PA Protocol?

mstreck · December 24, 2012

How do you guys do it? Does everyone have an assigned job? Here's our plan (although it isn't always executed perfectly). Maybe you guys can make suggestions for improvement?

1) Drums go in first.

2) PA equipment is brought in second - and placed where it will be used.

3) Personal equipment (amps, etc.) go in last - and placed where it will be used.

4) Cable bins go in front center stage - each bin contains a certain type of cable (XLR/speaker cables/power cables).

5 ) One person runs mics and cables, one does the speakers, one places mic stands, one hooks up snake to FOH rack (this is done while drummer is setting up his kit). I'm usually parking the trailer at this point and then I come in and help whoever needs it.

6) As each person finishes their job, they start setting up their own equipment (guitar amps, etc.)

7) At this point we're ready to set board and monitor levels.

Including load-in, it took us about 45 minutes to set everything up on Saturday - and that's with one person being late and stuff not really placed where it was going to be used so we ended up playing Tetris on stage..

The only thing I'd like to change is to have separate gig bags for stage left and stage right speakers - the cables that they use aren't ever going to change, so we can use the same ones each time.

Any other suggestions to make things go smoothly?

modulusman · December 24, 2012

We bring our drums in and set them offstage whenever possible. I hate trying to work around a drummer dicking around setting his kit up with cases all over the stage. If we are using any backlighting this goes up first so we are not having to work around a drumkit or amplifiers. In my band everyone pretty much has an assigned task. My job is too wire up the PA. Once we are inside the building we can be up and running in 20 minutes for a small set-up. For our biggest gigs where we supply the PA this can take about 90 minutes.

modulusman · December 24, 2012

We bring our drums in and set them offstage whenever possible. I hate trying to work around a drummer dicking around setting his kit up with cases all over the stage. If we are using any backlighting this goes up first so we are not having to work around a drumkit or amplifiers. In my band everyone pretty much has an assigned task. My job is too wire up the PA. Once we are inside the building we can be up and running in 20 minutes for a small set-up. For our biggest gigs where we supply the PA this can take about 90 minutes.

StratGuy22 · December 24, 2012

We load in the truss, stands and light box first. Then 2 people put the stands in place, join the truss together, load up the truss with lights abs raise it up into place.

At the same time we roll all the other gear in, speakers are placed, I stack the power amps, the wireless receivers, the light controller and computer/router boxes. Mixer beside on its stand.

Then the drummer sets up his stuff and I run wires. Someone else is behind the Tower of Power, and I tell them where to plug in each cable. Mic stands are put in place, and wired into the mixer. Then the guitar Amos and keyboard are set up while I set up the computer and fire everything up.

Then I do a quick mic check and we are ready for sound check. Probably a good 2 hours from dropping the rear trailer door to sound check. 3 hours is nicer, it's handy to have some extra time. In fact, if we have the chance, we sometimes set up the night before. Then we have lots of time and can even put in a bit of a practice/jam.

Ahhhh I love a nice clean stage. All the cables are routed around the sides or underneath when we can. There might be instrument cables back to the guitar amps but that's about it.

It's not real often that we play a new venue, so we have scenes for all the venues we do play. I set everyone's gain, then I head out front for sound check. We often use "Some kind of Wonderful" for the soundcheck song, and I'm usually on stage for the solo. Then we tweak monitors, play a song with keys and we're pretty much good to go.

StratGuy22 · December 24, 2012

We load in the truss, stands and light box first. Then 2 people put the stands in place, join the truss together, load up the truss with lights abs raise it up into place.

At the same time we roll all the other gear in, speakers are placed, I stack the power amps, the wireless receivers, the light controller and computer/router boxes. Mixer beside on its stand.

Then the drummer sets up his stuff and I run wires. Someone else is behind the Tower of Power, and I tell them where to plug in each cable. Mic stands are put in place, and wired into the mixer. Then the guitar Amos and keyboard are set up while I set up the computer and fire everything up.

Then I do a quick mic check and we are ready for sound check. Probably a good 2 hours from dropping the rear trailer door to sound check. 3 hours is nicer, it's handy to have some extra time. In fact, if we have the chance, we sometimes set up the night before. Then we have lots of time and can even put in a bit of a practice/jam.

Ahhhh I love a nice clean stage. All the cables are routed around the sides or underneath when we can. There might be instrument cables back to the guitar amps but that's about it.

It's not real often that we play a new venue, so we have scenes for all the venues we do play. I set everyone's gain, then I head out front for sound check. We often use "Some kind of Wonderful" for the soundcheck song, and I'm usually on stage for the solo. Then we tweak monitors, play a song with keys and we're pretty much good to go.

SpaceNorman · December 24, 2012

Our setup works like this:

Everything comes in at once - and gets piled up on the dance floor (everybody is part of the schlepp "ant line")

PA cabinets and Racks, drum rug, and keyboard stand get set into place - placement of guitar amps, bass amps and everybody's "personal" space gets "eyeballed". (Group effort)

AC Power is located - and band's QUAD boxes get plugged in and placed (1 by the PA racks, 1 stage right servicing keyboards and lead guitar, 1 stage right servicing rhythm guitar and bass guitar). (Guitar player typically handles this)

PA speaker cables are ran, FOH rack gets opened and our two dropbox snakes get placed (1 placed to service backline, 1 placed to service front line). (Bass player and lead vocalist work on this - I open the FOH rack and (with their help) extend the dropboxes.

Signal patch snake (used to patch outputs from FOH rack to the AMP rack) is extended and patched to the AMP rack. Speaker connections are made at the AMP rack. (I handle all patching that needs to touch either rack)

The rest of backline gets placed - and everybody works on their own setup. (Note that in our world - each player is responsible for running whatever PA connections they have (typically a mic chord for their vocal mic and/or a mic chord for either a DI or an instrument mic) - and patching it into the appropriate snake dropbox (the boxes are labeled with names/instruments).

Monitors get placed and cabled (two "strings" of two monitors each). (Lead Vocalist handles this).

Once everything is in place and patched up - I power up the PA - and bring up a single mic.

We then confirm that every FOH and Monitor cabinet responds to the appropriate knob - and that it's putting out sound.

After that it's line checks for every channel, minor EQ tweeks to the system EQ ... and hopefully a tune or two as a sound check. We've got 2-3 tunes we use for soundcheck ... the 1st always gets played without keys. I usually pull out my keytar and wander the room a bit during the other 2 tunes ... tweaking as I feel appropriate.

We plan on two hours for setup. We're typically loaded in and pretty much ready to power things up at the 1 hour mark. We can run through the system tweaking and tuning inside of 15-20 minutes. Most of us spend a few minutes putzing with our own rigs after than. We're usually done completely at the 1.5 hour mark - leaving us 30 minutes for contingency in the event we run into a problem.

SpaceNorman · December 24, 2012

Our setup works like this:

Everything comes in at once - and gets piled up on the dance floor (everybody is part of the schlepp "ant line")