Damned good advice...I bet we can add some though...

[Dr.Zayus]

http://dyingscene.com/news/13-common-sense-guidelines-for-playing-in-a-punk-band/

[Corey Y]

All those points are good advice and the sort of thing we would discuss (and bitch about) constantly in my old punk band. It's shocking how many bands do the opposite of almost all of them.

[Mr. Foxen]

Not sure how it applies specifically to punk. Unless punk bands think those are all cool things to do.

[Corey Y]

I think you could just relabel that "DIY" and even that might be overdoing it. It's not punk specific, most of those things apply to any band. I think most punk/hardcore bands have the attitude that every other type of musicians are playing huge professional venues, state fairs or doing 3 back to back sets of top 40 at college bars.

[Dr.Zayus]

I think you could just relabel that "DIY" and even that might be overdoing it. It's not punk specific, most of those things apply to any band. I think most punk/hardcore bands have the attitude that every other type of musicians are playing huge professional venues, state fairs or doing 3 back to back sets of top 40 at college bars.

What? You guys aren't?

[chlorpromazine]

I agree that it is good information for everyone, but relax guys. The article is from a punk website. Let 'em have this one. Thanks for posting. I'm sharing it with every musician that I know.

#6 is my pet peeve. I've even had the conversation with a couple of drummers that I know after their set. "Hey let's stop fucking around and get this shit off the stage." You'd be surprised at how clueless some folks really are about this.

[jibberish]

i need to read stuff like this, thanks.

....ampeg fridge/RG flashback....once that fucker was up out of the tight basement practice space, the game was already won. the rest was all much easier the whole rest of the night



...and interestingly enough, i had a flashback of a band loading in through the crowd at peabody's. that was a drag.

oh yeah that was me carrying red giant shit hahaha.


(there was some reason we came in the front..normally everyone used their load in which is very nice, actually really nice now. secure gated flat, fine gravelled surface, area.  Well lit, well drained, room for a few vehicles, no step entry to the venue from outside=awesome..like coming in off the gravel patio or something)

and so there is no mistake, RG was pro at getting on and off the stage. no fucking around.
lol, the only fucking around was if damien didn't like his tuning. you could see alex, who has a bit of a short fuse,slo burning at the not so dynamic start to their set sometimes.  hard to take damien's want of perfection for best performance away though..that was the way it was.

as long as i'm tripping, alex would make a good front man for many bands. i hope he gets a good hookup someday, like monster magnet or something of that caliber ( or better is cooler)


->they should add the phil anselmo rule about bumming out your crowd with your retarded ego DURING the show too.
too bad, i really like phil's singing when he has his head out of his ass..

[rayinreverse]

We played a month or so ago. A band that a few people were there to see decided to break out their deep cuts and just keep playing,while there 2 other bands that had a lot of people there to see them waited. When the midget door girl has to tell you its your last song,you've probably played 20 minutes longer than you should have.

[Dr.Zayus]

We played a month or so ago. A band that a few people were there to see decided to break out their deep cuts and just keep playing,while there 2 other bands that had a lot of people there to see them waited. When the midget door girl has to tell you its your last song,you've probably played 20 minutes longer than you should have.

Oh man, that drives me nuts...Also, if it takes you 20 minutes extra to set up, because your drummer has some crazy rack tom system and 5000 drums, you should subtract that 20 minutes from your set.

[Submarine]

Obey the schedule, you will piss of everyone by going overtime.
And once you get to the big leagues and deal with union labor those 20 minutes turned into the promoters $2500 extra labor charge.  Not a good way to make friends.

[fallen]

We played a month or so ago. A band that a few people were there to see decided to break out their deep cuts and just keep playing,while there 2 other bands that had a lot of people there to see them waited. When the midget door girl has to tell you its your last song,you've probably played 20 minutes longer than you should have.

Oh man, that drives me nuts...Also, if it takes you 20 minutes extra to set up, because your drummer has some crazy rack tom system and 5000 drums, you should subtract that 20 minutes from your set.

