- 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!