NYMorningstar
Recording Modus Operandi
Last night I played at a gig for the first time through a 48 channel SSL console(sweet). We had a drummer, keys, bass, a percussionist, a singer and two acoustics. I played an acoustic guitar going direct in through a box as suggested by their soundman.
We had about a 2 minute sound check because of time restrictions and the only part I played in it was with the volume in my monitor. When we actually started to play, I soon discovered the only thing I could here was my monitor and that had nothing going through it but me, no mix of anyone else. The guitar sound had no tone or sustain in it. This made it pretty tuff on me because I was playing lead with the acoustic and there was no way to judge how long to hold a note. I just heard tink, tink, tink basically with no sustain. In hindsight, if I had only brought an amp, hmmm...
Peeps said the FOH sounded good but from my perspective it could have been alot better if I had some idea where I was in the mix. This was my first time playing at such a large venue and it made me wonder if this is a normal problem for musicians. Shouldn't there be a mix going through the monitors too?
The band after us had an electric guitarist, bass and drums. Their sound was incredibly loud almost to the point you couldn't hear yourself think. In between songs during announcements you couldn't understand a single word being said because the singers mic was feeding the monitor back through the mic garbling everything up. They played decently but I swear after hearing them for about a minute I had enough, absolutely no dynamics. We left right after the secong band and didn't(couldn't) stay to hear the other three.
Boy, what I would have done for a good sound guy, wah! Sorry for the rant but I'm just sayin...
We had about a 2 minute sound check because of time restrictions and the only part I played in it was with the volume in my monitor. When we actually started to play, I soon discovered the only thing I could here was my monitor and that had nothing going through it but me, no mix of anyone else. The guitar sound had no tone or sustain in it. This made it pretty tuff on me because I was playing lead with the acoustic and there was no way to judge how long to hold a note. I just heard tink, tink, tink basically with no sustain. In hindsight, if I had only brought an amp, hmmm...
Peeps said the FOH sounded good but from my perspective it could have been alot better if I had some idea where I was in the mix. This was my first time playing at such a large venue and it made me wonder if this is a normal problem for musicians. Shouldn't there be a mix going through the monitors too?
The band after us had an electric guitarist, bass and drums. Their sound was incredibly loud almost to the point you couldn't hear yourself think. In between songs during announcements you couldn't understand a single word being said because the singers mic was feeding the monitor back through the mic garbling everything up. They played decently but I swear after hearing them for about a minute I had enough, absolutely no dynamics. We left right after the secong band and didn't(couldn't) stay to hear the other three.
Boy, what I would have done for a good sound guy, wah! Sorry for the rant but I'm just sayin...
