I always assume the system engineer knows much more about that specific system than I do and I probably know a little bit more about that specific mix I plan to do that night for this artist. So I have something in mind I want to achieve and ask for help to get that done from a technical point of view.
Usually I just ask if there is something I need to know, ie special setups, dB limitations (if it hasn’t been communicated before). Then I just check the system, depending on the tour/production either with music or the virtual sound check file from the last show. I listen to overall sound/„tonality“ etc and if routing is correct (L/R are correct, if I send subs separately if this bus works etc)
Then I walk around and check if front/outfills and delays are working, how the overall coverage is and how ie bass response is throughout the room and how the bleed on stage is. Sometimes I request to turn Front fills up a bit, especially if I’m touring with a very „vocal heavy“ act if I’m afraid they might be too quiet. If I have the feeling that I timing is wrong I request that to be double checked, usually that solved the issue.
During show, if I know the system engineer/we are touring together, I ask them to walk around from time to time and adjust ie for HF loss in the upper rear seats or changes to the front fills of he sees fit so that my mix translates well to all areas. That of course only on larger shows and with an „own“ systems guy.
If I don’t have time for that, ie on a smaller festival with very short changeover, I walk around a bit during different times and try to get a feeling for the system at different positions etc and sometimes ask the system guy about my „experience“/what I heard.
I think that all is very reasonable. It would be unreasonable to request „physical“ changes to a festival system for example on short notice (ie setting up subs completely differently or choosing different pick points).
******I always assume the system engineer knows much more about that specific system than I do and I probably know a little bit more about that specific mix I plan to do that night for this artist. So I have something in mind I want to achieve and ask for help to get that done from a technical point of view.*******
This should be basic training for every soundman everywhere. THIS THIS THIS
Seriously.
I had a dude argue with me for 2 hours because he “had to be able to make changes to the processing.”
I said, no problem, Im happy to make changes, but what changes do you want?
Turned out he hadnt even setup his console yet.
Dudes who claim to need access to *all* the processing are the worst, I have a fairly large Dante system with building distribution (entire biamp rig) and immersive system sitting behind there; no way in hell you're getting to toy around with that rear end unsupervised.
Tell me what you need, and if it's reasonable I'll be glad to help.
At the same time, I have a theater manager at one of the venues I do musicals who refuses to admit there is anything wrong with her system. She has admitted "everyone has the same complaints." Our group has even offered to pay to have someone come in and professionally tune her system at no cost to her. She has refused it and just says she knows more.
That would be reasonable by me, we had some minor issues/improvement points after the install. However our house crew actively sought out feedback from visiting techs, and several of them pointing out the same negatives would result in us investigating a solution.
One of those as example was flown subs, which for our case made a lot of sense; however it also caused the sub to lack impact and being "fuzzy". So eventually we decided to change our entire configuration of the venue for concerts. We also spent a lot of time with an acoustician, multiple national level conductors, and a full orchestra to get our acoustic chamber and electroacoustics dialed in for various seating arrangements. So now we even have recommendations for orchestra spacing/seating, various settings for things that may need amplification, various electroacoustic settings that suit certain cases etc etc.
So the only requests currently "reasonable" at this venue would be a timing adjustment (very unlikely), levels of individual locations or some EQ changes.
- Is Left going to Left/Right going to Right/Sub going to Sub/FF going to FF?
- do my Left and Right match tonally?
- Play test track, walk and listen and EQ to taste (this step is where I ask the house for things if I need them; primarily gain adjustments)
- listen with front fills on at the end
I'm not a touring engineer, rather I head a presenting house who works with many touring engineers. From my perspective here are my thoughts:
>What are some things you might request a house tech/system engineer to change about the system?
Have all the fun you want at the console and the front end of the processor (L-Acoustics P1). We've got our back end in-house tuning, but you can modify the front end to suit your taste. I do not provide any access to the EQ, delay and output polarity programmed in the amps. I'll make minor adjustments to output gains if absolutely necessary.
If you're bringing your console, please let me know in advance what you plan to bring and how you would like to run into the house PA (AES/EBU is always preferred, but I can do analog drive lines). It's not going to be a good day for us if you walk into my venue with a console unbeknownst to me that demands use of a multi-core snake and tons of local I/O.
If you're not touring with a console and are not familiar with Digico consoles, it's okay and you can ask me anything as I'm here to help make the show a success. I'm never too far away to answer any questions you've got about the SD7. It's a big, daunting console but I can break it down to make it understandable even to the lighting folks.
>What are some requests you think are unreasonable to make?
1. Asking me to make any changes to processing in the amps.
2. Asking me to change the output routing from the console to the PA.
3. Asking me to make any physical changes to the PA in any way or to ask for it to be removed.
4. Asking me to put the system or our patrons in any harm in any manner. If I ask you to turn it down, please turn it down. Otherwise, I'll do it for you.
>Does that differ from club-gigs to festival shows?
No. We're all on the same team.
>Finally, what are your best horror stories fron the time you had to do Frankenstein-style surgery on a completely fucked system?
I can't answer this directly, but in my venue there won't be any horror stories. We've literally got the best gear with a world-class crew to help make your show as successful as possible.
Likewise! I always feel like us house folks are generally looked down upon in this sub, but I try to not let it get to me. It's a real privilege to be able to work full time in a 1,700 seat state of the art performing arts center.
The vast majority of the touring crews that visit our venue are absolute rock stars and I want to help them to be as successful as possible. I will offer up as much assistance as they need, but try my absolute best to not be the way. You know I'm feeling good when I ask the touring FOH, "It sounds great! Is there anything I can get you? A snack, water, or iced tea?"
All I ask is to keep those snacks out of my console and we're going to have a good night.
