From a sound engineer's perspective:
Don't cup the microphone - if you emulate music videos and cup your hands over the grill of the mic, then you change the polar pattern of the mic, turning it from (usually) cardioid to omnidirectional - this causes feedback.
Be wary of the monitors. Most feedback occurs when you get a mic close to a stage monitor, causing a feedback loop. Not only does it make the engineer look like an idiot (to those who don't know better), you're at risk of getting an earful of damage. This also applies to singing infront of the front of house speakers.
Be aware of the proximity effect - particularly with the Shure SM58 and similar vocal mics, the closer the microphone is to the source (in this case, your voice), the more bass is picked up. Spend some time playing around with this and work out where your voice sounds good.
Sing on axis - vocal microphones are usually optimised to pick up sound primarily front on, so when you're standing up tall, the mic should be roughly horizontal. This gives the best delivery to the mic, giving a big signal to work with at the desk.
Get your own mic - mics owned by venues are generally used by alot of bands every month, and their popcover (usually underneath the grill) will get clogged up with sweat, spit, blood (and in the case of Meatyard from CHCH... liver), and dust. You can clean your vocal mics every time if you have to use a venue's one, or be safe - get your own. Shure SM58's are the industry standard, and have a presence boost to give a little more sparkle to a vocal. They're used by nearly every genre and style of vocal known to man. They're also great because they last. I've seen one work after being run over by a Toyota Corolla Wagon. :) SM57's are also a good choice, and you can check out mics from AKG and Sennheiser as well. Experiment, find something that compliments your voice. The other musicians in the band have to buy their own instruments, why shouldn't you have *your* own instrument?
I've heard the story from a few friends that were there, apparently the girl was on a rather impressive array of drugs, she was convinced that everyone was out to get her, completely paranoid and shit. Was driving around in circles, most of the hippies were sitting there in the cosmos getting a spiritual meaning from the event, a couple of people managed to smash out a window and pull her out or something.
Crazy. :)
All the dates are up on the website - www.cripple.co.nz
Get your asses there. :)
Sidenote - if anyone out there is thinking about getting into Sound, feel free to e-mail me (check my site) if you've got any questions about it.
I did the SAE course at SIT last year, but now Kevin (Harris, head tutor) has dropped SAE and gone with his own 3 year degree.
It comes down to this: a piece of paper isn't going to get you a job. The Studio market is already oversaturated with Engineers, so you survive by reputation. A qualification isn't worth the paper it's written on these days, you need to start out any way you can and build a reputation. Live is a good place to start, I would suggest working with as many bands as possible, and trying to hook up with those who are likely to go somewhere. You may get dragged along for the ride.
As far as SAE over MAINZ, I can't speak for MAINZ, but I've heard good things. I'll vouch for SIT in Invercargill, you're not likely to get too much work outside of the course freelancing, but if you're just starting out then you're not gonna get it regardless. The tutors down there are good, have the neccesary experience that qualifies them to teach the subject, and they're there to teach you, not show off. The one thing I'll stress is this: LEARN ALL YOU CAN. Take every second of Studio time you can get, offer to record every band in the region, take every piece of live work you can get. Be a complete information spunge. This industry goes on experience. If you had a band, who would you choose - the guy who's got an SAE Masters and no practical experience? Or the guy who learnt from the start on the job, has done numerous tours, has a solid reputation, and no qualification other than his name?
Don't be fooled into thinking a qualification will get you a job. I've gotten work in Sound companies and bands not because of my Diploma, but my experience. Sometimes even just having hands and legs gets you work. :)
I may be a little more protective of my hearing since it gets me my dinners, but I think some shows are too loud. I definitely agree with above, that high volumes degrade a mix. I've been guilty of that at times, and one thing I always have in mind is the crowd's safety. They may want to go home with bleeding ears, and we may never have had a case of a sound person/venue being prosecuted for impairing a person's hearing, but I still treat it as such.
If anyone went to 8 Foot Sativa in Christchurch @ The Civic tonight, I'd rate that as just teetering on the brink of good / too loud - standing in the center of the main crowd, it was great during the most part, until certain peaks came up. But big ups all round to the sound crew, very good sound.
If anyone's been to the likes of Ministry (again, Christchurch) on a big night there, then they'll know what I'm talking about (but I don't expect agreement) - those kind of events get VERY loud. They get away with it because they're playing mastered recordings, not live instruments.
If anyone is completely in disagreement with gigs being too loud, try this:
This is especially good for the metallers - go to Winamp, play a track in Winamp, and rip down the 3k - 6k sliders. All the way. That's where the main body of 'attack' lies in metal tone (being slightly generalised here). If you wanna hear music like that for the rest of your life, spend the next year at every excessively loud gig you can find. See how you like taking out the 12k thru 16k faders as well.
Fud - Judging by your size, wouldn't that 18 string topple you over? :)
I can't think of any other vids that do this at the moment, but Cripple Mr Onion's vid for 6 Days of Silence has a part that just slams shot after shot of the various band members. I love that stuff, particularly for live bands, where there's a heap of different cameras and angles cutting one after another.
Forgot something - the last 2 bands (4 Man Bob, Attaca) didn't play, which is why I make the comment about unfairness, etc. It'll be interesting to see how the judging turns here.
