ProAudioSpace
Rule #1: Don't piss off the sound guy!
trash mouth
It's funny most of the people that trash talk gear and companies, for stuff that is' quote 'not rider friendly, i think for the most part don't even own the gear or run a sound co, they fail to realize the cost and hard work that goes into a endever as running your own business. Maybe if they would put up or just shut up and make the gear they have work and sound good, there life would be a whole lot simpler. any comments on this. from the peanut gallery
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by George's Pro Sound Company on -
One rule , NEVER trash talk the rig,it is providing you a job, if the company loses the client due to your trash talking, your reputaion around town will be ruined
if you don't want to work with what the company has, don't accept the gig
I run everything from Meyer to behringer and each is tool that is choosen for its ability to earn me return on my investment
i am a small company, about 250,000 in rigs so every penny is important
the one thing my rig is, it is PAID FOR, and earns money
if you cost me a client, hell hath no wrath like a company owner whos hired help trash talks the rig that is giving them work
George
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Permalink Reply by james cech on -
good point ,lots of people do not realize the investment we put into our business, like you i am a small company with a 75,000 investment and i have to use the gear i can afford, I think the older sound pro's know this , but the younger one's haven't had to work for 20, 30 yrs in the smokey bar rooms to have learned there skills, and also run a business, raise a family, sometimes live hand to mouth, I think lots of them have lost the fact what it takes to be a real audio pro. they think it's all about them.
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Permalink Reply by Jimmy Miller on -
Never make fun of someones gear. I've been in the sound business for over 30 years, full time for the last 10. We use mostly prosumer grade stuff (Mackie, Presonus, DBX, ext) and for the most part it has worked without fail inside and out we hardly ever have anything fail. Most everyone hires us over and over again. Our client's are ok with our rig because we know how to use it. We have an inventory of around 275,000.00 and every bit hard earned doing bar bands and county fairs and beauty pageants and bluegrass festivals and all sorts of less than pleasing to listen to events out in the cold and rain pulling power from every corner of the building (because they never have enough circuits) We have three rigs and we pay cash for everything as we go and it's been a long hard battle but everything we have makes us money. The younger sound guy's, particularly the collage educated crowd turn their nose up at our rig because we still use analog gear but, we work for several national acts when they are in the area and they are always pleased with our sound or they wouldn't keep hiring us year after year. From time to time we have an artist that has a rider we can't meet so we rent the gear and do the show anyway. It doesn't matter how much gear you have or how much you payed for it or the fact that you can make adjustments via your Iphone from the bathroom, If you don't have an ear or you don't know how to use the gear, it's useless. We may not have line array and digital mixers but my company supports 3 family's and a few part time guy's as well. We aren't rich but we're happy and enjoy what we do, what more could you ask for.
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Permalink Reply by Mark Oakley on -
I completely agree with all of this. I run my own small soundco (about $150,000 invested) and many guys I've talked to (who don't own a scrap of gear themselves) think that certain brands of gear sound good out-of-the-box. If there's one thing I've learned, it's that in the final mix, the brand and type of gear means almost nothing. The gear is 10% of the final sound, and the guy mixing is 90%.
A few years ago, one of my regular bands was performing at a large street fest, and asked me to come and mix them. The system was dVdosc/LabGruppen/Series5. When I got there, the previous engineer had the rig sounding like a giant telephone! Luckily, there was a 45 minute changeover; plenty of time for me to re-tune the rig and make it sing like a bird. The gear is only as good as the guy using it.
-Mark
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Permalink Reply by james cech on
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yes there is a god out there, and i'am not the only one that feels this way, It Is the man or women behind the board and the team that put it all together that makes it sound great, not Quote name brand gear. I have found that most of those teckno wiz kids out there can't mix to save there lives, and sad to say lots of them have a piece of paper from a sound school , and i won't name names but they speau them out right and left.
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Permalink Reply by George's Pro Sound Company on
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the real diffrence between 10 ep2500s and one crown 5000 is the 10 ep2500s will make your mortgage payment at the end of the month the one crown wont even get you in the door
george
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Permalink Reply by Tom Stark on -
Jimmy, like you I am an old guy. Mark my words, 15 years from now those young college kids that turn their nose up today at your " old analog " gear while sitting there clueless as to what it takes to get to where you did will be the ones paying 10 times what it cost to begin with because it's all the rage. The one advantage us older cats will always have is we used what was there, the disposable gear age has eliminated the need to learn that ability. Once your rig is payed for you can do a gig a little cheaper, that is not throat cutting that is the economics of business during a recession At that point to both customer and client that old payed for analog gear sounds every bit as good as that financed for 5 more years digital. When Audio is your career you use what is provided, treat EVERY show the same and say " thanks and see you again soon to the client. "
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Permalink Reply by Mical Caterina on -
Agree 100%. There tends to be this attitude that surfaces occasionally that if you have anything but premium gear, you're a second rate company. If you can afford the hi end gear - great, but there's ALOT of "prosumer" gear that works and does the job just as well. I find the attitude comes from the uninformed or the "ill-informed". I come across this usually from stagehands and younger folks who knowledge-base comes from magazine ads and hearsay.
