In our continued quest to provide our clients and fans with the best possible experience, we have been experimenting with in-ear monitors. (IEMs)
Our investment has been pretty modest up until this point, we purchased a Sennheiser wireless transmitter with a pair of body pack receivers, a headphone pre-amp with extension cable and the materials to rack mount that equipment.
Chip, our lead vocalist is wireless and using the stock earbud monitors, and John (Bass/vox) is using another brand of single driver monitors with a wireless bodypack. Tony, who plays keys, sax and sings, is currently wired, using a set of earbuds he brought to the table.
Richard (Guitar/vox) and Chris (Drums) are both using powered floor wedges still.
This new setup has eliminated three floor monitors, and helped to reduce the overall stage volume, speed up setup/teardown, and freed up some stage area!
Everyone has their own mix, so if they keyboard player needs to hear more of himself, that can be arranged, without affecting the guitarist in the least.
It’s a learning experience, and takes some getting used to after you have played for 35 years with standard stage setup, however, in the end, it’s only going to make for a better show for us and our audience.
The next step is to move to multi-driver, custom molded in-ear monitors (CIEMs). That will give us even better sound in our ears. Completely isolating us from ambient sound (noise) and sealing in all the good stuff (the bass, bass drum, etc will be much more punchy).
So, if you are at a show and scream out “Free Bird!” (or hopefully some other song request), and we seem to ignore you, it might be that our ambiance mics are not picking you up well. Come see us in a break and tell us what you want to hear!
We’ll post more as we progress on our new journey towards a quieter stage!
Some find themselves experiencing a bit of sticker shock when a band tells them the cost of the event will be $3000, when a DJ quoted them $800.
So why IS it so costly to hire a band or musician for your event? This is a long one, grab a drink.
Equipment Investment:
A band not only has to invest in the same speakers and amps (or larger) that a DJ might use for the audience to hear their show, but they also have to invest into a monitor system which is what the band uses to hear themselves. The band also has to invest into a mixing console with more inputs, instruments and instrument stage amplifiers. This could mean while a DJ has as little as a couple thousand dollars invested, a band might have $50,000 or more on their stage!
Also, a DJ might have some dance floor lights, while a band may have some dance floor lighting and stage lighting to illuminate the members so you can see them.
Personnel:
A DJ has a clear advantage here. Having less equipment means that it could be a one-man-show. He/she could be setup and ready to go in as little as 15 minutes!
A band may have to arrive 2 to 2.5 hours before the show in order to get setup, get a proper sound check, and then get changed and ready to perform. However, that’s not really the start of the labor involved. The band will have to load all that gear into their vehicles, a trailer/van/bus, and drive to the location. Then at the end of the night, they may remain at the venue for up to an hour tearing down and loading out their gear, then driving it to where it is kept.
Let’s examine a typical show. Band meets at 2pm and loads up gear, drives to the venue for a 4pm load-in. They then setup their gear and get a sound check and changed into show clothes for a 7pm performance. The performance lasts from 7pm to 10pm, and the band tears down and leaves by 11pm, and finally unloads at their studio or storage location and heads for home by 1am. That’s an 11 hour day. BUT WAIT! That’s not all, that’s 11 hours times how ever many band members and staff that are involved. In the case of Hot As A Pepper, that would be 6 to 9 people. or up to NINETY-NINE MAN HOURS.
A band usually has sound and lighting techs which make them sound or look their best, so they can concentrate on playing their best. That adds to the number of people involved, and the man hours of labor.
A musician in a band might have an 11 hour day for your 3 hour event!
Add to that a few scenarios such as when the band MUST SET UP by 1pm for a 6pm show because the photos are being taken at the venue, or there is a cocktail reception before the band plays. This could add many hours to the entire band’s investment in time. They cannot setup and leave their gear, nor can they do anything else to make money while their gear is tied up at that venue.
