[00:00:00] James: Welcome to episode 158 of the Bandhive Podcast.

[00:00:04] James: It is time for another episode of the Bandhive Podcast. My name's James Cross and I help independent artists tour smart. This week we have a very special guest, Rustin Feig of the band nerves, that's N R V S, that are new band out of Vermont and Long Island.

[00:00:18] James: And we're gonna talk about in ear racks because it's something that a lot of artists are using these days. And honestly, I think it can make your show a lot better in the right situations. So first of all, Rustin, how's it going today,

[00:00:29] James: man?

[00:00:29] Ruston: Great. How are you,

[00:00:30] James: Glad to hear. I'm doing well, enjoying the first snow of winter, which I always say I'm not gonna talk about the weather on the podcast, but then I talk about the weather on the podcast.

[00:00:37] James: It's the running gag of the show whenever I have a guest. you being in Vermont, you're getting snow too,

[00:00:42] Ruston: I am.

[00:00:43] James: we had a nice long summer. It was summer until basically mid-November. That's rare.

[00:00:48] Ruston: It was like 75 degrees, what, five, six days ago?

[00:00:51] James: Exactly.

[00:00:53] Ruston: Yeah.

[00:00:53] James: I was flying a plane last week and it was in the 60.

[00:00:56] James: It was so nice and now it's like 20 degrees in [00:01:00] snowing

[00:01:00] Ruston: Welcome to Vermont.

[00:01:02] Ruston: You never know what you're gonna get

[00:01:04] James: Yeah. Just give it five minutes. It'll be better or worse.

[00:01:07] Ruston: worse.

[00:01:07] James: Well anyway, here's hoping that we can get through this interview without my power going out, because I live in the middle of nowhere, so fingers crossed for that.

[00:01:15] James: But to jump in before we get all techy and nerdy, do you wanna share a little bit about the background of nerves and your history as a musician? Because every time we talk, I find out about another band. You were in I'm curious to see if we can continue that.

[00:01:28] Ruston: Definitely, yeah. So I, I've been mostly a drummer since high school. Been in a lot of bands in the Burlington area. Around 2011 my band followed Warp Tour and won the Ernie Ball Battle. The bands Did a few months out in the summer. Then, since then, just being bouncing around with more local type stuff until I think 2018 maybe.

[00:01:51] Ruston: I joined a band called Real Talk that we're on Anchor 84 records. And we hung out with that. And then we actually went and recorded an [00:02:00] ep, the week before Covid started. and we were all across state lines. so it really just kind of threw a wrench into our plan. unfortunately that band didn't survive.

[00:02:10] Ruston: And so when that band ended, I was really trying to look to do something. And so I was reaching out to a bunch of guitarists who would be willing to gimme a shot doing other than drums. And that's how I ended up reaching out to a buddy Joe, who is in Long Island for med school. And he was from Plattsburgh.

[00:02:29] Ruston: His band also split right around the time Covid started. we just aligned really well. And so, we've been to the studio down at Sound Acres with Gary c three times now and I do drums and half the vocals and Joe does all the guitars and the other half of the vocals, and it's just a really good working relat.

[00:02:48] James: That sounds great. And for those who don't know, the Northeast Plattsburgh is ferry right away from Burlington. It's like an hour on the ferry or an hour if you drive around the lake. Either way it's an

[00:02:57] James: hour.

[00:02:58] James: a lot of people don't know where Vermont [00:03:00] even is. So

[00:03:01] Ruston: That's That's a state I've gotten that question before.

[00:03:04] James: oh yes,

[00:03:05] Ruston: Oh

[00:03:06] James: I have a funny story to tell you later. But yeah. So first of all, thank you for joining us on the show. Thank you for breakdown of nerves and your history as a musician. know, it turns out we have a ton of mutual friends from your time on Warp Tour who overlapped with my time on Warp Tour a few years later.

[00:03:22] James: And, and that just goes to show how small the music business is. Literally, John Ryan, who was on the podcast a couple weeks ago, you introduced me to him and it turns out like we know everybody

[00:03:33] James: that we know, but we didn't know each other. It's such a small

[00:03:36] James: world.

[00:03:37] Ruston: it's such a small world which goes back to, you know, on the business side of things, be really careful about, What you say and do, because word gets around and you know it, it pays to be a decent person and do the right thing. When you're in the music industry,

[00:03:51] James: Oh, absolutely It's just so difficult to be a jerk and make it in the music

[00:03:57] James: business Word gets around [00:04:00] so fast, especially on the local level, but even on the, like the national touring level, if you're a jerk, no one wants to work with you. That's really how it goes. so anyway, if anyone wants to hear that interview with John James Ryan of Keep Flying Amazing Scott Band outta New Jersey.

[00:04:14] James: That's episode 1 56. You can go to Bandhive.rocks/ 1 5 6. That's the numbers to make up 156. And listen to that interview there or look up episode 1 56 wherever you listen to podcasts. Now, side note, I can't tell you the title of that because I haven't made the title yet. That's coming later today. So if you're in a podcast app that doesn't show the numbers, I sincerely apologize.

[00:04:37] James: You're just gonna have to look around until you find it. But what I can tell you is it's right after the. That's called want to tour in 2023. Start planning now. It's the one that's one week newer than that. there's your, your landmark to find that episode, I

[00:04:52] James: guess

[00:04:52] Ruston: It's a puzzle. You'll figure it out.

[00:04:55] James: Absolutely. Anyway, to get to the topic at hand, you have this beautiful rack [00:05:00] sitting behind you on the, I guess that's a shelf there.

