Bad Sound Engineers....got stories?

dxtrinc

Member
Hey guys

I was recently borrowing a friend of mines kit. My friends a custom builder and this kit was basically a gretsch knock-off ie: 30 degree bearing edges, insanely heavy hardware and fully hand finished on the inside.

I had it all tuned up with new heads and sounding pristine (even the guitarists made a comment about how good they sounded). When it came up to sound check the sound engineer loved the kick and the snare, (i had brought out my vintage 402 so there's no way he wouldn't) but hated my toms.

He kept telling me they was this annoying ring coming from the drums. I couldn't figure out what he meant. They were almost flawlessly tuned and there was no nasty overtones or anything that i could hear. I even had one of the guys sit behind and just hit the drums. After him complaining for a few minutes and me trying to tune out the issue i realized "the annoying ring" was the tone of the drum. I do not cover up my heads or tape or put rings on my toms. I've up until this point never needed to. So i looked up and said "oh you mean how the drums supposed to sound? with a note like an instrument? like the tone?" and i kid you not guys he looked straight at me and said "ya thats it! can you get rid of that or something?"

Hope you guys enjoyed that as much as i did. You guys got any stories like this?

dxtr
 
Haha that is just plain stupid, what an idiot! Can't say any of mine come as close as that!

Should have brought cardboard boxes instead.
 
I'm hearing you. It's a bummer when the engineer's vision differs from the musos. It sounds to me like he had a sound in his head that he wanted, relying on a flat sound so the the boom can be added with reverb.

In the 80s our engineer/manager tried to turn our very 70s style into a trendy 80s sound. He'd mix my toms down because they didn't have that KABOOM sound popular in 80s rock. He used to laugh about "compressing the tits" off the drums. The compression meant that my ride and cymbal crashes lost their sustain and cut off suddenly like you hear in cheap electric kits. I guess to him that meant having a cleaner sound but the price for that cleanliness was a worse sound.

If he'd been thinking clearly he would have realised that the price was too high.
 
I'm hearing you. It's a bummer when the engineer's vision differs from the musos. It sounds to me like he had a sound in his head that he wanted,

You've NAILED the problem right there!!!

Instead of LISTENING to the kit being used, "Sound Men" try to get EVERY kit to sound the same, as if ANY two instruments sound the same!!! They wouldn't THINK to LISTEN and make it just a bit LOUDER but with the same tone, unless the drums go SPLATTT they can't do a thing with 'em!!

It's annoying as HELL, and I'm not gonna take it ANYMORE!!!
 
This has happened to me, in some form, over and over again. Whether it's another musician or a sound guy or in the studio (I've only ever recorded in a studio twice and played without recording a few times).

It's other people's idea of what good drum sounds should be.

As my confidence in my tuning has grown, I've learned to know the difference between a good sound that is "working" when it comes to reproducing it or blending with the rest of the music and one that is not.

You just have to stand up for what you think and believe. I've put new heads on and had one guy say they sound crappy and another say they're "amazing" all within a 5 minute time period. It's one thing to eliminate some ringing or tone that you prefer but is a reasonable compromise overall and entirely another to have to retune your set just to make a mullet-sporting-80's-hairband-left-over guitarist that wants power tom thuds for every song. (Sorry that was mean but we've probably all met that guy)

You don't see drummers telling guitar players to "swap out their pick-ups, we need a little more crunch"
 
Look, I'm for lively-sounding drums and, frankly, they're necessary if you play out unmiked. Sustain is good, it gets you heard, but the audience doesn't hear it--they just hear louder drums.

But you should understand that sound guys are interested in clarity above all else. If your toms sustain, most of them will bitch. Their mics are "hearing" the drums from 1" away, and to them sustain is a bad thing because (in their view) it muddies up the sound. They want a clean, dry, short sound from everything on the kit.

Not saying it's right, just saying they have a reason.
 
Isn't it sad that most sound people don't have any musical training whatsoever. If they do, they are - as someone said in this post - washed up guitar players who last played in a mid-80's garage band. "Me want thud"! You gotta laugh at those idiots because if you don't you'll punch them.

My experience with sound guys runs like my experience with guitar players. For every good decent guitar player out there, there are 2 who suck and don't know what they are doing. Same with "sound engineers". For every decent sound person out there, there are 2 who don't know what they are doing and DON'T LISTEN to anyone in the band.

Since I've started playing again I've had 1 great sound engineer who knew how to balance sound live, and one who thought he was good, but was at a benign beginner level. This beginner didn't understand the value of band monitors on a live stage. I had one monitor about 2 feet way from me and still had to moan and gripe and jump up and down and scream to get this guy to turn my monitor up so I could here what we were playing. I mean I continually had to tell this guy to turn it up so I could hear and to LEAVE IT ALONE!

At one point in a scheduled rehearsal 1 hour before we played live, I quit playing altogether to force my point. The other fellows in the band turned around with the "What's UP" look on their faces. I simply pointed to the sound booth. They all yelled at him to "turn the drummer's monitor UP and leave it alone! He can't hear what we're playing!!" We even had someone out in the audience check for us to make sure we had everything balanced right. Turns out we did.
After some heated discussions, the sound was finally done right. But the next week with the same sound guy, we had to start all over again explaining what we needed. Talk about an Idiot.
 
