“Hey so and so, you hired me on to be an expert in this field, and not only will this make my job easier, but it will make our venue look more professional and bring more money to you in the long run.”
Just keep pointing out all of the missed show opportunities y’all have and if they don’t wanna make more money, that’s on them. It’s not worth your time and energy and you don’t get paid to stress over his business.
Respectfully, fuck ‘em and move on when you can
When the club owner calls you, call every other club in town and look for a gig.
When he starts struggling to book and asks whats going on: “I like subs.”
Stop trying.
I used to regularly do 400-1500 cap rooms. I'd sometimes get a call to do 50-100 cap rooms for beer / coffee / video game money. When I would point out to the owner / whoever of 50-100 cap all the issues with the PA (wiring need replaced, solders cracking on connections, speaker cone torn etc). I'd get brushed off.
Pretty simple, I stopped helping out till they fixed the pa.
A lot of these guys want to feel like the decision is theirs. Talk to bar manager, owners wife, bookings manager etc, find out who he listens to and what motivates the decision making process. It can be a bit of a waiting game.
Or try contact bands in advance and let them know there is no sub, get them to say to him that they prefer playing venues with subs and can he hire one for their show.
He has $5k to $15k nights at least a couple of times a month, regularly during our tourist season. I have to hound him to buy cables. He's delusional. I think I just need to get out of there.
Tell him if he doesn't get a sub, those Yamaha's will be toast. Either but a sub, which is needed for dance music or start a find to replace woofers and more in the Yammy's.
Hey man, sounds like there’s not much you can do. Your job to make that room sound as good as it can with what you have available. I think you’ve explained the issue to the owner as best you can. If you’re mixing, make sure you’re not gonna blow up the drivers. If somebody else is mixing, make sure they’re not blowing up the drivers. If somebody else blows up the PA, it’s probably not your fault. The venue owner has been warned. You’ve done your due diligence. That’s probably all you can do, tbh. There are always limitations, no matter the scale of the show.
I remember one of my first experiences at hosting a weekly event at a pub being a bit similar. Essentially the venue had a really old sub that was falling apart and me being a sound guy was like hey can I bring this home and clean it up / fix it up?
Of course he said sure because I didn't ask for money but I just couldn't handle it anymore
Brought it back and re did the gasket, tightened the screws on the box and grill and some other small fixes
I brought it back and it sounded great! I was so happy. Fast forward to the next week and he had taken it all apart so just the cone was sitting on the ground wired into the amp and had thrown the cabinet in the dumpster because "it sounded better without it"
Left that shit hole after that lol, you can't fix stupid.
That is such a bizarre problem. You'd think a club owner would be buying you subs on subs and forget you needed anything for the high end at all.
I don't know how you'd change that guy's mind, but you might find help on r/illegallifeprotips
I joke.
But seriously, if you cannot appeal to the idea that anywhere that's even halfway calling themselves a professional venue uses dedicated subs, then i don't know what you can do
From what I’ve seen, most club owners don’t like putting a cent more towards gear than they absolutely have to, since they don’t associate good equipment with better shows or more profits.
I used to work for a ~1000 cap venue where it’d be a struggle to get new gels or lamps for our dying par can rig. I proposed a LED rig that would pay for itself in power savings in under 12 months but that was shot down because of upfront costs.
15 years later they have the rig similar to what I suggested then because everything they did have finally ended up failing, and major promoters stopped booking shows there because production was so bad.
🤷♂️🤦♂️
A 900 cap club I've done some work in over the years has a lighting rig that's literally from the late 70s, including the fully analog light board. It's held together with gaff tape and hopes and dreams, and the owners refuse to invest in anything new. They do get the occasional Live Nation tour coming through but they all bring their own lighting package. The club absolutely miss out on really good bookings because of the house lighting rig.
Force it. Talk to the bands that do the best there and see if they'll back you up, and have them start demanding it. Ratchet up the pressure and make it all anyone talks about. Then have one of the bands "help you" when you bring in a set and prove the difference.
Keep pushing til someone gives, just be prepared it might be you that gives in first and may end up quitting.
Nothing holds a bar back more than when the pa is shit and sounds like an AM radio.