Before your show, it is likely that you requested several special songs, let’s assume 3 songs that the band doesn’t normally play. A musician might learn their part for 3 songs in as little as an hour, while more complicated songs might take several hours. Then the band must come together and rehearse them as one unit. Let’s assume 2 hours to learn them, and 2 hours to rehearse with the band, times 7…. 28 additional hours invested.
Let’s take the numbers from above, where the band invested 99 hours into a show, change the setup time to 2pm so the band can be out of the way by 5pm to allow for a cocktail and dinner hour, which adds 18 more man hours, then add the 28 man hours to learn special songs. If my math is correct, that is 145 man hours.
At the minimum wage that people are pushing for of $15/hr, that would be $2175 in pure labor!
Each musician invests into their gear and clothing, and a huge investment is made in learning their craft, which might take years. The songs they play took hundreds of hours to work up, again, times however many musicians are performing them.
A band has to have rehearsal space, which may cost them monthly.
A band may be losing 20% or more to a booking agency, right off the top.
A band may have to buy additional insurance, and for a whole lot more than a DJ.
There are meals involved during the day, and guitar strings, sax reeds and batteries for various devices.
Some bands are fortunate enough to have a van and a trailer, where all people ride in one vehicle, while others might use their personal vehicles, meaning even more investment in gas and maintenance.
So just how much do the band members make? Yeah, that’s a lot less than you might think!
Taking a $3000 wedding event which was booked through an agency as an example, we immediately lose 20%. Then we take out expenses for fuel or vehicle needs, assuming a trailer rental, and gas of $100 and let’s assume the client pays with a credit card, and we lose 3% additional (90 bucks). That’s 2210 left. If we have a single sound person, we might give them $200, which means only $2010 remains.
For this example, the band will have 7 members, and they each get an equal cut, in addition to the sound system getting an equal cut, so they can maintain it… $2010 divided by 8 is $251.25.
Each member shows invests 12 hours into prep, driving, playing, loading, etc.
That looks like each member gets $21/hr! Not bad. No no, wait…. What about taxes? If they are reporting this income, they might lose 30% in taxes, taking it down to 14.70/hr.
And yet they invested money into lunch, and maybe Waffle House afterwards (maybe dinner if that wasn’t included in the rider for the event), fuel in their personal vehicle, strings/sticks/reeds/batteries. That could run into the 25 dollar range or more.
Pay – taxes – expenses could look more like $12.50 an hour or less. Maybe much less, especially if something goes horribly wrong, like a shirt getting ripped, or a damaged instrument.
The next time you think bands are getting rich and that their rates are outrageous, consider some of the above and you might understand that you are likely getting one heck of a great deal when a music group performs for you.
Try calling in a handful of plumbers, computer techs or HVAC techs to work for you for half the day, and compare that bill with a band!
If you would like a quote for Hot As A Pepper live music entertainment, let us know! We would be happy to play your wedding reception, high school reunion, wedding anniversary party, corporate event, festival or venue! Use our CONTACT FORM and we will get back to you quickly. Or feel free to give us a call at 864.979.1224.
Our New Mackie DL32R – 36 inputs, 28 outputs busses, zero knobs
Today’s a great day for Hot As A Pepper! You could say we were filled with HAAPiness!
Why? Because new toys arrived and we’re itching to use them for our upcoming shows. We’ve upgraded our audio mixer from the Mackie DL1608 to the Mackie DL32R and put it in a new Gator road rack case with a Furman power distribution system, an Apple AirPort Express Wi-Fi router and a Western Digital 1TB USB hard drive.
The advantages over what we had are more inputs for more players, more outputs for more monitor mixes, additional effect capability and 32 channel record/playback. No, it won’t make us sound or look any better, but who doesn’t love more power!!?!!??
A little history about the evolution of Hot As A Pepper’s audio control system:
A while back we ditched our trusty analog Allen & Heath mixing console in an effort to make life easier on us.
What did the move to digital gain us? By losing the console, we also lost the snake, which presented a health & safety hazard at venues where someone could trip over it. It also meant we no longer had to carry that copper coil of evil around and wrap it up carefully to insure it was not damaged, along with cleaning all the gunk off of it from beer or food spillage, or even worse, the outdoor gigs where there was wet grass and dirt on it.