I will stick up for a lot of sound guys regarding this. I've found it is a lot easier for them to mix drums who's sustain is less, sure the really good guys can deal with it no prob, but like we've all found, those really good sound guys aren't nearly as common.

I generally tune my kit to sound best to my ear in an acoustic environment, if it's too much for the sound guy, I'm more than happy to dampen as requested. Happy sound guys = good mix. Piss them off, and chances are they'll be hanging at the bar during your set instead of watching the board.

dxtr - are you not being just as close minded as the sound guys by suggesting that the way you want to hear drums is the way they should sound? I think it's clear that the general consensus on these forums is that personal preference is just that, personal. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, I'd say especially the guy who probably knows the PA and room better than almost anyone. It's not as though they come to work thinking, "I'm gonna make tonight sound horrible".
 
I will stick up for a lot of sound guys regarding this. I've found it is a lot easier for them to mix drums who's sustain is less, sure the really good guys can deal with it no prob, but like we've all found, those really good sound guys aren't nearly as common.

I generally tune my kit to sound best to my ear in an acoustic environment, if it's too much for the sound guy, I'm more than happy to dampen as requested. Happy sound guys = good mix. Piss them off, and chances are they'll be hanging at the bar during your set instead of watching the board.

dxtr - are you not being just as close minded as the sound guys by suggesting that the way you want to hear drums is the way they should sound? I think it's clear that the general consensus on these forums is that personal preference is just that, personal. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, I'd say especially the guy who probably knows the PA and room better than almost anyone. It's not as though they come to work thinking, "I'm gonna make tonight sound horrible".

Ah yes. The voice of reason. I agree that there is always a compromise to this. The irksome part is what was earlier posted about sound guys trying to homogenize a drummers sound. It's a common problem.

Why do sound guys worry so much about sustain? It's probably a hold-over attitude from when they were learning to do live sound and how to overcome problems with stage/monitor front and back of house mixes. With a little patience it's not hard to deal with.

With that said, if you're band #4 of 7 on a multi-band gig and there's no time in between bands, I totally understand why a sound engineer is going to resort to damping rather than mic and board tweaking. It's just easier and faster. I respect that.
 
speaking of live monitors, one time i was playing a show where our guitarist kept pleading with the sound tech to raise the guitar level in his monitor. after the third request the sound guy raised the guitar level to an ear shattering level, in my monitor too! the guitar volume was so incredibly loud and distorted in my left ear i could hear nothing else. it was all i could do to get through the set from that point on.
 
I would never let a sound guy damp my drums. I'd (respectfully) tell him to just use 2 overhead mics, a kick and snare mic, and turn off the close tom mics. It's not like the sustain of the drums is going to feed back or anything. Bonham was notorious for keeping mics a few feet away from the drums. Sound men need to have procedures to get a damped drum sound and a lively drum sound, and we need to NOT COMPROMISE our sound. Handled with as much respect and tact as can be mustered of course. Plus buying him a beer can't hurt ha ha
 
What it comes down to is both sides, the musicians and the engineer, are both just trying to do their jobs to the best of their ability. Both sides want to look like competent professionals. When a musician is making the engineer's job harder, or vice-versa, there are obviously going to be problems. If you work together, both sides will come out looking good.

On the other hand, you can piss and moan, the engineer will sabotage you, youll play like crap, and nobody looks good or has a good time.

Can't we all just get along? haha
 
I went to this studio and naturally wanted to use my own kit but the sound guy was like "at least try my kit first." He then played me some past recordings he'd done using that kit before I was forced to go in and play it for a bit whilst he and my band remained in the control room. He then asked me what I thought and I replied with "meh, it's ok but if it's all the same I'd prefer to use my own set thanks." He said "what do you think of the snare, though? Really nice, right?"

I said, "it's a bit dry sounding for my taste....."

I later found out that when I said that he turned to the rest of my band and said "If he thinks that's dry, he probably isn't very good at tuning."
I was in an acoustically treated room, the snare had an "Evans Dry" head on and was covered in tape....

He later couldn't get any sound from the bass drum "because the batter head had a small patch on it"!



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At my second ever gig (I was about 17) the guy adjusting the mics asked me to play around the whole drum kit whilst the other dude could get the levels right. When the levels were set, the mic guy signalled me to stop playing by putting his hand in front of the cymbal I was about to hit. I ended up cracking him across the knuckles and the sound of this and his cries of pain went out through the PA.
 
my worst experience was with a student engineer doing a class project for a very expensive "recording school" we were clearly doing a favor for a fan doing this, but going into it we figured we'd at least get a demo out of it, and it was a REALLY nice high end studio.

as soon as we got there we realized she had NO IDEA what she was doing.
we were waiting to get into the studio in the lounge and she asked us "do you guys have XLR'S?" and we were dumbfounded, like yes we have xlr cables, but we didn't bring them to a studio. and she said "don't worry, we have TONS!" no shit? a studio has a xlr cables.

