did my first 30k people gig last night [post update]
This is an update to https://www.reddit.com/r/livesound/s/G09JwmByHU
TLDR: [soundcheck] Babysitter was useless, miking took forever (not our fault), but our mons tech managed to get a decent monitor mix and I just tagged along. [Show time] Rough start, good mix at the end. When the fun started, the show was over.
We got there at 8am. Our soundcheck was scheduled from 10:00 to 10:45.
The babysitter was an old guy who had strong opinions about the Midas HD96, hahaha. He asked me if I had used the desk before. I said, "Yes, but not that much." He replied, "So you know more than me... this shit is trash."
I loaded my show and asked him to patch the matrices. He refused: "You chose this shit, patch it yourself."
Well, I managed to patch it (first time patching).
10:00 - Soundcheck started. Risers in position, the input list they had was the updated one (yaaay, communication worked!), a few microphone changes, and let's start miking...
It took three guys 45 minutes to mic our input list... Luckily our road manager knows everyone in this country, including the stage manager, and managed to get us an extra 30 minutes of soundcheck.
So I gave full control to our monitor engineer to make the most of it. We didn't have the best communication setup. The shout mic between FOH and mons was three meters away from her desk. The old guy said, "The shout mic is for us, not for you... bring your own radios..." Always with a snarky smile...
But okay, we're used to this in this country, hahaha.
Well, we played two songs, I managed to dial in a decent mix, soundcheck ended. Show was at 6pm. Saved the scene, exported it to a USB stick, then went for lunch.
Show time: Man, this mix is shit. Clean up the vocals, more reverb!!! (Thanks to one of you guys who told me to use more reverb than normal!) Compress the bass, more attack on the kick... The musical director was there asking for mix changes (thank God!).
After a few songs it started to sound alright, then suddenly it clicked and the mix was fire. I was finally having fun.
And then the set finished :(
Well, at least the last song was fire!!! hahaha
My younger sister (who’s also a sound tech) was watching the livestream on YouTube and told me the mix translated really well on the broadcast.
Next time I'll know what to expect with a system that big.
Thanks everyone who helped!
You guys rocked and saved me on so many things!
Cheers to this sub!