Sound balance on big stages?

Tony Harris · Post by **Tony Harris** » 19 Jul 2005 6:22 am

I've played guitar for years, mainly in small and medium sized places. I've usually been able to hear everyone else in the band, including the vocals, without using monitors. The few times I've played on larger stages, such as in theatres, I've felt uncomfortable with the sound. The musicians are a lot further apart, and despite a soundman and monitor speakers around the stage, I feel I'm sometimes playing 'blind'. The last time it happened I couldn't hear the leader's guitar, or any of the vocals from the frontline. Luckily, we were well-rehearsed and I knew what was suppsed to be going on. Apparently it sounded fine out-front. For those of you who play big stages regularly or tour theatres, are you able to hear everyone in a natural balance (as if you were closer together on a small stage)? Or do you have to live with poor sound and just play?

David Wren · Post by **David Wren** » 19 Jul 2005 6:42 am

Only about half my gigs on on large stages, but it really just depends on the expertise of the sound man. One thing I've found, at least for the group I'm playing with, I instruct the sound man to not put the pedal steel in the other musicans monitors, espedially the singer's. I play in the back and my amp usually offers enough monitor for the singer and other lead player. Some performances have been real nice, with great sound on stage.... and some have been total nightmares. I'm sure the others on the forum will echo these experiences.

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Dave Wren
'95Carter S12-E9/B6,7X7; Session500; Hilton Pedal
www.ameechapman.com

Gene Jones · Post by **Gene Jones** » 19 Jul 2005 7:48 am

Tony, I've played a few big stages and it's always been a "crap shoot" as for being able to adequately hear the balance of your output.

Fortunately, on those venues you will usually be playing songs that you have played before, so all you can do is play the arrangement and hope that the sound techs are on top of it!

Unfortunately, it only matters to you, it doesn't matter to the listeners because all they are listening to is the "star" at the mic.

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www.genejones.com
The Road Traveled "From Then 'til Now"

Dave Grafe · Post by **Dave Grafe** » 19 Jul 2005 10:44 am

As David says, you're pretty much at the mercy of the sound engineer once you are too far apart to hear each other well without monitors, as this story illustrates:

Twice I have gone down to play at the Winemucca cattle auction with Joni Harms. The first time the sound guys were outstanding, got us great monitor mixes and were very attentive throughout the event, we had a ball, the music was great, the crowd went nuts and Joni sold a ton of product afterwards.

The second time we went down there the promoters had hired a cheaper sound company, the sound guys didn't seem to understand anything but rock and roll, and in the middle of the sound check the monitor guy split to get a drink at the bar and simply never came back. The sound on stage sucked, we couldn't hear ourselves or each other, the house sound guy was changing the levels all the time so the audience mix sucked as well - as a result the crowd was indifferent and we left wondering what else we could have possibly done to make it better. The answer of course was nothing at all.

Bob Cox · Post by **Bob Cox** » 19 Jul 2005 11:57 am

I recently purchased a sure earbud set and now I can hear every singer, picker, including me crystal clear,check it out at a music store and I,m sure youll like what you hear.

Dave Grafe · Post by **Dave Grafe** » 19 Jul 2005 2:29 pm

Still, Bob, someone needs to get the mix right for you or you're just hearing the wrong thing really good.

Bob Hoffnar · Post by **Bob Hoffnar** » 19 Jul 2005 6:56 pm

You might try some musicians ear plugs you get from audiologists. I find that if I bring the overall sound pressure levels down to a more reasonable level I can choose what I want to focus on in the mix. Once my ears feel attacked all the individual colors of the overtones turn into a grey mush.

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Bob
My Website

[This message was edited by Bob Hoffnar on 19 July 2005 at 07:56 PM.]

Donny Hinson · Post by **Donny Hinson** » 28 Jul 2005 1:55 pm

I've played on some very big stages, and the easiest solution I found was just not using all the stage! (Duh???) Position the group in the center of the stage, maybe a little farther apart than a regular gig, but never spread out to try and fill a huge stage just because it's there!

Not only does the sound, tightness, and audience enjoyment suffer, but it looks really stupid, too.

[This message was edited by Donny Hinson on 28 July 2005 at 02:58 PM.]

