Taperssection.com
Gear / Technical Help => Microphones & Setup => Topic started by: boojum on July 04, 2007, 06:52:06 PM
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The more I record the more I have close to having a mic stand knocked over by people in the audience. I did a jam/bar band Saturday and by the third set it was pretty drunk out and the mic stand became invisible, I guess, to the staggering mob. I could have raised the mics higher to make them more obvious. That would halp. But would posting a sign on the stand saying something like"Caution - Recording Session" help? Has anyone tried this or are the wookies just to clever and get past every safeguard. There has to be some way to reduce wookie-mic stand collisions.
What have you folks tried??
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Find someone relatively sedate within the crowd and offer them a beer or a copy of the show if they help you block your stand. I only tried that once and it worked. The guy opted for a copy of the show instead of the beer and then never gave me his address so I got a free blocker that night.
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I often adopt a stance that conveys the message "don't fuck with this" and it works up to a certain point until people get too drunk to be reasonable. There are a lot of defensive positions you can take with your gear. I think you mentioned in another thread that there was 18" between your stand and the drink rail. You need to put your stand closer so that there isn't any possible way to get through. As suggested, recruit some buddies if you don't have any. Have them establish the borders. I've had some pro taper recruits offer to help me FOB that I had to ask to chill out because they were too protective. On several occasions I've asked people who were being quiet to move their tables to provide protection for my space or to create an alternative path for people walking through the bar. That worked out most times but sometimes not so well. Depending on your gear, setup so you can easily adjust if there is a problem. I use a small FOB stand that I run head height and my gear has a very small foot print. So I can stand with the mics right at the bill of my cap and reach out to block in any direction. I can relocate easily. We have a pretty tight local crew so often there are a few of us piled into one dense fob section. Just be careful which friends you bring. There is one guy who comes with us who can be worthless sober and worse if he's drinking and he thinks he's being amusing. You just have to exude authority and many people will recognize that you are working and give you space.
This aspect of taping is just something you get used to or you retreat to the section or behind the board where there is less traffic. Crowd control isn't that difficult but you will never run out of wasted wooks.
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In places like bars, I try to find some sort of object to help me block (usually a table). If that isn't available I try to set up in an area where I think the traffic might be a little lower. It all depends on the bar.
In one particular bar, I run in front of the right stack. I'd prefer to be in between the stacks, but if I did, I'd surely have people knocking down my stand all night. I'd rather make a stack tape without bumps than a stereo recording with bumps to my stand/equipment.
Recently, I've been running on stage at this place, and then running my mic cables back to the soundboard, and mixing the board feed with my UA-5 (if the band allows a board feed). Luckily, they have every time. If they don't I might just run on stage with one set of mics and clip my stealthy mics to the board to fill in the singer.
Experience is your friend, unfortunately. Every situation is different.
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I have tried with varying results:
Outside
*tents stakes - best
*menacing stance and glares
Inside
*lots of gaffer's tape on the legs or
* lots of duct tape if the floor is concrete in a shitty club where a little residue will go unnoticed
* table and chairs to cover legs of stand
* bungee cords holding stand to a fixed object like a column - not a table or something that can knock the stand and cause booms
* blockers and inflated bar tab
*menacing stance and glares
* flourescent colored velcro cable ties to increase visibility
I use one of those big ass AEA stands that has a large footprint and I struggle with this as well.
At one Particle show the club/dancefloor was split down the middle to seperate underage from drinking age patrons. 25ft back in the center was the sweet spot so I pulled a cocktail table and a stool over there to block the stand for me. It just happened to be at the termination of the rope dividing the crowd and thusly was the place everyone wanted to put their half empty drinks on the way to the can. The second set of the show is basically drunk people replies to me handing their drinks back to them. Eventually a double bourbon got spilled on the table and I just gave up. The other tapers were back at the sbd pulling a matrix tape so I was on my own. Get a drink resistant bag and keep it zipped up.
Shameless plug - I have a liquid resistant bag for sale in the YS right now.
