New PA trend in clubs?

[DrumDoug]

There is a new trend I’m seeing in clubs around here in Northern California. Instead of the band providing the whole PA, or the club providing the PA with a sound guy, the club in providing speakers and subs and the bands provide the mics and mixing boards. I played at the third place this weekend where there were xlr jacks on the wall that the bands plug in their boards main outs into. The band provides the mix but the bartender controls the master volume in the house. It sounds like a good idea, less gear the band has to carry, except all three times it didn’t work well. Twice they couldn’t get enough signal to their speakers and they said our sound was mostly monitors. That’s despite the fact that our board was turned up most of the way and the signal was in the red. The last place we actually turned the monitors around for speakers. The other place was the opposite. The mains were fine but we barely had any sound out of the monitors. According to the bartenders a lot of the bands struggle with this. I’m guessing that different brands of boards, from old analog to modern digital have different outputs and the bartenders with only a master volume knob can’t adjust the gain setting. Is this a new trend and have you guys made this work?

 

[2 hit wonder]

Not seen here in my travels.

 

[equipmentdork]

I haven't heard of this in the NY/NJ area. I'm guessing there's an impedance issue of some sort with those in-house systems? Like a -20/+4 thing?

And my word, I can't even get the bartender to turn off the jukebox/TV/whatever when we have to play, you think he's going to ride your sound level? That sounds like an awful idea.


Dan

 

[Hollywood Jim]

Too funny! I'll bet the idea behind this is so that the bartender can control the volume of the band. And it sounds like these bartenders don't know how to properly operate the P.A. power amp and controls. All around bad idea unless they have a full time sound person.

.

 

[PorkPieGuy]

Yup, there's a place we used to play that had a house PA, but we had to provide our own mics, cables, and stands. We didn't have to bring our own mixing board though.

 

[Drumolator]

A couple of years ago, we played at a restaurant / bar in Alexandria, Louisiana that had powered Peavey PA speakers. All we had to bring was our mixer and mics (and instruments of course). It was nice. Peace and goodwill.

 

[Rock Salad]

I haven't come across that here in Tulsa, Ok

 

[A J]

I've never heard of that before. If I were the bar owner, I'd always be concerned that some band is gonna blow my house speakers. If I'm a band, I'm gonna be worried about the bartender (or any other employee) screwing with the sound.

I think the best situation is for the band and the bartenders to simply communicate and cooperate. At almost every break, we would ask the bartenders and wait staff about the sound. Sometimes it was just a gesture from stage. Other times, it was a conversation.

 

[Andy]

This seems like a really weird setup to me. I have no idea how the bar manager overall volume control is wired into the signal chain, but it sounds like a recipe for mix disaster to me.

Unless it’s a very large room, overall volume is a combination of FOH speakers + monitors + rear line / stage sound unless everything is DI + Ekit + IEM.

 

[Poleaux]

Yeah, this sounds like a bad idea. The bartender (or maybe his girlfriend or boyfriend) might not like the band and they suddenly have the power to screw with their sound.

 

[mikyok]

Saw that in Eindhoven earlier this year.

Technology is doing some strange things at venues.

 

[Woolwich]

I've only been at one venue where what was supplied was different to what we were told and way below usable.
Imo I'd rather supply everything or nothing, anything in between is too risky a grey area for my liking.