Personal Responsibility

Everyone should have a basic understanding of where everything goes, and how it is cabled

Get all gear close to where it will be set up

Never place your monitor or PA speakers where a stage mike might point directly at the speaker. Try it if you want to find out why not.

Note

Rule of thumb: the source of the sound must be as good [clean, noiseless, pleasant] as possible - amplifying a bad sound only makes things exponentially worse

Loud does not equal better or more powerful - usually it’s just loud.

In cases where everything on stage is miked up, avoid the situation where backline sound is constantly interfering with front-of-house. Rule of thumb: set up the stage and front-of-house sound then turn the monitor system off while the band is playing - if the stage system is too loud you will notice a drop in level up front. This should never happen. In our case this is not possible - we run the guitar and bass amps without mikes, mixing only the kick and vox through the PA [it really works well when controlled tightly from stage].

Note

Rule of Thumb: Look after your ears - when driving to a gig don’t play your sound system full blast, and especially not your iPod, and don’t keep the window rolled right down for the fresh air. These items affect your hearing over time, you’ll get to the gig and wonder why your sound isn’t cutting through. It’s not your sound, it’s your ears bru.

Tip for drummers from George Axiotis: You can use your cymbals as a clear indicator to show whether or not your ears are in good shape, works like this: Sometime during a break from playing [when your ears are rested] set your crash up, then hit it sort of medium hard. Do this muchly over a period of days until you are very familiar with the sound. When you get to the gig, do the same thing and try to ascertain if the sound is any different. If it is, say brighter, then you need to realise that your ears are not picking up tops as clearly as they should - you must then make any EQ adjustments you feel are necessary [front-of-house] based on the fact that you’re not hearing the tops clearly. Same goes for bass / mids. This test is particularly important when you do gigs back to back for days - your hearing will definitely be affected negatively and you need to be aware of how they are reacting.

To emulate this from a guitar perspective: Plug your guitar in clean ie. no effects at all, just guitar + cable + amp. Get familiar with the sound on lead pickup / full tops and rhythm pickup / full bass. When you get to the gig do it again, but bear in mind this can be somewhat subjective as your strings might be crudded up, or old. Use the EXACT same cable though [it’s amazing the difference a cable can make to your sound - more on this later].