– Hey man. Michael, nice to see you. So, this is the first thing you do when you actually
arrive at the venue or in a studio, you say hi to the sound man, because he's gonna be
your partner in crime. And, he is, of course, occupied with, you know,
checking the microphones, and you ask him what kind
of microphones he's using. You're connecting with him, and you're respecting his craft, because he has a very
specific microphone choice, but this way, you can
connect to the sound guy and you can start being
productive and synergize. So, you put your stuff
in the dressing room, and there's three things you have to bring from the dressing room. It's a drum key, of
course a pair of sticks, and also maybe some gaffer tape, because the sound guy is
now at the mixing desk or in control room already arranging the patching and also checking the microphone levels, but first of all, we have to make sure
that you have everything in hand to be able to tune your drum set if it's not tuned yet, or at least check on the tuning.
So, for instance, toms. If there's something you don't like, well, tune key, sticks, gaffer tape, or maybe, you know, ideally,
one of these, you know, those sticky things you
can put on your heads. And, at the same time, the sound guy is like ah, okay, this drummer is well organized. Okay, this is gonna be fun. And, despite the fact
that the guitar player and the singer are usually
like this with sound checks, you know with drummers, oh geez, it's his first
of drum soundcheck. That's going to take a while. Surprise them. When you're well organized, it's going to go fast, and they will be very
surprised that you're done within, let's say, 10 or 15 minutes even. So, step number three, you're ready, because you tuned your drum set, but first, before you
start working together with the sound guy, who is at the front of house
or in the control room, maybe it's best that you first take care of your own monitoring a little bit.
So, just check if every
microphone is working. Like, for instance, just take your fingers, tap on those microphones, and see if they're all coming
in before you start playing. So, you can actually already communicate with the monitoring engineer, actually, you shook
hands with them as well, over the sound engineer in the
control room of the studio, you can already tell him, hey man, I'm touching this microphone, but apparently it's not working. So, he can double check, and you get all the wiring,
all the last checks done before you start actually playing. That's a really really important point. Everything should work
and get connected first before you actually go into
the proper sound check. This way, you will save a lot of time, and also, the sound guy
will be very surprised and very positively surprised that you're actually also
thinking in his place. He wants to have everything
working and so do you. So, you're on the same page. And if you really, completely, 100% want to own your sound check, listen to the engineer. If he requests you to play the kick drum, play that kick drum only, okay? Because he's occupied with checking your microphone lines, adjusting the pre-amps.
He wants the kick drum? Give him the kick drum. Don't start playing
double bass or anything. Just go for a medium tempo, so he can really check on the resonance. He can really check if the
microphone is not distorting, and at the same time, you can actually accustomize yourself with the acoustics surrounding, how the kick drum reacts
to the surrounding, how your in-ear monitoring
or your monitors are actually sounding with that kick drum. So don't go into any fast playing. Just go like this, and you know what, medium tempo. And if this has to last for five minutes, well then, it has to. Now, you have to understand, kick drums are very very very peculiar, because, especially in the live situation with all the acoustics of the venue, or maybe the smaller club, or even maybe the rehearsal room, the kick drum is the most
important instrument out there to, not only have impact
in your live concert, but also, it's the most
difficult one to sound check because those subwoofers, they move that air out of the speakers and it can get really really boomy.
And low end drum sounds
also consume the most energy in the live concerts. So, you keep that kick drum going when you sound check a snare. And you suggest to the sound guy, without him actually requesting you, after five minutes, you just add that snare. And you do it like this. We're still sound checking the kick drum, and at a certain point, you say, okay, it's been five minutes now, you go like this.
So you keep that kick drum going. You're actually owning
the kick soundcheck, but at the same time, you're starting to
incorporate a snare head. And if the sound guy
really is into his session, he will say, hey, this drummer, nice. He's actually helping me
to check how the kick sound is behaving with that snare on top. Perfect, time gained,
and at the same time, he will actually appreciate it, you doing it by yourself
without him having to look for the microphone, yeah, snare now. No, just do it yourself. Bring it in, and if he wants you to stop, you stop immediately. If he doesn't say or tell you anything, you just continue. And then, a Y, kick, snare, and high head before toms and overheads and cymbals, very simple.
This is the ultimate
test of the sound system, because you have the low end for the kick, the lower mid range also
coming from the kick, but also the lower frequencies coming out of the snare
are actually right there. Then you have the snare
for the mid range, okay, like the mids, and then the high head for the highs. So, you have to think
like your speaker system. There's tweeters, mid range speakers, and subwoofers. And everything is there
just by playing your beat on the kick, the high head, and the snare. Everything is there. Kick, high head, and snare. And opening the high head once in a while helps as well. And then, let's score a very
big point with the sound guy, even maybe with the musical
director or whatever.