Turned up to see a good night of music at the Southern Blues Bar (and Attaca in particular), now that my headache's starting to clear, I'm remembering details.
First band (forgotten the name) ruled, a jazzy Incubus feel, tight sound, all good. Points should be given to the bassist, and the Sax player.
Second band (forgotten the name) didn't strike a chord with me (sorry about the pun), I'll say no more.
Third band (Melee, Malay, ?) kicked ass, bless that little bass trooper with his headless bass.
Fourth band (forgotten the name) also failed to strike a chord with me.
After that, the lights went out, literally. During the fourth band's set, power went out somehow - all that remained was a backup lightbulb (one single light to illuminate the entire room). After 10 minutes of 'What the f***', the guy hosting it says that power's gone down (No Shit.), and will be up in 20 minutes. Soon after this, the fourth band is playing the rest of their set acoustically - you can't knock them for not trying. Apparently someone started freestyle rapping to this, but I didn't see/hear it.
10 minutes later, the announcement is made that power is down in the building next door. Some dumb comment about them not paying the power bill. Things are getting messy here. The bar's not serving either - things are getting messier as the crowd gets sober.
20 minutes later, "The whole block's power is down. Meridian doesn't know what the hell's happened, but they're coming out to try fix it."
Soon after that, everyone is ejected - apparently the Meridian engineer couldn't find some variety of 'bolt' - don't ask me, maybe he was hoping to find a lightning bolt to power the f*cking block?
This should make things interesting for the next heat, looks like there'll be some heated opinions and claims of unfairness.
If there's anyone else that made it and is able to fill in/correct my account, feel free. :)
Both their clips ('8 Foot Sativa' being the other) rock, anyone know who's doing the animation?
Micky Finns isn't the best bar, The Dux is. And yeah, I might be going, I have a few different things to do on Saturday night, and my ears will still be ringing from the Gladeyes show tonight in Oamaru, so i'll see when i get back.
I've seen a few guys do mad stuff with Dub bands, I don't know any names, but alot of them are into the whole effects abuse thing, and they're generally stoned as hell, so they give a show a'la Floyd.
I think it all comes down to what you've grown up with. I'm not getting at age, but the older people among us grew up with tapes, and probably Vinyl. They grew up with that sound, so of course CD is going to be different to listen to.
As far as the production side of it, I've grown up with a mix of analogue recorded and digitally recorded bands. I prefer digital because of what you can do. I think that the 'warmth' you get is a small sacrifice for the audio candy that can be produced these days, that never would have happened on tape.
It's in an inconspicuous white envelope with a slight buldge in the middle, on the way to your letterbox. Keep your face close to it when you're opening it.
I've got Boggy Depot and Degradation Trip, haven't listened much to the latter, but the first rules, I love it. I also love Angel Eyes from the Trip. It's a good expansion on Alice In Chains
I play an Ibanez AX320H through a Boss MT2, 7 band Graph-eq, and into a Fender Stage 112SE. I wouldn't trade my setup in for anything less than a Mesa Dual Recto. That includes all Marshall's range. I prefer my setup over anything I've heard bar Mesa, because of their smooth sound.
I'm not fussed over Valve, I don't think I'd find a HUGE upgrade in tone by going to Mesa Boogie, it'd only be marginal. So nah, i'm not fussed, Solid State's doing it for me right now.
As far as recording, if I've got the option of recording onto tape first, then so be it, I'll do it if time isn't scarce and I've got the time to put down the perfect tracks. But I'll always put it into digital to edit afterward.
I think as far as amps go, Valve VS Solid State is a question of 'are you willing to spend the money and risk the liabilities of Valve amps for the tone? or are you going to spend less, and get something more reliable which can get close to the sound you want, but possibly not dead on?'
For recording, it comes down to 'do you have the time to spend on getting the perfect takes and making everything right before hand, and then mixing it down to a stereo track by hand? Or would you rather have the flexibility to chop and edit and come out with something that ultimately isn't *that* far off it's tape equivalent in tonal terms, to the average listener?'
I'm not really a fan of Emperor/Mayhem styled Black Metal, but stuff like In Flames/Opeth/ATG is good. And before anyone pipes up, yeah, I know that they're all more melodic death, but I consider the Swedish/Finnish style to be one of the main points of Black Metal
What you're getting at with the white noise is becoming quite common in PA's, I'm going to be getting something similar. Entry level example - Behringiner Ultracurve 2496
Add an RTA mic and press AutoEQ, and it'll throw out white noise, calculate the curve it gets back, and put an 'anti eq' of sorts in place to flatten the PA. More expensive models/brands also check RT60 and all of that stuff, and there's also programs like SMAART that work from a laptop.
Heh.. trust the German to be the Spelling Nazi on German language...
To add to the feedback issue, and seeing as you're something like Blindspott, hopefully you saw them at BDO. If you did, you'd notice that when the singer got close to the monitors, he was usually *past* them, so that they monitors weren't delivering straight into the mic. You would have also seen him quickly skipping back from the monitors at certain points when he heard feedback coming, and there were a couple of small squeals that were noticeable, where you could see him consciously getting away from the monitors.