>Three band showcase, small venue
>limited venue hours, longish setup times make half hour sets polite, let headliner play til last call
>second band is off genre, brings no crowd, takes forever to set up
>plays for three fucking hours
>everyone leaves before headliner
Douchebag move thread?
>>65056519
>small-time promoter
>book all-day show
>five local bands, one touring act
>local bands and crowd show up, touring act cancels
>show cancelled folks, everybody go home
>be touring band
>borrow local opener's gear, stay at their house
>smash their gear, steal their shit
>be dive bar, cater to raucous crowd
>regulars cause damage
>blame/try to charge bands for damage
>be bar
>be empty unless bands
>make fortune on drinks with bands
>take half the door money
>expect guarantee
>guestlist fucking everyone
>be shitty local band
>get show at shitty music bar
>only 8 or 9 friends of band show up
>everyone in band drinks maximum free beer
that was my band and we were the douchebags
>>65056923
lol I'll do that every now and then, but tip up against it.
>be small-time promoter
>insist touring band stay at house
>deny bathroom access
>make them sleep on the floor
>play four-booth dive
>take up three booths with merch
>be shitty band guy
>work at bar
>play every weekend
>run everyone off
>have mic
>tell crowd to use inside voices
>be serious
>play open mic
>ten minute slots
>take ten minutes talking about song
>refuse to be cut off
>be shitty band
>play small venue/basement with powered mixer
>ask to speak to sound tech
>be busker
>$2000 high-powered PA system
>near school/library/residential area/hospital
>electro-acoustic guitar
>top 40 covers
>tip cup
>be busker
>settle in by record store/other place cool people go
>try to bar entry with guitar
>walk up to busker
>ask to borrow guitar
>>65057300
>electro-acoustic guitar
it's 2016 these aren't some kinda luxury
also lol at 'electro'
>>65057482
They're loud as fuck for busking was my point, Jon Oliver.
>be top 40 cover band
>bombard punk venue with show date requests
>respond to every musician ad on cl/classifieds
>never show up
>rent out medium/large venue
>book 20 bands
>make them presell tickets
>>65056776
>implying there's anything wrong with this
>>65057846
>implying there's nothing wrong with this
>be venue owner
>freak out and cut power in the middle of show
>get invited to big showcase
>"what time does your band play"
>"bout 10:30"
>show up at 10:30 sharp
>try to talk the doorman into a discount
>leave by 11
>always on guestlist
>never buys merch
>go to show
>stand outside
>all night
>hXc show
>sneak in booze
This one can have hilarious results though.
>be ian mackaye
>stop mid-song to yell at stage diver for 20 minutes
>play more songs
>stop mid-song to apologize for yelling at him for 20 more minutes
>be on /mu/
>start thread to kill time
>nobody cares
>keep samefagging anyway
>>65057007
kek
>>65058821
Seriously knew a bitch who was always pulling shit like this.
>be band
>get kicked off local show
>call in a noise complaint on it
>>65058902
alpha af
>>65058961
There were always these poor dirty kids and beaten up vans at her house.
>be shitty local band
>play at bar with greenroom
>no beer discount
>bring your own
>indoor smoking ban
>"as part of performance" exception
>chainsmoke on stage
>shit weather out
>"i can't year you" routine
>for 45 minutes
>point strobe light at crowd
>amp mic/floor monitor situation
>get good soundcheck
>get good stage mix
>turn up to 11
>be sound tech
>get good soundcheck
>randomize controls immediately before set
>get too fucked up to play
>just scream for an hour
>Get booked for a 45 minute opening set
>Play 35 minutes, literally all of our usable material
>Club owner that wasn't even there for the set shafts us an odd amount of cash off of the guarantee and tells us we should play longer next time
>>65059718
There's one I've never heard before. Usually you can't get bands off stage soon enough as an owner.
>be national act
>play set
>leave gear on, go backstage
>crowd begging for encore
>don't do one
>they break their hands clapping for half an hour
>be singer
>shit on the stage
>beat the shit out of fans
>>65059441
Why does it seem like this happens like 3 out of 5 times? Are soundguys this miserable sometimes?
>>65059884
Excellent question, and no idea. They're wasted a lot.
>>65059859
>attempt to beat up audience members
>get the shit beaten out of you every time because of how scrawny you are
>be small-time mobile live sound
>do highschool talent show
>biggest job all year
>lecture bands for an hour the night before about how being in a band sucks and everyone hates you
>point megawatt halogen spotlight directly in poor kids' eyes while they try to play smells like teen spirit
>wear trucker/chain wallet and huge decorative belt buckle
>go to mom'n'pop guitar store
>try out all the gretsches
This actually happened
>be fat hairy singer of led zep cover band
>shout at crowd to stop smoking
>"it's hard to sing with all this shit in my face"
>be local band playing their last show
>sound guy approaches
>"the theme tonight is volume control, guys."