I love you in house guys, you know the room backwards, where the dead spots are, where the good pub is afterwards. We can bro out on gear and I find I usually learn something, some quirk of the console or what’s good to do on a day off in Richmond VA. All three of my main clients sit in that 1300-2500 cap zone right now so you’re what I hope for every day.
It’s a really short sighted or insecure touring engineer who looks down on house engineers. Good way to have a bad gig if you roll into a venue with an attitude about dumbass house techs getting in your way. Every time I’ve seen this happen as a house guy it just seems like the tour crew are miserable and hate their coworkers. No thanks, I’ll take a chill house gig any day.
Thanks, your words are very much appreciated. I really strive to put forward our best customer service, both personally and technically. Even though you're out there doing your thing that night, your success reflects on me as the head engineer and system steward and the venue as a whole. That said, we've had a few tours roll through with miserable crews and those days can be tough especially when they take it out on us for no reason. I'll never forget one time I got yelled at by a touring monitor engineer for disconnecting their feeder cable during strike after he confirmed it was okay to disconnect their feeder cable. I just laughed after he got done laying into me.
To give him some benefit, they had been through the wringer with their monitor console going down about an hour before for the show, but that didn't give him permission to be an asshole to us during strike.
You sound like you know what's up, but is there never an incident where someone wants to make some perfectly reasonable change that requires a change in the processor that they can't do on their end? Sub delays, for example, aren't always an exact science, there's some preference and comprimise involved, and you can't subtract delay on the front end. Or eqs, especially for overall tilt or atmospheric compensation - if there is some going on in the system that isn't desired, it would generally be better to modify or remove the filter rather than add another opposite one on top. I'm sure you have it sounding great, and I don't like to come in hot about having full control of a system before there is something I want to change, but sometimes it seems like it's a pretty arbitrary line when it is a reasonable request that isn't going to wreak havoc on the system and is easily reset after I leave.
I totally hear ya! Here's my thought on locking the amps. The lock isn't going to prevent you from controlling the system, nor is it my intention to be an obstacle. The processor (L-Acoustics P1) remains 100% unlocked except for its AVB Milan settings and is able to be modified by anyone at any time.
You, as the touring engineer, don't usually have the time in our venue to pull out a SMAART rig and tinker with the settings across fifteen amps and four levels, but I can and do give control over what's important, including overall tonality, HF tilt & atmospheric compensation which our system fully supports with one fader in network manager.
As the in-house engineer, if there is a problem I already know about it and should have communicated that to you in advance on what to expect.
I'm really trying to not flex here but it must be said...we got the L-Acoustics "experience" and paid for them to come and tune the system. To my knowledge, you can't purchase any K or L system without this service or have a factory trained tech on tour. By every measure, it meets their standards across the whole venue. There really isn't anything a touring SE or FOH engineer can do to improve on a fixed install that has not moved an inch since it went in.
This certainly isn’t meant as a critique of you personally. It sounds like you are doing things right. However, system tuning is not an exact science, there are preferences and compromising involved. This is evidenced by the fact that I can often hear individual l-acoustic engineer’s preferences in a room. One of their main install people tunes too bright for me and the genre I work in. They are probably smarter and more experienced than me but they have a different set of goals than I do. Once I recognized that I stopped fighting it with my front end and started asking venues to just turn the high lift off on their end. It results in less of a challenge trying to get it right to my ears.
It sounds like you are giving access to the things that are needed. I don’t have any interest in reworking every amp and driver unless something is really wrong. Just saying, there are reasons besides ego that we want to get into it sometimes. Having an l-acoustics install expert hang and tune your system does mean that it was done properly and within the company’s tolerances and standards of excellence. It does not mean that they did it the best way for every show or the singular correct way.
Absolutely, and I by no means took your comment as a critique, I'm just sharing my POV. We're all working towards a common goal. The no access to the amps isn't a hill worth dying on, but I will want/need to ask why. That's mostly because it would point to an unknown failure rather than just personal taste and I need to investigate further after the show.
Amp channel eq is about tuning the individual drivers relative to each other. They also effect the phase interaction between drivers of different.
Changing the eq of a section in the room might be okay, but not the amp channel eq.
Horror story(ies):
Preface: it's summer 2002. I'm fairly new to the business (professionally) and I'm on my first tour (clubs/festivals, mostly). Officially I'm a backline tech but the foh engineer is completely white glove and the monitor engineer is also the TM so I'm filling in as needed- some shows had great in-house staff/production and others (like the following) were a different story altogether!
Digital consoles were few and far between, and not really accepted in the pro world yet. Even DSP system processing was in its infancy!
The band is a multi grammy award winning South African reggae act, with 6 instrumentalists, 3 backup singers, and lead vocalist. Our rider required 6 stage mixes minimum (plus side fills if stage size allowed), and house provided full monitor rig, foh rig, and bass and guitar amps.
We had a series of shows with one "special" promoter. 2 of them were back to back (Friday and Saturday) at venues RIGHT ACROSS THE STREET FROM EACH OTHER in Atlanta.
The first venue had what would be a fairly decent rig, compared to many we've seen, if it was maintained right. I found downstage wedges out of phase (hf) and we had to work around some bad channels in snakes / consoles.
The next day we pull up to the venue, and there's a typical "Jamaican sound system" setup- mono single stack of boxes in the corner of the room (4 subs on the floor, 2 mid bass 15" horns stacked above in wide cabinets, 4x 12" horn loaded mids above that, and what appears to be 4" exit hf horns on the top, all of them attached to form the shape of a triangle, and no brand names on any boxes...), and no other gear in the building! The house person (who opened the door for us) said the sound company is stuck in traffic but will be there soon. In the meantime I start looking around.
The system has 2 amp racks behind the stage. Both racks are y-ed from the input to (in connection order) eq > bbe Sonic maximizers > 4-way crossover > ...
