That said, the sound guy probably isn't as good as you are.
I mean that as a mathematical statement. By the time you get to be better than average, the average person isn't as good as you are.
This is true of everything. Once you're a better-than-average musician, the majority of the people you play with will be people who could use your help. (The two statisticians reading this are thinking, "Oh, he should say 'the median.' Shush.)
You can either be so annoyed at this that you retreat into playing for yourself, or decide it's part of your job in life to encourage others and help them out, the way folks did for you when you were starting.
Okay, enough philosophizing. Back to sound.
It's high-tech. What could possibly go wrong? Pretty much everything. I remember one gig where we had to hastily drive down to a nearby music store and buy a cable with the right jacks, minutes before the show.
A good sound person will be sitting at the boards for the entire time, doing very little once the levels are set. The rest of them will set the levels during the sound check, then be back in the kitchen or out in the parking lot when you and the dancers are covering your ears because of the feedback.
Or you'll finally get it set the way you want and someone else will come in and twiddle the knobs because he has a different idea of what you should sound like.
Almost as bad as these are the sound guys who use fancy equipment instead of talking to the band. You will, I promise you, run up against a guy who adjusts the monitors by listening through headphones that tell him what the monitory mix sounds like. Um. No. The monitor mix is for us, and what we hear combines boards, monitor placement, stage acoustics, and personal preferences. The way to set the monitor mix is by talking to the band during the first couple of sets.
The sound guy doesn't know what you want the band mix to sound like, so even after the stage sounds okay to you, the hall may not. If you think one of the dancers knows what you should sound like, ask for help. If not, put down your instrument at the end of a B2, walk out into the hall, and listen. At one dance, where we sounded particularly bad in the hall, we went back to look at the board between sets and discovered that the sound guy -- who was nowhere to be found -- had "eliminated feedback" by using the graphical equalizer to remove A440. That part of the frequency spectrum -- the center of the fiddle's range -- was completely shut off.
How can you deal with problems like this?
Rule 1: Don't take the sound guy for granted. Thank him in person, then thank him on-mike, then thank him, in person again. Don't you like it when people thank you?
Rule 2: Figure out what you can do to annoy the sound person, then don't.
Try not to change instruments. Every time you do, it requires a sound-system adjustment. This is especially hard in the middle of a tune. If you're going to do it, though, warn the sound guy beforehand. Also let him know when you're going to be singing, so he can be right there to adjust the mikes.
Don't leave the sound guy guessing. Every band's different, so tell the sound guy, well beforehand, how many of you there are, who's sitting or standing where, who has what equipment, and whether you'll also need vocal mikes.
Don't whine. Things go wrong. Being pro-active's good, though. You bring extra strings, right? If you have sound equipment, too, and it's easy to toss some in your car, just do it. I've heard, "This mike doesn't work. I wish I'd brought mine," at way too many weddings.
Don't be bossy. If you know a lot about sound, and you know how to help set the board so it works well for your band, volunteer that information before the dance. If the sound person ignores you, shrug and walk away.
He's not the hired help, you are. He's usually part of the community that runs that event. I've been at gigs when I thought the sound guy and one of our band members were going to come to blows. Frankly, the sound guy was wrong and didn't know what he was doing. He may eventually learn how to run his equipment better, but we're never, ever, getting re-hired for the gig.
Rule 3: When you find someone who's better than average, tell his boss. In fact, tell the world. Sound guys need to get hired, too. With that: if you can hire the likes of Sue Horne, Fergus Stone, or Doug Pintar, lucky you.