First, bring in the cymbals, not the toms. Bring in the cymbals, because you're always gonna play a cymbal in a song structure. You can play any song, actually, with kick, snare, high head, and a cymbal. Some songs don't have toms at all, unless it's specifically for
the intros, for instance. But when sound checking cymbals, just do it on top of that beat. And this is what I usually do, and that impresses every
song guy I work with, or sound woman. That's, actually, when I have two crashes, go for this one, and this one separate. Not like this, because then, you can help him checking
the panning of the cymbals, so there will be one
microphone here like this one, so that should come from
that side of the PA system. And this one should come out
of that side of the PA system. So the people, actually, when they see you hitting that cymbal, it matches with the side with
the panning in their ears.
So first, you go like this. And sometimes I will
just take my in ear out, like what I'm doing with the
electronic set, for instance, I'm hitting each cymbal side, and then I'm listening through the PA like, ah, the panning is wrong. Maybe you should reverse the panning. That's a winning streak for the drummer when you speak to the sound engineer. You go like this, and then you say, excuse me, I think this cymbal should
come out of that speaker instead of that one. Can you maybe reverse the panning? And the sound guy will be like, whoa, this guy is paying attention. Completely different from hey man, come on, get the panning right! Wrong! He's maybe doing other
stuff you don't see.
He's maybe changing compressor settings, or maybe checking something
like a little bit of distortion on one of the cables. Let him do his thing and just suggest him
to change the panning, so everything goes smooth and you're actually owning the sound check since the beginning, you came on stage or in the studio. And after the cymbals, after the kick, the
snare, and the high head, you get into toms. But a lot of drummers make this amazing, very asocial mistake, it's actually a little bit selfish, of starting to do this stuff. How do you want the sound guy to figure out what microphone is coming from where? So you just go one tom each, one tom separate, okay? Like this. And if he asks you to play
only the right tom first, you do it.
Single hits, and you try
to hit that right tom right in the middle with the tip of your stick. Not like this. Not, nah. No, that's not what he needs. He wants you to play the
full blown tom sound. Give it to him. And when he says next, you go next. Then you go next again. Of course, many sound guys don't like, actually, a toms to be sound checked in feels, and that's normal. But what you can do is work together, and if you think it's taking
a little bit too long, you could suggest it
to him, very friendly, to change to another tom. And you do it something, you do it like this, so, let's say you've been
doing this for two minutes.
And then he says, hey, hey, can you please
stay on the right tom? Okay, no problem, I'll
stay on the right tom. But when you still change your tom sounds, and he doesn't tell you to
change back to the right tom, you just continue on the second tom, but you don't go to the third one yet. So you help him speed up the process. And at a certain point, you can stop and ask
him through microphone, or just yell, hey, Richard, are you okay with this, because there's still a floor tom as well? Just tell him, hey, don't forget about the floor tom.
Stay friendly, work together with him. And then he will maybe yell back at you, yeah, that's good. Please, play the full drum set. And then this one happens a lot. No! That's totally going
to sabotage everything you built together. No, you just stay with
that mid tempo groove, and incorporate the toms. And at the same time, it enables your body also
to warm up a little bit. So take advantage of the
time you have together without the guitar player,
the keyboard player on stage, to actually have fun and enjoy, first, the acoustics of your surrounding. And of course, this happens all the time, guitar player is sound checking
while you're doing this, they're checking cables, maybe the keyboard player, maybe the whole section is warming up.
Guys, stay focused, but also stay relaxed. If that bothers you and
it bothers the sound guy, actually, let the sound
guy take the initiative to actually tell the rest of the musicians to wait for a little bit. You don't have to get mad at them, because, you know, if you get mad at them, it always blows a little
bit, the atmosphere, because you'll be on stage
together and play together. So, you should let the sound guy decide how to organize the soundcheck after you, but you can, of course, also help him asking the other musicians, hey guys, please, we're
just finishing this.
You know, can you wait
for another two minutes? And that's okay, okay? So to wrap it up, first of all, you come in, you get to know each other a little bit. You maybe ask him, hey, why're you asking this? Why are you using these microphones? Second, you come from the dressing room, or you come prepared to the drum set. You have your gaffer tape,
you have your drum sticks, you have your drum key. Then you start tuning. Then, you ask him what
he wants to do first, and you listen to him, you follow his routine, so he has time to adapt your
drum sound to the PA system, and then, you start
checking the cymbal panning, you start actually playing your groove, you actually incorporate the toms, and at the same time, you're working together.
You're communicating through
what you're doing together, and then when the other
musicians are bothering you, you just ask them to wait. No yelling, no competition, only synergy, and you'll be fine for
the rest of the day. Own your soundcheck!.