live music Archives - Aaron J. Trumm

Mastering Good Stage Organization

February 1, 2023 by Aaron

Audio Instruction, Carvin Amps and Audio, Instructional Stuff, Published Work

aaron j. trumm, aaron trumm, carvin, carvin amps and audio, good stage organization, how to organize your stage, indie music, live music, music, music tips, nquit music, stage, stage organization

This article on mastering good stage organization was written originally for the blog at Carvin Amps and Audio. I repost it here, and encourage you to check out Carvin’s amazing line of products! Also – notification: I sometimes use affiliate links. Some purchases may earn me a commission! 🙂

Picture this: your lead singer gets excited and decides to do an Irish river dance during your guitar solo. In an ecstatic frenzy, he leaps and careens. The crowd goes berserk. People scream, people dance, your solo turns into an exalted triumph never before seen in your state…

…Then the singer tangles his foot in your cable, lurches forward, unplugs your cabinet with a screech, and bashes his forehead through the kick drum. The room is suddenly silent while you wonder why your strings make no sound. The greatest rock-n-roll moment in your band’s history? Maybe. But the show is also over – bloody and awesome as it may be.

More often, this foot-tangling disaster happens five minutes before go time, in which case you’ve got no show, no sound, and no epic moment.

This is just one reason you may want to take the time to master good stage organization.

Other Reasons To Get It Together

Besides trip hazards, there are some other reasons proper stage organization is smart. First, you’ve got a better shot at great sound if you’re not running audio cables alongside power cables, due to 60hz hum. Second, planning your stage setup well can make it easier to hear yourself and keep your loudness in check. An organized stage also looks better, and after all this is a show. Not only that, a clean stage goes a long way to making performers feel comfortable and confident. Finally, a well-organized stage is a breeze to set up and take down. And that gives you more time to work out your sound!

Keys to Good Stage Organization

It’s not necessarily rocket science getting organized, but here are a few tips to get you started.

Make a plot – Create a consistent layout on paper, defining where each player will be, where drums, amps and keys will sit, even how cable runs should go. Be sure to allow for performance space, and keep in mind how your members like to perform. Does your singer throw themselves around? Is your bassist prone to jumping into the crowd? In almost every venue, you’ll have to make some tweaks, but at least you’ll have a plan. A proper stage plot will also be necessary to land bigger gigs, so you might as well have one. Here’s a convenient little app to do that.
Set up gear in order – Establish a consistent order of operations for setup, rather than setting up willy-nilly. The order is up to you, but it’s probably a good idea to setup the biggest elements first. One good setup order might be drums, amps, keys, mic stands, power cables, speaker cables, and mic cables.
Try Wireless – While wireless systems can come with their own set of obstacles such as interference and reliability issues, there’s no better way to eliminate clutter than to implement wireless solutions like Carvin Audio’s EM900 wireless in-ear monitor system or wireless hand held mics like Carvin’s UX1200MC. Even guitar purists who prefer high quality cables have been known to make the switch to wireless and never look back.
Flex With The Venue – Sometimes your setup is just too big (or small) for a space. Consider a few alternate drum rigs, cabinets, and even band lineups for various sized rooms. This will not only help you organize your space, but it can work wonders for getting your volume right for the room.
Use Gaff – Anywhere you need to run a cable across a pathway, be sure to use gaff tape to secure the cable properly. Similarly, you might want to tape down pedal boards or keyboard pedals so they don’t slide around when you step on them – or when the singer’s Irish boogie encroaches on your rig.
Go Slow – Finally, give yourself time to set up slowly and with purpose. It can often be hard to get into a venue early due to circumstances out of your control, but if possible, get there early and take your time setting up. This way you can follow your plot, run cables strategically, place gear in its right place, and generally keep organized. If you’re in a rush, these things tend to get forgotten.

Stay Organized, Stay Professional

In the end, great stage organization is the key to presenting a professional show, and to being efficient enough to create a professional act (even if you’re an amateur). Organizing your space and your time will have an amazing effect on your look, your sound, your business, and your level of enjoyment.

So, get organized and while you’re at it, let us know your best space-saving stage tips in the comments!