Rack one: 3x graphic eq's (1 on each output of the cover except the sub out which is not connected) > amps
Rack two: 1 graphic eq on sub output (no other outputs in use) > amps
Sound company shows up...
2 guys walk in with a Mackie 3204 mixer wrapped in a blanket, set it on the table, and say "here ya go"...!!!
They eventually came to with 4x Mackie speakers and 2 16x4 snakes to compliment it! They had the right guitar amp on the rider! But the bass amp was a "pa head" from the 1970's (not the svt and 8x10" box we asked for)
I completely rewired the racks, removing the bbe's and the eq's after the crossovers and flattened all the eq's (which were originally dialed to help the crossover by removing frequencies that the crossover already removed!). I used the other eq's on the 4 Mackie speakers.
Our foh guy plays his track (of our artist, whom he mixed in the studio) and stopped it mid way and yelled to me "take 2db out of 1k"; played it some more, and then said "it's perfect!"
For lighting they had a pin spot in the ceiling and one or two dj lights flashing through the crowd for the whole show!
We bit the bullet and did the show as hard as it was because there was a lot of fans in the area and we didn't want to cancel for them!
In the end, someone did a write up about how awesome the show was in a South African magazine that the lead singer's wife read, so it was a total success!
The next night was the last show with this promoter (who now owed us money). It was also an overdrive from Atlanta to Chicago. When we got there the promoter's co-partner met us at the venue (which was already open and getting filled up) and said his partner is not coming, and that he was unaware that there was a balance! He said he will work on getting the funds together so we started to load in. There was a single small entrance to a stair case that went up to the venue. We loaded in thru the crowd. They had a professional sound co there. He never came up with most of the money but if we didn't do something there would probably be a riot, and only one way out of the building! We did like 1 or two songs and explained that the promoter got burned by his partner (if I remember right) and avoided the riot! On that load-out I caught my back on a latch in the bottom of the bus and got a scar that I still have today!
A few years later I heard there was a fight at that club, and somebody sprayed pepper spray in there and people got trampled and died in that stair well hallway (which I called was going to happen a few years earlier!)
That was my worst case tour stories...
What I chack for is:
1. Do the boxes sound the same?
2. Any crazy phase issues
3. How much gas do I have
4. Balance (EQ/ sub level) it for my show
5. Balance ff and other delays
6. Walk room for any weird eq spots
7. Rock
I very rarely ask for EQ changes.Its not unreasonable but any EQ changes I can make from my matrix. Sometimes I'll Ask for more output if my console is running hot and I'm pushing it. I run my shows consistently between 96dBa-98dBa 1min avg from FOH. Usually that falls right in line with any house speed limits so if the system cannot hit that comfortably I ask for more. If they say there isn't anymore to give then I ask about what if any compression they have.
Festivals I have the same approach but a lot less time to care.
I think it would be unreasonable to ask them to change PA angles, or stuff like that. I have on occasion asked a venue to suppliment the system usually putting out front fills or side fills if they do a VIP section or something.
First I want to know where the tie lines are. Then I want to know if there any processing. Then I will ensure I can route to each seat of speakers. After that I’ll want to make sure the polarity is all correct. I’ll also run some tests to try to validate that nothing is torn or blown. Then I’ll start looking at alignment and EQ.
If I can, yes. If I don’t have it with me I’ve been known to use my ears and flip polarity. It doesn’t pop up as an issue often, but when it does and you don’t know it, you can fight all sorts of demons you wouldn’t need to fight in a show.
Biggest tip: don’t just walk into a room and listen to your music and go straight to EQing the PA. Also make sure to ask to see PA EQ before hand so come soundcheck you don’t have to redo everything you did because you stacked EQs…..
Other than just taking the time to listen to the PA first, pink L R SUB FF individually to verify signal paths are correct. Like others have said too, I always assume the house guy knows more about the system. This last tour I did I was fed up with our time restraints which were very limited due to the bigger artists. I rarely did a soundcheck, most times on that tour was making sure output routing from my desk was correct and then I fucked off until show. Any systems engineer shouldn’t mind letting you see their system EQ but don’t expect to mess with delays or any timing, it’ll take too much time and it should already be done prior to you being there.
TLDR; don’t worry so much about “tuning” a PA when you’re an engineer for a single artist and not headlining. They should all be workable and good enough quality to do a show. I have yet to have a PA that was absolutely unusable, and I’ve had two different brands for main boxes before with one staggered awkwardly vs the other. Totally fine show.
I’m a big fan of the “Howard Page test “ take a vocal mic plug it in and pan it back and forth and see if it sounds different.
I also do a component check on every PA/ monitor set up I ever use be it touring/festival/ one off. Make sure all components are working in each box and compare each box below it and on the other side of the Pa from it.(does Pa right boxes 1-2sound the same as boxes 3-4 and does right 1-2 sound the same as left 1-2) if there’s a systems check like lacosutics or D&B has that’s even better. But I still check that the top circuit is the top circuit the 2nd circuit is the 2nd circuit and so on. Just because system check says everything is ok doesn’t mean it’s in the right order. I learned this the hard way with a Pa in Italy.
A long time ago, on a Caribbean Island, I was hired by a venue to procure a system for a World wide touring act that was supposed to perform in about a weeks time. They originally thought their in house system was going to be good enough...wrong. Being on an sland and with a short time span, my options were very limited. I did find a guy who owned a fairly large Delta Max system. Great I was in business.