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Before I die I would like to be known for the following pair of observations, gleaned from 35+ years of live concert recording:
[1] No microphone arrangement at a concert can ever be small or unobtrusive enough. Even if your mikes were the size of a single hydrogen atom, someone would still complain that they block the view.
[2] At the same time, even if you use a mike stand sixteen inches in diameter that glows a bright throbbing red, as soon as someone walks into it (ruining your recording), they will invariably blame you for not making your equipment visible enough, when they weren't looking where they were going.
In the 1970s I used to attach cards to my mike stands that said "WARNING: 600 Ohms." Believe it or not, I think it got me some respectful distance sometimes.
Also, omni and wide cardioid microphones are relatively immune to picking up physical shock, as compared with cardioid, supercardioid or figure-8 microphones. (When I say omni here I mean a true pressure transducer--not the "omni" setting of a dual-diaphragm, switchable-pattern microphone.)
--best regards
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DSatz -
I like the 600 Ohm warning. Honest, and scary for the uninitiated. You are right about the complaints and stumbles. Good observations. Mensch, looks like two egg cremes now. ;o)
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ive had luck with
-duct tape on legs of stand
-hanging my head lamp from stand about 4ft up. It has a Red LED light that people tend to notice
-block with tables, chairs, etc...
and my personal favorite. Which surprisingly works the best.
-set up stand and gear, set levels, step at least 10-12 ft away from stand and let'r run. People tend to think it is the Sound guy's or band's equipment and they don't fuck with it....... most of the time.
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If your only worried about wookies, simply tie a bar of soap to the stand.....That should give you a good clear 5 meter perimeter......If your talking about drunks..thats a different story all together...Blockers and obstacles work well..........You can always use a good stun gun and than stack/arrange the bodies to block in your equipment... :P
Have fun..
Just my two cents..
Peace,
jk
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along with your soap on your stand a diversion of free patchouli a minimum of 15' away may be effective for steering them away.
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I think you mentioned in another thread that there was 18" between your stand and the drink rail.
No that was me that had the shitty DFC FOB experience last weekend. I stood with my two feet on either side of a stand leg and whenever I could feet someone thinking about walking behind me, I just put my hand to the rail (thus blocking their way). Then I would say, "NO, you have to walk around!" It was the first time I felt like a jedi, when I was telling giant muscle-dudes, "NO, you have to go around!" The body builer guys looked at me funny, like they hadn't been told what to do in a long time, but they eventually walked around. I'll never forget the feeling though of leaving my stand under my girlfriend's watch, and then coming out of the can to see the stand swaying back and forth, back and forth. (all while I'm fighting through a CRAZY crowd to get back to the gear).
Anyways, that was a bit of a rant...Another solution I can think of is smoking cigarettes..(if you're a smoker and it's an outdoor venue)..The one or two times I smoked a cigarette at the show, all of a sudden I had a 6 or 8 foot radius of nobody around me. I'm not saying it's a great solution, but under the right conditions, a stinky cigarette can clear a crowd.
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tank top, steroids, and dont f*&K with me look, veins bulging biceps tearing, pit bull
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tank top, steroids, and dont f*&K with me look, veins bulging biceps tearing, pit bull
That's it! That's it! Be a bully with a pit bull, and maybe smoke a cigarette, too. Yes! LOL Why didn't I think of this. 8)
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My best solution, for indoors anyway... pick the best DFC FOB table you can. Attach a C-clamp or bar clamp to the table (use cardboard coasters to avoid scarring the table). Duct tape stand to clamp, and it's going no where. They could actually snap off the stand above that I suppose, but I've not see that happen. Put gear bag under the table, all zipped up in a beer proof manner.
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A pocket flashlight with a push button is handy. You can often disrupt a wook on an eccentric orbit approaching your rig by spotlighting them.
