Members Greg Bogoshian Posted October 14, 2005 Members Share Posted October 14, 2005 Had to play for an hour for Heritage Chirstian Services awards dinner banquet at the Rochester Riverside Convention Center main ballroom. We brought all of our gear just in case... They always have major league sound people at the center so we weren't too worried... WRONG! Sound coordinator informs us that the organizer from Heritage told them exactly what they were going to need for their stuff and that we would be entirely self-contained. Mind you, this facility and ballroom is a city block long... We told them that all we would really need to do is do a mix into our system and with a single line, we could go from our line out into their board... ONE FUGGUN LINE... and our sound would be spread over the entire room and we would be able to hear ourselves through the stage monitors and we wouldn't have to waste time and space setting our entire system up. What we had would be essentially jury-rigged but maybe we could pull it off anyway. We were told to set up on the main stage. WRONG! 20 minutes into it, they realized that we would not have time to move so much gear off of the stage for the next portion of the program so we would have to move everything down to floor level alongside the stage... all because the sound guys would not allow us to hook ONE CABLE into the output of our mixer... In the middle of our set, the owner of the sound company comes up to me between songs and hands me a card telling me that next time we do something like this, we might want to call him and let them know of our requirements... I was so tired from setting up that I couldn't think straight and I am sure TJ was pretty frazzled too as we both were going nuts. I finally got changed into my playing clothes and got back to start our set 1 minute before it was time to go and these folks were military precise on their event timing... almost no time to warm up or really do any optimizing of our monitor or sound. For some reason, people seemed to think that it was appropriate to come up and talk to us (me mostly since I was out front) during the middle of our playing. Mostly it was the mentally disabled, but their handlers should have known better. One took my picking hand and wouldn't let go (while I was playing) with her handler right there, and so I hammered out the chords and runs with my left hand until I could break free of the grip... at least 12 bars. When I picked up the electric (I tuned up all 4 guitars I used before starting) to play a song on it, I hit the first chord and these horriffic notes came from it... Somebody had apparently decided it was okay to just twist a few of the tuning knobs as I was off changing before starting to play for 2 minutes... I had to stop right there and just pick up another guitar to do the song and start over. Pretty embarassing in front of 1600 people. Had a bout all of a sudden with feedback (no time to set things up optimally due to the previously mentioned Chinese Fire Drill) so I had to cut one mic pretty significantly... Doing sound and playing is just too much to handle for something like that. We apparently did have things dialed in pretty well for the room, but it was extremely difficult to hear ourselves making it very tough to play. The room was extremely live and we had no idea what was going out. We must have done okay because comments came back indirectly that we sounded amazingly good and somebody did contact us to do another gig in December. I finally got home and gear unloaded and to bet about 1:30 and back up for work at 4:45... I am so tired right now I can hardly hold my head up. I averaged 3 hours of sleep the last three nights. My personal highlight of the evening was debuting a new song I composed that we saved for last because it was really high energy. That seemed to get quite a lot of spontaneous response and clapping to the beat from the audience so we left them on a high note. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Greg Bogoshian Posted October 14, 2005 Author Members Share Posted October 14, 2005 Here are a few pics of the room we played... Pictures are from where we played to our right, right center, left center, left... You can see why we had to use our monitors as well as our mains to fill the place. All done with my Mackie 808M. Mains were my Carvin 1283 3-way PA speaker and Tim's Peavy PA speaker both high up on stands. Remarkably, it was loud enough to fill the place... We used all 8 inputs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members wheresgrant3 Posted October 14, 2005 Members Share Posted October 14, 2005 WOW!!!! Greg I don't know how you did it!!!! I know that room (I competed in a body building contest 10 years ago there) and that place is enoromus The ceilling, if I remember, is two stories tall. I've been in many cases where you are rushed to setup and playing in front of large groups of people. nervewracking!!!!! I don't know how you did it w/ a Mackie 808 either. I have no use for the 808's. I think (personal opinion) they are the most under powered, overpriced pieces of junk (no offense). A band (four piece) I played with limped along trying to use one as a full range PA a few years back. My current band uses one as a practice PA and even with line direct bass and vox it's just sounds like ass. Supposedly it's 1200 watts bridged... but on a good day I think you're lucky to squeeze 750 into four speakers at 8 ohms. I commend you for even attempting it!!! Awesome! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Greg Bogoshian Posted October 14, 2005 Author Members Share Posted October 14, 2005 The ceiling is 3-4 stories tall which does help the sound carry over the top, but it is so live in there that the reverborance is almost punishing. I got the 808M at a really excellent price (way below Guitar Center price) when I got it and we only thought we would need to use it at church. It is my personal unit. Little did we know that we would be playing such venues! Folks we knew told us it sounded fantastic and you could hear all the way to the back corners of the room... We apparently made lemonade... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members tucktronix Posted October 14, 2005 Members Share Posted October 14, 2005 That's what I call making the most of a bad situation... I've never played in the Covention Center, but I have played recently at a ball room for a wine tasting event in the Hyatt right across the street. The room was almost as large. BTW - Greg, what is the name of your church? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Greg Bogoshian Posted October 14, 2005 Author Members Share Posted October 14, 2005 Covenant United Methodist Church. It's located at the intersection of Culver Road and Parselles Ave. I've got to get me one of those wine tasting gigs! So, where in Rochester are you located and how are we going to get together?! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members brassic Posted October 14, 2005 Members Share Posted October 14, 2005 That place is huge. Judging by the positive feedback you've had, it sounds like proof that 99.99999% of your audience won't know you're having a nightmare as long as you remain professional and go with the flow. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members wheresgrant3 Posted October 14, 2005 Members Share Posted October 14, 2005 Originally posted by Greg Bogoshian The ceiling is 3-4 stories tall which does help the sound carry over the top, but it is so live in there that the reverborance is almost punishing. I got the 808M at a really excellent price (way below Guitar Center price) when I got it and we only thought we would need to use it at church. It is my personal unit. Little did we know that we would be playing such venues! Folks we knew told us it sounded fantastic and you could hear all the way to the back corners of the room... We apparently made lemonade... Certainly did... and I didn't mean to slam the 808 so hard... but their claims of 1200 watts of power are so exaggerated. I find them no cleaner or louder than any of the 600 watt powered mixers put out by Yamaha in the same price range. Greg you bring up a really good point about hall acoustics and how much power you need to fill a room. Probably in truth... if you showed up with a 7,000 watt PA and a stack of speakers you would have done more damage than good. Last Janurary we played an event for Budweiser at this Hotel. We thought it would be a medium sized ballroom for a few hundred people. Instead it was a convention center sized ballroom for more than 1000+. Our PA is pretty powerful for the rooms we play. 3 Crown CE2000's a 16 channel mixer, JBL Mains, subs and monitors. Yet looking at the size of this room we thought maybe we needed some help. We mic'd our complete backline as we always do and raised our main PA Volume a notch above what we would use for a 250 person club. The sound was perfect. In fact some fellow musician in another band commented that the levels, our mix and natural room acoustics was the best they've ever heard us sound. From far back in th ballroom to about 4 ft from the stage it seemed like everyone could hear us and carry a conversation at the same time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Greg Bogoshian Posted October 14, 2005 Author Members Share Posted October 14, 2005 I certainly take no offense as to how you feel about the Mackie. Not to worry, man. I would agree that it doesn't seem to have the stones they advertize, but the price I got it for was too good to pass up and it fit our needs at the time. I think the key lesson, as you described, was that getting the speakers ABOVE THE AUDIENCE is what really allows you to maintain a more uniform volume across the entire hall with the least amount of power. I made a couple of 9v battery powered 400mw 386 based amps and put it through my British Series 1x12 open back cabinet in church (it has switchable gain of 20 and 200) and I'll be damned if it didn't get way too loud for the house!!! It is really amazing what you can do with very little power with an efficient system... BTW, I didn't bridge the Mackie. I used the monitors through the monitor amp and the mains through the main amp so they could be EQed independently. Hindsight