You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - 7 Things NOT to do at a Soundcheck - #99

Episode Date: May 8, 2018

In this episode, Peter and Adam list 7 things NOT to do at a soundcheck. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

I'm Adam Ennis and I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to the You'll Hear It Podcast. Today we're going to give you seven things not to do at a sound check. Wait, so if we don't do these things, then we'll sound good? Well, if you don't do these things, you will survive the sound check and make it to the gig. Okay, well, then I'm all yours. Let's do this one. At a minimum of it. Okay. So the first one is, well, first of all, a sound check.

Let's just talk about what a sound check is. I mean, it's very basic. you're checking the sound. Right. So there's a purpose, you know, if there's a sound engineer and like a crew there, it's a chance for them to get the stage prepared to really get the sound right, to basically prepare the environment for the audience. A lot of people think it's for the musicians only or for the sound engineer or for the crew,

but ultimately it's the preparation of everything for the audience, I think. Yeah, that's right. I mean, you can use it to get an idea of how the room's going to sound, but oftentimes, you know, I don't know about you, but the room totally changes when an audience comes into it. Always. You have 250, 180 pound bags of water fill in those seats. And so it changes naturally the dynamics of the room.

So it's really not the greatest place to like think this is how it's going to sound, but you do want to get comfortable. You want to make sure you can hear everything. And hopefully these seven things will help you accomplish a good sound and so that you're comfortable on the performance. Right. Right. So number one is not listen like it usually is.

but it is don't be late. This is a crucial mistake you see being made all the time. I mean, you know what? You can come and screw a lot of things up at the sound check, but even to screw it up, you've got to be there on time in order to do that. So that's like kind of your minimum viable activity is just show up on time. Of course, you're going to want to show up to the gig on time too, but take the sound check seriously because, you know,

if it's kind of a more minimalist gig where the band is doing the sound and like preparing everything, it's really important to have that opportunity to do that and to prepare things right. I mean, we always think like preparing the music and practicing and playing great is the most important thing. But the reality of it is, especially for kind of different peculiar type venues, how it sounds and how it looks is a big part of what it is. And this is your opportunity to get that together. Yeah, and you don't want to miss out on time that could be spent trying to get a good sound. That's the most important thing for this performance.

you know, make it a priority like you would a gig for the sound check and really use as much time as you can getting it tweaked the best that it can be. Right. And that brings this to number two, and this kind of falls right in line with this. And that's don't be unprepared for sound check. Wait, don't be. So be prepared. Why are you saying don't? Because we're doing seven things not to do.

Oh, that's right. There's going to be double negatives. You're going to have to deal with it. Okay. Don't be unprepared. You know, don't show up and you don't have. a guitar chord that you know you're gonna need you know what I mean don't have to forget your music or whatever it's just like anything else and this happens does anyone

have a pencil dude no come to sound check knowing exactly you know how many inputs you're gonna need what kind of mics you need you know if you can to send the sound engineer a stage plot beforehand if it's that kind of gig I have some save you know for all the projects I'm involved in that are just easy to like email and then That way everybody has everything set up, ready to go. Again, trying to save time. Because it's not just about you in these situations. Like, there's often, you know, not to mention the musicians, but other people involved.

And if you start wasting time, people can get a little tweaked. Yeah, well, especially if it's one of those, like, stack sound check, like a festival thing where there's four bands having the sound check. And you've got 20 minutes each or 30 minutes each. Dude, nothing's rude. Line check and all that kind of stuff. Because then the last band, it's like they're four hours late. Exactly. You know what I mean?

Okay. So number three, okay, now I've got to be careful with the double negative. So these are seven things not to do at a sound check. So we should not be doing them. Okay. So the number three thing to not do at the sound check is piss off the sound engineer. This should probably be number one. I know.

Apologies to the sound engineers. This is not an order of importance. This is like a set. The media's most important thing is right in the middle of the set. Now that we got you hooked. Yeah. This is actually the most important thing. This is, absolutely.