[00:05:03] James: And to be clear, I mean an equipment rack, it's filled with gear. It has an X 32 in it, as well as two wireless units We can't see the back of it, but the back has some even more cool stuff, at least to us Gear nerds. Most people are probably gonna be like, what the, that's not cool. It's a panel where you can plug stuff in

[00:05:22] Ruston: Pretty much,

[00:05:23] James: So can you give us first just the rundown of the basics of an in ear rack, starting with what the purpose is to have an Iraq

[00:05:32] Ruston: Yeah, definitely. Yeah, we're gonna gear out real hard here, so just a fair warning. So the whole point of at least the way that we designed are in rack, which is definitely designed after other in. That I've seen other people make is it's supposed to be a self-contained in your monitor system. And so what that means is that it starts into a splitter and it creates two.

[00:05:56] Ruston: Dry signals to go in two different directions. One goes into [00:06:00] our X 32 rack mixers so that we have our mixes the exact same every night, and then the other side actually goes to a snake that can go to front of house and they get an uninterrupted line for each channel so that they can do a front of house mix.

[00:06:17] Ruston: Basically we both can just do whatever we want and one affect the other side. Front of house people love it because they don't have to worry about any mixes or monitor mixes at all. And we love it because we know that every single night we can just plug in and have the mix that we need to perform properly.

[00:06:36] James: that's such a huge advantage, you being actually able to hear yourself without feedback. no hate to local sound engineers, most of them, if you're playing a bar or a small club, are not limited by their skills, but more so limited by the equipment. And now with digital boards, it is getting better.

[00:06:54] James: But I remember back in the day, I would mix shows. Sometimes I didn't even have a graphic EQ ring out the monitors, [00:07:00] so the monitors had to be really quiet and artists are saying, Hey, can I get more? It's like, no, sorry, it's gonna feed back if I give you any more. I just, I cannot physically do that, and in ears cut down on a lot of those issues.

[00:07:13] James: Plus they cut down on stage volume so the audience doesn't need to hear things as loudly to cover up what's on stage. All that kind of stuff is huge. Huge benefits. And I should say, said we're gonna nerd out. If you're not the nerdy person in your band and you're listening to this, please pass it on to the nerdy person in your band, whoever does the tech stuff, because they're gonna really appreciate this episode, I think.

[00:07:34] James: And I'm totally happy for you to keep listening and learning about this. but please also share it with a nerd in your band because , you two can discuss it if you share it with a nerd in your band, and you're not the nerd, let's put it that way. And I, I should just mention that both Russ and I are actual nerds about this stuff.

[00:07:52] James: So I'm not using that in a derogatory sense in any way. drove down to Boston for a show and like half the drive, we were just [00:08:00] talking about gear.

[00:08:01] Ruston: which was an awesome drive.

[00:08:02] James: Yeah, that was a really fun trip and we got free food. I mean, bands. If you ever play Middle East in Boston or Cambridge, Massachusetts, directly across the street, there's a place called Clover.

[00:08:13] James: If you show them that you are in a band and that band is playing Middle East that night, they will give you free food. So go check that out.

[00:08:20] Ruston: Mm-hmm.

[00:08:21] James: all that aside, I'm sidetracking here. Roughly how much did your in ear rack for nerves cost? And that's, you know, including everything in the rack, but also the belt packs that you wear.

[00:08:30] James: The drummer has a little wired in the ear monitor mixer, what's a rough total sum for all of that?

[00:08:36] Ruston: Yeah, so they're not cheap. And I wanna preface this. We should definitely also chat about different ways to handle going with engineer rig. You don't have to do a full design, like we did. You can do smaller versions. There are positives and negatives. important thing is no matter what route you do is to do it.

[00:08:54] Ruston: to answer your question, so the X 32, is pretty [00:09:00] pricey and the price has gone up since Covid essentially, like everything has I think now those are going for between like 1500 and $1,800 for just the mixer. And there are other mixers you can use as well. The reason that that one's nice is you get 16 inputs, you get.

[00:09:16] Ruston: Outputs and then you can expand it to 32 inputs. It's also nice cuz you have a screen on board. You can also attach it to an iPad or a computer to run sound off of. lot of venues also have barringer equipment that can attach right to it, which is a huge advantage. Then when you're looking at wireless units, so right now our unit actually has two different wireless.

[00:09:40] Ruston: we have the Galaxy Audio as 14, 1400, which is a lower quality in your monitor system. it gets the job done for now. But you don't get the clarity, you get more dropouts get some bleed on the two channels which that goes back to this thing.

[00:09:56] Ruston: If you're gonna do it, it's important to do it right. The other one is a [00:10:00] er, g4 inter system. So that one has two receivers. the unit itself, that goes in the rack is a transmitter and then the belt pack, so the receiver, so like the opposite of what a guitar wireless would. so that er one because it came with the two belt packs, I think was somewhere between like 1100, $1,400.

[00:10:20] Ruston: And that one's actually considered a starting point for tour grade in your monitor systems. anything below that is considered like, and this isn't meant to be derogatory, but it's considered like an amateur system versus like, that is like the first level of a pro system and then it goes up from there you can go all the way up to like the PSM one thousands, which I think start at like 5k, which is a lot.

[00:10:41] James: Yeah. It gets so spendy, but if you think about how important it is too, for an artist that's playing shows five nights a

[00:10:48] James: week

[00:10:48] Ruston: yeah. Well,

[00:10:49] James: 1500 people, 2000 people,

[00:10:51] Ruston: And even more than that, you know, if you're playing a stadium, 5K is nothing in comparison to making sure that your show goes appropriately.[00:11:00] [00:11:00] Ruston: So the last thing on ours outside of the case is actually the splitter. So that's a beringer, I think it's a MS 8,000 or what it's called.

