Live Performance & Production > Sound Reinforcement

How many of you think you can hear FOH from the stage? Really?

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Harpman:
It's really comical to hear musicians that don't put value in a sound man. They think they can run sound from behind the stage...Really? They think I "fiddle" to much with the sound. Last Saturday, my GF (lead singer) and I had a rare evening off and decided to have dinner at our favorite Italian restaurant where I also do sound for my GF's band. Her guitarist was playing that evening and is one of those musicians I mentioned above. First off, when the band started playing, the FOH was too hot (didn't bring my ear plugs either).  During the second song, the bass player steps out from behind the stage with his back to the audience to listen to FOH. The only time he stepped out the whole evening.  Must have been okay with him.  Let me tell you that it wasn't. If the FOH was too loud where we were sitting 25 feet away, I couldn't even imagine who the people felt 10 or 15 feet away. Since when do musicians think that live sound is like the studio (more static)?  The cold hard fact is that most musicians turn up on stage and never turn back down. Every song requires some adjustment, some more than others.  You sure wouldn't just "leave it alone" in a studio setting, would you? Yet, musicians think that since they've been playing for so many years, they are experts in sound reinforcement...WRONG.  Here's my case in point.  Band came back from their break, made no adjustments (what I expected) and the lead vocalist was buried in the mix. Need I say more?

Greg C.:
Some bands can do ok setting up a mix with no FOH. Others don't. It's never ideal in any case. But no, you cannot hear FOH from the stage by definition unless you have the ability to be 2 places at once. The thing I find irksome are the folks on stage in larger venues trying to tell you how to mix based on what they're hearing. Clue to those kind of folks: you cannot hear what the mains sound like based on room bounce when you're standing behind them.

WK154:
Didn't you know that most roadies know all there is to know about sound reinforcement and they've conquered and replaced the laws of physics at Warp Speed (that's faster than the speed of light). That's why the only thing they can handle is what I call Roadie Boom boxes (powered mixers) where all gain structure issues have been dealt by the engineers. Gain structure what's that ? Does it have knobs so I can twiddle ? Ironically a 20 yr. study by the World renowned House Ear Institute here in LA has clearly shown that 80 - 90% of the entertainment Industry members are HEARING IMPAIRED. They followed most music exhibitions around the globe and offered free hearing tests to the attendees. These are the "experts", Musicians and others, that tell the rest of us how it should sound?? PPPlleeease! No Beethoven stories please!

CyberHippy:
For years I mixed from stage for bands I played bass in, but I always had either a wireless setup or a really long cable so I could walk out front during sound-check and typically a few times during the gig.

If the band has good dynamics control and good musical habits (lower instrument volumes during singing & leaving room for solos) it can work, but ONLY if you do take time to step out front - you are correct that the stage sound can never be trusted to get the room mix right.

And similar to Greg's comment, I often remind musicians that the monitors are NOT the same as the mains so they can not be used to gauge EQ - "more bottom end in my voice please" "Sir, those SRM350's have no significant bass response" or if they're somewhat smart "the monitors are hi-passed for feedback control, don't judge your sound on what you hear through them"

Rdmitch:
Totally agree that you can not determine FOH from stage.
Aside from doing sound for numerous bands, I also play in two bands. We have this
discussion regularly about a sound person and I always get tired of fighting the battle
So...last week when playing a show, I just let the band set the sound from stage and play, I went ahead and put a nice little digital recorder about 30' out front and let it run.  After the show when I listened back and let them
hear the terrible mix of the vox and guitars.  They got to hear that a bad vocal harmony would have
been pulled way back by a good sound person. 
Hopefully I made my point and never will need to justify using a FOH person again

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