Top Ways To Annoy A Sound Engineer

Re: Top Ways To Annoy A Sound Engineer

This is a good and relevant discussion considering where the digital console revolution has taken us. I am very familiar with intellectual property and things like points and royalties. Most of my income today comes from royalties of projects (not just musical) done in the past.

We all want to get paid and be appreciated for what we feel we are worth. I could see a market happening for show files done by some top engineers that would obviously give an advantage to a touring band just starting out who did not have the budget for a high caliber engineer but could afford to have him mix the first show and make a file for them. What would be a fair price? Should a royalty be paid for every show the file is used? Food for thought. It really will come down to what the market will bear or what a particular person is willing to do it for.

In the end you will still have to have a man behind the board but it might be money well spent to have a good start and a known reference point to get back to. Just my thoughts on the subject.
 
I wrote 4 books for NSTA on science education. I knew the topics and the approach had a limited lifespan, so I did them as work for hire where all rights transferred on final payment.

I would use the same approach with a show file, expecting a similar limited lifespan.
 
Re: Ways to annoy a sound guy

Jeff Babcock said:
When I use sarcasm or similar mis-interpretable things in forums I most typically will use tags to signify it:



<begin sarcasm/whatever mis-interpretable thing I'm attempting to convey>

Real men wrap cables like Clark W. Griswold
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Jake only wishes he was that pro! ;)~;-)~:wink:

</sarcasm / whatever mis-interpretable thing I'm attempting to convey>



No offense to Jake of course..... Jimmy, FWIW, you might want to read some of Jake's blogs on this forum. It is useful to know some background on the folks in this forum, some of which are tremendously experienced pros.
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I did lay the snark on pretty thick. I thought I was so over the top as to be obvious but it is a difficult thing to judge on the Internet. Anyway, no offense taken on my end from any party. It's all in good fun.

Cheers!
 
Re: Ways to annoy a sound guy

Jake Scudder said:
I did lay the snark on pretty thick. I thought I was so over the top as to be obvious but it is a difficult thing to judge on the Internet. Anyway, no offense taken on my end from any party. It's all in good fun.

Cheers!
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The snark was so thick on my end that I could have spooned it onto a sundae. ;)
 
Re: Top Ways To Annoy A Sound Engineer

Dave Barnett said:
Or the show file they have saved for your console is from a festival they did in Helsinki two years ago, has a third of the channels re-assigned, all the outputs taken from the matrix, and in general so much stuff messed up that it takes more time to fix it than it would have taken to start a new file from scratch.
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This was nearly the exact situation I walked in on that night. Comps and gates locked down on everything, reverb and delay on everything. Empty channels here, non existent channels there. But they insisted on using it. IMO if its my first time with a band I like to start from scratch. Usually works out better anyway.
 
Re: Top Ways To Annoy A Sound Engineer

I don't care if I've mixed it five days in a row. I almost always try to clear my console a bit before any show I mix in the theatrical world. Sometimes it's just a few bands of EQ, sometimes it's the buss assignments. It leads to more creativity, and more fun while mixing. :)
 
Re: Top Ways To Annoy A Sound Engineer

Max Warasila said:
I don't care if I've mixed it five days in a row. I almost always try to clear my console a bit before any show I mix in the theatrical world. Sometimes it's just a few bands of EQ, sometimes it's the buss assignments. It leads to more creativity, and more fun while mixing. :)
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I never clear my console If I am going to be using it next. I always use the same mics on the same channels and do mostly festival work. 90% of the gain, EQ, and compression settings will be the same for each show. I do clear the monitor sends though.
 
Re: Ways to annoy a sound guy

Max Warasila said:
The snark was so thick on my end that I could have spooned it onto a sundae. ;)
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Agreed.....

I am not criticizing the use of sarcasm, but merely pointing out that we have a pretty diverse audience here from different backgrounds and parts of the world, and in some cases english is not even their first language. It doesn't hurt to be explicitly clear.
 
Re: Top Ways To Annoy A Sound Engineer

Per Søvik said:
I guess we just got another one: Being denied access to FOH :cry:

Sound Provider Refusing Band Engineer?
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A friend of mine mixed in a beer garden once where the mixing console was inside a bar, no line of sight to the stage the the entrance to the bar was lockable. And kept being locked, all night, every time he'd go out to assess how it sounded in the space he'd be locked out and he'd have to fight with the security guard to get back in. He pretty much quit mixing that day.

Add another annoyance to the pile. People who have chosen to forgo hiring a sound tech (they do lights, and think they know enough to muddle along), calling you up after you've set up the PA ready for their show asking you to drive into town and fix the 'problems', which turn out to be that the desk is patched in mono and is in the wrong location....They Haven't Even Fired It Up Yet!!!!!!!!!!
 
Re: Top Ways To Annoy A Sound Engineer

Max Warasila said:
I don't care if I've mixed it five days in a row. I almost always try to clear my console a bit before any show I mix in the theatrical world. Sometimes it's just a few bands of EQ, sometimes it's the buss assignments. It leads to more creativity, and more fun while mixing. :)
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I guess that's okay if you're also the sound designer. In my world that would be a pretty quick path to unemployment. The idea is that the show doesn't change once it has been frozen by the creative staff. Sometimes minor tweaks are necessary to maintain the design but blindly resetting parameters just to see what happens seems questionable.
 
Re: Top Ways To Annoy A Sound Engineer

Jake Scudder said:
I guess that's okay if you're also the sound designer. In my world that would be a pretty quick path to unemployment. The idea is that the show doesn't change once it has been frozen by the creative staff. Sometimes minor tweaks are necessary to maintain the design but blindly resetting parameters just to see what happens seems questionable.
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Ehhh it's High School, remember? I only get to mix maybe 10 shows a year or so. I do leave a bunch of stuff in there though. Usually I take a duet and try something different with the blend. I actually only get a few rehearsals to set it up beforehand, anyway. Not to mention the gains change all the time because the actors who don't know any better practically rip the mics off their body's when they do their choreography. It's really just so that I can have some fun in the little time I have to get it together.

I do agree with what you are saying, though. Typically we don't ever get to freeze the show, because we don't have the time to do that before we get on stage due to bad directing and actors not knowing their lines until the week of. Plus, I triple as system tech, foh, monitor, as well as anything else I need to deal with. Oh, and it's analog. No scenes to set up. If I had scenes recorded, I wouldn't DARE touch them, but I am practically busking these shows due to lack of rehearsal most of the time. If I find something I like a lot, though, it usually doesn't get cleared.
 
Re: Ways to annoy a sound guy

As a FOH/monitor guy myself, my favourite one liner at gigs especially if the mix sucks is "you gunna leave it like that?".
 
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