[00:11:07] Ruston: it's hard to find in stock, but you, you can usually get it for about $120. And so that is a splitter, so eight inputs on the front, 16 outputs on the back, or out a out B for every input.

[00:11:19] James: it's all passive, right?

[00:11:21] Ruston: That one's all passive. That one does have the option to like remove the loop if you're getting a signal cross.

[00:11:28] Ruston: is more important for if you're doing like radio or tv using them for a passive split for any monitoring isn't usually as much of an issue. And the concern with this, That a lot of people actually have is if you accidentally push some of the buttons on the front, it can actually alter the wiring for your in mix.

[00:11:45] Ruston: So that's actually a downfall to this one. They make higher quality ones that will be going to in the near future. best products. Pro Audio Btpa shout out to Brad for always helping me out with all my questions. they build some super high quality [00:12:00] splits. That are, what your favorite bands at a show is using

[00:12:05] James: Yeah, it's, it's amazing. so many artists go all custom with this. Like obviously there's the DIY option that you chose and built your own, which works really well. know, you mentioned mixing live shows with that mixer and an iPad, which has been done, you show with keep flying, that was the setup.

[00:12:21] James: You've also done it just for monitors with a separate front of house console you can do. Either way, and it works. Now, you kind of already mentioned this, but how it integrates into your live setup and specifically it uses that splitter. So the signals come from the stage for anything that's going through the in ears.

[00:12:39] James: Hit the splitter and get split to your in rack and then separately to front of house. And that's basically it for the inputs that you were using in your monitors. But for other inputs, like for example, Tom's, those just go straight to front of house. it integrates into your system to the extent that you need it.

[00:12:56] James: But example, an artist, let's say if they [00:13:00] only want to hear their vocals, they could do like a two or a four channel

[00:13:03] James: granted, I don't think that's a wise decision because you wanna hear a little bit of everything. You might want some tickers near, especially on larger stages, but that is an option.

[00:13:11] James: So depending on how it integrates into that setup, it's gonna.

[00:13:15] Ruston: With a lot of bands like that, like if you're vocalist is the only one who actually wants the monitors and they just wanna hear themselves better. And that's the only goal. That's one of those scenarios where just getting a decent wireless unit and making sure that you're talking to the sound engineer ahead of time they can feed you a stereo mix from the board.

[00:13:34] Ruston: drawbacks to that are, does the sound guy actually want to do that? Or the sound person want to actually do that? And you know, what quality mix are they actually gonna give you?

[00:13:44] James: Yeah, absolutely. And that's the tough thing that's gonna be inconsistent from night to night. So that's unfortunate. But it is what it is. And if you want the whole band to have wireless, which really helps a lot in my opinion, cuz you can move around on the stage and hear the same mix. That's

[00:13:59] James: huge.[00:14:00] Traditionally, you have monitors and either you all have the same mix or you have individual mixes. Well, if you're walking over to the other side of the stage, all of a sudden you're hearing your band mates mix instead of your mix. And that doesn't work so well in all

[00:14:11] James: cases.

[00:14:12] Ruston: now.

[00:14:12] James: that's typically not the best solution.

[00:14:15] James: So like you were saying, it's expensive, but in my opinion, it's worth it if your band needs it. There's other bands that just don't need it, and they are just so like, doesn't matter. We got it. We'll do. And props to them. But I think that is also difficult to execute well. You have to be an amazing musician to do that.

[00:14:35] James: just so difficult to play with traditional monitors and hear everything properly.

[00:14:40] Ruston: Absolutely. Yeah, it definitely takes a certain kind of musician like the right group of people you can have three of four band members who can execute that really well. But if the fourth band member can't execute it properly, then it doesn't.

[00:14:54] James: yeah. You know, one bad apple spoils the

[00:14:56] James: batch.

[00:14:57] Ruston: Yeah.

[00:14:57] James: that's really what it comes down to. And that goes for a lot of [00:15:00] things in

[00:15:00] James: bands, like doesn't just have to deal with, with monitoring.

[00:15:03] James: there's several important things to look out for. We've already discussed the splitter.

[00:15:07] James: One thing I wanted to mention is don't want phantom power. told me a little bit about this. Can you go into why you don't want phantom power on both boards that are being split to.

[00:15:16] Ruston: there's a couple reasons. One, like depending on the type of microphone you're using gotta be careful not to be sending. Phantom power. And then if the front of house person is taking a snake from your splitter and they're sending phantom power to your splitter, depending on how that splitter is designed, it can cause problems and even damage.

[00:15:38] Ruston: So it's definitely one of those things that if if you're using In your monitors like this, again, proper communication with your sound person is huge. let 'em know, Hey, there's nothing that on stage that needs phantom power for our stage setup. So keep fanm power off for everything.

[00:15:53] James: you don't wanna risk losing an X 32.

[00:15:55] James: depending on the mic. If it's like a hundred bucks, yeah, it's no fun. But not the end of the world. [00:16:00] Your whole rack, that's gonna be

[00:16:02] James: tough.

[00:16:02] Ruston: the main thing. It's pretty hard to damage Mike's in reality, but do it right. . We're all there to do the best we can. We can do it right.

[00:16:09] James: Yeah, absolutely. And then talking about the mixer a little more. You're not just sending tracks through the split, you also have backing tracks coming out of the mixer. So can you talk about what the flow for that is like and how the X 32 and really the rack help you use those features or those backing tracks in your band?

[00:16:34] Ruston: of the main things we do is we have cues and we have a click track going. And the nice thing about that is it's coming through the X 33 which is also an audio interface. So it goes from A do system in a computer into the X 32, and then we have it routed so that only we hear click tracks and we hear the cue.