I played with a metal band once... the drummer had a huge double bass kit with a double level rack and a zillion toms etc. but it was awesome. When they hit the stage for their set all 4 guys in the band grabbed a corner and walked his whole kit up on stage in one piece. Pretty crazy.

I would recommend that all drummers 1. bring an extra snare drum and 2. use as many combo stands as possible. If you can move your whole kit onto or off the stage in 3 or 4 pieces it saves a ton of time.

[Instant Dan]

7A rings a bell. In my short time playing around, the band after us did an encore that no one wanted because they stopped and started a song multiple times.

6 as well, seen guys who bring out a dozen pedals, not on a board, only to use their tuner, dirt/od pedal for leads, and maybe a phaser during one part of a song.

[zachoff]

If you can't play drunk, don't get drunk until after the show.
If you can't play stoned, don't get stoned until after the show.
If you can't play on whatever, don't do whatever until after the show.

Some folks can play stoned, drunk, or whatever, and I respect that... Others can't.  Know where you are.

[Lumpy]

Never take your clothes off for money.

(wrong thread)

[eoin_not_ian]

Good article, though I was surprised that there wasn't a 'do not piss piss off the soundman/woman' item.

[clockwork green]

Good article, though I was surprised that there wasn't a 'do not piss piss off the soundman/woman' item.

Fuck them. We've been lucky much of the time but I've still met a lot of shitty sound men.

[eoin_not_ian]

Good article, though I was surprised that there wasn't a 'do not piss piss off the soundman/woman' item.

Fuck them. We've been lucky much of the time but I've still met a lot of shitty sound men.

Me too. Though I never make the point telling them to fuck themselves. I always hear that 'if you piss off a shitty soundman, he will make your band sound rubbish'. But if he/she is a shitty soundperson, then he will make your band sound rubbish anyway.

[spookstrickland]

Here is my two cents on dealing with sound men:

How to work with them

I want to put together a quick list of tips I have came up with over the years to make things easier for you to get the sound that you want on stage.

1) If you like a really Bass Heavy "Woman Tone" or "Texas Doom Tone" and you are not getting it first try telling the soundman that you want more bass. If it's still not enough tell him you want your tone "muddy" soundmen tend to want things bright and clean sounding and for some of us guitar players that is just the opposite of what we want and we can keep telling the soundman more bass, more bass until the cows come home and he will just not get it because he considers that sound "muddy" and to him muddy is a bad thing. But if you tell him up front you want it "Sludgy and Muddy" more than likely he will comply. Another trick that I have discovered that works great is If you tend to play on the neck pickup, sound-check on the bridge pickup. After he has you dialed in to what he considers "nice and fat" you switch to the neck pickup and bam! you have Instant fat tone! Also ask him to give your a guitar a boost at 500HZ this will really make your tone cut through and sound nice and thick. Now if play on the bridge pickup you can sound-check using a coil-tap then switch over to the untapped sound for the show.

2) If you like to play really loud and the soundman always turns the monitors down on you this is what you do. Start out quiet in the sound-check I mean really quite and force him to crank the monitors really loud then you will only have to just nudge your volume right before you take the stage for the show. Be careful though because the soundman usually looks at the levels a few times during the show and if he sees the guitar Chanel all of a sudden boosted he is going to pull down the mains signal. A good way around this is to get a DI box and run it from an output on your amp that is not effected by the master volume that way after the show starts you can crank your amp and even though he might hear it get louder if he looks at he board he will see all the levels right where they should be and probably do nothing but go off and have a beer. I have used this trick myself in clubs where the week before I could barley hear myself because the soundman kept turning me down and the next week my stage volume was so loud my pant legs were flapping!

