[00:00:00] Welcome to episode 137 of the Bandhive Podcast. It is time for another episode of the Bandhive Podcast. My name is James Cross and I help independent artists tour smart this week on the show. We're gonna talk about running sound for your own gigs, Which was inspired by something that I saw a Facebook friend of mine, Josh coat who's down in the uh, Rutland Vermont scene post about running a sound for your own gigs and why artists shouldn't necessarily be doing that for free.

And I fully agree with that. Artists should never be running their own sound for free. So a little background at the top level of touring. So in your arenas and amphitheater, large venues like that, you would need to bring your own sound and lights. So if you go see the like Slipknot or somebody, there's a very good chance that either they're bringing their own sound and lights that they have, or they are.

Having the promoter rent, sand lights from a local production company who brings in for that show. A lot of times these large venues won't even have a system Amit theaters [00:01:00] typically would, but arenas, they're not gonna have a PA system set up for a concert. They would have something for, you know, sporting events, but they're not gonna have a PA that supports massive concerts.

And then of course, lights is something totally different. I'm not really gonna talk about that, but just thrown out there that yes, at that level, you would need to bring your own lights as. Now the same thing goes for the absolute bottom of the barrel shows at bars and coffee shops. A lot of times at those venues, you, as the artist do have to bring your own sound.

And I mean, lights at that level are probably gonna be a joke. But if you have lights, you know, feel free to bring them if there's space. then in the middle between the absolute bottle and the barrel shows and the absolute massive shows, there's a comfortable range where you're playing clubs or smaller theaters.

And at those shows, the venue is expected to provide sound and a crew to run it for your show. So it's kinda weird how it's sandwiched like the smallest shows and the largest shows you bring your own gear and the middle shows the venue has. Now there's different reasonings for [00:02:00] that. One of them being that smaller venues typically are just not that good while larger venues.

When you're at that level, if you're selling 20,000 tickets, you want the best possible sound. So you're gonna bring a PA that your engineer knows because they use that same PA system every single night. And a lot of times the engineer will actually work for a company like Claire brothers, which is a big PA company.

And you will hire. Claire to provide the engineer and the PA and any extra crew that's needed and take them along on the road with you. And, you know, you might have the same engineer tour after tour. If you request them or you might have a different engineer, every single tour, it all depends on how that works, but that's the biggest level of shows.

And I'm not gonna talk about that too much in this episode because that doesn't really apply to most independent artists. So what do you do. If you are not playing those mid-range shows yet where there is a PA at, you know, probably 95 to 99% of the venues. [00:03:00] The first thing that you need to do is anytime you're inquiring about booking a show at a venue, confirm the availability of a PA and someone to run it before you accept an offer, because unless you're a solo, acoustic act, You're not going to be able to play a show without a PA easily or at all.

That's just not something you wanna do. You don't want to ever show up to the venue and there's no PA or there's no one to run. The PA both of those situations are bad. If they're a surprise to. The next thing is to figure out how, or if you can provide a PA for any shows where the venue doesn't have one, because you gotta keep in mind that if they don't have one, you typically are also going to need someone to set it up and run it for you unless.

You can mix from the stage while you're playing, which is not recommended. It's so much better. If you have an engineer actually working your mix during the show, rather than just setting a static mix and forgetting about [00:04:00] it. That's not the way you want to go. If you want people to actually enjoy your set now towards the end of the episode, I'm gonna talk about how you can get paid for bringing a PA for those crappy venues who don't have their own PA, because they really should have one. And it's not your problem if they don't. So you're gonna be charging them rental for that. You're also gonna be passing on as a show cost, the amount that you're paying to your.

But before we get there, let's talk about what you need for a PA system. And this all depends on your act, but at a minimum, you're going to need a mixer personally out, just go digital. It's so cheap these days, and it's gonna have a lot more features than a analog board. And especially if at some point you have to end up mixing yourself, even though I say you don't ever want to do that.

Digital is gonna let you mix via an iPad from the stage, and you can walk around with that iPad. If you get a chance and you can mix from the audience in different positions. So you don't ever want to [00:05:00] go in with an analog board and end up mixing yourself. Whereas if it's digital, you might have a chance of making it sound halfway decent.

The next thing is you're gonna need microphones or direct input boxes for all the sources that need amplification. So obviously your vocals are going to need microphones. You might need mics on your guitar cabs. You might need mics on your drums. It all depends. And then you're gonna have a di box probably for your base.

If you have keys, you're gonna have a stereo di box for that. It really depends on the setup you have. If you have questions about this, I was a production manager for three years, something like that. I don't know for quite some time. So I'm happy to talk about this. You know, just hit me up on Instagram at mad rock XV, X or shoot me an [email protected] and I'm totally happy to nerd out about gear with you and help you put together what you. The next thing after the mics and di boxes is cables. You're gonna need a bunch of XLR cables, which are microphone cables. You're gonna need some quarter inch cables, probably.

Ideally TRS, because if you use Ts [00:06:00] cables, then you might get buzz, which crash course TRS stands for tip, ring sleeve. That's a balanced cable or a stereo cable while Ts is just tip sleeve. And that's gonna be like a guitar cable or a uh, powered cable from the amps to unpowered speakers.