Post by **Dave Mudgett** » 28 Jul 2005 2:43 pm

I play large stages sometimes. I agree with Donny - any band I've been in tends to group fairly tightly on a large stage. But in a pinch, to get through the gig, all I really need to hear well is myself, the bass (for the pitch center), snare (for the rhythmic center), and vocals (so I don't step on them).

I also agree with Bob H. - the key for me is to keep the instrumental volume reasonable, so the monitors can easily get the vocals over the instruments. The right amps make a big difference - I usually use a bigger amp than in a small club. But we try not to play a lot louder than in a small club. Ear-splitting volumes just make the soundman's job of getting a good monitor mix that much harder. If it's a good sound system and if it's a good sound person, they can get a good mix at a higher level, but that's a lot of ifs.

Joey Ace · Post by **Joey Ace** » 28 Jul 2005 3:08 pm

This hits home for me. Last weekend I played on a very big stage. The whole band agreed that it was the worst stage sound we've encountered.

We are used to playing decent clubs, this was outdoors.
Friends in the audience said the FOH mix was good.

They had a seperate monitor mixing guy on stage, who gladly turned up whatever we wanted, but the mix was muddy. I suspect it's because we weren't the headliner, so not a lot of effort was put into our sound.

I don't know what else we could have done.

More pix of this band Here.

Dave Grafe · Post by **Dave Grafe** » 28 Jul 2005 10:52 pm

A good monitor mixer - and I know some truly great ones - is someone who has a real passion for getting inside the music, who understands what musicians need and listens to each mix constantly on the cue monitor, tweeking them to be MUSICAL - in many ways it's a much harder job than mixing FOH but since there's little or no glory in it the great majority of the time the guy mixing stage monitors is the cheapest help the sound company can find who wants to be a sound man but doesn't know enough about what he is doing to mix for the audience so they put him on the monitors after they get him to do all the lifting and carrying.

A couple of years ago at a gig in Alaska with Joni Harms we encountered a monitor guy that inserted gates on EVERYTHING "to help keep the amp noise down" with the result that we couldn't hear the fiddle at all except for every once in a while when he hit a really loud note and it would open the gate then slowly turn off again until the next really loud note.

Even top notch pro sound people can't do much about an incompetent monitor mixer when their job for the day is to play music, not fix the monitor mix on somebody else's rig. Besides, there's simply no time to do both jobs.
[This message was edited by Dave Grafe on 29 July 2005 at 12:03 AM.]

André Sommer · Post by **André Sommer** » 29 Jul 2005 3:16 am

I play a lot on big festival stages and just about all of them had huge sidefills on either side of the stage (mostly floating high, pointing down)with the complete FOH mix on them. IMO, those really make up for inadequate floormonitor mixes since the person doing the FOH mix is usually

the more experienced one.

It also helps if the outerstage players turn their amps pointing a little bit inwards (like almost in a half circle)so you will need less of them in your floormonitor. Some PA companies will give you two floors with exactly the same mix on them which is a really bad thing to do. If they have enough seperate groups, you should ask for instruments on one and just vocals on the other, for example.

It would also help to talk to the monitormixer before the sound/line check and establish the proper sign language to let him know what you want changed on your mix. I have seen the most confusing signals many times and felt really sorry for the monitor mixer. Also, thank the guy(s) after the gig if they did a great job, a lot of musicians seem to 'forget' that. They really appreciate it and most will remember that the next time they see you.

The biggest 'mistake' I see some bands make is that every player asks for all instruments on their floormixes. I think that's begging for trouble. Less is more, imho.

André.[This message was edited by André Sommer on 29 July 2005 at 04:35 AM.][This message was edited by André Sommer on 29 July 2005 at 04:36 AM.]

Bryan Bradfield · Post by **Bryan Bradfield** » 29 Jul 2005 9:09 am

One thing to try to avoid is to automatically ask the tech doing monitor sound to give you MORE of a certain instrument or voice. If each member of the band has a different thing they like to listen to, you can get into an escalation of the overall sound pretty quickly. I've learned that if the monitor levels are adequate, and I want to hear more vocal, I ask for LESS of the instruments.

Dave Grafe · Post by **Dave Grafe** » 29 Jul 2005 12:16 pm

Good call, Bryan, now if only the rest of the world would follow suit.