3) If all else fails have the guitar player and the bass player turn their amps inwards towards the drummer like you would do while practicing in your garage or rehearsal space that way you can crank them up with out blowing away the soundman or the people in the audience. I have done this a few times and it works really great. And one time the soundman even thought it was such a good idea he was going to have all his metal bands do it.


more here:

http://www.hydrozeen.com/spookstricklandguitarmethod.html

[Mr. Foxen]

That is all working against sound men and will piss them of, and a pissed off soundman is a surefire way to shitty sound out front. Especially asking for more bass. A sound man knows that isn't bass anyway, its low mids, just because the knob on your amp says 'bass' doesn't means its bass frequency range like a PA does you want to hear. Any fucking you do with sound after sound check will be heard by a soundman, they use their ears not looking at knobs to tell how things sound (plenty of people aren't sound men and pretend to be them mind), and they won't be able to make it sound good after the sound check, they'll just gut the sound to stop it fucking with things.

[Danny G]

Yes. Having even stage volume from the get-go will help immensely and keep from pissing off the soundman.

And by "even stage volume" I mean the amps are *only* as loud as the drums.

Having *too much* low end in guitar signal only swallows up and competes with the bass, so keep that in mind Spook. Fine line between what sounds good at home and what sounds good onstage.

[RacerX]

Having *too much* low end in guitar signal only swallows up and competes with the bass, so keep that in mind Spook. Fine line between what sounds good at home and what sounds good onstage.

I think Spuke's band lacks a bassist, but I could be wrong.

[spookstrickland]

Yes. Having even stage volume from the get-go will help immensely and keep from pissing off the soundman.

And by "even stage volume" I mean the amps are *only* as loud as the drums.

Having *too much* low end in guitar signal only swallows up and competes with the bass, so keep that in mind Spook. Fine line between what sounds good at home and what sounds good onstage.

That is all working against sound men and will piss them of, and a pissed off soundman is a surefire way to shitty sound out front. Especially asking for more bass. A sound man knows that isn't bass anyway, its low mids, just because the knob on your amp says 'bass' doesn't means its bass frequency range like a PA does you want to hear. Any fucking you do with sound after sound check will be heard by a soundman, they use their ears not looking at knobs to tell how things sound (plenty of people aren't sound men and pretend to be them mind), and they won't be able to make it sound good after the sound check, they'll just gut the sound to stop it fucking with things.

Point taken.  It is never a good idea to work against a sound man if you don't have to, but...if the soundman is just not giving you what you need these tips have worked for me in the past to get the results I wanted. 

I know I play with a muddy tone, that is not everyones cup of tea, but I like and at the end of the day that's all that matters.  I would not want anyone else to alter their tone just to please me or a soundman.  No bass player in my band so I'm free to fill up all the frequencies I want

Cheers

[Danny G]

^^^

Then disregard what I said about too much low frequencies in the guitar EQ-ing, heh \m/,


Have you experimented with running a guitar and bass rig with an ABY box? I've seen some 2-piece bands do some cool shit with such a setup.

[Mr. Foxen]

Don't need mud to have bass, just get mud if you try and put bass through a rig that can't do it, so you don't get the low frequencies, you just get mess in the higher ones, which is what makes it obnoxious for sound engineers to deal with. If you actually want lows, a bass rig or a sub rig is the way to go. If you want mud, don't ask the sound engineer for bass, tell them you don't want any definition so they don't try and bring the sound of a guitar out of the mess.

[Submarine]

The sound engineer is not responsible for your  guitar tone.  You are.
We make it louder or softer and pull out or add any frequencies that are building up in the context of the overall mix.
On small to medium size stages your amp is being heard in the audience regardless of whether or not its in the PA.
If its so loud I can't get the vocal over it - well you fucked yourself, not me.

And spook - if you mess with the monitor mix like that and your guitar is being sent to other mixes onstage - you fucked your band over too.
And lastly if your amp is so loud why the hell do you need it in monitors?  An amp is a monitor - for your guitar.

The best piece of advice I have seen regarding stage volume is to balance it against the drum kit(on smaller stages).  I mix one of the loudest bands in the world - some days the only thing in the PA is kick, snare, vocals and gtr solos - and this is on large PA systems.