If you have questions or want to talk, just hit me up on Facebook @AaronJTrumm or Instagram

Start With the Drums: Cleaning Up Your Stage Sound from the Ground Up

This article on cleaning up your stage sound was written originally for the blog at Carvin Amps and Audio. I repost it here, and encourage you to check out Carvin’s amazing line of products! Also – notification: I sometimes use affiliate links. Some purchases may earn me a commission! 🙂

We’ve talked at length about why you might want to turn down on stage, and how that can improve your stage sound overall. This conversation usually centers around guitar cabinets. There is ample justification for that, as an out-of-control guitar can be problematic, especially in a small room.

But the ongoing volume war doesn’t always start with the guitarist. After all, there is another instrument that gets pretty loud and at almost every frequency.

No doubt you guessed it’s the drum kit. Drums are by nature loud, explosive, transient beasts, and that’s without adding in the cymbals. Add in the wildness of a typical rock-n-roll drummer, and things can get out of hand fast.

It’s no wonder then that guitar, bass, and vocal P.A. usually end up cranked up to eleventy twelve.

So, one of the best ways you can create a clean, solid stage sound that is audible, tolerable, balanced, artful – and still powerful – is to start from the ground up with the drums.

Cleaning Up Your Stage Sound: Volume First

It’s probably obvious, but the first thing you want to do is talk to your drummer about volume control. The best of the best can keep a solid beat and get a good tone at a variety of volumes. If your drummer has this skill, great! If not, try working on it in rehearsal. Try practicing fully acoustic with no vocal amplification and task the drummer with finding a way to groove so you can still hear.

If a room is particularly small and it proves difficult to cut enough volume with playing technique, try changing sticks. Softer, lighter sticks or even bundle sticks may do the trick. Brushes may even work depending on your genre, but that will obviously change your sound quite a bit.

Then again, adjusting your vibe to a space might be the perfect way to get it right. Experiment with different set ups – an all acoustic setup with hand drums, cajon, or any number of alternate rhythm sections might work, for example.

In many cases, you may just want to bring smaller drums. Opt for the 16” kick instead of the 22”, the lighter snare, and one small tom, as opposed to the full monster rig you might bring to a big stage. Or – gasp – you could use electronic drums (sometimes?).

It’s Not All Volume

Raw volume is just the beginning, and you can go a long way with simply adjusting the pure loudness of your drummer. But just as in studio mixing, it’s not all about fader levels. You can get a lot more bang for your buck in a space if you look at competing frequencies and raw noise.

First, consider the cymbals. A little bit of high frequency sizzle can go a long way in a small room, so think about reducing the size and number of cymbals, and again, help the drummer practice various ways of playing them.

Next consider the ring of the drums. Left unchecked, many drumheads resonate and ring out for a long time, and while that may be desirable at times, you can tighten up your sound by dampening them. Judicious use of moon gels, wash clothes, foam rubber dampers, and other accoutrement can help tremendously.

With drums hitting and dying back, you not only leave room for other instruments to cut through, you also stand a better chance of being tight rhythmically, as room reflections won’t make such a soup of the beat.

During set up, spend time tuning the drums to the room so that resonances are in check, windows aren’t buzzing, chairs aren’t travelling, and so on. And finally, manage creaks and pops and wiggles with proper floor covering, kick pedal lubrication, and so on. The more you can remove excess noise, the more room you have for musical elements.

Worth It In The End

It’s not a lot of bands who take the extra time to address how drums work in a room, but when its done, everything else tends to fall in place. Guitars can sit in the mix, bass can thump, and vocals can cut through without over-compressing. Drums are really the key to cleaning up your stage sound.

In the end it may take some extra thought, planning, and effort, but starting with drums to clean up your stage sound will definitely be worth it – even for the drummer.

If you have questions or want to talk, just hit me up on Facebook @AaronJTrumm – or email me aaron @ aarontrumm.com

Proper Stage Volume: Why (and How) You Might Want to Turn Your Amp Down on Stage

This article on proper stage volume was written originally for the blog at Carvin Amps and Audio. I repost it here, and encourage you to check out Carvin’s amazing line of products! Also – notification: I sometimes use affiliate links. Some purchases may earn me a commission! 🙂

It’s no secret house sound engineers fight with guitarists about proper stage volume for amps, especially in small venues. It may even be a bit of a cliché to mention it. “Turn it down!” often becomes “I’ll turn it down for you!” and “I need it louder!” turns into “I’ll just sneak over here and turn this up…”.