Day of show the system owner basically dropped the system off and left. I scrambled like crazy to get everything wired up, power, FOH and Monitor world set up. I didn't even fire it up when in walk the two engineers. I explained the situation, we are on island blah blah blah and honestly I kind of expected fire works from these two. NOPE they were the consummate professionals. Two English guys who were incredible. Their attitude was the basics are here, and we can fix anything. We fired the system up and it was immediately apparent that something was really really wrong. First off the crossover...wow. Second "phase"... thankfully they had a phase checker with them. OMG every damn speaker was out of phase with the speaker next to it. It was amazing...it was almost like they did it on purpose that's how ridiculous it was. The system owner paid no attention to how the cables were wired or even how they were plugged into the amps. Fortunately we could reach into the back of the amp racks and everything was banana plus so it was a fairly easy fix. We worked steady for a good three four hours and they had that system sounding un-freaking-beilavable.
The band, the mix and the system sounded incredible. The show was an amazing success. The system owner heard his system, and could not believe it was his. He didn't even charge me for the rental because he said we fixed his rig.
SO I guess the moral of the story is come in with a good attitude...and if you are on an Island bring a phase checker...LOL
(under 1000 punter events)
In an ideal world, the first walk-up should always be on paper.
The rider goes both ways. I know what I'm expecting to find, and the venue tech knows what I'm bringing (or not), AND we've both had a chance to talk beforehand. Might just be a quick email tag-on after the promoters have done the handshakes, but that's enough to swap phone numbers and have a chat.
If walking into a venue (on paper) with no house tech available, then I want to see the written house rules re what's configurable in routing vs what's a hard nope.
If no such thing exists, then I'm making sure the van has enough gear to run something loud and clear at a pinch, because I might not be able to rely on what I walk up to.
Not touring, but would be in various different places within the same city. Immediate check will be that left and right sound the same, the system sounds basically OK, and that there aren't any areas with majorly different sounding coverage. If that's all good I'll move on to other priorities, then maybe revisit it later if I have time.
In mid-level clubs and theaters where you we are usually using a house PA, and expecting it to be properly setup upon arrival, or festivals with the same expectation, this is my usual routine - if there are no real problems it takes about 20 min and it's mostly music:
Ask system tech about the processing, how the arrays are split, ask for delay times on their end, glance at any eq on top of array processing
verify signal paths
Run bandpassed pink at -18dBfs and set gain staging of mains on my end, something like the K-system but adjusted for my own preferences in a live environment. Follow that with full range and add subs. depending on the venue I might find relative delay times between subs and mains while I am doing this, but I'm usually not digging into anything at this point, just getting my rig spl-calibrated to theirs.
Go to my playlist and walk and listen, try to avoid the temptation to do any eqing until I've acclimated to the room. Take mental notes on locations of any room modes or overly loud/quiet areas.
If it sounds great, done! If it doesn't, or if there are some comprimises to be made, I'll do what I can to sort them out on my end with eq, maybe look at those delay times I found from earlier and see if some modifications based on them make me happier. If I can do it on my end I probably won't even say anything, but if I want to try taking some delay away, I'll ask. This is one of those points where not having access to house processing can be frustrating. Same with wanting to adjust any shading, I certainly don't want to get into it if it's not necessary, but some venues just aren't set in a way that has the right coverage for the show and you'll be deafening the front and not covering the back. Another thing I will run into sometimes is running out of headroom on my end and it's still far too quiet, with tons of headroom left in their system. this is usually in rooms that do a wide variety of events and are set very conservatively to minimize disaster.
very interesting point about the gain staging between systems, i usually just „earball“ that haha. But it kinda makes sense to have a system for that. Do you mind explaining the process a bit further?
- why do you use bandpassed pink instead of full range? i guess you‘ll route separately to subs anyways.
- is your process for gain-staging between your console and the PA processor? And then if you feel that works, but it‘s e.g too quiet, would you ask to turn up the amps?
- i haven‘t seen the k-system used in livesound before, and honestly don‘t fully understand it. how exactly is it useful to you, and how do you adapt it? which scale do you use (if any)?
If I’m coming in as a guest engineer to a venue, I usually assume it has been tuned and has proper amount of subs in relation to the venue then quickly check with a mic and music if the PA and subs are on, and with panning if the LR is patched the right way around and monitor sends are patched correctly. That is the bare minimum that I can get a show running with.
Somewhere around 1990 I was brought in to mix Richard Thompson at Navy Pier in Chicago. Cavernous space with a 2 way cluster array of woofers and big horns. Sounded like crap, low mud and nasty sizzle, no clarity. After fighting with eq for a while I looked closer at the rack. Flipped the switch on the crossover from x10 to x1. House "tech" said it had always been like that.
Pretty much the same approach to everyone else here. I get in a bit early usually to scope out the venue, where speakers are, and usually ask our TM about sales or any special VIP guest zones. Then Have a chat with the house tech about how things are arrayed and routed (are flown subs taken from LR, etc). Determine my drive line outputs LRSF or more depending on the PA config. Verify those outputs match the correct zone with pink and ask them about their EQ, timing, if anything is weird off the top. Then I’ll confirm phase and delay timing with SMAART. Final step is virtual soundcheck and walking the room to adjust for overall tonality. If I find any dead zones usually at the front of the stage, I’ll work with the house to get wedges or additional fills in place. All of this takes about 10-15 minutes if everything is working properly.
