How do you rise above it and be professional when..

[J.Paul]

This weekend we are at an even smaller place, no room for the light truss (just some construction lights) and using half the mains (your basic sports bar). It's much more comfortable. I can see and (since we sound like a bar band no matter what our soundman does) I can hear everything my triple flange earplugs allow.

Every gig can't be

[thunderpuppy]

Some days, the sound just isn't going to be good. We've played a variety of shows where the sound on stage was awful (I actually had one show where, even though there was no real band information coming from the monitor in front of me, it would produce extremely loud, arrhythmic crackling... randomly. Loud enough to make me flinch every time it happened). I think the answer's in the title of the post: you just rise above it.

There really isn't a "how," as far as I know.

...then again, that's as much as I know. That and the single truth that the show doesn't sound to the crowd the way it sounds to me while I'm playing. I've had knowledgeable, trustworthy people say we sounded great on the floor when everything I could hear while playing was flabby, or tinny, or mixed completely out of proportion. We all just play the best we can and put on our best show.

[tacdryver]

No one should be looking to blame anyone, it's about trying to fix problems and make the song come out right...I play blues jams, so my education so far is trying to play with people that sometimes just don't get it...but that's the price I pay for not just having my own band and doing it the right way...

[BlueStrat]

 

I personally disagree with the people who say 'the drummer is playing too loud'. If you are playing through a half way descent Front of House, the harder the drummer hits, the better the mix sounds because the drums will hit and stay above the compressor level harder and longer, which is key to having HUGE drums, both live and in the studio. It actually cleans up a mix, too, because the FOH engineer can turn down the gain on the board. As far as being able to hear on stage, a good monitor world engineer should be able to effectively cut frequency notches in your monitor for your vox to cut through. That being said, if you are playing a more confined area with subpar FOH/monitors, you've got to be able to play off instinct. You just know when you are on and when you aren't. Just my humble opinion!

 

Too many drummers in the studio have a bad habit of beating the piss out of their cymbals as if they were in Madison Square Gardens with no PA support. I don't care how good your equipment is, it's hard to mix a drummer who plays that hard, both live and recording.