I look at this in a couple of ways and you don't necessarily have to be a company owner to appreciate the value of gear.
#1) the company PROVIDED that piece of gear as a tool for you to get the job done - if you don't like it - cya.
#2) if I see or catch someone abusing anything from a mic cable on up - make them buy or make them aware of the cost of said item,,, you'll usually get a look of shock. IE: hands abusing cables,DIs and gear at corporate gigs is a prime example.
My theory - if it gets you through the gig, sounds & works well and makes the client happy (and is presentable - not gaff taped together) - "ca-ching". I've had to tell a few "unless if you've had a bad experience with a particular piece of gear keep your opinions to yourself".
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Permalink Reply by Mical Caterina on
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Couple of my favorite pcs
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Permalink Reply by Robin Parker on -
I'm in the exact same boat with everyone else here! My rig is easily over 20 years old and it still sounds as good today as ever – (actually a little better due to a few custom tweaks and a DSP) but the fact remains – it’s paid for, and does nothing but earn money when it goes out.
I get a big kick when seeing “no religion or politics” in the posting instructions on these sites – that in itself is almost an oxymoron – this business is 99% religion and politics before you even get out of the gate - in its own way, of course. You can’t ask question one without having the floodgates open hearing this widget is the only things to have, when in the very next post, it sucks and they would throw it away if somebody gave them one. Personally, I call this the “anchovy/olive theory”. Most people like olives on their pizza – I don’t. I like anchovies – most people don’t. Who’s “right”? Obviously, it’s subjective – there is no right or wrong. But start talking about sound gear and if you don’t want to get blown away by opinions, chain yourself to a tree!
Yes, (possibly) a majority of system owner/operators may agree here or there, but especially regarding “low-end”, I have measured the response of a number of systems (below 125hz) to be well above 30db louder than everything above that point. Chest collapsing bass with no intelligibility… I don’t get it… I even had the opportunity a few years back to comment to Greg Lake (EL&P) on the exact same thing regarding their sound at a concert once. The low end response was grossly out of proportion to the other content – it just wasn’t ELP’s “sound”. The FOH operator that evening was very young, possibly not even having been born before they came out. I wasn’t trashing the system, more so commenting on its operation by someone having grown up in a different era of music.
I’d love to one day do a double blind listening test with a lot of the over opinionated among us and there is absolutely no doubt that the results would be surprising to say the least. There was a recent article is a recording magazine about a panel of “professionals” listening to amp modeling software – their goal was to choose between the real thing (amp/speaker/mic) and the model from a computer. Bottom line, they were wrong about 75% of the time…. My definition of an “expert” is, "Someone that can’t agree with anyone else."
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Permalink Reply by George's Pro Sound Company on
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what I like is the guest engineer who comes up and says my house eq "LOOKS" wrong and proceed to make it either dead flat with 1 dB cuts at 160 ,800,and 3.2 or puts a big disco hump at 60 to 80 while scooping out all the mids, then stands back with a big self satisfied smile that he has just improved on everything from sliced bread to free wifi
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Permalink Reply by Jimmy Miller on
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I had an engineer (I use the term loosely) from a local band he was was maybe 18 or 19 come up and started adjusting the mix because he couldn't hear the drummers vocals I then explained to him the drummer doesn't sing. After I stopped all the resulting feedback he caused and rebalanced the mix I had to have security escort him out be cause he got so mad he took a swing at me when I told him I was running sound before he was an itch in his dads pants and I had it under control. The younger engineers need to understand that us older guy's have been at it longer than the gear they were trained on has been in existence. When I started a single channel compressor cost more than my first car now they are available in all price ranges. I still have my first 12 channel mixer it took two men to carry it and it is loaded with features It has 1 bass knob and 1 treble knob (as printed on the thing) 1 monitor out and 1 main out And it was one of the better mixers of the day. I've seen a lot of changes some good and some not so good.
© 2012 Created by Terry Lowe.
