would you refuse to play a gig because of bad sound?

[johninet]

Last night we attempted to play yet again with some friends of ours at an acoustic show at a local venue.We are an acoustic duo and play moderately intricate parts and while we dont have to have perfect sound we depend on being able to at least have some sort of reference to our respective instruments. What we got was no eq on the monitors at all, an incompetant soundman with a chip on his shoulder,and sound than ranged from severe ground hum to severe distortion depending on who was yelling out the latest greatest tip for sound amplication.we were told later that this is pretty much the standard setup for sound and in most situations you have little or no time for sound check and we better get used to it because its pretty much the norm. The bad part was this is a well known band who has played large venues and who when they got up to play couldnt care less about monitors,beat the living hell out of their instruments,stole the show and everyone raved.Honestly, are they right? should you sacrifice tone and precision because youll never get a good sound check anyway? Weve played shows where sound was awesome and i setup my own sound.didnt seem all that hard to me.so the question is,is there a threshold where you would just say forget it? Or how would you handle it. Thank you in advance...

[bigmuff113]

I wouldn't. Plug into a dimes plexi and put it next to the sound guy.

[telequacktastic]

Johninet,
I feel for ya man, I've had soundman hell gigs before. I've heard of soundmen being instructed to ruin the opening acts sound to not let the main act be upstaged. I'm not saying was your case necessarily. I've said f*** this! at open mics when the sound really was bad though. Personally if I was in your shoes and trying to get through a gig that was bad I would just try and tough it out. Honestly, If it was bad and too ridiculous to manage to finish the set I might just fake a phone call and leave the venue though... My Wife's having the baby NOW!!! gotta go!

[johninet]

thanks quacktastic,if fact we did tough it out for about half the set when the other bands singer asked about how long we had left.I smiled and said "were finishing up right about now brother." Then i spent the next thirty minutes trying to fix their broken gear,finally said screw it and let them play through our stuff....

[Tim Armstrong]

You just have to decide how much crap you'll put up with, and say a pleasant "no" to anything past that point.

Fwiw, I once saw the same thing happen to Dave Edmonds when he was opening for the Stray Cats in concert. Dave gamely tried to play, but after six songs he apologized to the audience and left the stage. Stray Cats came out a bit later, and the sound was flawless. The weird thing: Dave was their producer, and one would think their friend!

Tim

[donh]

Originally Posted by Tim Armstrong

You just have to decide how much crap you'll put up with, and say a pleasant "no" to anything past that point.

Fwiw, I once saw the same thing happen to Dave Edmonds when he was opening for the Stray Cats in concert. Dave gamely tried to play, but after six songs he apologized to the audience and left the stage. Stray Cats came out a bit later, and the sound was flawless. The weird thing: Dave was their producer, and one would think their friend!

Tim

Tim,

I saw that happen to the Stray Cats when they opened for Stevie Ray Vaughn at the Toledo Zoo. This was less than 2 months before we lost Stevie.

The sound guys had no bass player evident at all, a murderous snare, loud guitar and almost no voice. Brian begged in vain for some attention for two full songs, started the third, swore once, and left the state.

This wasn't a 'kill the openers', tho. They actually paid a bit of attention to Stevie's group, but I never heard the keyboard guy until the last 1.5 tunes.

Stevie was a trouper and tried to put a good face on it for Brian and his guys, but I have never forgiven that sound company.

[Paul in Colorado]

I had a soundguy blame me for the crappy sound coming out of the monitor. He was blaming my mandolin rig. Then why did it sound flawless in every other monitor and my vocal mic also was crapping out? After he threw a tantrum, he came over and shoved the fiddle players wedge towards me to share a mix and went back to the board in a huff. I'm glad we brought our own guy in to mix.

No, bad sound is not "normal." If I wasn't getting what I wanted after two songs, I'd stop playing and apologize to the audiance and have them fix the mix right there and then before I continued. I can get through a less then stellar mix, but a total crap mix? No way. Anyone that sings or plays acoustic has to have decent monitors. It's not that hard to do.

[caferacer]

I have played some gig's with seriously craptastic sound
just do the best that you can, dont have a fit, and hope the audience is understanding, (or drunk)

[klasaine]

Unfortunately, yeah it happens a lot.
If you stick around you learn to deal with it in various ways. I'm not a big advocate of leaving the stage ... unless you actually are Dave Edmonds or Brian Setzer.
My way was/is to immediately upon arrival at said gig, give the sound guy a 20. It's been pretty effective - YMMV.
Another way is to have your own (you and your partner or group) sound totally together via some type of DI or acoustic amp/mixer system.
To that extreme I regularly share the bill with a large acoustic group (the Wicked Tinkers) and they COMPLETELY mix themselves on stage - mics, effects and mixer - and just give the soundman two XLR's out.
That's, as I said, extreme - but it works.

