Help me understand 'Riders'

W

Warrick Moore

Freshman
Nov 25, 2012
5
0
1
UK
Hi

There was a discussion going on here about choosing a digital mixer and it had to be rider friendly. Who decides what is rider friendly ? Is the band management, the promoter or the band themselves or the tech crew ? Is there brand bias ie Midas because everyone uses Midas so we should as well. A&H was mentioned that it wasn't rider friendly ? Why is it not rider friendly ?
And yet the A&H iLive was used on Adele's 2011 tour across Europe. (And other bands are using iLive as well)

Thanks.
 
Re: Help me understand 'Riders'

Being "rider friendly" is kind of a misnomer. Either a band is big enough to carry their own equipment and it doesn't matter what the local venue/production company has, or they want the gig and will use what is supplied by the house/promoter. Not once have we had a band or artist come through our house that we or the presenter had to go out and rent a different console because they didn't like the one we had.
 
Re: Help me understand 'Riders'

I think the term "friendly" simply refers to the frequency it appears on band's riders. So a rider friendly board is one that has more chance of being one of the ones listed on most rider documents.

Usually the boards will be determined by the artists sound guys - they are the ones who are working the console and they will fear two things: Working on a substandard console or working on a console while technically similar or superior, they are unfamiliar with it so will not be as comfortable.

Ie, if you're used to working on a midas XL4 and someone wants to give you a mackie vlz, you're probably not going to be happy. Or, if you're a yamaha guy (7cl, 5d) and someone proposes a pro-6, it may be too far out of your comfort zone to ensure you can do your job properly for your artist/employer.

But as Justice as written, there is a whole land of compromise out there. Some acts may not have enough clout to demand they get what they want. Or they may realise that bringing in their specced gear to replace similar quality gear is an expense that doesn't benefit everyone in the long term; or the size of the gig is one that dictates lesser gear should be ok/more appropriate. Eg line array and all the fruit for a 200 cap private function is overkill.

My .02

andrew
 
Justice C. Bigler said:
Being "rider friendly" is kind of a misnomer. Either a band is big enough to carry their own equipment and it doesn't matter what the local venue/production company has, or they want the gig and will use what is supplied by the house/promoter. Not once have we had a band or artist come through our house that we or the presenter had to go out and rent a different console because they didn't like the one we had.
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I will bet you own a rider friendly console.

Also, it is different for a production company than a venue. The band often has options...

Jason
 
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Re: Help me understand 'Riders'

tech rider: a minor attachment to performance rider which contains an equipment wish list for last tours show or maybe an entirely different band/group/act.

It may be useful if it contains the contact information for the tour manager.

What is the best microphone to use with an African Swallow?
 
Re: Help me understand 'Riders'

Warrick Moore said:
Hi

There was a discussion going on here about choosing a digital mixer and it had to be rider friendly. Who decides what is rider friendly ? Is the band management, the promoter or the band themselves or the tech crew ? Is there brand bias ie Midas because everyone uses Midas so we should as well. A&H was mentioned that it wasn't rider friendly ? Why is it not rider friendly ?
And yet the A&H iLive was used on Adele's 2011 tour across Europe. (And other bands are using iLive as well)

Thanks.
Click to expand...
"Rider Friendly" means you own a system that meets your customer's demands well enough so you get the gig and hopefully get paid. Whether a piece of equipment is "rider-friendly" enough depends on the negotiating skills of the BE, tour manager, promoter, provider, venue if applicable, etc. What the BE will accept depends on the show's hard requirements like I/O count, the reputation of the gear, what's cool this year, how much time the BE has had on the gear and if there's a show file available.

A&H made some enemies with some of their analog gear a few years ago, and that reputation spilled over into the ILives. This is a shame, because the ILive is a very cool console. Its reputation is improving, since the ILive system has been pretty stable, and especially now that the new 1.9 software is out.
 
Re: Help me understand 'Riders'

I love it when band spec gear their mixer can't use. Like VCA assign on a H2000, subgroups/custom user layer on a LS9 etc etc.

And:

When said person enters and immediately declares that the sound will suck today because one item, usually the desk. "You have the XYZ desk, it's no good, the sound will suck today!"
Every time someone declares that, you know that their sound will suck. Never mind that the 3 other bands that night sounded good, it has to be the desk, right?....

I made a point of it all writing a rider a few years back, it contains two brand names, No Behringer, and could you please provide me with an Yamaha SPX unit. The rest is just descriptions of what kind of solutions I'd like and the performance I'm looking for. I don't care if you give me ABC or XYZ, it's the system design that makes the difference on pro level gear.
 
Re: Help me understand 'Riders'

Being "rider friendly" means being more likely to comply with tech riders you may encounter or to be accepted during related negotiations.
In theory the tech rider spells out the band's technical requirements in whatever is deemed sufficient detail. The reality is that the tech rider is too often a wish list, copied from other tech riders, written by people who have no idea what they're talking about, feeding the band's ego and/or simply a starting point for negotiation.

