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What happens if i'm playing fretless onstage and I can't hear anything of what I'm playing because there's confusion onstage (or better, the soundman is a jerk) ? This happened a couple of months ago, I couldn't hear a single note of what I was playing, so my pitch was invariably affected...any advices?

I assume you are running through a D.I. with no amplifier on stage. Bringing small amp as a personal monitor might solve that problem.

Another idea would be to put your ear or jaw on the upper horn of the bass and get vibrations through bone direct to cochlea. See Chiropractor the next day.

If the sound guy is ignorant, as they all too often are, he may have inverted the phase between the stage mix and mains mix effectively sending the low frequencies to oblivion. Phase inversion does not have to be electrical. It can also occur from various acoustical problems such as speaker coupling with a corner, or standing waves reflecting back just late enough to cancel. A good sound guy should perceive these types of problems and adjust things accordingly.

I have just the opposite problem. The sound guys sometimes crank up the bass in the mains to their personal turbo bass school of maximum loudness, see what the sub-woofers can do, blow out the windows, DJ Trance blast non linear painful volume level. Not exactly appropriate to have a kid with DJ sensibilities running sound for a jazz gig. Then the sound from the mains reflects back on stage from some distant wall about 125 milliseconds later messing up the time AND being louder on stage than my stage rig.

Sound guys are indeed a strage lot. Very few have put significant time in learning about sound, music, and audio technology. Personally, it seems as if many are in it for the party, not the music.

No talent, dead ear, losers at music sometimes gravitate to running sound so that they can still be in the "scene". They also seem to be frequently successful in attaining a high degree of Prima Donna attitude.

I could go on for days about terrible sound guys. Seems like some sort of cruel disease inflicted on the musicians.

It appears like the one you encountered is in love with himself and also drunk with his power punishing you by reducing your volume in the stage mix. On the other hand, perhaps he just is inept.

Imagine having trained musicians who have dedicated their lives and decades of time, study, practice, and effort into being the best musician they can be, at the mercy of 19 year old kids running the sound system who don't like your music but will tolerate it if they get paid well. In addition to that, they aren't even aware that the turbo bass Ipod MP3 128 bit tunes they prefer have degraded audio quality.

In other words, they don't even know what real music is supposed to sound like. So how can they mix it!!!???

End of rant. Let's hear a sound guy defend his/her position.

To be honest I worked with some excellent sound guys....but most of the times I had problems onstage...the story I was telling happened because the man at the mixer simply turned down my amplifier (not the bass one , the one from which I heard mine and others instruments) after a couple of tunes!!! When after the show I asked him why he did such a stupid thing he couldn't answer me...no comment!
I'm 25, sure I'm not the godfather of bass, but I think that every musician , from the most gifted professional to the amateur/beginner, deserves the same respect onstage...as FretLess since68 said, it frustrating to work hard to build a career and then onstage you can't hear a single fu####g note of what you're doing!!!

So He turned down your monitor, is that what you're saying Nick?

If so then this is highly inconsiderate, I can understand some sound guys who don't have the equipment to give an excellent on stage sound but they normally explain the situation and come to some sort of compromise.

If it's worth anything, I rely on my own amps to hear myself and just maybe have some of the other guys through the monitors, also if you can try and find a spot where you can hear yourself best, sort of move around a little. The main thing is to be able to hear your self, let the sound guy worry about the sound out front.

Another thing I find helpful as well as sensible...ear protection, have you tried ear plugs for musicians? if not give some a go they help lower unwanted frequencies without muffling or distorting the live sound.

Hope you have better experiences in the future

Yep, he turned down my monitor, or at least he lowered the level so that I had to hear what me and the keyboard player were doing from the external monitors...exciting, isn't it?!
I will try ear protections and I will let you know...

do a mingus, throw down your bass hard so it makes a nice 'bbbbllliiinnngggggg!!!!' over the PA. and in the confussion find the fire axe then chase the sound guy around till he goes outside. reset the monitor level and continue playing like nothing happend...also if your guard dogs ever kill your neighbor's cat, hide the carcass in your freezer and look for a replacement at the pound. they'll never know.

Well, next time I'll do that...!

any soundman that ever tried that with me shit his own teeth the next day.

rule #1 - never let a douchebag near your gear.

#2- never let a douchebg do sound for you. hire a guy you trust.

#3- if you can't hear yourself and you are not too loud for stage volume, move your amp so you can hear it.

not so much a sound man issue but...

i had a real bad problem hearing 'what' i was playing when i started using the fretless. with the fretted if i know the bass is setup good and in tune then i can stand next to the amp and hear/feel that DUUM DEE DUUM DUUM DEE!!! playing at the volume level you need with a drumer, and hearing the notes---it just didn't happen. it's a matter of giving the low=long waves the space to form. i got a 25 foot cord, walked about 15 feet from the amp. problem solved.

Lately I've been lucky enough to find a couple of really competent and hard working guys who told me "let's do a special sound check for your fretless when everybody has finished and then together with the band"...So I did the regular check with drums on my fretted axe and then we spent a 15 minutes after the check with my fretless...the ending result, both as soundstage and as outside sound, was great...those are soundmen!

Nickbass provides evidence that decent, intelligent, considerate, knowledgable soundmen actually exist. Now please send one of them over here so that we have one too.

Please!

as long as nick is in charge of assigning personnel he can send me a drummer who actually owns his own set. can i get an amen?

Oh the beauty that is the sound guy. I really only have one horror story with a sound guy, most of my other gigs don't qualify.

I was 17, in high school, and the band I was in landed our first show. We opened and I haul my guitar gear in and the sound guy rolls his eyes and made some comment about how Crate amps suck. Played our set and as we were tearing down he comes by and is like "Yep, sounds like a Crate!" and walks off... which is odd since I didn't really use the Amp portion of the Crate, only the speakers in the cabinet (which were Celestions).

But his holier than thou attitude just left a sour taste in my mouth ever since.