>be regional band
>bill every show as last show ever
>go to punk show
>shout "FREE BIRD" after every song
>be straight-edge
>go to bar show
>try to pick fights with everybody who buys a drink
>be "civilian sheepdog"
>go to punk/metal/hardcore/etc show
>don't work there
>try to bounce people for moshing
>band name is something like "Free Beer"
>play small venue/basement/coffee shop
>gear takes up more space than audience
>be bassist
>amp is orders of magnitude more powerful than guitar amps
>wear earplugs
>up to 11
>supposed to loan gear to opener
>show up an hour late
>be venue owner
>"doors at 9"
>show up at 11 to unlock the doors
>be on /mu/
>not actually a musician
>have no stories
>never been to a real show
>seen nickelback in an arena concert
>play nightclub
>burn down the club with insane pyro
>kill a bunch of people
>>65061260
WTF were they thinking with indoor pyro and pull doors and funnel exits anyway?
>>65061329
they weren't thinking because they're dum dums
not quite douchebag move but...
>be punkrock cover band
>have few gigs with always the same sound engineer, get used to him, he dials in the sound within seconds just by ear
>think this is what "industry standart" is nowadays
>get gigs with other soundengineers
>assholes are unable to dial in monitors and/or only get shitsound out of the PA because .... idk....theyre mentally disabled?
>learn to hate all sound engineers except the one we had the first few times
>learn that "dial everything in by ear" is NOT the industry standart....
>industry standart is to learn theory for a fuckload of years just to, after that, not be able to mix a band live
>the guy we had the first few times is a little bit older, back in his youth times everyone was soundengineer as long as he did want to do that fuckass job, so back in the day everyone learned by ear
>most new soundengineers are arrogant cunts who cant handle a livemix right and blame the bad sound on the band instead of rethinking their effects and mic-usage
>>65060054
you bastard.
>>65061682
God, this.
More shitty engineer
>play some toilet out of town
>guy we think is hobo comes up
>"i'm the sound guy. what do you need?"
>explain needs
>"taken care of, and then some. just did blah blah blah"
>set up
>"i need about half that guitar"
>guitar amp is on 1
>no other requests met
>no stage mix
>crowd gives no fucks
>crickets all night
>had to have sounded like dead cat and tv static
>>65061897
hi, im the guy you commented.
i have learned from the said soundengineer quite some things....
if i would ever meet a "engineer" as shitty as you just described i would plug out the multicore, dropkick the PA-amp so theres to buzzing, put the guitar amps and the singer-monitor towards the crowd, turn up the bass a little and that way just play with what our amps give us....seriously, i had some shitty engineers already, but none as shitty as you described your
>be bar back
>local drunk punk asshole band is playing
>spraying beer all over the stage and each other
>hand forrest gump looking lead singer a bar rag
>sticks down pants
>literally wipes ass with it
>throws it into the audience
>>65062300
>>65061897
>no stage mix
Correction: there was a very distorted snare in the monitors, and nothing else. Our amps weren't even up to monitor level.
Tacocat played Philly recently. (Which has a lot of pissy 'laws' about not playing music after a certain time.)
Made it sound like they had to wrap it up early because the opening bands fucked around looking for shit and setting up and put the whole show late.
>>65056624
underrated post
brunch hipsters are annoying but they usually won't cause you material fucking loss of your assets like real scene kids.
>>65061682
I'm a sound engineer and a musician and I've worked with a lot of people, both good and bad, on both ends.
It sounds to me like the first guy you had figured out what you wanted then just remembered it, making it seem like he was magically doing it by ear every time but he was just loading presets of what you were happy with before.
Doing sound is hard as fuck. The band is almost NEVER happy with what you give them and complain about retarded shit that the sound guy has little to no control over. That being said, I don't know what exactly your problems were, but this is the case like 90% of the time.
For example, I did a show once where we had done sound checks and everything was good and the band decided to plug in an ipod for a backing track and had the volume all the way up on it. They turned it on and almost blew out our speakers, literally scared everyone in the audience, and WE got chewed out for it.
Another example, people CONSTANTLY complaining about feedback when the feedback is coming from THEIR AMPS or because they keep putting their mics too close to monitors.
ANOTHER example, people complaining that they don't have enough sound in their monitor. People ALWAYS complain about this. I've had times where someone has said "I need more guitar in my monitor" so I say ok, don't do anything, ask how it sounds, and they say "yeah thats perfect!"
Also, DON'T FUCKING UNPLUG YOUR INSTRUMENT WITHOUT SIGNALING US, YOU WILL BLOW OUT OUR FUCKING SPEAKERS.
