Before You Leave For The Show...

If you think that putting a show together starts when you get to the venue, I've got message for you....YOU'RE LATE!

The venue is where the show should come together.  It's not where you repair things (unless they just broke), or figure out how to put your systems together.  It's also not where you go scrounging for extension cords, batteries, etc.  (In my rule book, about the only thing that's acceptable to ask to borrow from a venue is a ladder if you need it to hang a banner or lights.)

No, the prep for a show should have started days ago.  And I'm not talking about rehearsals...I'll leave that for someone else to address.  I'm talking about having everything you need at your disposal to assemble the production, execute the show, and load out at the end of the night with a minimum of muss and fuss.

First and foremost, have you completed any repairs needed from the previous show?  That crappy mic cable you found last week that was cutting in and out...you repaired or replaced it, right?  Or did it get mixed back in with all the good cables so you could surprise yourself by having it cut out in the first set?

Ken's Road Tip #203:  Keep a roll of white electrical tape in your tool box.  When you find a bad cable, pull it out immediately and mark it with the white tape.  Then, ideally you segregate from the rest of your wiring and deal with it the next chance you get.  The white tape makes it easy to spot in a pile if it does get back in.  Another option is to put gaffers tape over the connectors where you can't plug it in.

If you're like 90% of performing musicians, you're using batteries in your pedals, in-ears, or wireless.  Please tell me you're buying in bulk and not spending $5 for one battery at Walgreens on the way to the gig.  Even just buying 12 at a time gets the price down to around $1.50 each!  There are lots of places that sell batteries in bulk on line, but my favorite is Tour Supply.  I've never gotten a bad battery from them in 8 years of doing business.  And just for the record, Duracell Procells have been my favorite for years.

Are you playing a new venue?  If it's local, do yourself a favor and go look at it before your show (you're taking flyers for your band by there, aren't you).  Personally, I like going during the day when it's quiet to look over the stage area, power outlets, and load in/out situation.  If it's a bar, I'll take 5 minutes to order a beer (don't forget to tip) and talk to the bar staff a bit.  Remember, they can have a lot of influence as to whether you get to come back or not!!!

While you're there, figure out if you're going to need anything unusual.  Is there only one outlet on stage?  Where's another one, and how much extension cord will you need to get to it?  Will you be able to hang a banner or any lights or will everything have to be ground supported?  Is there a door near the stage, or do you have a 100 foot push from the front door that will add time to your setup?  Figuring all of this out before takes some of the pressure off on show day.  Do you really want to have to rush to Home Depot right before the show because you need an extension cord?  Remember, every minute you spend solving a problem before the show is a minute you don't get to chill before you play!

Oh yeah, you wrote a set list too, right?  That will be a future topic, but for now know that there's nothing more rookie than playing a song and then standing around for 3 minutes trying to figure out what to play next.  You should have started your next element (song, talking, etc) before the applause dies out from the song you just finished.

Every band member should have some kind of checklist on what needs to come with them to the show.  Ultimately, someone has to be responsible for all the common production elements (PA, monitors, lights, cables).  Again, some kind of checklist helps a lot.  It doesn't have to be detailed to the point of "x number of mic cables", but make sure you brought the box with the cables in it! 

Ken's Road Tip #166:  If you "inventory" when you're packing up and put things back in the same place each time, that's one less thing you have to do before the next show.

Finally, factor in some down time between set up and playing whenever you can.  I realize this isn't possible on a multi-band show (my least favorite), but if you're playing the entire evening make sure that you build in at least 15 minutes between setting up and playing.  Freshen up, change into your stage clothes, make sure you've got some food in you and go through what ever mental prep works for you.  It's a great feeling to be able to walk on stage, put on (or sit behind) your instrument, hit the first note and have everything work!!

Next time...well talk about rolling in to the venue and load in.  There's more to it than just pushing stuff around and hooking it up.

Until then, keep the meters out of the red!

Ken

Ken Carver has been a musician and performer since the early 70's, and involved with live music production since the mid 70's.  He worked for 15 years as a broadcast engineer, building numerous studios and transmitter sites around Texas.  He's also worked in Critical Care Communications for the medical industry, R&D for automated lighting, and owned Project Lighting & Sound in the 80's.  He currently heads up an R&D Hardware Technician Team at an Austin Hi Tech firm, and still performs on the weekends in the Austin area.  You can reach Ken at kcarvertx@gmail.com.

Laying The Ground Work

I've been in the live music game for almost 40 years now.  Like most musicians, I started playing in bands in high school, and just never really out grew it!

Somewhere along the way, my love for music and electronics merged, and I found that if you knew a thing or two about PA systems, amps, and lighting you were generally in greater demand than if you were a player. 

Along the way, I've gotten to work on some pretty major productions.  During an 8 year span with High End Systems , I got to work on equipment destined for acts like Rush, Metallica, Tina Turner, Lynyrd Skynyrd, and the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, Australia.  

In the bands I've been part of here in Austin for the last 14 years, I usually worked into the role of "Chief Engineer"...responsible (in part or in whole) for the technical aspects of the show.  That included packaging the show so it could be rapidly deployed and struck by a small number of people, keeping it in good repair, and making sure that it sounded as good as it could for what we had available.

I'll let you in on a little secret....it's really easy to make a $100,000 PA system sound good.  Especially now days with digital systems that auto analyze the room and apply their own corrections. 

No, what's tough is making the $5000 (or even more so the $1000) systems sound decent with a band.  That's where you need to really watch where you're investing your money, and learn how to read beyond the specifications on equipment. 

In the last couple of years especially, I've received a lot of emails asking questions about this kind of thing.  And as of late, I've been asked over and over again to provide some kind of lessons or instructions for this kind of stuff.

There's a lot of information out there on the web and YouTube these days about how to put together and run PA systems.  But, most of them are geared toward your $10,000 and up sound systems.  Again, the more resources you have available the easier your job is.  What I don't see a lot of is information for folks just starting out or who are playing small to medium size rooms where "what they're making" doesn't justify spending 5 figures on a PA.

And that "packaging" thing I mentioned....I see no info at all there (other than for arena grade systems).  There's a lot that can be done to a small to medium size system that makes it easier (and more foolproof ) to set up and run.  In the near future, I'll tell you how the investment of a couple of hundred dollars cut the setup time of one band from almost 3 hours to 45 minutes! 

So, in the coming weeks and months, I'm made a commitment to myself to share some of the knowledge I've acquired with the general public.  The format will likely be "top-of-memory" recall.  In other words, if I've just had an event I've had to deal with on a show, I'll probably talk about that.

I'm also open to questions.  If there's something specific you would like addressed, let me know and I'll do my best to help you out.  The main thing I ask of you is to be specific when you ask questions.  Let me know what equipment you have, and what you're not happy about.  Questions such as "what is the best and cheapest PA available" will be summarily dismissed with possible public humiliation involved.

I'll try to post weekly updates starting next week.

In the mean time, keep the meters out of the red.

Ken

Ken Carver has been a musician and performer since the early 70's, and involved with live music production since the mid 70's.  He worked for 15 years as a broadcast engineer, building numerous studios and transmitter sites around Texas.  He's also worked in Critical Care Communications for the medical industry, R&D for automated lighting, and owned Project Lighting & Sound in the 80's.  He currently heads up an R&D Hardware Technician Team at an Austin Hi Tech firm, and still performs on the weekends in the Austin area.  You can reach Ken at kcarvertx@gmail.com.