Whichever side you fall on, it turns out both sides have valid concerns, and everybody just wants to achieve the best sound possible. So, let’s look at how and why you might achieve a good balance with house sound, while still achieving the great tone you’re after (and maybe not having to take forever setting up!)

The Can’t Hear Myself War

Here’s the crux of the situation on a stage, especially where a loud rock band and a small venue are concerned: Everyone need to hear themselves (and each other), but no one can!

This actually usually starts with the drums, which are almost always too loud for a room. We’ll tackle how to start at the bottom with this problem in another article, but suffice it to say, if you can tame your kit, the sound engineer/guitar feud will be easier to manage.

Focusing on the guitars, the major problem the sound engineer faces is guitars tend to overwhelm vocals, keys, and other similar elements very quickly. Since the P.A. is the only amplification these elements have, if the guitar amps defeat that, there’s no way to hear anything else in the room.

But The Tone!

The best way to handle that from a purely house audio standpoint is to eliminate the guitar amps, and put the guitars directly into the P.A. This means everyone on stage can get what they need in their monitors, and the house mix can be controlled.

Unfortunately, that can all but ruin the tone many guitarists seek, and that can destroy a band’s signature sound.

To make matters harder, most guitarists achieve their tone by “opening up” the tubes in their amps – by turning them up to eleven. In this scenario, when the engineer asks you to turn your amp down, it means changing the tone.

But in almost every venue outside of a big stage, this volume level will fill the room, blast the audience’s ears, and make the mix impossible to achieve. Even amps that are completely absent from the P.A. mix can’t be overwhelmed in many cases, which means if you turn up to eleven, you’ve just defined your sound as “guitars only, with a guy lip syncing to nothing at the front of the stage”.

If that’s not enough on why you might want to consider lowering your stage volume, consider a few other factors:

Your ears – Hearing loss can occur after only 2 hours of exposure to 80-85 DBs. A typical guitar cabinet measures 115db one meter from the speaker.
The singer – Maybe vocals aren’t your concern, but if your singer can’t hear, they’ll scream. If they scream, they’ll lose their voice, and your next gig may be cancelled.
The audience – In a small venue, guitar amps can overwhelm and hurt audience’s ears quickly, which may cause them to disengage.
Your band – If the guitars are too loud, the bass will turn up. The drums will play louder. The keyboardist will crank the volume. Eventually everything will sound distorted and no one will know who’s who.

Achieving The Balance

So, what’s the solution? You may not want to hear this – but turn it down. Fortunately, there are a number of ways you can reduce your overall volume without ruining your tone.

Elevate Your Amp – If your number one problem is hearing yourself, start by elevating your amp closer to ear level, or pointing it toward you.
Use a smaller or lower power cabinet or a preamp pedal– In many smaller venues, you can opt for a smaller amp such as Carvin Audio’s V112E extension cabinet, or use a preamp pedal like Carvin’s VLD1 Legacy Drive – or this little badass:

Use a post-phase-inverter master volume (aka PPIMV) – An amp using this technology places the master volume after after the phase inverter, allowing you to keep a cranked-up tone while controlling output volume.
Use an attenuator – Patching a power attenuator between the amp and speaker cabinet can also help reduce volume while maintaining tone.
Use an amp shield or baffle – If you’re not having problems hearing yourself, you can use a shield to reduce overall stage volume while maintaining your tone.
Point it back (or to the side) – Known as “backwashing” or “sidewashing”, pointing your cabinet toward the back or side wall may work to reduce in-your-face volume and help tame the sound engineer’s mix.
Try a speaker simulator – Famously used by Rush’s Alex Lifeson, speaker simulators take input from an amplifier and feed it directly to the sound system.

It’s Possible

The encouraging thing is, it’s more than possible to achieve a best-of-both worlds, opened up, high quality guitar sound on stage, while still leaving room for the rest of the band and the sound engineer to help you put your best foot forward. For more discussion on proper stage volume, check out How To Improve Your Live Shows By Reducing Your Stage Volume, on this blog.

And let us know your best techniques for keeping the balance on stage!