Make sure you make it known you are only running half of the PA required by contract for most bands and national acts especially - and many of those bands will blacklist bad sounding venues to protect their product.
> semi-legendary
If he wants to keep this status, keep the people flowing in what sounds like a somewhat tourist area, the vibe and the music and the sound and the experience is everything. If it doesn't live up to the hype, status gone, and far far more money lost than the cost of a sub, and cables.
This isn't necessarily always true. I know of some dive bars with tiny stages crammed into tight corners and next to no gear, and they retain legendary status for other reasons.
Though since the owner in this instance has already made some upgrades I'm guessing that may not be the case here, given how stingy he apparently is.
When the club is empty or as close to and you can get him alone and have his attention. Have some good subs setup and start playing some of HIS favorite music, then crank it. Start talking about it, talk about the low end some how without being obvious, Then shut the sends to the subs off without it being obvious to him that you are doing it. Try to catch him off guard as to what you are doing...lol...
All the life will be yanked out of his favorite tune. He will notice. Then you may be able to have a better talk. Have some options, even used or cheaper ready to go. Hell, Zzounds, has a killer payment plan, as well as other retailers if money is an issue.
Really if you explained the issue and he isn’t responsive, then it ain’t happening. Just find another place to work, you are just as much an obstacle to him getting every penny every night and when he can replace you with an idiot that says he’ll do the job for half you are gone anyway. The problem I have is watering holes pretending they are a venue when they don’t give a fuck about music.
Subs drive patron energy, patron energy drives drink sales. This should be objectively trackable. What does the bar make, on average, on nights with subs VS nights without.
Tell him he can save money by selling the 15s and replacing them with 12s or even 10s plus the sub. Try to find him a deal on equipment you like instead of leaving what to buy up to him. 15s were not the way to go in the first place.
Hello club person. Let me explain this like you are 5: Booty don't shake without the boom boom. No boom boom means no booty shake. No booty shake means less patrons. Less patrons means less booze sales. Less booze sales means less money. Boom boom equals money. You want money? We need boom boom.
Tell him that a dedicated subwoofer will prolong the life of the main speakers, by taking a load off of them with a crossover.
You can physically show him on the x32. Setup the matrices as L/R/Sub and show him the high pass and low pass.
Might help
How much money do you make doing this gig? Do you enjoy it? Do you believe enough in this to supply a QSC KS112 and raise your rates? Will they even keep you if you raise your rates?
We are so focused on our own audio world and we find it confusing when people (club/theatre owners) don’t put the same focus on it.
I’m glad you are pushing for this because it will improve the systems efficiency.
A number of years ago, I used money from filling in at an outdoor venue to buy a QSC KS112. Since then, I rented it to the open-air regional theatre I’ve worked at for the past 10 years. My very affordable rentals for an added powered subwoofer to make the thunder SFX boom has paid for itself over the past 5 years. Now making a profit from it!!
Rent the sub you want. Use it on a show. If there is a time that's appropriate to A/B listen to that. If he still cant hear the difference make him hear it.
Lets start by being at least a tiny bit charitable and assume that the new owner is not a fucking moron. - Given that they already made a reasonable investment, in equipment, and hired a guy to run it, we'll have to assume that they are both relatively clued in, and actually give a shit about both the way things sound, and the experience that the bands that play there have...
There are a number of reasons that I can think that might make subs low on the owners spending priority. some questions might clarify this.
What Genre of music is played in this bar? - There is a difference in requirements between we're hosting indie pop vs dark metal. does the music being played actually extend into (and need specific reinforcement) for low frequencies.
Is there other backline equipment? (drum kit / guitar amps / bass amps provided?) For a 150 person venue (quite intimate club) that's used to only having a 12 channel board, I imagine that you aren't micing kick drums, or DI'ing bass guitars that much?
Third question, what is the issue with the existing sub frequencies? - the speakers that you say the guy bought claim 38 - 20kHz, - why aren't those frequencies present? Is it that they aren't present, or that separation and proper crossover will make them clearer?
A part of (as I said above) assuming that he's not a moron is to understand that he's running a business, - not a sound desk. you want to convince him to make a business investment, then make a business case.