Another advantage of not having a big console is that the venue does not have to give up a table which could seat 2 to 4 people and make them more money. That comes thanks to wireless connectivity and using a series of tablets to control the mixer.
The audio tech or engineer uses a tablet such as an iPad in our case to sit ANYWHERE in the venue, or to roam around and listen to the sound at various locations. And they no longer control both the FOH (Front Of House) mix AND the monitor mix, they simply control what they hear. The monitor mixing takes place on stage, where the band is.
Is the DL32R or any digital mixer system right for YOUR band? Yes? No? Maybe?
If you want to lose the snake, not take up a table in the venue, YES!
If you want to be able to save settings for a venue and recall them and be close to playing without a long sound check the next time you play there, then YES.
If you want to simplify your life, MAYBE!
If you want to save money – no…
Why maybe on simplifying your life? You still need a sound tech out front if you want to sound your best out front. You now need to maintain multiple systems, such as a digital mixer, and a wireless system, and let’s not forget those iPads, which are fragile and MUST be charged and ready to go. Your sound tech may have never worked with a control surface on an iPad, whereas a traditional analog console is a snap to navigate, even if you have never seen that model before! Then there’s the potential for wireless interference which could prohibit you from controlling your audio system! It could come from wireless mics, or heavy 2.4/5GHz spectrum congestion. Oh, and let’s not forget about software updates, which could affect your system’s performance.
Want to save money? Go analog and forget the iPads, and mounts, chargers, racks, etc. Just buy yourself a nice 16-32 channel board and a snake and be done with it!
Nope, it’s not a one-size-fits-all type thing. It might not be right for you, or it may be exactly what you have been missing!
Want to discuss it? Find us out at a gig and we will show you our system and try to answer any questions we can.
You can also find me (John) online and I’ll be happy to tell you all I know.
Rock On!
About John:
John M. Hoyt is the bass player & manager of the Greenville SC based dance, party and event band, Hot As A Pepper. You can reach John at 864-979-1224 or use our CONTACT FORM.
Mackie DL-1608 16 channel digital mixer in custom made Red Dirt Cases road case
Just over a year ago, Hot As A Pepper ditched our Allen & Heath mixing console and snake in favor of moving into this century and going digital AND wireless. Find the original post HERE.
In short, we opted for the Mackie DL-1608 mixer that uses an iPad for a control surface, and interfaces with iPad/s wirelessly to allow mixing from anywhere in the venue without the need for a snake creating a health and safety hazard to guests (or the console taking up a valuable seat in the venue).
This has worked out wonderfully for us! We can save our settings once dialed in and though we don’t like to do so, we can opt to not do a sound check and know that everything is close.
But, that mixer has a LOT of potential failure points. You could drop it while moving it, or lose or break the external power supply, wifi access point or its power supply or network cable, etc. Then there are the pots on the top, 16 of them that can get bumped so the setting is not the same or they could even be damaged as they protrude from the case.
We’ve been carrying the thing around from place to place, treating it with kid gloves and praying we didn’t leave the power supply or a cable behind at a gig or at the practice studio, and then carefully readjusting each of the trim pots after we setup and before we powered it up.
I searched for an adequate road case, but there are none. Even the Mackie soft case doesn’t address most of the items on our wishlist… I found one company/guy who was making a suitable case at one point, though they are no longer doing so. However, the photos of that case were all the inspiration it took for me to find someone to build something similar for us!
That’s when I contacted Jason at Red Dirt Cases down in Texas (contact information at the bottom). I sent photos of our mixer, photos of the other case I found, measured our mixer and sent the dimensions as provided by Mackie over to him. We had several email discussions about how the mixer could be supported securely, where the power supply and the wireless access point could be mounted case, how the mixer cools and what type of case I actually wanted (carpet vs traditional, etc).
Today that case arrived, and I could not be happier. It fits like a glove… LIKE A GLOVE! I don’t think I would change a thing at all about it!