[00:16:52] Ruston: And we have the cues because we perform with two fill-ins every time cuz we're only a two person bands full time. [00:17:00] And so our drummer and bass is fill-ins. And when you have fill-ins those extra cues can just help execute the performance a little cleaner each time, which is huge. Cuz you know, felons don't have the multiple times a week to practice like the rest of us.

[00:17:15] Ruston: so like you mentioned, so we also do have a little bit of backing track. So we have some keys and some synth, a little bit of percussion. And uh, in certain parts there's actually third guitar. And so all of those go into the X 32 on individual channels. We mix them to our ears, and then they're also split internally to the XLA two to go to some of the outputs, which go to the snake to go to front of house.

[00:17:37] Ruston: So that way the front of house person actually has an individual line for the third. For the synth, for the percussion. And it's nice that they have those individual lines because every room is different. Every PA is different. And so it allows them to make sure that they're mixing it just like they would any other member of the bands.

[00:17:55] Ruston: And that way you can just get the best sound for your show.

[00:17:58] James: just also wanna point out here,[00:18:00] there are a lot of artists who are like, oh, that, that's selling out. No, it's not. And I can almost guarantee your favorite band does that.

[00:18:08] Ruston: Oh,

[00:18:08] James: unless your favorite band is a DIY

[00:18:10] James: band, they use tracks to some extent. maybe they use it for some songs, not all, but they use tracks at some point.

[00:18:19] James: They use a click track, If you can find an arena level act that isn't using in ears with tracks and you have proof that they're not using tracks, please let me

[00:18:27] James: know,

[00:18:28] James: they are, let's put it that

[00:18:30] James: way.

[00:18:30] Ruston: Do you like Blake 180 2? You better believe they're using a lot of tracks. There's no way that that three person band could fill out a stadium like they do. there's also videos of Blake 180 2 with their tracks going wrong that you can find online, which are fun.

[00:18:45] Ruston: Rick Beto actually did a recent video. Talking about backtracks and like what he believes are, the positives and negatives and what he's experienced with some major label bands coming through. I think he said train, like came to a studio once and was [00:19:00] like, Hey, we need XYZ bounced for backing tracks.

[00:19:02] Ruston: And he set that up for them. obviously every band's different. It's the same as like when you're talking to a band member about starting a band, it's like, what are you looking for? Are you looking to be serious? Are you looking to have fun? Do you want it to be raw? Do you want it to be polished?

[00:19:16] Ruston: And when Joe and I had the conversation about nerves, we wanted it to be the best show possible. And we knew that we, we'd only be able to have four members on stage due to the fact that we're already including two fill.

[00:19:27] James: Yeah. Otherwise, you're literally filling the band with hired guns, so you're already at 50%. You don't wanna make it, you. More than that. Plus it's just more people to coordinate. Ronnie Radke had this whole thing about tracks recently cuz their laptop died and they couldn't play a show and people were saying, well, they should still be able to play the music.

[00:19:43] James: But at that level, guess what? You're gonna have other stuff synced to it. They might have their lights synced, maybe they do, maybe they don't. You know, it's still possible that the lighting director, the ld puts the set list into his system and he has it all built out, but it's independent from the laptop.

[00:19:58] James: But maybe they went a little lower [00:20:00] budget and said, we're just gonna sync everything to the laptop. Cuz there are bands that do that as well. I've seen bands that have a mix of both. they'll have a live lighting director. And I think coolest part of this that I ever saw was, House of Blues Boston years ago, bad religions lighting director was amazing.

[00:20:19] James: Most bands what they do, and this is totally off topic, this is just me nerding out cause I think you're

[00:20:22] James: gonna

[00:20:23] Ruston: I mean, it's, it's part of the, in your rig and, we'll, we'll wrap it all together. Don't worry,

[00:20:27] James: Usually a touring band will come in with their own board and integrate that into the house system, so they'll figure out what the patching is for the house lights.

[00:20:35] James: And program that to work with their board cuz it's all the same protocol. It's all dmx, not the rapper. it's an electronic protocol, bad religion. He didn't do that. He used the house board and then brought his own board and he's playing two boards and it was literally like watching a grand master play the piano.

[00:20:54] James: I was just

[00:20:54] James: like, this is so cool. He's literally playing the boards like a piano. [00:21:00] So his board, he had scenes programmed.

[00:21:02] Ruston: Mm-hmm.

[00:21:03] James: And then the house board. So he'd just be like hitting next scene, next scene, next scene for the different parts of the song. Like, oh, here's the chorus next scene. Cause it's all scene based when you're programming

[00:21:13] James: lights. But then he'd have like the blinders on the house board. So he'd just like push, push to flash the blinders at the crowd, when there's a big gang vocal or something. It was so cool. Like I loved

[00:21:24] James: seeing that. there's videos of. think it's either Foo Fighters or Nine Inch Nails Lighting designer, just head banging to the show, playing

[00:21:31] Ruston: Oh,

[00:21:32] James: the board.

[00:21:33] James: I'll put these all in the show notes. But they're so fun to watch. I don't know if there's a video of Bad Religions guy doing two boards, but the Nine Inch Nails one, I think it's Nine Inch Nails is really fun to watch. Cause the dude is just

[00:21:44] James: loving it. and you can tell he's he is literally part of the

[00:21:47] James: band.

[00:21:47] Ruston: and running lights is not easy. I one time had to run lights at the higher ground ballroom up in Burlington, Vermont for a show, they were like, it was either you or nobody runs lights.

[00:21:57] Ruston: And so I did it and. The band was [00:22:00] not happy. And I realized that wasn't over my head. I mean, it was a fun experience. I have no regrets. But yeah, the band was like, Hey, do better the other thing I wanted to talk about cuz you know, the Ronnie Radke thing came up where people were like, oh, you should be able to play a show anyway.