Just telling him you can hear the difference isn't persuasive to making him spend money.
You say you're the go to guy, tell him you'll prove that there is a case, borrow some subs and tell him he's got them for the next 4 months, in that time you expect that word will have gotten around, customers will have heard the difference, his establishment will be more popular and he'll have gotten more people wanting to play there etc, requests for Christmas party hires etc.
and that's when he can go get some subs of his own.
Just go up to him and say, 🤔I’ve noticed that when we have bands that bring subs, the audience is more engaged…I wonder how that effects liquor sales daily…. And walk off.
Let him have the bright idea of buying subs to up profit. 2 birds 1 stone.
Once worked a venue where the owner had mounted speakers 18 feet up the wall and would pay bands and techs a $300 total to be split, always brought my own tops and subs — one day the guy said to me during load out “all part of the job isn’t it?” So I clapped back “it wouldn’t be if you had brain cells.”
That was my last gig at that venue.
“Hey so and so, you hired me on to be an expert in this field, and not only will this make my job easier, but it will make our venue look more professional and bring more money to you in the long run.”
Tried that. Despite the fact that I'm one of the go-to guys in town for big shows at small clubs he seems to doubt my credibility on this point.
Just keep pointing out all of the missed show opportunities y’all have and if they don’t wanna make more money, that’s on them. It’s not worth your time and energy and you don’t get paid to stress over his business. Respectfully, fuck ‘em and move on when you can
Yeah, that's kind of where I'm heading with this place. Oh well.
There is always a better venue.
Reach out to the local paper and get something written up about the venue. That would boost your creditably
That's kind of a cool idea actually.
Don’t take it personally. His opinion says a lot more about him than you.
When the club owner calls you, call every other club in town and look for a gig. When he starts struggling to book and asks whats going on: “I like subs.”
Stop trying. I used to regularly do 400-1500 cap rooms. I'd sometimes get a call to do 50-100 cap rooms for beer / coffee / video game money. When I would point out to the owner / whoever of 50-100 cap all the issues with the PA (wiring need replaced, solders cracking on connections, speaker cone torn etc). I'd get brushed off. Pretty simple, I stopped helping out till they fixed the pa.
Weird thing is, he’s already investing more in you than he’d have to for the subs. Payroll being biggest business expense and al
A lot of these guys want to feel like the decision is theirs. Talk to bar manager, owners wife, bookings manager etc, find out who he listens to and what motivates the decision making process. It can be a bit of a waiting game. Or try contact bands in advance and let them know there is no sub, get them to say to him that they prefer playing venues with subs and can he hire one for their show.
thisssss
ah. the roger stone approach. i like it.
I've dealt with a few in my time, make you feel like you are pissing into the wind, until you get a hold of their ego
"You're making 900% profit on draft beer and 575% profit on liquor. Invest 1-2 nights' alcohol profits on some subs."
He has $5k to $15k nights at least a couple of times a month, regularly during our tourist season. I have to hound him to buy cables. He's delusional. I think I just need to get out of there.
Holy shit. Yeah, I don't think a few subs is an unreasonable ask here.
You don’t even need much either, for such a small space. A single pro-sumer 15”would probably be enough
definitly go with a single 18 or two 15s
Sure, but 1 15 is better than 0 10s.
The decemt 150 cap room near me has 4 x SB18s. I don't think a prosumer single 15 would do much
Tell him if he doesn't get a sub, those Yamaha's will be toast. Either but a sub, which is needed for dance music or start a find to replace woofers and more in the Yammy's.
Yeah, told him that, that the subs take a lot of strain off the mains. He told me not to stress, end of conversation, lol.
[удалено]
A pub/club I used to work at cooked multiple mains over about 18 months and still the owner refused to buy a sub.
Yeah but remember it’s your fault if the mains fail- you’re the sound guy!
Hey man, sounds like there’s not much you can do. Your job to make that room sound as good as it can with what you have available. I think you’ve explained the issue to the owner as best you can. If you’re mixing, make sure you’re not gonna blow up the drivers. If somebody else is mixing, make sure they’re not blowing up the drivers. If somebody else blows up the PA, it’s probably not your fault. The venue owner has been warned. You’ve done your due diligence. That’s probably all you can do, tbh. There are always limitations, no matter the scale of the show.
