ).

It was very well attended, fun and bittersweet at the same time. All money collected in tip jar ($213!!) went to Blues In Schools.

GuitarMikeB wrote:...Then when I was setting up the woman he was going to play with, he didn't want to use my guitar cable, wanted his own. Wanted to plug straight into the board instead of my DI box...

Wow, he is just trying to sound like a$$. Most modern boards do provide a Hi-Z input option on channel 1 but I see hosts in my area offering multiple unbalanced cables to the board for guitarists. My acoustic has XLR out, but I always bring a direct box for the other guitarist. Straight Hi-Z from a guitar to a low impedance input sounds harsh, imo. This harshness is accentuated by the PA speakers being smooth instead of ribbed for guitar tone pleasure.

ans the award for "BEST LAUGH OF THE DAY" goes to............................

Mordgeld wrote:This harshness is accentuated by the PA speakers being smooth instead of ribbed for guitar tone pleasure.

(thanks)

Gotta love those guys. Every so often we get someone who asks to jam with the band or sing one with us. It depends on the situation but we can usually make it work and the crowd has a good time with it. Once in a while these very drunk sit-ins suddenly think they are a full band member and want to play our instruments, bring their own songs in bla... bla... bla... NO! Nobody touches the gear.

We just make an announcement thanking them for their fun participation and to please take a seat so we can continue the show. If anyone else would like to sing one with us please ask me during our next break and we will see what we can do.

I went to a blues show recently and they had a nice $30k sound system that sounded awful. All I could hear clearly was the kik drum and bass, and the vocals sounded like they were singing into a pillow. I talked to the band leader about it and offered to help but it was the house system operated by the house sound dude so we got pillow vocals and kik drum all night. Eeeesh!