The flashlight in the face has a primal wook association with the fuzz confiscating their dank. They instinctively try to move away. >:D
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The flashlight in the face has a primal wook association with the fuzz confiscating their dank. They instinctively try to move away. >:D
:yack: :yack: :yack:
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Some of this is pretty funny stuff, some of it all too true. Personally, I feel kind of bad when I have to adapt that stance that says "don't fuck with me", because it goes against the mood of the moment I'm trying to capture, when I'm recording a show. That said, I've become really good at adapting that stance, and the proof is in the quality of the recordings. Unfortunately, most of the time this can mean that I don't really get to enjoy the show until after I've listened to it at home. Occasionally, like the very last Guided By Voices show I was able to attend, the crowd pretty much ruined the recording for me, along with my impression of the show itself. At a recent MN show by Yonder Mountain String Band, the missus and I actually shut down our gear and left, because of the crowd; another taper had some of his rig destroyed at the same show.
I guess I'll never understand the mentality of some of the people I encounter at shows, who: constantly chatter or yelp through the entire show; are constantly coming and going for the entire duration of the show; can't take a second to gauge the space around them, and be aware of objects, such as mic stands - or other people, for that matter. In a way, it's not even about the recording - it's about other people interfering with my ability to enjoy a show I'm at. No amount of defensive strategies can change that - at least when I'm recording, I have something to fall back on; I'm protecting my gear. If I weren't recording, do you think most people are going to care, if I let them know they're simply making it difficult for me to enjoy a show?
My wife, who enjoys certain aspects of this crazy obsessive hobby, and runs interference for me at shows, has commented on this weird social element that would appear to make taping more of a chore than something fun. I try not to come off like a jerk when I'm protecting my gear, but the most passive defense I've been able to come up with is to constantly manoeuver in and out of the space near my stand. If traffic starts getting thick, I keep my mini mag-light handy, and make it look like I'm checking something, or making an adjustment, and often this serves as sort of a jedi mind trick, suggesting that I do need this space. When coupled with a pensive look, like something might be wrong, people quiet down and step away - after all, they don't know what the problem might be, and they wouldn't want to be blamed for it... It all really is some kind of strange social science experiment, I think, and so far, I'm not real crazy about the results of it.
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I think you mentioned in another thread that there was 18" between your stand and the drink rail.
No that was me that had the shitty DFC FOB experience last weekend. I stood with my two feet on either side of a stand leg and whenever I could feet someone thinking about walking behind me, I just put my hand to the rail (thus blocking their way). Then I would say, "NO, you have to walk around!" It was the first time I felt like a jedi, when I was telling giant muscle-dudes, "NO, you have to go around!" The body builer guys looked at me funny, like they hadn't been told what to do in a long time, but they eventually walked around. I'll never forget the feeling though of leaving my stand under my girlfriend's watch, and then coming out of the can to see the stand swaying back and forth, back and forth. (all while I'm fighting through a CRAZY crowd to get back to the gear).
Anyways, that was a bit of a rant...Another solution I can think of is smoking cigarettes..(if you're a smoker and it's an outdoor venue)..The one or two times I smoked a cigarette at the show, all of a sudden I had a 6 or 8 foot radius of nobody around me. I'm not saying it's a great solution, but under the right conditions, a stinky cigarette can clear a crowd.
Outdoors, I smoke cigars. Works like a charm. Plus I hate cigarette smoke ;)
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ive had luck with
-duct tape on legs of stand
-hanging my head lamp from stand about 4ft up. It has a Red LED light that people tend to notice
-block with tables, chairs, etc...
and my personal favorite. Which surprisingly works the best.
-set up stand and gear, set levels, step at least 10-12 ft away from stand and let'r run. People tend to think it is the Sound guy's or band's equipment and they don't fuck with it....... most of the time.
This works. I once had seats near DMB's single mic setup in front of the right stack. I set my stand right next to it, ran some cables back to my seat, which was about ten feet away and had no problems. Of course my mics were about 8 feet higher than there single omni/measurement mic/whatever it was.
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the thing that worked best for me, was to move away from music that attracted drunken idiots, and w00ks.
Aaahhh, if it were only that simple!