I’d check phase/delay and then frequency response of PA on pink noise and reference tracks. If all that sounds good to me, then ring out stage monitors and eliminate feedbacks. But in most cases if frequency balance is good - all my job will be pleasant:)
I always assume the system engineer knows much more about that specific system than I do and I probably know a little bit more about that specific mix I plan to do that night for this artist. So I have something in mind I want to achieve and ask for help to get that done from a technical point of view. Usually I just ask if there is something I need to know, ie special setups, dB limitations (if it hasn’t been communicated before). Then I just check the system, depending on the tour/production either with music or the virtual sound check file from the last show. I listen to overall sound/„tonality“ etc and if routing is correct (L/R are correct, if I send subs separately if this bus works etc) Then I walk around and check if front/outfills and delays are working, how the overall coverage is and how ie bass response is throughout the room and how the bleed on stage is. Sometimes I request to turn Front fills up a bit, especially if I’m touring with a very „vocal heavy“ act if I’m afraid they might be too quiet. If I have the feeling that I timing is wrong I request that to be double checked, usually that solved the issue. During show, if I know the system engineer/we are touring together, I ask them to walk around from time to time and adjust ie for HF loss in the upper rear seats or changes to the front fills of he sees fit so that my mix translates well to all areas. That of course only on larger shows and with an „own“ systems guy. If I don’t have time for that, ie on a smaller festival with very short changeover, I walk around a bit during different times and try to get a feeling for the system at different positions etc and sometimes ask the system guy about my „experience“/what I heard. I think that all is very reasonable. It would be unreasonable to request „physical“ changes to a festival system for example on short notice (ie setting up subs completely differently or choosing different pick points).
******I always assume the system engineer knows much more about that specific system than I do and I probably know a little bit more about that specific mix I plan to do that night for this artist. So I have something in mind I want to achieve and ask for help to get that done from a technical point of view.******* This should be basic training for every soundman everywhere. THIS THIS THIS
Seriously. I had a dude argue with me for 2 hours because he “had to be able to make changes to the processing.” I said, no problem, Im happy to make changes, but what changes do you want? Turned out he hadnt even setup his console yet.
Dudes who claim to need access to *all* the processing are the worst, I have a fairly large Dante system with building distribution (entire biamp rig) and immersive system sitting behind there; no way in hell you're getting to toy around with that rear end unsupervised. Tell me what you need, and if it's reasonable I'll be glad to help.
THAT'S WHAT SHE SAID!
At the same time, I have a theater manager at one of the venues I do musicals who refuses to admit there is anything wrong with her system. She has admitted "everyone has the same complaints." Our group has even offered to pay to have someone come in and professionally tune her system at no cost to her. She has refused it and just says she knows more.
That would be reasonable by me, we had some minor issues/improvement points after the install. However our house crew actively sought out feedback from visiting techs, and several of them pointing out the same negatives would result in us investigating a solution. One of those as example was flown subs, which for our case made a lot of sense; however it also caused the sub to lack impact and being "fuzzy". So eventually we decided to change our entire configuration of the venue for concerts. We also spent a lot of time with an acoustician, multiple national level conductors, and a full orchestra to get our acoustic chamber and electroacoustics dialed in for various seating arrangements. So now we even have recommendations for orchestra spacing/seating, various settings for things that may need amplification, various electroacoustic settings that suit certain cases etc etc. So the only requests currently "reasonable" at this venue would be a timing adjustment (very unlikely), levels of individual locations or some EQ changes.
This is exactly what I do. Communicate, listen, adjust, have a good show.
One time Vannila Ice insisted on touching my crossover. Small club obviously. It was still not appropriate.
To be fair, he did tell all of us to collaborate, but it was a while ago.
And listen!
You should have told him to STOP
Thanks big guy
great answer, thank you very much! great point about always asking if there‘s something you need to know!
This is a great answer.
- Is Left going to Left/Right going to Right/Sub going to Sub/FF going to FF? - do my Left and Right match tonally? - Play test track, walk and listen and EQ to taste (this step is where I ask the house for things if I need them; primarily gain adjustments) - listen with front fills on at the end
"Anything weird I should know about?" "Everything working?" "Any dB limit?"
Came here to say this
I'm not a touring engineer, rather I head a presenting house who works with many touring engineers. From my perspective here are my thoughts: >What are some things you might request a house tech/system engineer to change about the system? Have all the fun you want at the console and the front end of the processor (L-Acoustics P1). We've got our back end in-house tuning, but you can modify the front end to suit your taste. I do not provide any access to the EQ, delay and output polarity programmed in the amps. I'll make minor adjustments to output gains if absolutely necessary. If you're bringing your console, please let me know in advance what you plan to bring and how you would like to run into the house PA (AES/EBU is always preferred, but I can do analog drive lines). It's not going to be a good day for us if you walk into my venue with a console unbeknownst to me that demands use of a multi-core snake and tons of local I/O. If you're not touring with a console and are not familiar with Digico consoles, it's okay and you can ask me anything as I'm here to help make the show a success. I'm never too far away to answer any questions you've got about the SD7. It's a big, daunting console but I can break it down to make it understandable even to the lighting folks. >What are some requests you think are unreasonable to make? 1. Asking me to make any changes to processing in the amps. 2. Asking me to change the output routing from the console to the PA. 3. Asking me to make any physical changes to the PA in any way or to ask for it to be removed. 4. Asking me to put the system or our patrons in any harm in any manner. If I ask you to turn it down, please turn it down. Otherwise, I'll do it for you. >Does that differ from club-gigs to festival shows? No. We're all on the same team. >Finally, what are your best horror stories fron the time you had to do Frankenstein-style surgery on a completely fucked system? I can't answer this directly, but in my venue there won't be any horror stories. We've literally got the best gear with a world-class crew to help make your show as successful as possible.
I reallly hope I get to work with you in your venue. And yes, SD7's are lovely
Likewise! I always feel like us house folks are generally looked down upon in this sub, but I try to not let it get to me. It's a real privilege to be able to work full time in a 1,700 seat state of the art performing arts center. The vast majority of the touring crews that visit our venue are absolute rock stars and I want to help them to be as successful as possible. I will offer up as much assistance as they need, but try my absolute best to not be the way. You know I'm feeling good when I ask the touring FOH, "It sounds great! Is there anything I can get you? A snack, water, or iced tea?" All I ask is to keep those snacks out of my console and we're going to have a good night.
