"We just wanna do monitors first..."

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"We just wanna do monitors first..."

Postby Malcolm Boyce » Mon Apr 11, 2011 8:24 pm

Anyone who has done live work for any time has heard this. "We'll just do monitors first and then the house." The problem is... the house is gonna be on eventually, and you do hear it on stage.

I recently mixed a show with a known, 20+ years experienced act. They are a seemingly simple 4 piece that under normal circumstances should take all of 20-30 mins to get everything happy for all. They are one of those classic stories where someone somewhere told them to check monitors only first, and that's the way they roll. So after at least 45-60 mins of "monitors only", they seem to be approaching adequate so on comes the FOH. "Is that gonna be that loud for the show?" I say 'You bet'... since the rig was barely breathing at that point. So they immediately have to revisit their whole stage sound because, oops, they can hear the room with the rig on. Waste of time?

So after being asked, I do everything I can to keep the house way down just to get this over, and one of the performers comes out to hear and he actually says, "It sounds like it's all from there (the stage) and isn't out 'here'. Can you do anything about that?" I said, 'Well, that's kinda the opposite of what you were asking for 10 minutes ago.'

Sound check ends, and I know they still weren't really happy with what they had.

Sometimes, when troubleshooting a problem, turning FOH or Mons off to hear what's going on is necessary and smart. Doing an entire monitor mix with FOH off is asking for a waste of time, and big trouble when the house comes on, yet I know many will still keep asking for it...

I will note that while approx an hour was spent on what the band heard, I was maybe given 15 mins with the house on to get it together for the people that pay to hear them. Note that you'll never hear... "Let's get the house mix together first, and then do monitors."
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It just fills Forum pages..." --compasspnt

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Re: "We just wanna do monitors first..."

Postby Mathieu Benoit » Fri Jun 17, 2011 12:06 am

I've been doing a few live sound gigs lately and I think it's important to note that everyone is a critic and/or an electrician. I seriously don't know how you do this for a living Malcolm. I'd have lost my mind a while back.

Last week I was handling production for an outdoor event where 400-500 people were expected. I've got full PA, monitors and lights going on in my tent. Alain helped me map out exactly what my minimum AC requirements were. I specifically requested a generator with no less than 10KVA. The guy from the rental shop shows up with a 6000W generator. I tell him I wanted at least 10,000W and he proceeds to tell me that if I can't run my rig with this then there's something wrong with me. I asked him how his math was, because I was at over 6000W and I just counted my lights and monitors. He looked at me like I was speaking chinese and proceeded to leave. I had no patience to deal with him, so I explained the situation to the event manager and they got me a second 6000W generator. The second one was fitted with 20A twist lock plugs jammed into 30A sockets terminated in regular U-ground female plugs at the end. It wouldn't work because the prongs were are bent to hell and they were shorting out and the breakers kept tripping. It actually took me about 30 minutes to figure that out because I never would have guessed that they'd have done something so ridiculous, and because I had no other way to use those circuits. Alas there were a number of circuits I couldn't use from one generator, so I did my best to balance the power consumption across both. All night long the generators were loud as hell and never went on idle. The event was 12 hours long and they barely had enough gas to make it to the end. What I actually wanted was one of the ones that you tow behind a truck that are well insulated and that gave me enough headroom so that I wouldn't be maxing them out all night.

But there's clearly something wrong with me. facepalm
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Re: "We just wanna do monitors first..."

Postby Malcolm Boyce » Fri Jun 17, 2011 1:26 pm

Painful. Everyone has their share of "remote" power stories, especially generators. Whoever rented that generator should've sent that turkey back to get what was ordered, unless the person you were dealing with shortchanged it, which is all too often the case.

...and yea. I wonder how I do the live thing sometimes as well. You never get away from the crap, even at the higher end of the game. It just get's more expensive.
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It just fills Forum pages..." --compasspnt

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Re: "We just wanna do monitors first..."

Postby Mathieu Benoit » Fri Jun 17, 2011 2:40 pm

Malcolm Boyce wrote:Painful. Everyone has their share of "remote" power stories, especially generators. Whoever rented that generator should've sent that turkey back to get what was ordered, unless the person you were dealing with shortchanged it, which is all too often the case.
I can't prove it but I suspect what happened was the person from the rental company gave the logistics coordinator for the event his "opinion" and my request was found to be unreasonable by whatever standards that guy uses to guess what kind of equipment I'm bringing. In the end, the event coordinator called upt he rental company and requested a second one be dropped on site. That one did arrive, albeit not in full working order.

The word "headroom" means nothing to anyone anymore.

I had another ridiculous experience last night concerning a consult that I was doing, where it was determined that the amount of PA that I suggested was excessive and would be too loud for the venue. Again, not wanting to argue, I just left it since I have no desire to run front of house for the event under these circumstances and I'll really busy as it is. I've just really had it with people that know everything.

The only live gigs I enjoy is the one where I don't have to talk to anyone and no one questions my ability to do a decent job. So in other words I don't like doing live sound is a rule.
"Volume automation takes time. You don't got that kinda time. You could be getting naked with somebody somewhere." -Slipperman

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Re: "We just wanna do monitors first..."

Postby Alain Benoit » Mon Jun 20, 2011 11:09 pm

When I did Mark Marshall and Jessica's wedding I asked Mark to supply me with a 15kVA genny.
They did not want to hear it. It was parked about 50 feet behind the tent, purred all night on idle, no one noticed it was even there, no noticeable fuel consumption.
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