Live Sound & Production

[heyitbebt]

Oh, I have one from when I was running sound.

Once a month our church group does a praise & worship gathering at a local bar. They're normally closed on Tuesday nights, so we rent the place out and set up for a band, and have about an hour and a half of music and worship. Good times. Anyway, I usually run sound with my rig, since it's a pretty small club and my gear is capable of handling it easily. It's basically a case of just getting everything else loud enough to sound right with the drums.

The guys in the band are usually very helpful when it comes time to break down, and for the most part know that I mainly just want them to get their gear broken down and off the stage while I break down the PA.

It's important to note here that while the band is breaking down and I'm breaking down the monitors and mics and such, I usually leave a CD playing through the mains for those people who haven't left yet. There are usually a good few dozen folks still milling about while I'm breaking down, and then when there's nothing left but the mains and snake, I kill the CD, power down the rest of the system, and finish breaking down. No big deal.

This particular night, there was a new bass player sitting in with the group. After the gig I'm in the process of coiling the speaker cables from the monitors when the guy asks me where I want this cable.

"It shocked me when I touched it," he says, "but I just grabbed it by the cable and yanked it out." And I see he has the 1/4" speaker cable from the mains in his hand.

The mains were still live.

So of course I hurriedly shut everything down, and tell him he shouldn't have unplugged that speaker cable yet. He's very proud of himself for figuring out how to unplug the cable without getting shocked again. :facepalm:

I gathered everyone together after that and we had a short talk about unplugging cables when you don't know what they do, asking before handling potentially dangerous gear, and WHY YOU SHOULDN'T TOUCH STUFF THAT SHOCKS YOU. We also covered a little general electrical safety, why you shouldn't mess with electrical equipment if you don't know what you're doing, etc... I also changed over to Speakon cables for the mains after that gig. It seems a little more difficult for people who don't know what they're doing to unplug those.

Thankfully, no people or gear was injured in this. How the guy managed to coil up the cable without hurting himself, the speakers, or my amp I've never figured out. Blind luck, I guess.

It never ceases to amaze me how many people think thousands of watts worth of gear can't hurt them, because it's just music stuff.

Recently we had a gig where a helpful friend handed our sound guy, after the gig, a speakon speaker cable.......only the tip was still partially inside the speaker!!!!! The guy says "Yeah, this one was a bitch getting out for some reason..." NO SHIT.................from then on no more helpful friend roadies....HHAHAHA

[raagam]

I occasionally run audio for Indian classical music events in our area. It's usually a small acoustic ensemble: singer or two, violin, hand-drummer or two. Audience around 50-125 people. The venue is a community room at the local temple.

The last concert was by an excellent North Indian Hindustani singer. The rig is very basic: there is a powered mixer and a couple of 12" speaker and horn cabinets in place. I bring in mics, stands, cables, since the ones there aren't too good.

Anyway, the house gear gets constantly used by any number of people from the community who have little idea about how to do live sound. (What little I know I've gleaned from watching engineers, reading, and listening critically to my own sound).

The first thing I do during set up is of course to zero the board, because usually things are way off, smiley-face eq, etc.

But this time, EVERY knob on the mixer was on 10, up all the way!! Except pans were set to center, master out not too high. So, I think that somebody must have intentionally turned every eq, level and send up all the way! Imagine the sound...

[Mogwix]

But this time, EVERY knob on the mixer was on 10, up all the way!! Except pans were set to center, master out not too high. So, I think that somebody must have intentionally turned every eq, level and send up all the way! Imagine the sound...

kids like to do this as a prank, turn everything to 10 and wait for the hapless user to come by and turn it on.

[raagam]

kids like to do this as a prank, turn everything to 10 and wait for the hapless user to come by and turn it on.

true. i posted in part to bump this great thread.

[MrKnobs]