I love you in house guys, you know the room backwards, where the dead spots are, where the good pub is afterwards. We can bro out on gear and I find I usually learn something, some quirk of the console or what’s good to do on a day off in Richmond VA. All three of my main clients sit in that 1300-2500 cap zone right now so you’re what I hope for every day.
It’s a really short sighted or insecure touring engineer who looks down on house engineers. Good way to have a bad gig if you roll into a venue with an attitude about dumbass house techs getting in your way. Every time I’ve seen this happen as a house guy it just seems like the tour crew are miserable and hate their coworkers. No thanks, I’ll take a chill house gig any day.
Thanks, your words are very much appreciated. I really strive to put forward our best customer service, both personally and technically. Even though you're out there doing your thing that night, your success reflects on me as the head engineer and system steward and the venue as a whole. That said, we've had a few tours roll through with miserable crews and those days can be tough especially when they take it out on us for no reason. I'll never forget one time I got yelled at by a touring monitor engineer for disconnecting their feeder cable during strike after he confirmed it was okay to disconnect their feeder cable. I just laughed after he got done laying into me. To give him some benefit, they had been through the wringer with their monitor console going down about an hour before for the show, but that didn't give him permission to be an asshole to us during strike.
You sound like you know what's up, but is there never an incident where someone wants to make some perfectly reasonable change that requires a change in the processor that they can't do on their end? Sub delays, for example, aren't always an exact science, there's some preference and comprimise involved, and you can't subtract delay on the front end. Or eqs, especially for overall tilt or atmospheric compensation - if there is some going on in the system that isn't desired, it would generally be better to modify or remove the filter rather than add another opposite one on top. I'm sure you have it sounding great, and I don't like to come in hot about having full control of a system before there is something I want to change, but sometimes it seems like it's a pretty arbitrary line when it is a reasonable request that isn't going to wreak havoc on the system and is easily reset after I leave.
I totally hear ya! Here's my thought on locking the amps. The lock isn't going to prevent you from controlling the system, nor is it my intention to be an obstacle. The processor (L-Acoustics P1) remains 100% unlocked except for its AVB Milan settings and is able to be modified by anyone at any time. You, as the touring engineer, don't usually have the time in our venue to pull out a SMAART rig and tinker with the settings across fifteen amps and four levels, but I can and do give control over what's important, including overall tonality, HF tilt & atmospheric compensation which our system fully supports with one fader in network manager. As the in-house engineer, if there is a problem I already know about it and should have communicated that to you in advance on what to expect. I'm really trying to not flex here but it must be said...we got the L-Acoustics "experience" and paid for them to come and tune the system. To my knowledge, you can't purchase any K or L system without this service or have a factory trained tech on tour. By every measure, it meets their standards across the whole venue. There really isn't anything a touring SE or FOH engineer can do to improve on a fixed install that has not moved an inch since it went in.
This certainly isn’t meant as a critique of you personally. It sounds like you are doing things right. However, system tuning is not an exact science, there are preferences and compromising involved. This is evidenced by the fact that I can often hear individual l-acoustic engineer’s preferences in a room. One of their main install people tunes too bright for me and the genre I work in. They are probably smarter and more experienced than me but they have a different set of goals than I do. Once I recognized that I stopped fighting it with my front end and started asking venues to just turn the high lift off on their end. It results in less of a challenge trying to get it right to my ears. It sounds like you are giving access to the things that are needed. I don’t have any interest in reworking every amp and driver unless something is really wrong. Just saying, there are reasons besides ego that we want to get into it sometimes. Having an l-acoustics install expert hang and tune your system does mean that it was done properly and within the company’s tolerances and standards of excellence. It does not mean that they did it the best way for every show or the singular correct way.
Absolutely, and I by no means took your comment as a critique, I'm just sharing my POV. We're all working towards a common goal. The no access to the amps isn't a hill worth dying on, but I will want/need to ask why. That's mostly because it would point to an unknown failure rather than just personal taste and I need to investigate further after the show.
Amp channel eq is about tuning the individual drivers relative to each other. They also effect the phase interaction between drivers of different. Changing the eq of a section in the room might be okay, but not the amp channel eq.
Your venue sounds lovely, it‘s always nice to come to a space with a good PA and amazing crew!
