Big name, small sound. It's how you use your toys too!

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NYMorningstar

Recording Modus Operandi
Last night we hosted John Hiatt and his band sounded like ass because the bass player had no dynamics, Hiatt's vocals were muddied up with effects and the drummer was constantly busy. It was all blah...(brought his own engineer)

His opener was Holly Williams who started solo and was later joined by her hubby Chris Coleman. Their sound was awesome, clean, crisp and dynamic. Simple, two acoustic guitars and vocals.
 
I saw Hiatt in 1988 and he was so bad my friend puked all over the row in front of us! :eek:





Although it could have been all the beers and joints, now that I think about it :confused:
 
I run into this all the time great sounding opener poor sounding main act.
Then to top it all off their FOH engineer always blames it on a bad PA!
Really pees me off that someone who is suppose to be a pro will dump all over the local guy that was their for him all day long from set up to show time.



:cool:
 
We had that happen last week again. David Gray's engineers brought in this huge Trident console (dwarfed ours) with their own speaker system and the sound was muddy. You couldn't understand any of the lyrics. They had a light show with these huge white light flashes that made it impossible to watch the show which really wasn't anything but him jumping up and down while playing. I don't know, the crowd loved it, go figure?
 
moresound said:
Well to each there own.
What is your space like?



:cool:
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In an eggshell, it's the best and I can only wish it were mine. We have two theatres, the Hart which seats about 950 and the Swyre which fits about half that. The Swyre is my favorite because it's smaller and more personal.
 
Are you the house sound engineer for those theaters?



:cool:
 
That's cool, they don't pay?
I work in 4 or 5 around this area.
Do you know Ezra who owns MSR sound company out of Burlington VT.
He is always out in upper NY.



:cool:
 
moresound said:
That's cool, they don't pay?
I work in 4 or 5 around this area.
Do you know Ezra who owns MSR sound company out of Burlington VT.
He is always out in upper NY.



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I already have a few careers and if I start working as an audio engineer it would take away some of the fun. I like to keep it as a hobby. For me, it's more fun setting up, shadowing and learning. Besides that the state just cut all the funding so the chances of adding a job there are gone. We face job cuts and higher ticket prices :(

I'm a musician too so that takes a fair amount of time and attention along with my 9 to 5 job.
Burlington is aways from me, I'm in the Albany/Saratoga area and haven't had the pleasure of meeting Ezra..
 
Albany, I've ran sound at the EGG before will on tour with the American Song Writers Circle. A group of Very famous song writers out of Nashville. What a place! Interesting story about it's design and such. And inside is quite spectacular, With top of the line equipment in all of the theaters inside the complex.



:cool:
 
It's nice to be part of all that. Josh Pechette is our house engineer at the Egg and I also work the backline setup in Revolution Hall in Troy where our church services are every Sunday morning. The house engineer there is John Chiara.

Both those guys are the best and it's a real privilege to have them as friends. John just started doing seminars for bands to teach them how to prepare for opening headline acts, what steps to take, band input lists, stage plots, contracts etc...

I applied for backline for the SaratogaArtsfest this summer and with any luck I'll be doing backline there. I was toying with the idea of being a performer there too but ahh... I'm too busy! :p
 
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NYMorningstar said:
It's nice to be part of all that. Josh Pechette is our house engineer at the Egg and the I also work the backline setup in Revolution Hall in Troy where our church services are every Sunday morning. The house engineer there is John Chiara.

Both those guys are the best and it's a real privilege to have them as friends. John just started doing seminars for bands to teach them how to prepare for opening headline acts, what steps to take, band input lists, stage plots, contracts etc...

I applied for backline for the SaratogaArtsfest this summer and with any luck I'll be doing backline there. I was toying with the idea of being a performer there too but ahh... I'm too busy! :p
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What John is doing to teach bands is a great idea! I can't tell you how many times I've set up a stage awaiting the bands arrival only to find out that they didn't know the difference between stage left and right.
The whole set up I prepared was a mirror image mistake ----what a mess.
Then the famous "we are a five piece band so we need five mics" and that is all the info I get!
Do tell John his work will be worth all of his efforts.

Good luck at the S artsfest.



:cool:
 
Taj Mahal last night with his daughter Diva opening. They had their own sound engineer who did a fine job. He would do things like add effects in parts of songs, like reverb for vocals and compression changes for drums. He was very busy effective in accenting the music. Diva lived up to her name :)
 
Sounds very cool NY! Which venue was that in?
Last night I worked with Cirque le musque. A great show! but a scaled down version of Cirque de Soleil more suited for theaters.


:cool:
 
That was in the Kitty Carlisle Hart Theatre. Taj Mahal was scaled down too with just himself, a bass player and drummer.

A couple weeks ago I caught a break and got to mix FOH on a Crest Audio console at Rev Hall. I was in heaven :)
 
Who was the talent at the Rev? And which model of the Crest if you can remember?



:cool:
 
NYMorningstar said:
Last night we hosted John Hiatt and his band sounded like ass because the bass player had no dynamics, Hiatt's vocals were muddied up with effects and the drummer was constantly busy. It was all blah...
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I love John Hiatt's songwriting, but he is not a good vocalist, so I suspect that his vox was drenched in effects (mud) to try to 'improve' his sound. Too bad about the rest of it. There is no accounting for taste sometimes.
 
moresound said:
Who was the talent at the Rev? And which model of the Crest if you can remember?



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The band was Miles To Go Before Sleep. It's one of our church worship bands. The console is a CV20 series and a Spirit 8 for monitors.
 
NYMorningstar said:
That was in the Kitty Carlisle Hart Theatre. Taj Mahal was scaled down too with just himself, a bass player and drummer.
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Do you know if Ardie Dean was the drummer?

That dude is phenomenal, makes everything look easy.
 
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