Just doing some cleaning up, don't mind me.... Here it is, the long awaited (partially complete) index to the Knobs Stupid Stories Just click on the links! *Bad Power, Good Crossover *Attitude Correction with a Pitch Corrector *Concussion mortar astronaut mishap *Talk Box Error *Flaming Confetti Mishap *Flaming Bifurcated Crotch Incident *Doc Goes Nuts with a 2" x 4" *FNG Gets Some OJT with Fog Machine *15 Year Old Terry Hired by Strip Club *Joe Pukes, Then Steals the Show *Ovation? NOT! *Lesbian "Woodsie" *Sometimes You Gotta Break Some Chairs *A Good Groupie'll Give You the Shirt Off Her Rack *Don't Put No Mike in My Kick! *Crowd Lifts the Stacks, Alrighty Then! *Embarrassing 80's Video (now with VIDEO LINK!) *Candy and Sandy *Working for the Mexican Mafia *First Adventures with Pyro *Shots Fired in Plantersville TX *Strip Search at Mexican Border *Jailed in Mexico for Being "Gay" *"Jewels on the Flagpole in Dime Box TX *Dime Box Body Slam *Search Him THREE TIMES!!! *Sound System Refuses to Run Itself *The Mirror at Kashim *Live Wiring the Hutto Hippo *Hey Guys, the Monitors Haven't Worked in Years *EQ Knobs Ain't Workin' but the MAINS Sure Are! *Cops Can Hear A Guitar Amp From Miles Away *The Stolen Church Fire Extinguisher *Cop in a Box *KD *Extermination Fee is EXTRA *Roach on a Date *Terry Can Be a DICK *Standoff in Mexia TX *Attempted BJ on Stage *F*ck Me, Bear Photographer! *Dyke Administers Cardiac Test, Laughter *Letters in a Bag, Letters in a Name *One Strange Night in Port Aransas, TX *Jailbreak in Matamoros *I Hope the Elgin Police Don't Read This *60 Seconds from Death, For Real the chick pulling the train backstage at GS **** Under construction below, check back soon ****** the two lesbians, *the fistfight with the born again guy, , the dude who plays slap bass with his feet, my singer Julie and the two strippers, Joanna the puker, Mooning at the radio station, the soundman's mother, *my name is Blanca M., a little fun with wireless guitar, Light guy mixes "Cotton Eye Joe", See-through dimmer pack, TV stolen solo by Bill B., Kevin plays in the wrong key, Bathroom boob flasher, ShowCo transistorized George S., Melting w/ the big boys at Silver Wings, *"Barnell" and the girls, Scott B. quits over barbecue "Bad" fuel pump in Brenham Kicking a dead dog in Industry, TX Nick & Herb fistfight over change Nick's gf enters through the window Box wrench + hose clamps = tie rod xHouse of oriental delight Fired for being ugly! Terry D. $$$TD0$$$

[abzurd]

RREEAALLYY Long awaited.... LOL! I remember reading these back in 02'!

[agedhorse]

Oh fuck, another "must do" time waster. Fortunately I have a string of shows where this will be the perfect reading material. Can't wait.

Seriously, there's some really good shit in these stories.

[modulusman]

Oh fuck, another "must do" time waster. Fortunately I have a string of shows where this will be the perfect reading material. Can't wait.

Seriously, there's some really good shit in these stories.

Yeah when I get some free time I will have to read them too. Mr Knobs has a way with words. Seriously he could write a great novel.:thu:

[agedhorse]

Seriously he could write a great novel.:thu:

No kidding, they would make great books on tape!

[srp72ee]

The "First Adventures with Pyro" is great...

[RoadRanger]

Friday night the keyboard player managed to pull out my FOH extension cord when he shifted his bench and I didn't really notice right away :facepalm:. One of the singers had gone out on the dance floor to sing with the 25 well liquored young ladies having a bachlorette party there and they were so loud I didn't notice that the PA and monitors died. I did notice a change in the mix but thought the singer stopped and let the crowd pick it up at first :eek:. I crawled under, over, and though a VERY crowded stage and plugged it back in - band didn't miss a beat as only the singer noticed and it actually sounded planned and kinda cool :thu:.

[BluesJamPlayer]

I don't think this counts as 'epic'...but as a guitar player and not a sound man, I thought it was interesting..

Sitting in the sound booth at a blues jam, sound guy nice enough to show me how a mixer works.....this button does that, this knob does that...ect..

So as the band plays, and gets louder and louder, it becomes apparent that the only thing the sound guy has 'up' is the vocals...all mic'd instruments are off, and what's coming off the stage is still too loud and running the patrons out of the bar...the sound guy looks at me, gives shrug like he's has has run out of options...so of course he keeps bumping the mic volume up to match the amps...

I tell him, 'why don't you bring the lead singer's volume down?'....having personally played with the lead singer, he's smart enough to bring the band down if he can't hear himself...

So the sound guy slowly brought the singer down..singer started waiving the band down...problem solved..

I keep hearing that the best sound men are musicians, because they know what goes on up on stage...

[Dogoth]

You Know that you're a stage hand when you break a shoe lace on your leather steel toe shoes and for the last 6 months, trick line has worked just fine ).

[MrKnobs]

Wow, someone from my past (in these stories) just showed up here.... :eek: Terry D.

[Craigv]

Do tell, Terry!!!!

[RoadRanger]

Wow, someone from my past (in these stories) just showed up here... :eek:

Karma's a bitch for sure .

[MrKnobs]

Do tell, Terry!!!!

Added this one in RJ's honor (he was the better man, as usual) Chick pulling a train backstage at George Strait * (language warning, adult situation) Terry D.

[agedhorse]

Some of my favorite storytelling Terry. You still retired or back to asphalt consulting?

[MrKnobs]

Some of my favorite storytelling Terry. You still retired or back to asphalt consulting?

I've re-retired yet again. Been working at my old workplace again, but their penchant for sending me on 12 hour commutes to Dallas plus their occasional failure to pay me for hours worked has caused me to rethink whether I need to slosh in that piss bucket again. :idk: Terry D.

[agedhorse]

Yeah baby, enjoy the feedom yet again

The 12 hour day is the new 8, it's like this pretty much everywhere. I really pitty the poor kids entering the job market these days, they are a dime a dozen and the employers know how to take advantage of it.