[00:22:16] Ruston: With digital amps too, if they're running midi, that's doing all of their patch changes for all of their songs, for all of their guitars. you know, if you have a rack mounted Kemper, there's no way to easily make changes unless you have a pedal board attached to it.

[00:22:33] Ruston: Or you're running it through midi and so it was definitely an unfortunate scenario and hopefully they learned for it. They're a big enough band that they should probably have an extra set of dual laptops, which we'll talk about the perks of dual laptops here shortly.

[00:22:48] Ruston: But you, that was definitely an interesting topic to kind of go around the.

[00:22:52] James: they are absolutely big enough that they can afford another like $3,000 MacBook Pro. There's no reason they should not have

[00:22:58] James: that.

[00:22:58] James: that's just [00:23:00] inexcusable.

[00:23:00] Ruston: that's the bummer is the fact that they didn't have an well executed backup to their backup.

[00:23:06] James: Yeah. If it doesn't exist in three places, it does not exist.

[00:23:10] James: That's the rule in any kind of like software or computer field is three places. So if your computer has files on it that are not backed up once to the cloud and wants to an external hard drive, you should go to back blaze and sign up for that.

[00:23:26] James: And then you should go to Amazon or Best Buy or wherever you like to shop and get an external hard drive that is big enough to hold everything on your computer two to three times, Especially if you're on Mac, you can use time machine and it'll keep version history too. you want two to three times your hard drive space for a physical backup.

[00:23:42] James: And then back blade is like $6 a month to backup everything on your computer except the apps and the software the operating system.

[00:23:49] James: Anyway, I mentioned the perfect segue the end of your set, you wanna wrap up all your cables and all that, right?

[00:23:56] James: But part of the thing with an in rack is you need to be able to [00:24:00] set it up quickly and tear it down quickly to get on and off stage. So can you talk about what artists can do to make sure that the changeover between sets goes as smoothly as possible?

[00:24:10] Ruston: Absolutely. And so that again goes back to the, that main key point of keep strong conversation with your sound person because you can have that conversation ahead of time of, is there a spot where this can live for the whole show, where it will be out of the way for other bands? If not, what's the easiest way for quick patching in we bring a 12 channel snake cuz that's how many outputs we have on the back. They're well labeled not only on a piece of paper that we can hand to the sound person, but they're also well labeled with a sticker that says what the input actually is. I know a lot of people like to use the numbering system but if you go to like the live sound.

[00:24:50] Ruston: Reddit Sub, you'll notice immediately that everyone's very heartfelt on going one way or the other. And so there's basically no winning there. And [00:25:00] your one might be the sound person's 12, which is gonna throw them off a lot more than if you just say, Hey, this is main vocal. And they can in their head, go, I know main vocal goes in Channel X That makes things nice and clean. hopes usually is that there's a place for it to live for the whole show so you don't have to worry about it. And they have a big enough snake input for their mixer that you can do all your inputs and it won't affect what they're doing throughout the show.

[00:25:26] Ruston: But if not follow the same. That you should be following anyway of when your set is over. That's not the time to chat with your friends. That's not the time to go get a drink at the bar. That is time to get your equipment and get it off stage. Once it's safely off stage, that's when you can start wrapping up items.

[00:25:47] Ruston: You can start wrapping up cables, put things in their cases, and make sure that you have everything cleaned up. If you have enough members in your band whoever's the least helpful with cleanup, have them sent out to the [00:26:00] merch table so that you can try to sell some merch. But I mean, you only have a few minutes for changeover, so you better get off stage so that you're not affecting the band after you, because if you do that, band's gonna remember it and they might not want you to play next time.

[00:26:12] James: absolutely. And you know, looking at your standard 15 minute changeover, shoot for five minutes. Cause then if anything goes wrong, it ends up being seven and a half and have used half that changeover. And you don't wanna use more than that. Half. seven and a half should be the maximum because the other band has to set up their stuff.

[00:26:30] James: Now, granted. Maybe some of their stuff is already set up. If there's back lining, maybe the stage is big enough that you can move around each other. But if you're playing a small stage like the monkey house or Middle East upstairs, there's not enough room for both bands to be on stage moving gear.

[00:26:45] James: It's not physically possible, which means you have to get your gear and go. So I remember when you played the monkey house. It sound for that show. So I just pulled up all the cables in a big wad of spaghetti, which is like the last thing you're supposed to do. [00:27:00] And just like, I'm not wrapping these on stage, and I took 'em to the back of the venue, which is ironically the front of the venue,

[00:27:05] Ruston: Yes.

[00:27:06] James: It's like by the front door. But I just had this like giant ball of spaghetti cables. I'm like, okay, I can wrap these now cuz I'm out of the way. And sometimes that's what you gotta do, you know? Even if it's breaking rule number one of sound, which is you don't do that to your cables, that's what you do cuz you want to get off the stage.

[00:27:23] Ruston: Yes. There's always time to wrap them later before you actually leave the venue. And then the other thing too, to keep in mind is the gear that you're bringing, how is it set up together? Do you have quality connectors that. Set up to be permanent. Do you have a mixer multiple in your units, a splitter that you're trying to set up on stage for the first time?

[00:27:46] Ruston: Or, you know, breakdown set up every night, our unit in terms of Rackspace five space rack unit that actually lives in an skb pelican style.

[00:27:56] James: With wheels.

[00:27:56] Ruston: With wheels. Exactly. And so we know [00:28:00] that the inputs on the front and the outputs on the back, we can literally just unplug those things.