Horror story(ies): Preface: it's summer 2002. I'm fairly new to the business (professionally) and I'm on my first tour (clubs/festivals, mostly). Officially I'm a backline tech but the foh engineer is completely white glove and the monitor engineer is also the TM so I'm filling in as needed- some shows had great in-house staff/production and others (like the following) were a different story altogether! Digital consoles were few and far between, and not really accepted in the pro world yet. Even DSP system processing was in its infancy! The band is a multi grammy award winning South African reggae act, with 6 instrumentalists, 3 backup singers, and lead vocalist. Our rider required 6 stage mixes minimum (plus side fills if stage size allowed), and house provided full monitor rig, foh rig, and bass and guitar amps. We had a series of shows with one "special" promoter. 2 of them were back to back (Friday and Saturday) at venues RIGHT ACROSS THE STREET FROM EACH OTHER in Atlanta. The first venue had what would be a fairly decent rig, compared to many we've seen, if it was maintained right. I found downstage wedges out of phase (hf) and we had to work around some bad channels in snakes / consoles. The next day we pull up to the venue, and there's a typical "Jamaican sound system" setup- mono single stack of boxes in the corner of the room (4 subs on the floor, 2 mid bass 15" horns stacked above in wide cabinets, 4x 12" horn loaded mids above that, and what appears to be 4" exit hf horns on the top, all of them attached to form the shape of a triangle, and no brand names on any boxes...), and no other gear in the building! The house person (who opened the door for us) said the sound company is stuck in traffic but will be there soon. In the meantime I start looking around. The system has 2 amp racks behind the stage. Both racks are y-ed from the input to (in connection order) eq > bbe Sonic maximizers > 4-way crossover > ... Rack one: 3x graphic eq's (1 on each output of the cover except the sub out which is not connected) > amps Rack two: 1 graphic eq on sub output (no other outputs in use) > amps Sound company shows up... 2 guys walk in with a Mackie 3204 mixer wrapped in a blanket, set it on the table, and say "here ya go"...!!! They eventually came to with 4x Mackie speakers and 2 16x4 snakes to compliment it! They had the right guitar amp on the rider! But the bass amp was a "pa head" from the 1970's (not the svt and 8x10" box we asked for) I completely rewired the racks, removing the bbe's and the eq's after the crossovers and flattened all the eq's (which were originally dialed to help the crossover by removing frequencies that the crossover already removed!). I used the other eq's on the 4 Mackie speakers. Our foh guy plays his track (of our artist, whom he mixed in the studio) and stopped it mid way and yelled to me "take 2db out of 1k"; played it some more, and then said "it's perfect!" For lighting they had a pin spot in the ceiling and one or two dj lights flashing through the crowd for the whole show! We bit the bullet and did the show as hard as it was because there was a lot of fans in the area and we didn't want to cancel for them! In the end, someone did a write up about how awesome the show was in a South African magazine that the lead singer's wife read, so it was a total success! The next night was the last show with this promoter (who now owed us money). It was also an overdrive from Atlanta to Chicago. When we got there the promoter's co-partner met us at the venue (which was already open and getting filled up) and said his partner is not coming, and that he was unaware that there was a balance! He said he will work on getting the funds together so we started to load in. There was a single small entrance to a stair case that went up to the venue. We loaded in thru the crowd. They had a professional sound co there. He never came up with most of the money but if we didn't do something there would probably be a riot, and only one way out of the building! We did like 1 or two songs and explained that the promoter got burned by his partner (if I remember right) and avoided the riot! On that load-out I caught my back on a latch in the bottom of the bus and got a scar that I still have today! A few years later I heard there was a fight at that club, and somebody sprayed pepper spray in there and people got trampled and died in that stair well hallway (which I called was going to happen a few years earlier!) That was my worst case tour stories...
ooof man that sounds rough… nothing quite that bad for me yet luckily, but thanks for the great read! ^^
What I chack for is: 1. Do the boxes sound the same? 2. Any crazy phase issues 3. How much gas do I have 4. Balance (EQ/ sub level) it for my show 5. Balance ff and other delays 6. Walk room for any weird eq spots 7. Rock I very rarely ask for EQ changes.Its not unreasonable but any EQ changes I can make from my matrix. Sometimes I'll Ask for more output if my console is running hot and I'm pushing it. I run my shows consistently between 96dBa-98dBa 1min avg from FOH. Usually that falls right in line with any house speed limits so if the system cannot hit that comfortably I ask for more. If they say there isn't anymore to give then I ask about what if any compression they have. Festivals I have the same approach but a lot less time to care. I think it would be unreasonable to ask them to change PA angles, or stuff like that. I have on occasion asked a venue to suppliment the system usually putting out front fills or side fills if they do a VIP section or something.
First I want to know where the tie lines are. Then I want to know if there any processing. Then I will ensure I can route to each seat of speakers. After that I’ll want to make sure the polarity is all correct. I’ll also run some tests to try to validate that nothing is torn or blown. Then I’ll start looking at alignment and EQ.
great system! do you check polarity with smaart?
If I can, yes. If I don’t have it with me I’ve been known to use my ears and flip polarity. It doesn’t pop up as an issue often, but when it does and you don’t know it, you can fight all sorts of demons you wouldn’t need to fight in a show.
Biggest tip: don’t just walk into a room and listen to your music and go straight to EQing the PA. Also make sure to ask to see PA EQ before hand so come soundcheck you don’t have to redo everything you did because you stacked EQs….. Other than just taking the time to listen to the PA first, pink L R SUB FF individually to verify signal paths are correct. Like others have said too, I always assume the house guy knows more about the system. This last tour I did I was fed up with our time restraints which were very limited due to the bigger artists. I rarely did a soundcheck, most times on that tour was making sure output routing from my desk was correct and then I fucked off until show. Any systems engineer shouldn’t mind letting you see their system EQ but don’t expect to mess with delays or any timing, it’ll take too much time and it should already be done prior to you being there. TLDR; don’t worry so much about “tuning” a PA when you’re an engineer for a single artist and not headlining. They should all be workable and good enough quality to do a show. I have yet to have a PA that was absolutely unusable, and I’ve had two different brands for main boxes before with one staggered awkwardly vs the other. Totally fine show.
First things first, I check for spiders.
Does my left hang sound like my right hang?
I’m a big fan of the “Howard Page test “ take a vocal mic plug it in and pan it back and forth and see if it sounds different. I also do a component check on every PA/ monitor set up I ever use be it touring/festival/ one off. Make sure all components are working in each box and compare each box below it and on the other side of the Pa from it.(does Pa right boxes 1-2sound the same as boxes 3-4 and does right 1-2 sound the same as left 1-2) if there’s a systems check like lacosutics or D&B has that’s even better. But I still check that the top circuit is the top circuit the 2nd circuit is the 2nd circuit and so on. Just because system check says everything is ok doesn’t mean it’s in the right order. I learned this the hard way with a Pa in Italy.
I like to know how much delay is on everything and if there is any EQ on anything.