Then you're also gonna want one monitor per member of the band. Unless you have like a massive band, but typically if you're a four piece, I would say four monitors. If you're a five or six piece, you'd want five or six.

beyond that, then, you know, you're gonna have trouble fitting on a small stage. You're gonna have less and less space as you add monitors. So at that point you might cap it at, you know, five or six monitors, even if you're like eight people on stage. You're also gonna wanna make sure that the mixer that I mentioned earlier has enough outputs to give each of those monitors an individual mix, because that makes it so much easier to play if everybody has their own mix.

So let's just say that you're a fairly basic rock trio. You have guitar based drums and two vocalists. And for [00:07:00] a room up to about a hundred cap, you can get away with Mike's for your kick snare and guitar and vocals and a di for bass. on your kick drum. I highly recommend the Audis D six. If you're a rock band, you cannot beat that for rock sounds. It's just, that is the mic for rock. At least, you know, if you're playing like classic rock or something, maybe not, but for modern rock hard rock metal, punk.

Anything like that? the D six is absolutely the way to go for your snare. You're gonna use an SM 57 made by Shure. And the same thing for the guitar. You're gonna use the SM 57 on vocals. It depends on your setup. Personally, I would recommend the sugar beta 58, Which has a narrower polar pattern, which is basically way the mic picks up sound that is being projected at it. and a polar pattern that is narrower means there's less off access sound getting in so less sound from the sides.

And really you have to be right on the. However, if [00:08:00] you like to cut the mic as a singer, which you should never do, but if you do, then I would go for the Audix OM-7. Ultimately, if you have trouble staying right on the front of the mic, I would just go for the classic Shure SM 58, rather than the beta 58.

For most people, the beta 58 is gonna be fine. One thing to know is you never want to put a monitor right behind a beta 58 or any other HyperCard or SuperCard mic because they do pick up a little bit from the back in exchange from not picking up as much from the sides. So you'd want the monitors angled off to the side a little bit, rather than right behind the mic.

for the di off of the base, you can use the amps XL out. If it has one, or you can use a generic di box and that'll be good enough. Most of the time, you don't need a super expensive di box because chances are the base amps gonna be plenty loud anyway. and you're just gonna need a little bit of reinforcement on, you know, the top end or something like that.

Then you can get a basic 16 channel rack, Mount [00:09:00] mixer and an iPad. The X 32 rack is a really popular choice. I enjoy that one quite a bit. It works well. And any recent iPad can be used to control it. And you don't need anything special. You can get like the 64 gigabyte iPad for probably about $330 these days.

And that's new. If you want to get a couple years older and get a refurb or a used one. You'll pay even less. I did just use a personas studio live system for the first time or their newer systems for the first time, the other day. And that was fantastic. However, I haven't used their app. I was mixing on the actual board, so I can't speak to that.

but if the app is anything like the board, I highly recommend that you would get one of the personas rack Mount mixers, because it just, it worked so well. As far as cables, going back to that, you might need an XLR snake, but if you plan on keeping your mixer on stage, then you could just leave that there and, you know, put it by the drummer or side stage and run individual lines to it without [00:10:00] needing a mix.

Now one thing with cables, you should never go for the cheapest option because they will break really quickly, but you also don't need to go for the top end gold plated, Mogami, or anything like that. That's just a waste of money, especially for live in the studio, maybe that 0.2% difference is gonna make a difference.

But when you're playing live, no it's not worth. Now if anyone in the band knows how to solder properly, you can make your own XR cables. And that can be super cost effective. I buy supplies from a company called Redco and then make my own cables. It's a lot cheaper than buying them yet. You know, it takes an afternoon to make a handful of cables, like 10, 15 cables, but it is so worth it Because first of all, I know how to fix them if there's ever an issue. And second of all, it does save quite a bit of cash. So if you have time and you know how to solder, give that a shot.

And of course, you're also gonna need stereo main. So that means you're gonna have a left main and a right main, and that's what the audience is going to hear. [00:11:00] And without that, the PA doesn't have a purpose because if you just have the monitors, well, what are they gonna hear? You're not gonna have mains.

You need those mains and you need the monitors.

so those are the basics of what goes into APA system. But what about running the system? I'm gonna guess that somebody in your band has a little bit of audio experience. And can understand live sound basics, but if not, you're gonna need to designate one member of the band to learn how to operate your board, how to set up the system, all that kind of stuff, who can be in charge of that aspect of your production.

It's pretty simple. As long as you learn how to avoid mistakes, like feedback. That's gonna be the person who's kind of the point for any production discussion with your band, they'll effectively be your production manager. And then they are gonna be in charge of finding someone to run sound for you.

and they will show that person how your system gets set up. Because even if the person knows how to run sound, they [00:12:00] might not know your system. And then anytime you hire that person, the cost should be passed on to the venues that you're going to. now we're gonna go to the cost of all of this, because it's a lot buying your own gear, maintaining your own gear. All of that adds up super quickly. But simply put, you're just gonna charge a rental fee to any venues who don't have their own PA or crew. For example, if you spent $4,000 on gear and you are probably gonna spend about four to $6,000, if you are buying a full PA and you wanna break, even after 10 shows, you would structure your pricing, something along these lines. When you get an offer, you would have the band, whatever amount you normally charge.