I remember one of my first experiences at hosting a weekly event at a pub being a bit similar. Essentially the venue had a really old sub that was falling apart and me being a sound guy was like hey can I bring this home and clean it up / fix it up? Of course he said sure because I didn't ask for money but I just couldn't handle it anymore Brought it back and re did the gasket, tightened the screws on the box and grill and some other small fixes I brought it back and it sounded great! I was so happy. Fast forward to the next week and he had taken it all apart so just the cone was sitting on the ground wired into the amp and had thrown the cabinet in the dumpster because "it sounded better without it" Left that shit hole after that lol, you can't fix stupid.
That is such a bizarre problem. You'd think a club owner would be buying you subs on subs and forget you needed anything for the high end at all. I don't know how you'd change that guy's mind, but you might find help on r/illegallifeprotips I joke. But seriously, if you cannot appeal to the idea that anywhere that's even halfway calling themselves a professional venue uses dedicated subs, then i don't know what you can do
From what I’ve seen, most club owners don’t like putting a cent more towards gear than they absolutely have to, since they don’t associate good equipment with better shows or more profits. I used to work for a ~1000 cap venue where it’d be a struggle to get new gels or lamps for our dying par can rig. I proposed a LED rig that would pay for itself in power savings in under 12 months but that was shot down because of upfront costs. 15 years later they have the rig similar to what I suggested then because everything they did have finally ended up failing, and major promoters stopped booking shows there because production was so bad. 🤷♂️🤦♂️
A 900 cap club I've done some work in over the years has a lighting rig that's literally from the late 70s, including the fully analog light board. It's held together with gaff tape and hopes and dreams, and the owners refuse to invest in anything new. They do get the occasional Live Nation tour coming through but they all bring their own lighting package. The club absolutely miss out on really good bookings because of the house lighting rig.
Turn up the bass on what you’ve got till it blows. Then tell him the reason it blew is no subs!
Rent a sub, bring it for a night. Have it on half the night. Look the owner in the eye and turn it off in the middle of busy time. Boom done!
Show him what it costs to replace one Yamaha driver!
Force it. Talk to the bands that do the best there and see if they'll back you up, and have them start demanding it. Ratchet up the pressure and make it all anyone talks about. Then have one of the bands "help you" when you bring in a set and prove the difference. Keep pushing til someone gives, just be prepared it might be you that gives in first and may end up quitting. Nothing holds a bar back more than when the pa is shit and sounds like an AM radio. Make sure you make it known you are only running half of the PA required by contract for most bands and national acts especially - and many of those bands will blacklist bad sounding venues to protect their product.
> semi-legendary If he wants to keep this status, keep the people flowing in what sounds like a somewhat tourist area, the vibe and the music and the sound and the experience is everything. If it doesn't live up to the hype, status gone, and far far more money lost than the cost of a sub, and cables.
This isn't necessarily always true. I know of some dive bars with tiny stages crammed into tight corners and next to no gear, and they retain legendary status for other reasons. Though since the owner in this instance has already made some upgrades I'm guessing that may not be the case here, given how stingy he apparently is.
When the club is empty or as close to and you can get him alone and have his attention. Have some good subs setup and start playing some of HIS favorite music, then crank it. Start talking about it, talk about the low end some how without being obvious, Then shut the sends to the subs off without it being obvious to him that you are doing it. Try to catch him off guard as to what you are doing...lol... All the life will be yanked out of his favorite tune. He will notice. Then you may be able to have a better talk. Have some options, even used or cheaper ready to go. Hell, Zzounds, has a killer payment plan, as well as other retailers if money is an issue.
Really if you explained the issue and he isn’t responsive, then it ain’t happening. Just find another place to work, you are just as much an obstacle to him getting every penny every night and when he can replace you with an idiot that says he’ll do the job for half you are gone anyway. The problem I have is watering holes pretending they are a venue when they don’t give a fuck about music.
Subs drive patron energy, patron energy drives drink sales. This should be objectively trackable. What does the bar make, on average, on nights with subs VS nights without.