I started setting up in the drum room and she poked her head in the door and asked "do you guys have toms?" and she's staring at me holding a rack tom about to put it on a stand. I stood there for a moment and realized she was dead serious. she did not know what a tom was! I told her yeah I have two toms. then she said "thats what i thought." REALLY?

everything was downhill from there, I ended up micing my own kit becuase she had no idea what mics were for what instrument. then it took her hours to get the session going in protools and she expected me to just play with a click with no scratch track, which I ended up just doing. In the end it took us 3 hours to finally record 3 minutes of drums. Her time was up in the studio and another student was coming in to do their project. We ended up asking if we could lay down the violin track because our violin player drove 3 hours to come do this session. so he went in and layed down a track to the drums with no background instruments to reference his tuning or intonation with.

It was a terrible experience, and a complete waste of time. I can't believe some of these recording schools. what the hell are they teaching these kids? and I can't believe they let them touch the equiptment when they have NO CLUE how to use it.
 
I once had a sound engineer fall asleep at his desk!!! Wedgewood rooms in Portsmouth I think it was. And what's worse is he woke up the moment we finished!

Complete joke! I didn't tale it personally though. The guy was off his face. I wonder where here is now....I'm guessing not touring the world with a name band but in AA somewhere.
 
3 quick pet peeves of mine towards soundguys;

1. When you set up early, soundcheck, get your monitor mix perfect, and then play your first song a few hours later and find that your monitor mix is WAYYYY off. Why did we get there early to soundcheck in the first place? Is it bring your kid to work day, and you let them play with all of the knobs? What's the deal?!?!?!?

2. When the soundguy uses the "take away rather than add to" philosophy too far. There was one instance where the soundguy wanted to turn everything up so loud that it exploded with body-penetrating, skull-knocking, "OMG-I-want-to-die-now!!!" feedback, just so he could see where the system maxed out and start rolling things back from there. It's a GREAT idea when mixing a recording when you have all of the hot levels and you're mixing for frequency shelving purposes, but the point of a sound system is sound reinforcement. So, reinforce our sound, don't force it!!!

3. When the soundguy "sets it and forgets it". I've seen many soundguys leave the booth for the whole gig as soon as we hit our downbeat. Or, especially at festivals and park gigs, the soundguy is often eating and chatting with people while we're trying to get his attention in front of 2,500+ people. Your job is to be the man over the board, not be "man overboard"...
 
I once got on stage for sound check to find that the sound man had miked my drums using those little clamps that attach to the rims. They were right under the cymbals. I mean it was obvious that one stroke on the cymbal would cause it to collide with the microphone. I pointed this out to him and he said, "So how would you do it?" I told him that I'd use microphone stands, even got one and showed him how to mike up a drum, and he was very unpleasant about it. Then he wasted about twenty minutes while he had to do the whole job over again, muttering under his breath the whole time.
He was a very skilled technician!
 
Here's one:

We're bandnumber 1. Headliner's sound guy is doing us a favor by setting our levels and monitor mix. All is good but you can hear our ambient over the PA so much that it's obvious he's got us turned way down (you could almost hear the guitar players strings as if he's playing an acoustic.. .. well almost) so when his band comes up it sounds like the "real guys" have arrived.

We beg for a little turn up and sound like we couldn't put down our purses to "hit that thing" all night.

Headlining band comes on and sounds great and we are the stooges. Just as was intended.
 
As an innocent young drummer I was once made to look a fool by a soundman when my drums were out of tune at a sound check. I was able to put it to good use because I went to my teacher and he taught me how to tune.

It turned out later he was a terrible soundman anyway and we fired him. My drums sounded good though.
 
I would never let a sound guy damp my drums. I'd (respectfully) tell him to just use 2 overhead mics, a kick and snare mic, and turn off the close tom mics. It's not like the sustain of the drums is going to feed back or anything. Bonham was notorious for keeping mics a few feet away from the drums. Sound men need to have procedures to get a damped drum sound and a lively drum sound, and we need to NOT COMPROMISE our sound. Handled with as much respect and tact as can be mustered of course. Plus buying him a beer can't hurt ha ha

Good luck with that. Sound guys have a knob on their boards labeled "suck." Start telling the guy responsible for how you're going to sound all night how to do his job and he'll turn it up to 11.

Look: I've had some excellent sound guys, including ones who didn't bat an eyelash at a non-ported bass reso. But you know what? I had a ported reso and muffling stuff in the car, ready to go if the sound guy wanted it. It only makes sense.

Meanwhile, I agree that a great sound can be had with two overheads, kick, and snare, but there are a whole lot of musical and acoustic situations where any thoughts of that are hopeless. Close mics are used for a reason--to lessen bleed-through in a loud environment. By doing so the engineer can give each input what it needs and keep comb filtering (which sounds really nasty) to a minimum.

I wish they were all like the good ones I've had, but they're not and life goes on.
 
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