How many of us find joy and appreciation in going through sound check at church or a concert event? I can imagine very few, unless you use some type of personal system like an Aviom setup. For the past 17 years, I’ve felt less anxiety about going to the dentist than I have running through sound check. I discovered this past weekend that the problem wasn’t the process but the methodology that has driven me mad all these years.
The following information may seem very elementary for some of you, like I’m trying to teach you a better way to wipe your butt, however, our typical routine may appear to be very familiar to most. I learned “The New Way” while watching Sonicflood set up. Please feel free to let me know if I missed something, as I was taking notes while trying to not pester the front-of-house tech too much.
The Old Way:
Band shows up, band sets up, band gets mic’d for the board. Then each member of the band, say from stage left to stage right, asks each other member to play as they shout out to the sound tech whether they need less or more of that voice or instrument in their floor wedge or in-ear monitor (IEM). There is a constant need to restrain people from the talking or playing, especially the guitarists (voice of experience) as each person thinks that the sound check is a perfect time to warm up by playing Van Halen’s “Eruption.” The band then runs through a song together, with each member wanting to stop each time they want to make an adjustment to their mix.
As a result of having to travel left to right on the board for each musician, the sound tech is found dead from exhaustion. The singers have left the building and sit in a comfortable chair at Suckbucks drowning in caffeine and sugar while the musicians work through counseling for the public outburst caused by having to run their floor monitor lower than the level of the actual amplifier that they so reluctantly placed in the hall closet or isolation box.
In my experience with The Old Way, the person that is most satisfied with their mix is the one that was most aggressive with the sound tech. Oftentimes, the monitor becomes tuned less for reference, as it is intended, but more closely resembles an album mix. The worst case scenario is one in which the vocalists are forced to share a mix with the instrumentalists. Don’t do that. Ever.
Average time: 30 minutes
The New Way:
Band shows up, band sets up, band gets mic’d for the board. Each member of the band, after testing that their amp is live and then warming up their chops with the Volume pot in the off position, holds up one hand in a fist until the sound tech signals what is being tuned, one board channel at a time. The musician, keeping their hand in the air, either points up or down to signal a change needed in their wedge or IEM. A thumbs up would then be given to signal a good level.
The beauty of this method in my eyes is that it would then be hard for the musicians to get lost in their own noodling and forget to tune their setup. The hard part is being able to gauge where you want everything to sit in your mix when only one person is playing at a time. After running through a song, any final adjustments can then be made.
Average time: 7 minutes
Does anybody make use of the “arm in the air” method?