The YMSB show in MN, for instance - Who knew that a bluegrass band my grandparents can enjoy would appeal to such a large audience of under-age drinkers and potheads?
That kind of crowd will always find their way into whatever might actually be hip, and will do their damnedest to lay claim to it like they invented the scene. Every new generation replays this out, again and again...
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A pocket flashlight with a push button is handy. You can often disrupt a wook on an eccentric orbit approaching your rig by spotlighting them.
The flashlight in the face has a primal wook association with the fuzz confiscating their dank. They instinctively try to move away. >:D
hippie mace :)
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It is that easy. But I'm not exactly hip anymore.
I have not worried about anybody touching my stand in at least 5 years. The only people who even approach it, do so very respectfully, going so far as to approach with their hands behind their backs, and asking very honestly curious questions. I've even gone so far as to walk away from my rig during the intermissions, and, load-in / load-out of the audiences, and had no issues. The only time in the last several years that my mic stand has been tipped over was at my own hands, from trying to reach too far with the boom arms, horizontally.
This includes typically setting up in the center of the center aisle, which is the only way in and out of the venue.
But, if you like the popular musics, I guess that you have to deal with the attendees of that music.
I'm fifty. I've been recording and trading music for over thirty years. I've never been accused of being hip in anyone's circles. Bluegrass and old country are hip, now, I guess. Who knew? It wasn't when I was growing up. I'm not talking about the flavor-of-the-day indie pop bands - if I go to those, I pretty much know what to expect. Sure, I was into GBV for a long stretch there, but their core fans hold tapers in high esteem - the rowdiest folks at one of those shows were up on stage. Only at the one GBV show did I have any problems, and that was an anomaly: a free show put on by the city, where underage kids were somehow allowed in the 21+ drinking area, which happened to be where the soundboard and the tapers were. A bad combination to be sure, but also an unusual set of circumstances, and the security seemed to be virtually non-existent. It wasn't a regular GBV show, and many of the people there were not their fans, or the situation would have actually been much better. The majority of that crowd attended an event where it was very easy to get access to alcohol, and that was the real problem.
We certainly weren't expecting any trouble at the YMSB show - a bluegrass band, pricey tickets, assigned seating, and a ton of security (who, to our amazement, did nothing all night). Someone apparently has decided that they were "hip", though, so that's where all the kids have to be, I guess. Although, it's been suggested to me that the kids will flock to see just about anything at that venue, which was a place my wife and I were unfamiliar with. Funny - my wife and I have worked at festivals where the same band played, with a few more thousand people in the crowd, and I had no worries about leaving my rig, if I needed to. Again, I referred to an isolated situation that was way out of hand - more likely the venue than the music.
One of the festivals we worked featured Willie Nelson as a headliner. You should have seen the kids turn out for that one. Better scratch Willie off my list, I guess. MMW, I started recording at a shack in Tampa, when no one knew who they were. Now that they've built themselves up a sizeable following, I guess I should stop going to their shows as well. I grew up with Jethro Tull - I never even imagined they'd still be around these days, much less appeal to a younger crowd, as well as the really rowdy long-time fans who are older than me. Same with Spider John Koerner and Tony Glover - how the kids found out about those guys and decided they were cool is beyond me, but now I should probably stop recording their shows too. Hmmm, let's see.... I saw some teens at a David Bromberg show, so that rules him out, same with Alison Krauss... hell, I guess I'll have to just stop going to see live music altogether, and settle for listening to other people's recordings in the safe confines of my La-Z-Boy, I reckon!
It sounds like someone might be making some presumptions about my musical tastes, or they're reading too much in between the lines, perhaps. In over three decades, I've encountered a few incidents, but most of it has been pretty smooth sailing. My observations about people's behavior at shows were just that - observations. Most of the time, it doesn't have anything to do with me, or pose any threat to my rig, it's just curious behavior to see. Just because I mentioned a few occurrences, doesn't mean it's hopeless. If in five years' time, you've somehow managed to only attend un-"popular" shows with nice polite audiences, you are very fortunate, though - I don't believe we've all had that same experience every single time.