Then you're gonna have sound rental of $400 because that's 4,000 divided by 10, and you're gonna have an engineer, which in this example, let's say $150. So after 10 shows, you would be making a pure profit on the sound [00:13:00] equipment rental. And of course, you've got the added advantage of bringing along a sound person who knows your sound and your setup, which will make your shows sound better because you have a person who knows your set, your playing style, what you want to sound like rather than just some random person who has never seen you live before mixing you.

So, what you do is you work this into your agreement with the venue and you make it clear that what you charge as an artist is separate from the production costs, the sound and lights. If they wanna provide the equipment, then they don't need to pay those costs. So you're basically saying, since you don't have a PA, we're gonna charge you this much extra.

On the other hand, if you end up giving them a PA system for free, as part of your normal artist fee, You're encouraging those venues to not have their own PA system and let them continue. The abusive practice of making artists bring their own PA without compensating them for it.

Because if a venue realizes they can get away with it, they don't have to pay for a PA or a person to run it. And [00:14:00] all the bands are just gonna bring it for free. Of course they're gonna do that. They don't wanna pay for. So my point is you should get into the habit of asking every single venue or promoter that you're working with about a PA before you book the show, because not only will that make your life much easier, but it will also potentially open a new income stream for your band.

When you're charging rent on the gear that you are bringing. Due to their failure to adequately prepare for the shows that they're booking. This is what major artists and Amit theaters and arenas do. And you can and should do the same thing. This is what's called a show cost. So potentially, you know, if you're getting a split deal, you'll get that money before the split.

So let's say that you're gonna do a split deal. You don't have a guarantee. You just have the. You have the sound rental of $400 as a show cost and the engineer of $150 as a show cost, then let's say another $150 for security from the venue. [00:15:00] That means there's $700 total in the show costs.

And the venue is a hundred cap with $15 ticket prices. That means your gross potential is $1,500 and $800 is going to be the profit at. So let's just say that it does sell out and we're gonna do 800 times 0.8, cuz you're getting 80% after expenses or after break even. So that leaves $640 for you and $160 for the venue.

Now that's on top of bar sales and whatever else they get. So yeah, you know, one 60 doesn't sound like a lot for them, but that's still like they're they're doing okay on that. And you get to walk away with $640 right wrong. You're walking away with $640 plus the 400 for sound. So that's gonna be 1040 plus 150 for your engineer.

So that's what did I say? 1,040 plus uh, 100 is 11 40, 11 90 for that one night out of the $1,500 that [00:16:00] came. Where let's say the venue provided their own sound and they didn't pass on that show cost. Let's say it was a hundred dollars. So you have 150 for security and a hundred for sound.

And that leaves you 1500 minus two 50 is 1250. So 1250 times 0.8. You would walk away with a thousand dollars, which is a better. If you've already paid for the PA, you can make more money by bringing that PA yeah, it's more work, but that's why you're getting paid rent for it. Whereas if the venue provides that and you're not getting paid production show costs, then you're only gonna walk away with.

Whatever deal you have. Now, I'm not gonna go into all the variations where you could have like a guarantee or a plus deal or something like that. But the main thing is you want the PA system and the engineer. If you're providing them to be a show cost, that means it's deducted from the door before anything is split.

And it basically becomes guaranteed [00:17:00] money. The venue pays you that no matter. They don't say, oh, well, we didn't break even. So you're not getting that. No, that was part of the deal is we get this. It's like a guarantee, but it's a cost. It's not profit for you. It's a cost that the venue is reimbursing to you.

So work this out whenever you are going to book a show, ask about their PA system. And then if they don't have one, tell them we can bring one, but this is what it's gonna cost. And you have to accept that. Or you have to provide your own PA, let us. Simple as that. Now I hope you go and do this because this will make a huge difference across the industry.

If every single artist really like gets it together and works up the courage to do this and not let themselves get steamrolled by venues and promoters, That does it for this episode of the Bandhive Podcast. Thank you so much for tuning and listening.

I really appreciate it. And I hope that this episode has shed some light on how you can avoid venues, screwing you over by not [00:18:00] providing PA systems and making you bring one and log one and all that for free, because you should never ever be doing that for free. Even if you're playing the show for free or for tips, if they want you to provide a sound system.

They should be paying you for that sound system because they, as the venue are responsible for that and it's show cost. That's really what it comes down to. If they won't pay you for a sound system, don't play there. It's not worth it. They're just gonna keep screwing over other artists,

That's really what I'm gonna leave it at for today. I, I don't know. What else more I can say about this is if you bring a PA get paid for it, it's as simple as that That said we'll be back next Tuesday at 6:00 AM. Eastern time right here in your favorite podcast app with another brand new episode of the Bandhive Podcast until then. I hope you have a great week stay safe. And of course, as always keep rockin'.