[00:28:04] Ruston: The wires that connect the splitter to the X 32 and the X 32 through the in units all stay permanently connected with high quality connectors so that I know that they're gonna stay secure. And then I can literally just drop it into the case and that's done. And then that's when we take the spaghetti of.

[00:28:22] Ruston: And wrap them separately. And it, it creates a quick changeover. Other people too, they like to use like taller wheeled rack units. That's nice cuz you can often like store the snake that goes to the front of house, like right into the back. So you don't even have to unplug those inputs outputs. but you gotta keep in mind how are you transporting it? What kind of vehicle do you have? What stages are you playing? There's a lot that goes into it. A lot of thought.

[00:28:46] James: Yeah, I think that's a great point because this is not the setup that every band should use. We're just going through the basics. This will work for a lot of bands, but if you're playing like 500 cap rooms every night, [00:29:00] first of all, you probably have somebody who can set this up for you.

[00:29:03] James: But also you're gonna have a different setup because maybe you have a monitor engineer that you're taking along

[00:29:07] Ruston: Right?

[00:29:08] James: they'll want something different. They'll want a board to mix on instead of an iPad. Maybe you're gonna have your own front of house rig that you're traveling with, in which case maybe it makes sense to get something that you can connect with ethernet.

[00:29:20] James: So both boards have their own independent stuff going on, but instead of running a snake to front of house, you just have a single cat five. all comes into integrating with the stuff that you're doing and figuring out what you need for your situation.

[00:29:33] James: That's a huge part of it. But again, I think for almost any DIY or independent artist who's playing smaller venues, this is a really good setup to get started.

[00:29:45] James: It's relatively budget friendly. It's not cheap, but it's not ridiculously expensive.

[00:29:51] Ruston: I know people, guitar is more expensive than this build,

[00:29:54] Ruston: you know,

[00:29:55] James: And you have the advantage of if you ever show up to a venue and their soundboard is [00:30:00] terrible, like I've gone to a venue where there was a 20 channel soundboard and two channels worked.

[00:30:05] James: You can be like, okay, we're gonna use those two channels. We're just gonna send you a stereo mix off the iPad and it's gonna sound way better cuz everything's in the mix. Instead of two things

[00:30:14] Ruston: Yep.

[00:30:15] James: What can you do with two channels on a board? If you're a full

[00:30:17] James: band, you have one vocal and a kick drum.

[00:30:20] James: If you have two vocalists, that's

[00:30:22] James: it. you have three vocalists, tough luck. . One of you is not being heard.

[00:30:27] Ruston: And so one of the nice things about this build too is we built it with flexibility in mind. And if you're gonna go this route, being flexible is so important because there will come a day where we're not gonna be able to use this our intended purposes.

[00:30:41] Ruston: And that's fine because we can plug it in off to the side and send ourself the click and. basically we have it set up, so we use amp mallers instead of cabs on stage, and both of them have two outputs. So we can send one straight to front of house if that's how they prefer it, and then the second output, just go to our linear mixer.

[00:30:58] Ruston: And then if we are ever [00:31:00] in a venue that truly is like, no, no, no, you can't do it. Even modelers, you know, if the PA system isn't proper. We do still have traditional amps and cabs and what we can do is mic them or, you know, if we use the modelers basically is like a bypass method so that we can still get something into our near monitors.

[00:31:18] Ruston: And then just use the amps and cabs live. It's all about flex.

[00:31:21] James: absolutely. And I'm all for being flexible, but if their PA system is that bad, also make a note to never play that crappy venue again cause it's not worth it. , , any venue who gets good acts to come through, is gonna have a decent enough PA to handle

[00:31:35] James: that.

[00:31:35] Ruston: You'd hope so.

[00:31:36] Ruston: I've also played those, or not played those venues who are like, Hey, you guys didn't bring a pa? And we're like, we were never told to bring a pa. And then the show gets canceled.

[00:31:44] James: That's like when you know that the venue is too cheap to even get their own system. It's like, okay, they're just exploiting artists

[00:31:50] Ruston: one time we actually played a show, this was back in probably like 2009. We played a show and the venue told us we had to bring our own pa. And so we borrowed one from a friend showed up. [00:32:00] They had a really nice PA system there, but we were considered too small of an act to use it.

[00:32:05] Ruston: And

[00:32:05] Ruston: then after we got done playing, they apologized and they're like, yeah, you guys totally could have just used our system. And we're like, yeah, we know

[00:32:13] James: That's so ridiculous. doubling up on work.

[00:32:16] James: that's liability on the venue too. If they have somebody else bringing a

[00:32:20] James: PA

[00:32:20] James: and there's no insurance, cuz I mean, a lot of bands don't have insurance, especially if they're not a sound company. They might have insurance for the band, but they don't for the

[00:32:29] James: pa then something happens.

[00:32:31] James: Well that's on the venue now. the venue had you set it up,

[00:32:33] Ruston: I don't think that venue wasn't around very long. Let's put it that way.

[00:32:36] James: Yeah, I know places like that

[00:32:39] James: anyway. You mentioned Reddit earlier, if people have questions, what is the specific Reddit they should go to

[00:32:46] Ruston: I think it's our slash live sound. . And then if you just type in, in your monitor or any kind of like keywords like that I am is a common term. There's already a ton of conversations with a lot of [00:33:00] repeat information. There's a lot of really great links to help people. Another one is I mentioned Trons Pro Audio.

[00:33:07] Ruston: They have Really great social media. So they actually have YouTube channels that show their builds. They have a ton of Instagram and Facebook pictures, and if you go through the comments their team does a really good job of responding and they'll actually pretty much explain all these details of what they're doing and why they're doing it.

[00:33:26] Ruston: And it's those companies that build those high quality ones are really impressive.