So really the sound engineer is kind of, de facto in charge of the sound check. Now, the reality of who is actually running it, sometimes it's a production manager, sometimes it's a stage manager, sometimes it's the leader of the band or whatever. But in terms of you're checking the sound and trying to prepare the sound,

the sound engineer has the most control over that. So there's many things that are happening. You know, we're getting comfortable maybe with the instrument, especially as pianists. We do need a little time to get a company, you know, get comfortable with the instrument. But in terms of the actual sound check time, we want to have the sound engineer happy, so we don't want to piss them off by

like not playing. Like, what are some ways we could piss off this? I'm thinking like, don't, not playing the way we're going to actually play on the gig. That always pisses them off. Yeah, not listening. One that I find is as soon as they turn something on. Yeah. You immediately like, yeah, I can't really hear that.

Or, you know, like, you got to understand. They know that things aren't right yet. That's why there's a soundish. Just being a bad human pretty much. could piss them off. No, I mean, it's an eye-opener. If you ever get a chance to actually run sound or be back there for another band, do it. Because you'll get a real sense of like, oh, like, they know that there's no high end in the monitor yet.

Right. They're doing it. They're getting there. But just let, as my father-in-law used to say, let Jesse rob this train. Jesse rob's trains for living. Right. Let Jesse rob this train. No, like, I mean, there's, first of all, for some reason, a lot of musicians think it's totally okay to be super rude.

To sound engineers. Which is weird because oftentimes they're like rather large tattooed gentlemen that they could really kick our ass. I'm pretty sure without a problem. It's totally true. Don't, you know, don't move their stuff. Don't touch their mics. No, seriously. Like don't, you know, you would want someone like taking your trumpet.

Right. And moving it across the room for you. Oh, I know a way to piss off. And I've actually done this before. But my apology is pissing off the sound engineer. Like when there's really bad feedback, don't like get. on the mic and say, it's feeding back. It's already obvious than it is.

I mean, hey, listen. Feedback can happen, but it shouldn't. But yes, like you said, they know what's going on. I mean, the thing is, the sound engineer actually controls your fate more than you think you do. They do. There might need to be a little bit of kissing ass, but not only not pissing them off, but really, you know, kissing up to them. I'm not ashamed to say that I definitely kiss a little sound engineer ass because I know that it's going to help. you know, they're going to work harder at trying to get our sound right.

Yeah. And that's important to me. So number four of something, seven things not to do with a sound check. And now that I'm thinking about this, all these things, if you're doing any of these, you're going to piss off the sound and engineer basically. That's kind of where this leads to. You're probably going to piss off all the other musicians. That's right.

So number four is don't blow for 99 choruses. Please. Yeah. Do at least 100, okay? Do not stop at 99. No, just don't. This is not the time to show. off what you can play or to you know i mean i think as a pianist we have a little more excuse for playing

a little more than others sometimes because but actually i can't even say that because oftentimes not drummers you know if you're traveling or maybe you have your set maybe it's a house set though so you got to get comfortable with the instrument but you're also players now and bass players yeah yeah but i mean in general this is not the time to like rehearse and and just to be playing a whole bunch of time give everybody a chance and then it's not just a chance for you to get comfortable It's not the chance for the sound engineer, the house, the monitors, if there's the monitors. But all the other musicians also, and they need to hear everything. Short solos, short, short, short solos.

Yeah. You know, if you have the opportunity and you really want to get familiar with a piano that you're not familiar with, reach out and see if you can go 30 minutes before sound check starts and warm up and get to know it. I do that a lot. Yeah, me too. And that way you don't have to, like, waste everybody's time. Although I did find out that that's, that could be on a list of seven ways to piss off. a lighting engineer or lighting designer because a lot of times that's their time.

So like I'll go early before the sound check and they're trying to do the lights and I'm up there practicing and stuff. But, you know, what can you do? What are you going to do? That takes us to number five. And this is just in general. Don't get your stage volume louder than a 737 jumbo jet. And I say this because.

So like a DC 10 is okay. DC 10 is fine. Yeah. Prop planes are cool. No, no, no. Like, have you ever been on one of these gigs where? It's like every instrument is blasting probably louder than the house on stage. Right.