TJ's point about A&H is one of the common issues with riders in that it often takes quite a while for new products and technologies to appear in tech riders or for old products and technologies to be removed.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go work on my plans for a large wooden Badger. Ni!
 
Re: Help me understand 'Riders'

One of the biggest problems I see when it comes to riders is copying and pasting someone else's rider. Occasionally I'll get up and coming artists from Nashville who share the same agent or mgmt with an established artist. The mgmt just took the other rider and copied the specs. So I get a long list of things they want and then tell me they don't even have an engineer traveling with the act!

If you own a venue and you want to keep it rider friendly- make sure you have a console that can be edited offline and a house tech that knows everything there is to know about the console. I have never been a fan of the term 'rider friendly' or 'industry standard' but there are clearly some consoles that fit the bill better than others. If you give me a Yamaha or Avid console than I know those systems well enough to do whatever I need to do without much help. When I use console like the iLive I don't know it well enough and it seems the house guys don't either. It's really disheartening to be told no that the iLive won't do something my LS9 will do like insert a 31 Graph into a vocal channel.
 
Re: Help me understand 'Riders'

Riders are a list of snobby FOH guy's requests. They pick a pile of the most expensive gear possible, and demand it at every gig, regardless of what they actually need, and then bitch when they don't get it, but do the job anyway on what's provided because the band wants to get paid.

:)

On my level, the rider only really comes in to play when we are doing fly dates and production is hired in. They get my rider and meet it as best as they can given whatever budget they have. For club gigs, you deal with what the house has or bring in your own shit.



Evan
 
My bands have even less clout than Evan's so my basic rider is mostly safety related stuff and practical stuff.

I would rather have to deal with equipment I don't like or am unfamiliar with than to find substandard electrical, marginal rigging, or plain slipshod staging.

Since the rider is where we start the basic interaction with whomever is providing, the rider has a great impact on the tone of that interaction. I am tired of venues that never bother to look at the rider because they are used to receiving meaningless wishlists that they have no intention of filling so they end up missing information that is truly critical to the show. I blame the bands with the meaningless wishlists as much as the venues.
 
Re: Help me understand 'Riders'

Helge Dr. Bentsen said:
I love it when band spec gear their mixer can't use. .
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HEAR HEAR +10000!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I have often brought gear that was on the rider as a "requirement", yet the guy operating it HAD NEVER ACTUALLY DONE SO!!!

I guess nobody had ever given it to him before.

AND IT REALLY SUCKS-when I went out and spent money to rent the REQUIRED GEAR-and then they don't know what to do with it. CAN I JUST SLAP YOU NOW!!!!!!!!!!!
 
Re: Help me understand 'Riders'

Ivan Beaver said:
AND IT REALLY SUCKS-when I went out and spent money to rent the REQUIRED GEAR-and then they don't know what to do with it. CAN I JUST SLAP YOU NOW!!!!!!!!!!!
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Did you not charge them for the extra gear? I'll supply whatever they want, and if they can't use it, so what? They are going to pay for it whether they use it or not. Maybe I'll get a chance to play with gear I have no other chance at.

Mac
 
Re: Help me understand 'Riders'

mackerr said:
Did you not charge them for the extra gear? I'll supply whatever they want, and if they can't use it, so what? They are going to pay for it whether they use it or not. Maybe I'll get a chance to play with gear I have no other chance at.

Mac
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My business practices were not that good. No I pretty much just "ate it", and the labor/time to pickup/return the gear. Yeah it sucked. Luckily it didn't happen that often.

That is why I stay away from money issues now.
 
Re: Help me understand 'Riders'

mackerr said:
Did you not charge them for the extra gear? I'll supply whatever they want, and if they can't use it, so what? They are going to pay for it whether they use it or not. Maybe I'll get a chance to play with gear I have no other chance at.

Mac
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If you win the job with the lowest bid, and then find out that you could have still had the lowest bid AND made more money at the same time that sucks.

Jason
 
Re: Help me understand 'Riders'

Jay Barracato said:
Since the rider is where we start the basic interaction with whomever is providing, the rider has a great impact on the tone of that interaction. I am tired of venues that never bother to look at the rider because they are used to receiving meaningless wishlists that they have no intention of filling so they end up missing information that is truly critical to the show. I blame the bands with the meaningless wishlists as much as the venues.
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That apparently was the point of the infamous Van Halen "M&Ms but no brown ones" rider clause. They apparently got tired of major things in their rider being ignored that would then not be discovered until too late so they added something that they could easily check that indicated whether the rider had been read and would be fulfilled. If there were M&Ms backstage and with all the brown ones removed then chances were good that they also got the big stuff right while if the M&Ms weren't there or had the brown ones included then that was an indication to start checking other things.
 
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