[00:33:30] James: Nice. Yeah, that's good that they have social media people who actually know what they're talking

[00:33:34] James: about.

[00:33:35] Ruston: Oh yeah,

[00:33:35] James: here's a cool video. Let's post

[00:33:37] James: this. that's going above and beyond to have people who are trained to properly respond and know what they're talking

[00:33:43] Ruston: Agreed.

[00:33:43] James: So to kind of wrap things up here we'll finish off with a little more info about nerves and where to go to find the band and all that. But I wanted to run through a quick list of pros and cons of using in ears and some of these we've already covered. So, pros, individual mixes. That's a big one.

[00:33:58] James: You can use backing [00:34:00] tracks. We talked about that. It's easier to hear the parts you need to. because in ears, which we're both wearing in ears for this interview, there's mine, you put yours in before the show. Yours are actually visible cuz your hair's not covering them.

[00:34:11] Ruston: yes,

[00:34:12] James: They block a lot of sound.

[00:34:14] James: This is like as good as having earplugs in. I think mine are like 27 decibels of reduction. So it's basically like having earplugs that are also earbuds. And that's why you shouldn't just use regular earbud as monitors too. You need specific, in ears that protect your ears.

[00:34:29] Ruston: Mm-hmm.

[00:34:30] James: Which is the next thing. It protects your hearing.

[00:34:32] James: You're gonna have a lower volume than if you're on stage with or without ear plugs really, because if you're hearing just the things you need to hear, it doesn't need to be as loud as if you're hearing everything from all over the

[00:34:43] Ruston: Mm-hmm.

[00:34:44] James: Which also brings us to lower stage volume, which makes it easier for front a house to mix.

[00:34:49] James: those are the five main things in my opinion. But do you have any pros to add to that?

[00:34:54] Ruston: so we played the show in the Middle East that you came and assisted us with, which was awesome. Our two [00:35:00] fill-in band members that we were working with weren't able to play the show and so we actually got two other fill-in band members and they had never played with our guitarist, Joe.

[00:35:10] Ruston: I practiced here with them with the backing track. And we walked into the Middle East and they met our guitarist Joe for the first time and played a show. But because we were all comfortable with the songs and we were comfortable playing them to the click track, they were literally able to just walk on stage and perform with each other, which is something that professional musicians need to know how to do.

[00:35:31] Ruston: You need to know how to learn a song on your own, play it properly to the right tempo, and then just walk on stage and crush it with other musicians.

[00:35:38] James: I think that's a huge point,

[00:35:39] James: first of all, the ability to do that as a band and having the foresight of saying, Hey, we're gonna have people who need to show up and play. You were mentioning the cues earlier, but also as an artist being able to do that, or as a musician rather, who maybe is playing for different artists.

[00:35:57] James: Joe and Kevin having that, not guitarist Joe, [00:36:00] drummer

[00:36:00] James: Joe,

[00:36:00] Ruston: Yes. Too many Joe's.

[00:36:01] James: too many Joes and drummer Joe also has the same last name as me. So two jcs and it's

[00:36:06] Ruston: It, yeah, it was a fun, it was a fun couple of weeks there.

[00:36:10] James: Yeah, it absolutely was. It was great. But so for them to be able to do that is gonna open up potential opportunities for them in the

[00:36:17] James: future.

[00:36:17] Ruston: Absolutely.

[00:36:18] James: of somebody now who needs a band member for a show, I'm gonna be like, oh, hit up Joan.

[00:36:22] James: bass, Kevin, drums Joe. Done. There you go. Because they did really

[00:36:26] James: well.

[00:36:26] James: that's another pro. Both for the band and for them.

[00:36:29] Ruston: Agreed.

[00:36:29] James: Cool. Well thank you for adding that. Now we come to the sad part,

[00:36:32] James: which

[00:36:32] James: is the cons. I figured Happy first, then sad, then happy. Cuz we talk about the band. So the cons we talked about, it's more work to set up.

[00:36:41] James: The second one is you might need an extra person to set

[00:36:43] James: up because.

[00:36:44] James: It takes time. So if you have a singer who doesn't do anything but sing, they can be that person. If you all have instruments, especially drums, anything with lots of parts, that's not gonna be as easy. You need somebody who knows the setup and can [00:37:00] set it up for you if you show up and you don't know what you're doing.

[00:37:03] James: And I've mixed bands like this who have an in rack and they have no idea what they're doing and don't have somebody helping set it up. It's a.

[00:37:11] James: I worked with a band who literally didn't have a split. This is one of the things we were talking about. They're like, okay, can we just get an in ear feed?

[00:37:17] James: Yeah, sure. And then it turns out they'd never worked with an in ear feed from front of house before, even though they specifically said that they could do that. And after everything was plugged in, we were halfway through sound check, they're like, oh, actually, can we just plug in our, stuff and we'll do the mix from here.

[00:37:33] James: I'm like Yeah, but it would've been nice if you'd told us at the start, I'm here for nothing. I'm literally just, here's a stereo fader done.

[00:37:40] Ruston: It shouldn't be a con, but it means extra communication. You need to be completely upfront with the sound person. You need to be completely upfront with the venue, get a diagram made and be prepared for failures, have everything well labeled so that there is a failure.

[00:37:55] Ruston: You can easily execute a fix for it.

[00:37:57] James: Absolutely and kind [00:38:00] of try to figure out what common points of failure are gonna be. So when something goes wrong, you know what it's gonna be that's huge. the next thing really is have a backup for when things go horribly wrong.

[00:38:11] James: That's really what it is. And the last con is it could relate an over reliance on technology if you don't practice for those contingencies. So that's tying right back into what you were saying is, figure out what to do when things go.