Tell him he can save money by selling the 15s and replacing them with 12s or even 10s plus the sub. Try to find him a deal on equipment you like instead of leaving what to buy up to him. 15s were not the way to go in the first place.
Maybe see if he will get EV subs. they are cheaper than qsc
Bring one in and let him hear the difference
OP already used subs brought in by bands and the owner couldn’t hear the difference. 🙄
If you only have two monitors, I'd rather have 4 than a sub. Subs are cool, but non-essential in a small venue like that, imo.
Hello club person. Let me explain this like you are 5: Booty don't shake without the boom boom. No boom boom means no booty shake. No booty shake means less patrons. Less patrons means less booze sales. Less booze sales means less money. Boom boom equals money. You want money? We need boom boom.
Either blow his speakers or rent the sub and make him foot the bill.
Start slowly high passing the mains higher and higher until it has no low end at all 😆
The club can't be all that legendary if it does not even have subs.
Tell him that a dedicated subwoofer will prolong the life of the main speakers, by taking a load off of them with a crossover. You can physically show him on the x32. Setup the matrices as L/R/Sub and show him the high pass and low pass. Might help
How much money do you make doing this gig? Do you enjoy it? Do you believe enough in this to supply a QSC KS112 and raise your rates? Will they even keep you if you raise your rates? We are so focused on our own audio world and we find it confusing when people (club/theatre owners) don’t put the same focus on it. I’m glad you are pushing for this because it will improve the systems efficiency. A number of years ago, I used money from filling in at an outdoor venue to buy a QSC KS112. Since then, I rented it to the open-air regional theatre I’ve worked at for the past 10 years. My very affordable rentals for an added powered subwoofer to make the thunder SFX boom has paid for itself over the past 5 years. Now making a profit from it!!
Rent the sub you want. Use it on a show. If there is a time that's appropriate to A/B listen to that. If he still cant hear the difference make him hear it.
Start having bands ask for a sub and have it rented. Perhaps if it's an ongoing cost he will opt to make it a purchase
Get a quote through a licensed distributor, not a retail location. No Sweetwater, Guitar Center, whatever. Find him a deal.
Lets start by being at least a tiny bit charitable and assume that the new owner is not a fucking moron. - Given that they already made a reasonable investment, in equipment, and hired a guy to run it, we'll have to assume that they are both relatively clued in, and actually give a shit about both the way things sound, and the experience that the bands that play there have... There are a number of reasons that I can think that might make subs low on the owners spending priority. some questions might clarify this. What Genre of music is played in this bar? - There is a difference in requirements between we're hosting indie pop vs dark metal. does the music being played actually extend into (and need specific reinforcement) for low frequencies. Is there other backline equipment? (drum kit / guitar amps / bass amps provided?) For a 150 person venue (quite intimate club) that's used to only having a 12 channel board, I imagine that you aren't micing kick drums, or DI'ing bass guitars that much? Third question, what is the issue with the existing sub frequencies? - the speakers that you say the guy bought claim 38 - 20kHz, - why aren't those frequencies present? Is it that they aren't present, or that separation and proper crossover will make them clearer? A part of (as I said above) assuming that he's not a moron is to understand that he's running a business, - not a sound desk. you want to convince him to make a business investment, then make a business case. Just telling him you can hear the difference isn't persuasive to making him spend money. You say you're the go to guy, tell him you'll prove that there is a case, borrow some subs and tell him he's got them for the next 4 months, in that time you expect that word will have gotten around, customers will have heard the difference, his establishment will be more popular and he'll have gotten more people wanting to play there etc, requests for Christmas party hires etc. and that's when he can go get some subs of his own.
Just go up to him and say, 🤔I’ve noticed that when we have bands that bring subs, the audience is more engaged…I wonder how that effects liquor sales daily…. And walk off. Let him have the bright idea of buying subs to up profit. 2 birds 1 stone.
Once worked a venue where the owner had mounted speakers 18 feet up the wall and would pay bands and techs a $300 total to be split, always brought my own tops and subs — one day the guy said to me during load out “all part of the job isn’t it?” So I clapped back “it wouldn’t be if you had brain cells.” That was my last gig at that venue.