And it just becomes this fight that you're not going to win. Right. Because, I mean, the house has to levelize. I mean, some people just like, well, just don't have the house on it all. But there's going to be something else that can't be heard. You're too loud. You're too loud. And then one person isn't.

So they got to bring them up. And then they got to start bringing you up. And then it's just, you know, everything's too loud. I'm a proponent of going as minimal as you can on monitors. You know, we're playing acoustic instruments, first of all. Right. And the more you can hear it acoustic. I think the better for the vibe.

You know, sometimes it's impossible on bigger stages or outside. But really try to get away with as quiet of a stage as you can get. And I think you're going to find that you can hear things better and that, you know, you're not being blown out of your chair. Right. Okay, number six, I'm going to tell you something. We kind of covered this, but this definitely deserves its own thing as far as something not to do with a sound check.

And that is to practice. Okay, this is not practice time. I mean, there's just no other way around it. This is not a time for you to learn the music or to practice. And, I mean, that's rehearsal or that's personal practice. Now, sometimes you can schedule that in or ask. And actually, we do this a lot with some of the groups that I tour with. If I know, like, say, we have a sub coming and we're not going to have a chance to play together much,

I'll ask the sound engineer or the production manager to say, look, can we get 30 minutes just to rehearse during the sound check? Totally. And they love that if there's time to know that. And then that's also my way of letting them know. during this time that we're practicing, don't say, wait, hold on the drums and stop playing drums. I need to hear just the piano. This is our time to practice.

But then they're still giving their time. We're communicating. But other than that, it's really, it's not a time to practice. Yeah, I agree. You've got to let them know a little bit. And oftentimes they don't mind at all. In fact, it gives them more of an insight of like how the band is going to sound. They get to hear you play as an ensemble longer.

And that helps them get a better house sound. But, yeah, don't go in there and just expect that you can rehearse for two hours. Right. I mean, you need to play like you're going to play on the gig. And like practicing even as a band or rehearsing is really not how you play on the gig. Yeah, you're all playing together and stuff. But especially like individual practice and stuff, it's just not needed. And so that brings us to our last thing not to do at a sound check. And that is don't leave without being able to hear what you want to hear.

You know, don't compromise on your comfort level. You know, make sure that you're at a good place, you know, for the. performance. You don't want to get up there in the performance and I've done this before and you think like I wish I would have said this then. I mean you can change some things on the gig. You can give them hand signals thumbs up. Oh they love those. Especially when you're looking at them like come on you give me a real mean look to the audience too. They love that. But you know the sound check you're there to actually you know make sure that the sounds are cool for the gig and that's really the primary reason you're not really there to rehearse like we were saying that's not the I mean you can

do it but it's not the primary reason so make sure you don't leave you know with without getting exactly what you want. Well, and this is a great place for us to end, too, because all of our other ones were kind of offensive errors by the musician. And this one is kind of not, is being a little too mousy, maybe, and a little bit not assertive enough. All the other ones were being too assertive. But it's absolutely true.

Like you do still have it, should take that right and that opportunity to get comfortable with the sound yourself. It's not just about the audience, because ultimately, if you can hear and you feel like your instrument sounds good, and that you can hear what's going on stage, you're going to play a better performance in the audience is going to love it. So, yeah, it's for the house sound.

And I've had some kind of altercations, not physical, just mental and verbal, with some sound engineers about this where they're a little too heavy-handed, I think the other way, where it's just like, this is my time to just get the house sound. That's all that matters.

I'm like, the stage sound is important too because we've got to be able to hear each other, the instrument has to sound good to us. Well, in really good venues will actually have separate people for the stage and for the house. And that's when you can really like, you know, make a relationship with that stage sound engineer and get it together.

You know, ideally, you should, you know, try to get a game and get your own sound engineer. Exactly. But this don't happen very often anymore. But when that happens, they'll hear it and you'll hear it. Thanks for listening to this episode of the You'll Hear It podcast. You can go to you'll hear it.com to get more information, submit a question, or just say hello. Wait, you can do that. Absolutely.

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