[00:38:24] James: there are bands who maybe they can't play certain songs live if the tracks go out. And specifically I'm thinking of AFI cuz they had an issue couple weeks ago where the tracks didn't work properly for one

[00:38:35] James: song.

[00:38:35] James: Okay. They skipped that song. They still finished the set, they weren't so reliant that it was at the point where, hey, we can't play any of.

[00:38:44] James: And to be fair, there are some bands where that just doesn't work. Like nine inch Nails without tracks. I don't think that band would be a thing without tracks. falling in reverse. Maybe they could have done it. They do have a lot of sense and electronic elements that are needed, but [00:39:00] they could have had a backup

[00:39:01] Ruston: if your show is so reliant on backtracks step one, and maybe this is something we dive onto in another conversation, is you can actually have redundant computers if you're running it off a computer within one system. It basically, the system is set up so that if one fails, it instantly connects to the second computer and it's a flawless transition.

[00:39:20] Ruston: You can't audibly hear the changeover. But then it goes into What happens if both those laptops get stolen, broken, thrown down a flight of stairs? You don't know what happened of Ronnie Radkey's computers. He should at least have, if not a third computer, then everything backed up elsewhere so that he can load it onto a computer and within five minutes be up and running.

[00:39:41] James: here's my tip, is if you don't rely on lighting cues and mid and all that stuff that we talked about,

[00:39:47] James: have all your tracks as a single stereo file. The left channel is gonna be your click. The right channel is gonna be the tracks summed down to

[00:39:57] James: mono. And worst case scenario, you [00:40:00] can say, okay, we're gonna put our phone on do not disturb, and we're gonna play this track from our

[00:40:05] James: phone.

[00:40:05] Ruston: I've done that for years in other bands when I wasn't able to do quite the build out. And usually that's as the drummer, I was the only person who even heard the click track, and then you just train. All the band members to essentially count on you for timing?

[00:40:18] James: absolutely. And that's how a lot of bands have done it for years. Like that's a really great method, especially if you can't afford a full in year rack, but want dabble with tracks. That's one way to go. But personally, I think the advantages are so huge, and think of it this way, you're looking at maybe three to $5,000 for this in rack, which can be split among However many band members you have, And you're essentially protecting your ears for the rest of your life. Cuz once your ears go out, there's no fixing them. And it's not like glasses where it's pretty much the same except you have glasses on your face like you can still see until your eyesight is so bad with your ears.

[00:40:57] James: If you need hearing aids, it does not sound the [00:41:00] same. So do whatever you can to protect your ears. And even if that means spending a chunk of change now, it's just so worth it. And wear earplugs if you're not wearing any

[00:41:09] James: ears.

[00:41:09] Ruston: Where are earplugs? I was bad about that when I was younger and I regret it heavily now.

[00:41:14] James: oh, and you're a drummer too,

[00:41:15] James: so that's extra

[00:41:16] Ruston: yeah.

[00:41:17] James: Like you can't even practice quietly.

[00:41:19] Ruston: No. Well, you can now they have all the quiet symbols and silent heads and stuff like that.

[00:41:24] James: Electronic kits

[00:41:25] James: too.

[00:41:25] Ruston: that's also true. But yeah, nonetheless, when you're listening to your, uh, to Spotify on your way to work and with headphones, don't bla them full volume.

[00:41:34] James: Yeah, I wear earplugs when I drive now cuz my car is

[00:41:38] James: loud.

[00:41:38] Ruston: Oh, really? Oh, there you go. I like.

[00:41:40] James: So I put earplugs in and I turn up the music not too loud, but I can hear it over the car without blasting it essentially.

[00:41:49] Ruston: Get an extra pair of generic in ears for your car,

[00:41:52] James: Uh, Would be nice, but then I can't hear stuff from outside. that's my one concern.

[00:41:55] Ruston: that's fair.

[00:41:56] James: Yeah. Anyway, last but not least here, [00:42:00] where should people go to find nerves online if they want to learn more, or check out the music, find out what you do.

[00:42:07] Ruston: Yeah, absolutely. So our Instagram is definitely our most active form of social media. so it's Nerds official. We are also on TikTok. It's usually just copy and paste videos from Instagram. Um,

[00:42:19] James: The algorithm.

[00:42:20] Ruston: Don't tell the algorithm. We are technically on Facebook. I think we update that nowhere near enough.

[00:42:26] Ruston: follow us on Spotify. we have a chunk of songs completed. We have three out right now and we're just slowly just kind of drop in releases when it seems appropriate. And we just got home from the studio a couple days ago, so we'll have even more songs here in the near.

[00:42:40] James: Right. Perfect Russ, and thank you so much for coming on the show today. I really appreciate it. all these links to nerves, which again is N R V S, there's no e in it. We'll be in the show [email protected] slash 1 58. That's 1 58. can either search them directly or you can go and grab all the links from our show notes.[00:43:00] [00:43:00] James: Thanks so much, man. I hope you have a great day and uh, we'll talk soon.

[00:43:02] Ruston: as well. Thanks James.

[00:43:04] James: About like episode seven.

[00:43:06] James: Jim asked me for a promo I was like, yeah, here's a promo. Sure.

[00:43:09] James: And then he heard it and I like went all out. It sounded good. I had music. He's like, do you wanna syndicate to the radio? And I'm like, yes, of

[00:43:16] Ruston: Yeah, . Of course I do. Why wouldn't

[00:43:19] James: So you probably heard it and was like, wow, this actually doesn't sound terrible. I like bloopers. I, I have one. The first day we started doing video, I hit myself in the face of the mic and I was like, that's, that's golden. we're gonna roll with it.