It will come out of the vehicle, be placed on top of my bass rig, the lid removed, and one single power plug connected to the AC, then mics, instruments, monitors and mains connected, and we’re done. All the settings on those pots should be where I left them.
The power supply and our wireless access point are UNDER the mixer.The mixer sits on strips of higher density foam.
If you have a Mackie DL-1608 or the DL806, then you need to get that thing protected if you take it out on the road. Red Dirt Cases now have the dimensions and could provide you with a duplicate, or modify it to suit your needs.
Sure, there are a load of road case dealers and manufacturers out there. I went with Red Dirt Cases after finding them in an internet search and reading reviews, however, what sold me was the eagerness of Jason to get this right for me.. The whole process was painless and he shared photos of the build as he progressed.
I’ll use them for other upcoming projects too because:
The build quality is outstanding.
The hardware is not going to fail on me like budget cases I have had.
If you are in the Greenville / Upstate SC area and catch our band out, I’ll be happy to show it to you in person at a gig or even at my office, just let me know. – John
Here are some photos:
Closed view of Red Dirt Cases road case made for Mackie DL-1608 mixerRed Dirt Cases road case made for Mackie DL-1608 mixerRear view of Red Dirt Cases road case made for Mackie DL-1608 mixer
Every non-profit organization has a special event that could be a perfect opportunity to hire a band for entertainment or background music purposes. Larger organizations may have many events per year and sometimes, the event coordinator has no idea how to go about hiring a band. They might even opt for a DJ, or even worse, plug an iPod into a PA system.
If the expected event is large enough, in terms of potential attendees, and the venue itself can support it, then by all means, consider a band. A band adds personality as well as entertainment. There is no comparison to canned music when it comes to energy level, a band will win hands-down, every single time!
Let’s assume you know that your charity event is going to be outdoors and there will be 100 plus people… How do you find the right band for this event and more importantly, how do you get them booked?
A google search for “hire a band for greenville charity event” or “book a band in spartanburg sc for chairty event” may turn up a few options, maybe even “Hot As A Pepper” will show up, however, you go calling the first 3 bands that show up. Do some research on each group first.
What type of music do these bands play?
Is the music well suited to your event and crowd?
Is this a professional band or a “jam band”?
Does this band perform charity events?
You don’t want to book a country party band into your formal event any more than you want to book a stuffy suit-clad horn band into your outdoor party atmosphere. Find the right band for the event.
Assuming your search turned up a few choices, and you narrowed it down to the bands that fit the occasion, determine if this is going to be a band you can trust to perform in a way that reflects upon your gathering in a positive manner. A “jam band” may be perfect if we’re talking about a street fair, or even if many bands are involved, but if the celebration is a fund raiser and the band is considered an integral part of the day or evening activities, then you probably want to set your sights on a professional band.
Why a professional band? Because they are more likely to plan ahead, show up on time, setup equipment in an orderly manner and even have better equipment and possibly lighting. A audio technician who will help get a proper mix and control the volume will be involved. And they can put on a show, where the songs will flow without long 2 minute pauses (or more) between every song.
A professional band will work with you to insure every detail is covered, such as providing a mic for announcements or awards to be given out.
Now, the downside to a professional band: Professionals generally expect to get paid, because music may be their only or primary source of income, and they have invested much of their life into being the best they can be at their career choice, no different than you. A band’s investment in instruments, sound system and lighting systems may run into the hundreds of thousands, and at the very least, into the tens of thousands.
It is for this reason that some bands refuse to do charity gigs. It’s not that they don’t WANT to help, it is just that it costs so much in time, money and liability to perform one gig.
Let’s say you have need for a band for an awards ceremony for your non-profit organization, where you want to have dancing after the awards for two hours. For a five person band to play two hours, here’s a rough idea of their side of it.