Musicians are usually retarded, insufferable assholes. I have actually had a guy blame me for something wrong with HIS GEAR to the audience in the middle of his set.
Bands are usually a lot more douchey and retarded than sound guys are, in my experience at least
>>65062989
Yeah I've had some truly great sound guys, vast majority of them, and even the bad ones I make a point not to embarrass them or make them feel bad. Not all musicians understand or care though.
>>65062989
Oh and to the guy complaining about sound engineers these days going to school for years to not know how to mix a band live, I do agree with you there.
I was mentored by a guy who learned trial-by-fire mode. His first job, he asked for a job at a bar, mentioned he knew a little bit about sound, and became their permanent sound-guy while barely knowing anything at all and now he's one of the best I've ever seen. I've also never gone to school for it and everything I know, he taught me. One time I asked him if he had any reading material to get into the science of sound engineering in my free time and he was like "uhhh yeah we have a book laying around here somewhere, you can thumb through it if you want" sounding really hesitant. I looked through it for a while and most of it was just spelling out really simple shit in an amazingly tedious way. It's ridiculous what this shit teaches you, they spend HOURS worth of reading on the most simple things that you can figure out by doing it with your hands in like 5 minutes. I feel really bad for people that go to school for sound engineering.
The only thing I'd say is good about going to school for it is that you get a degree so you're more likely to get hired but almost every single venue in my town knows my mentor and a lot of touring bands and out of state venues know him too (he moves to a new town every couple years and has a huge resume) so a letter of recommendation from him is probably just as good as a degree
>>65063247
Oh yeah
>join music networking group
>kid there bragging about going to recording school
>won't shut the fuck up
>do sort of "open mic" type thing to hear each other's shit
>kid running sound
>can't figure out a powered mixer, pair of 12s, 1mic, one di for acoustic
>>65063374
>12s directly behind mic
>di boxes set to wrong impedence
>mixer has built-in di channels anyway
>yours truly now running sound
>play show
>guy in front row smoking marijuana
>hands it to me
>smoke it for the rest of the show and don't give it back
>>65063534
Pass that shit, Al.
>>65062989
Yo. Im the guy you replied to.
I know exactly what you mean.
But no...
I have learnd a shitload of things by this certain soundtech (I did an inofficial apprenteceship), most of those things I tried to use as best as I could on the record of the album of my own band. ( https://soundcloud.com/thecocks )
I also looked at a ton of youtube stuff and learned a few frequencys for guitar and voice and drums which you have to take care of in order to make a good live performance.
The first time this soundtech actually let me handle the mixer I did best I could, because mixing live is a shitload of a different job than mixing studio...you have to be waaaay faster and efficient, since you dont have the time to fiddle around with levels and shit.
And I was like "alright, this instrument - those frequencys....this instrument - those frequencys" and tried to do as fast and efficient as I could from the shit I have already learned.
And this guy just looked at me, stopped me and told me: forget your parameters, close your eyes and listen to it! If it sounds right, it is. If it sounds right but it actually isnt, your ears need more training.
This fucker really dials in every band all over in just a matter of seconds. I am not kidding. I watched him do it every time I looked over to him at the mixer.
He seems to be one of those rare fuckers every musician just wishes to tour with because hes the real deal.
btw....mixing is only a side-job for him. He actually has a fulltime job working a 40h week.
And since you mentioned "just dialing in presets". He does that. But only with presets he did with exactly that band beforehand.
I mean like....he tells the band that they could achieve a better sound if they get to the act 2 hourse before it starts, he uses that time to dial the preset it, let the first and second band play, then recalls the preset he did a few hours ago and gets the nice fucking sound everybody wants.
>>65063585
>band is literally called The Cocks
>book a communist band
>they kill you hand socialize your property
never again
>>65063247
Oh and also...with that hard fucker of soundengineer I also learned how to hear if the actually the monitor feedbacks or if its the amp.
Used that knowledge already a few times when (mostly guitarists) told me their monitor is feedbacking...I told them to put their fucking stratocaster into double-singlecoil pickup mode (if you take a strat it hast 1-5 pickup modes to select from, 2 and 4 are "use 2 pickups"(front/mid or mid/back, the "mid" is backwardly wound, which results in a humbucker-like effect, killing noise), with those you get a mainload of the feedback done with)
then also tell the guitarrist to turn his fuckload of gain down a lil bit....asshole uses gain at 12 and also has a screamer...how is that not supposed to feedback? asshole
>>65063710
*and
>>65063621
yes...yes we are actually literally called the cocks... https: / / soundcloud.com/thecocks
>>65063746
>band is literally called The Cucks
>>65063939
sorry to disappoint...but we are actually NOT part of /b/...only one of us, which is me.