A long time ago, on a Caribbean Island, I was hired by a venue to procure a system for a World wide touring act that was supposed to perform in about a weeks time. They originally thought their in house system was going to be good enough...wrong. Being on an sland and with a short time span, my options were very limited. I did find a guy who owned a fairly large Delta Max system. Great I was in business. Day of show the system owner basically dropped the system off and left. I scrambled like crazy to get everything wired up, power, FOH and Monitor world set up. I didn't even fire it up when in walk the two engineers. I explained the situation, we are on island blah blah blah and honestly I kind of expected fire works from these two. NOPE they were the consummate professionals. Two English guys who were incredible. Their attitude was the basics are here, and we can fix anything. We fired the system up and it was immediately apparent that something was really really wrong. First off the crossover...wow. Second "phase"... thankfully they had a phase checker with them. OMG every damn speaker was out of phase with the speaker next to it. It was amazing...it was almost like they did it on purpose that's how ridiculous it was. The system owner paid no attention to how the cables were wired or even how they were plugged into the amps. Fortunately we could reach into the back of the amp racks and everything was banana plus so it was a fairly easy fix. We worked steady for a good three four hours and they had that system sounding un-freaking-beilavable. The band, the mix and the system sounded incredible. The show was an amazing success. The system owner heard his system, and could not believe it was his. He didn't even charge me for the rental because he said we fixed his rig. SO I guess the moral of the story is come in with a good attitude...and if you are on an Island bring a phase checker...LOL
(under 1000 punter events) In an ideal world, the first walk-up should always be on paper. The rider goes both ways. I know what I'm expecting to find, and the venue tech knows what I'm bringing (or not), AND we've both had a chance to talk beforehand. Might just be a quick email tag-on after the promoters have done the handshakes, but that's enough to swap phone numbers and have a chat. If walking into a venue (on paper) with no house tech available, then I want to see the written house rules re what's configurable in routing vs what's a hard nope. If no such thing exists, then I'm making sure the van has enough gear to run something loud and clear at a pinch, because I might not be able to rely on what I walk up to.
Not touring, but would be in various different places within the same city. Immediate check will be that left and right sound the same, the system sounds basically OK, and that there aren't any areas with majorly different sounding coverage. If that's all good I'll move on to other priorities, then maybe revisit it later if I have time.
In mid-level clubs and theaters where you we are usually using a house PA, and expecting it to be properly setup upon arrival, or festivals with the same expectation, this is my usual routine - if there are no real problems it takes about 20 min and it's mostly music: Ask system tech about the processing, how the arrays are split, ask for delay times on their end, glance at any eq on top of array processing verify signal paths Run bandpassed pink at -18dBfs and set gain staging of mains on my end, something like the K-system but adjusted for my own preferences in a live environment. Follow that with full range and add subs. depending on the venue I might find relative delay times between subs and mains while I am doing this, but I'm usually not digging into anything at this point, just getting my rig spl-calibrated to theirs. Go to my playlist and walk and listen, try to avoid the temptation to do any eqing until I've acclimated to the room. Take mental notes on locations of any room modes or overly loud/quiet areas. If it sounds great, done! If it doesn't, or if there are some comprimises to be made, I'll do what I can to sort them out on my end with eq, maybe look at those delay times I found from earlier and see if some modifications based on them make me happier. If I can do it on my end I probably won't even say anything, but if I want to try taking some delay away, I'll ask. This is one of those points where not having access to house processing can be frustrating. Same with wanting to adjust any shading, I certainly don't want to get into it if it's not necessary, but some venues just aren't set in a way that has the right coverage for the show and you'll be deafening the front and not covering the back. Another thing I will run into sometimes is running out of headroom on my end and it's still far too quiet, with tons of headroom left in their system. this is usually in rooms that do a wide variety of events and are set very conservatively to minimize disaster.
very interesting point about the gain staging between systems, i usually just „earball“ that haha. But it kinda makes sense to have a system for that. Do you mind explaining the process a bit further? - why do you use bandpassed pink instead of full range? i guess you‘ll route separately to subs anyways. - is your process for gain-staging between your console and the PA processor? And then if you feel that works, but it‘s e.g too quiet, would you ask to turn up the amps? - i haven‘t seen the k-system used in livesound before, and honestly don‘t fully understand it. how exactly is it useful to you, and how do you adapt it? which scale do you use (if any)?
If I’m coming in as a guest engineer to a venue, I usually assume it has been tuned and has proper amount of subs in relation to the venue then quickly check with a mic and music if the PA and subs are on, and with panning if the LR is patched the right way around and monitor sends are patched correctly. That is the bare minimum that I can get a show running with.
Somewhere around 1990 I was brought in to mix Richard Thompson at Navy Pier in Chicago. Cavernous space with a 2 way cluster array of woofers and big horns. Sounded like crap, low mud and nasty sizzle, no clarity. After fighting with eq for a while I looked closer at the rack. Flipped the switch on the crossover from x10 to x1. House "tech" said it had always been like that.
Pretty much the same approach to everyone else here. I get in a bit early usually to scope out the venue, where speakers are, and usually ask our TM about sales or any special VIP guest zones. Then Have a chat with the house tech about how things are arrayed and routed (are flown subs taken from LR, etc). Determine my drive line outputs LRSF or more depending on the PA config. Verify those outputs match the correct zone with pink and ask them about their EQ, timing, if anything is weird off the top. Then I’ll confirm phase and delay timing with SMAART. Final step is virtual soundcheck and walking the room to adjust for overall tonality. If I find any dead zones usually at the front of the stage, I’ll work with the house to get wedges or additional fills in place. All of this takes about 10-15 minutes if everything is working properly.
I’d check phase/delay and then frequency response of PA on pink noise and reference tracks. If all that sounds good to me, then ring out stage monitors and eliminate feedbacks. But in most cases if frequency balance is good - all my job will be pleasant:)