Before gig:
1 hour spent organizing the event, getting details with you
1 hour arranging songs for the event into set lists
1 hour spent discussing clothing and gear with the band
Day of gig:
1 hour spent loading gear and driving to your event
1 hour for setup of sound system and sound check
2 hours spent waiting for time to play
2 hours playing
1 hour waiting to tear down while people disperse
1 hours spent tearing down and driving home
1 hour spent setting gear back up or storing away
That doesn’t seem like much, only 3 hours planning and 9 hours on the day of the gig. But wait. There are 5 band members. Which means that there will likely be 50+ man hours involved in a two hour gig, not taking into consideration any assistants which will be used. Add another 4 man hours for a sound or lighting technician.
These numbers are on the high side. I have seen many 2 hour gigs take only 20 man-hours, but they didn’t require lighting, or excessive PA setups.
Add to this the fact that each member of the band has to get there, meaning they have to meet to load gear, then drive or ride to the location, putting miles on their vehicles and burning gas to do it. And meals have to be considered because you don’t go all day without eating, and of course fast food costs money.
A band will invest 100 dollars in food, drinks and gas to play your two hour event without a doubt. Even more if they have helpers in attendance or bring family members to help.
Then there is wear and tear on instruments, and the increased risk that a 2,000 dollar guitar can get damaged, or the mixing console, the tools that permit the musician to work. Every time something is moved, it gets scuffed, or it rips a seat in the musicians car.
Most guitarists are changing their strings every few gigs, so there could be an investment for 20 dollars are more just in strings for a few guitars.
Sometimes, a band member has to take off time from their paying job to play a gig, which could cost them 50 dollars or more.
Add this all up and it is easy to see why a band may not want to do your charity event.
Don’t hate them for this. It is not that they are cold-hearted, it may be that they simply can’t afford to play without compensation.
So how do you book a band for your charity event if you have no budget to provide compensation and the band tells you they don’t play for free? Consider making the offer of 100 dollars per person to cover their costs.
It might not be what they normally play for, but it sure beats the band going into debt to help out a great cause. Remember, when a band or its members go into debt to help your charity cause, they only get a “good feeling” out of it. They can’t write off the scratch on their PRS guitar on taxes as a charitable contribution.
When striking up the conversation for the first time with the band’s booking agent, explain that you have a charity event that has no money budgeted for entertainment, however, you may be able to make some compensation. That may hold their attention longer. And remember, booking agents are paid a commission, so your offer of free food means nothing to that person.
If you do need a band for your charity or non-profit event here in Spartanburg, Greenville, Anderson or around the Upstate of South Carolina, Hot As A Pepper will work with you to provide the professional level of entertainment that you desire. Give us a call at 864-979-1224 and let’s talk about it.
As a musician who owns many guitars and basses, I also own many different types of tuners. One of my favorites has been the Intellitouch PT10 Mini Tuner, which tunes using vibration instead of relying on the audio from the instrument.
This is handy for tuning an instrument in a noisy environment, and does not require taking the guitar or bass out of the circuit at all. Sure, a rack mount tuner is nice, but I can’t pack a rack mount in the guitar case and take only a guitar with me, therefore I buy a tuner for each of my favorite axes and throw that in the case or gig bag.
The other day, I had the first problem in years of using these types of tuners. It was the aforementioned Intellitouch PT10. The clip had broken loose from the body, and I considered my options… Glue it or toss it. Then on a whim, I checked the www.tuners.com website and found that Onboard Research will allow you to send in your old tuner and a few dollars, and they will fix or send back a new one. I opted to give that a try.
It was a painless process (really painless for me, since my wife was kind enough to package up the old tuner, write a check and send it in for me!), and today, I received a shiny new tuner that works like a charm!
Kudos to a OnBoard Research Corporation for having a fine product to begin with, but even more so for supporting the products they sell! I will certainly be buying more as I acquire new instruments!
In our continued quest to provide our clients and fans with the best possible experience, we have been experimenting with in-ear monitors. (IEMs)
As a musician who owns many guitars and basses, I also own many different types of tuners. One of my favorites has been the Intellitouch PT10 Mini Tuner, which tunes using vibration instead of relying on the audio from the instrument.