The way real pros do it

Re: The way real pros do it

I think part of the responsibility of the BE is to advance the show and assess the adequacy of the house rig. If the house rig is not up to the task for one reason or another, either the BE can bring supplemental gear of their own, or negotiate supplemental gear to be provided. If neither option is allowed and the unsuitable house rig is mandated, then the band probably shouldn't play that venue.

Often, I advance shows for a band I work with where I shouldn't need to bring anything but mics. But when the equipment list forwarded by the venue is so incomplete that it's useless, I always throw the bare essentials into the truck just in case. In many cases I end up using that emergency gear...
 
Re: The way real pros do it

Silas,

That might actually work if I could ever manage to get any response on more than 2 out of 4 advances and if more than 1 out of 4 had any useful information. Unfortunately, the venues where the systems need the most help are also the most likely to fail in giving you anything useful during the advance.

On the other hand, the venues where I had the most complete advances seem to be the ones where we walked in, set up some mics, and did a show.
 
Re: The way real pros do it

Jay Barracato said:
Silas,

That might actually work if I could ever manage to get any response on more than 2 out of 4 advances and if more than 1 out of 4 had any useful information. Unfortunately, the venues where the systems need the most help are also the most likely to fail in giving you anything useful during the advance.

On the other hand, the venues where I had the most complete advances seem to be the ones where we walked in, set up some mics, and did a show.
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If the information is incomplete (or non existent), I simply bring backup gear and hope for the best.

I'm quite tired of the phrase "it worked for [insert band no one has ever heard of here, or long arbitrary amount of time] so you should be fine"
 
Re: The way real pros do it

Silas Pradetto said:
If the information is incomplete (or non existent), I simply bring backup gear and hope for the best.

I'm quite tired of the phrase "it worked for [insert band no one has ever heard of here, or long arbitrary amount of time] so you should be fine"
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I have a carry rack of bare bones processing but on any type of extended trip, especially a van trip, space is a premium. Somewhere there is a school where promoters in low end venues learn to say things like "two way jbl system maximized for the room" to refer to a pair of eons hung on bicycle chain with a sonic maximizer as the only FOH processing. Or we have a TC M-One and D-2 for FOH (that belong to the head engineer personally who won't be bringing them in because he is not working that night because the band has their own tech.)

I have indeed hauled an entire PA into a room and set up next to and under the house system that no one would actually admit worked until the owner showed up 5 minutes before doors.

The most recent problem has been stands, on a recent swing out west, the band ran into three venues that could not provide 6 boom stands that actually were in good enough repair to hold the mic at the proper level. And since this is a bluegrass band, these places pass it off with the "why don't you perform around one mic."
 
Re: The way real pros do it

@Kip Assess the talent of the knob behind the board is something I agree we all need to do. I find that most of these small venues have house techs that were/are musicians. They understand music but not the numbers of things. A quick lesson on the Eb/E, G/G#, B/C of a 31 band eq buys me a lot of leeway with their system.

@TJ I'm sure installs can have wacky requirements but selling a proper solution is why they trust the professionals. I think a lot of times venues are over-sold. I've seen some installs and the bills involved recently that were just insane. Full retail plus on the gear on top of design and install time billings for a system that was so wrong it wasn't funny. $30k for two bose speakers and a sub. The speakers were mounted so the top speaker bounced off one of the low ceiling beams back onto the stage making the room a feedback nightmare. And the dispersion wasn't even covering half the room. They've quit using that mess. A ring of audience facing floor monitors solved the problem and the bose is used only for special effects. Maybe some standards and peer review for system designs is in order?

As Silas and Jay pointed out, the worst offenders are the ones who don't realize they have a problem.

Sorry, I didn't mean to hijack the OP's rant. It just struck a nerve.
 
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