If you have questions or want to talk, just hit me up on Facebook @AaronJTrumm – or email me aaron @ aarontrumm.com

Tips For Setting Up Quickly On Stage

September 12, 2022 by Aaron

Audio Instruction, Carvin Amps and Audio, Instructional Stuff, Published Work

aaron trumm, carvin, carvin amps and audio, live music, music, music tips, stage, stage setup, tips for setting up quickly on stage

This article was written originally for the blog at Carvin Amps and Audio. I repost it here, and encourage you to check out Carvin’s amazing line of products!

Nothing saps your energy on stage like running late and being in a rush. To boot, you can’t always get into a venue at 9AM like the big shows do and set up. So, getting your stage set up done quickly and efficiently is crucial to ongoing success as a gigging musician.

Here are some of our best tips for getting your setup done quickly and easily, so you might have a chance at a good sound check and a little break before rocking the crowd.

Get Organized Today

Spend some time on an off day to organize gear. Label cables, fix equipment, and pack gear so you know exactly where everything is. Make sure you have fresh batteries (and backups) in all your battery powered gear such as wireless receivers and pedals.

You can even go so far as to carry an inventory checklist, color code cables, or preassemble racks and pedal boards.

No matter what you do, use high quality cables and coil them properly.

Stay Organized Yesterday

An easy setup starts before the gig. In fact, it starts at the end of the previous gig. You’ll be tempted to just throw everything in a bag and get going after a long night and plenty of peer pressure to either get to the party (or bed). Fight that urge and pack up gear properly – especially cables.

Plan Ahead

If possible, visit the venue days ahead of time and get the lay of the land. Note the size and location of the stage, the parking situation, when and where you’ll be loading in, and any obstacles you may face on show day. Get to know the staff and management well enough that you can ask for their help with things like getting in the door and moving furniture.

Especially important: find out whether you’ll need to provide a P.A.

As an extra bonus, prepare a stage plot even if the venue doesn’t need one. This will help you lay things out consistently, which is faster than re-inventing the wheel every show.

Practice

Setting up gear is like any other musical skill. The more you practice, the more proficient you become. So, dedicate some rehearsal time to starting from ground zero, setting yourself up, setting up a P.A., and getting ready.

Arrive Early

Things almost never go as planned. Arrive at least a half an hour before planned load in time to get your bearings, introduce yourself (again) to the staff, and get the process started. In some cases, this will mean waiting half an hour for somebody to arrive and open the door, but that’s better than being late and looking unprofessional.

Manage Space

When you start loading in, don’t put gear directly on the stage. Find a designated area off stage for prep, and load only what you need onto the stage when you’re ready. This may be required if you’re closely following another band. In that case, you can use the between time to pre-assemble drumkits, tune guitars, and generally get as much done as possible before taking the stage.

Focus

As much as you love your entourage and those rabid fans that come three hours early, you should ignore them during setup. Be friendly, of course, but set up the expectation beforehand that when you’re setting up, you’re not available for chit-chat and beers.

While you’re at it, stay focused on your own task, rather than managing the work of your other band members. When you’re completely done with your part, you should offer to help, but be sure to take direction and do what actually helps.

Load In Help

If you’ve got extra hands, use them! Minimize the number of trips you take from the car by getting multiple people to carry or using carts.

Keep Calm and Get Er Done

Finally, relax. Probably the number one reason for arriving early, not being in a rush may be your number one efficiency tool. If you’re well prepared, organized, and calm set up will run smoothly, you’ll iron out any problems quickly, and the night is very likely to go well.

Try these tips out at your next gig and let us know how it went. And for tips on keeping your stage clean and tidy, check out Streaming Lining Your Band’s Stage Setup.

If you have questions or want to talk, just hit me up on Facebook @AaronJTrumm – or email me aaron @ aarontrumm.com

live-music

Mastering Good Stage Organization

Other Reasons To Get It Together

Keys to Good Stage Organization

Stay Organized, Stay Professional

Start With the Drums: Cleaning Up Your Stage Sound from the Ground Up

Cleaning Up Your Stage Sound: Volume First

It’s Not All Volume

Worth It In The End

Proper Stage Volume: Why (and How) You Might Want to Turn Your Amp Down on Stage

The Can’t Hear Myself War

But The Tone!

Achieving The Balance

It’s Possible

Tips For Setting Up Quickly On Stage

Get Organized Today

Stay Organized Yesterday

Plan Ahead

Practice

Arrive Early

Manage Space

Focus

Load In Help

Keep Calm and Get Er Done