being 20/20, I would have rather used the monitors for us so we could play better. I just never anticipated that our mains alone would have been enough to cover that room. One is a Carvin 1283 (12' + 8" + horn and ported) and the other was my bass player's Peavey PA cab. Both were on stands as high as we could reasonably safely get them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members tucktronix Posted October 14, 2005 Members Share Posted October 14, 2005 Originally posted by Greg Bogoshian Covenant United Methodist Church. It's located at the intersection of Culver Road and Parselles Ave. I've got to get me one of those wine tasting gigs! So, where in Rochester are you located and how are we going to get together?! I played a gig there about 7 or 8 months ago with Steve Grills & The Roadmasters(they had a ball room dance lesson and we were asked to play) in the back of the church. I live in the city on Depew Street(betw West Ave & Chili Ave). Getting together would definitely be cool. Let me know when Jon Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Greg Bogoshian Posted October 14, 2005 Author Members Share Posted October 14, 2005 If you've got nothin' going on next Wednesday evening, we have our final rehearsal before the Burgundy Basin Inn gig for the annual laity dinner. Having an extra set of ears for evaluating our "road sound" wouldn't hurt.... We have to do a full setup to give ourselves an idea of what to expect. REhearsal is at about 8:10pm and only goes for about an hour and a half. My wife will be just back from Key West, and I will see her for the first time in a week, so I wouldn't be able to do anything afterwards especially since I will also have to give our flute player a lift home after as well, but it will give you an idea of who we are and what we do. I'm certainly not in your league musically, but our music director gets more out of us than there is to give, so it is a lot of fun and extremely rewarding. If you do decide to stop over, park behind the church and ring the bell at the back entrance. Someone or I will buzz you in. You'll recognize me from my picture on my website. Well, you will find several who aren't me there to, but if you go through my site to the Circle of Friends Autumn Stroll page, you'll find a pic of me. I'm playing the acoustic guitar. Boggs Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members tucktronix Posted October 15, 2005 Members Share Posted October 15, 2005 I normally have band rehearsal on Wednesday and Thursday nights(not that the band is really getting anywhere). I'll see what I can do. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Greg Bogoshian Posted October 15, 2005 Author Members Share Posted October 15, 2005 Originally posted by tucktronix ...not that the band is really getting anywhere... That's just so wrong... You guys are so richly talented... Did you try sending your music to WJZR for airplay? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members tucktronix Posted October 16, 2005 Members Share Posted October 16, 2005 Originally posted by Greg Bogoshian That's just so wrong... You guys are so richly talented... Did you try sending your music to WJZR for airplay? Sorry, I wasn't referring to the blues band. I was referring to an R&B band that I rehearse with on Wed and Thurs nights. There is definitely a lot of talent there, but I do have some issues with some of the material that we're rehearsing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Greg Bogoshian Posted October 17, 2005 Author Members Share Posted October 17, 2005 Is that MindSky that rehearses Wednesday and Thursday? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members fastplant Posted October 17, 2005 Members Share Posted October 17, 2005 Yeah, some sound guys seem to have issues with being "just a sound guy." We had this one guy who constantly would make fun of our gear, saying how cheap our stuff was and how it was all crap. Mind you I play a Warwick Thumb 5 NT, my drummer plays a top of the line DW kit. Keyboardist uses 2 Korg Trition 88 keys, and my guitarist plays a real sweet PRS. I don't get some people. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Greg Bogoshian Posted October 17, 2005 Author Members Share Posted October 17, 2005 Basically, as I see it, the organizers told them exactly what they needed for their requirements and (ignorantly) told them that we were completely self contained. That is what the organizer paid them for. We told them both it was our belief, like last time they had us, that we would be able to do a submix and plug into their system so we could carry through the entire room and still hear ourselves. We then wouldn't have to set up and tear down all of our speakers cluttering the stage or floor and it could have been accomplished with ONE CABLE. It would have made for a better "show" and infinitely less work for all. Heritage did not pay them to carry our electrons so they flatly refused in a condescending way. Forced us off the stage and to set up on the floor where we then would have no monitors to be able to hear ourselves and deal with our own mix and feedback issues and we would not have any way of knowing exactly what went out to the house. Because we were on the floor, it left us subject to client interactions like grabbing my picking hand and interrupting us while playing and the de-tuning of one of my guitars... Extremely unprofessional. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members guitarmook Posted October 17, 2005 Members Share Posted October 17, 2005 Sounds to me like the 'promoter' is the one who was unprofessional here... Don't blame a sound company who was (presumably) doing what they were getting paid to do, and no more. If I'm running sound, I don't do 'extras' without extra pay. Seems to me there was a quite large lack of communication between the performers, the promoters, and the sound company before the show. I bet a 15-minute face-to-face meeting between all the parties 3 days before the show would have fixed everything. Congratulations for making it work, but the learning experience *I* would take from this is that there should be either a written contract, or a minimum communication between ALL parties before a show. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members tucktronix Posted October 17, 2005 Members Share Posted October 17, 2005 Originally posted by Greg Bogoshian Is that MindSky that rehearses Wednesday and Thursday? Actually, the band that I'm referring to isn't Mind Sky. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members ATOMICDOG1 Posted October 17, 2005 Members Share Posted October 17, 2005 Originally posted by Greg Bogoshian Basically, as I see it, the organizers told them exactly what they needed for their requirements and (ignorantly) told them that we were completely self contained. That is what the organizer paid them for. We told them both it was our belief, like last time they had us, that we would be able to do a submix and plug into their system so we could carry through the entire room and still hear ourselves. We then wouldn't have to set up and tear down all of our speakers cluttering the stage or floor and it could have been accomplished with ONE CABLE. It would have made for a better "show" and infinitely less work for all. Heritage did not pay them to carry our electrons so they flatly refused in a condescending way. Forced us off the stage and to set up on the floor where we then would have no monitors to be able to hear ourselves and deal with our own mix and feedback issues and we would not have any way of knowing exactly what went out to the house. Because we were on the floor, it left us subject to client interactions like grabbing my picking hand and interrupting us while playing and the de-tuning of one of my guitars... Extremely unprofessional. I'd say that the moral of the story is ALWAYS advance the show with both the promoter AND the sound company. That way you are covered and everyone knows what is really needed. 10 out of 10 times the promoter or organizer knows nothing about audio, and will not be able to efficently convey your needs to the sound company. If you don't talk to them yourself, you will get the short end of the stick. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Greg Bogoshian Posted October 17, 2005 Author Members Share Posted October 17, 2005 I'm sure you took note by my asessment that I did do a follow-up analysis... Still, we should have been afforded the option to hook up for an extra dime as we had the event coordinator there with us at the time hookup was refused. They were, as I said, very condescending in their refusal. I don't even know who convinced the organizer that we were totally self-contained. Rest assured, we learned from this experience. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Greg Bogoshian Posted October 17, 2005 Author Members Share Posted October 17, 2005 Originally posted by tucktronix Actually, the band that I'm referring to isn't Mind Sky. Okay then, so, exactly WHO THE HELL ARE YOU?? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members tucktronix Posted October 17, 2005 Members Share Posted October 17, 2005 Originally posted by Greg Bogoshian Okay then, so, exactly WHO THE HELL ARE YOU?? Jon Tucker is the name:D I rehearse Wednesday and Thursday nights with an R&B band named "Rochester's Finest", started playing with them about 8 months ago. We played at the Clarissa Street Reunion last summer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Greg Bogoshian Posted October 17, 2005 Author Members Share Posted October 17, 2005 Let's see... You're R&B guy, you're solo guy, you're jazz fusion guy, you're... You sure you're not Rosanne? Seems like a lot of "personalities" there for just one person... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members tucktronix Posted October 18, 2005 Members Share Posted October 18, 2005 Originally posted by Greg Bogoshian Let's see... You're R&B guy, you're solo guy, you're jazz fusion guy, you're... You sure you're not Rosanne? Seems like a lot of "personalities" there for just one person... Lets just say that I'm a music guy:D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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