[spook69]

If you stick around you learn to deal with it in various ways. I'm not a big advocate of leaving the stage ... unless you actually are Dave Edmonds or Brian Setzer.

+1

If we are contracted to do a gig, we do it. Pulling out / not doing the gig due to crappy sound is breach of contract & we will not get paid & let down 100 people.

Not on.

[mlove3]

we were told later that this is pretty much the standard setup for sound and in most situations you have little or no time for sound check and we better get used to it because its pretty much the norm.

>>>Tough it out, you can overcome it and it'll make you stronger.

The bad part was this is a well known band who has played large venues and who when they got up to play couldnt care less about monitors,beat the living hell out of their instruments,stole the show and everyone raved.

>>>They're probably used to mediocre sound and just did what they do.

This is rock and roll, it's NEVER gonna sound like the cushy rehearsal room on stage.

[guitarbiker]

Live sound almost always sucks! The more experienced band has learned that from experience. They also have probably played together so often in bad sound situations that they don't have to listen to each other. I used to be fussy about having good vocal monitors but finally gave up. I don't even ask for monitors anymore I put some earplugs in and hear my own voice through my head. Not a whole lot to do with musicality when playing live. That's why I now work mostly in my recording studio.

[GigsbyBoyUK]

What we got was no eq on the monitors at all

Just picking up on this specific point...most small to medium systems won't really allow for independent EQing of channels into the monitors. The desk just gives you a chance to adjust the level of each channel into the monitor. I would never ask for the EQ of my guitar or vocal to change in the monitor...you are getting into quite serious systems before you have that option.

In general, no matter how band the on-stage or front-of-house sound you have to play on. And in fact it's a good idea not to act like a diva over it. I have seen a buddy of mine who sound engineers get abuse from bands on stage, even when he is clearly doing his best to get a good mix and fix problems with little time to do it. Those bands don't do themselves any favours by publicly complaining.

[GeetarPlayer]

I'm not meaning to blow my own horn here, but this is a major reason why I loive to run sound. People are actually surprised when I'm proactive, responsive to their reasonable requests, ask them how things are every now and then.

Something about the artist/soundman relationship that breeds this kind of attitude.

[dan1952]

The soundman is your friend. Ask what you can do to help. Buy him a cup of coffee. Compliment him on the good job he is doing. Don't bitch.
I ain't kiddin' - whether you're the opener or the headliner, be nice. I've watched major stars (and rank amateurs alike) moan and whine about FOH mix, monitor mix, heat, cold, whatever...ALWAYS makes the complainer look bad. Every time.

[sir humphrey]

Originally Posted by GeetarPlayer

I'm not meaning to blow my own horn here, but this is a major reason why I loive to run sound. People are actually surprised when I'm proactive, responsive to their reasonable requests, ask them how things are every now and then.

Something about the artist/soundman relationship that breeds this kind of attitude.

Yes - a good soundman is like gold dust. I've played gigs where I literally couldn't hear anything but my own guitar in stage - that was fun, keeping time by watching the drummer!

I'd never walk off though. I'd just not go back.

[johninet]

thank yall so much for the advice. the integrity of this forum amazes me. Let me clarify a few things.We would never insult our friends. In reflection,"the sound guy" is just a friend of theirs trying to help out. as far as eq'ing the monitors, i didnt realize that.But im not talking about eq'ing each channel to improve my tone im talking about the whole monitor mix so it doesnt sound like 50,000 watts being piped into a jambox.Out of kindness,i think i understated the the monitored sound.It wasnt just bad, it was distorted to the point of incoherance...thanks again

[Arbiter]

I've tossed sound guys off of boards before. That's not something you can do everywhere, BTW, but if it needs doing and you can you should. But no, to the original question, I'll stop and make it right - and I DO NOT CARE if I hurt the sound guy's fee-fees - but I won't refuse to play.

[Matthew Corey]

I would not refuse to play. Stop and get it right or keep going and do your best.

[Wrong-Note Rod]

If I refused to play a show because of bad sound, I'd have played maybe 5 gigs in my life instead of 500.