Gig Report – the Fundraiser / House Concert

At the end of the night — about 3:30am, I was pulling away from the gig and headed into 60 minutes of white-knuckle driving, I was grinning from ear to ear. Even though we had had our first snowfall of the season, a scary event for these parts, we still had about a 75% capacity house and raised about 85% of our very best year ever.

A few highlights

• This was a house concert – capacity about 150 people not including sound via wireless to a large room in another part of the house.
  
  
• Backed into a Corner
  When I arrived earlier this week to check things out, the stage was set up in the corner and the room was arranged around that. We have done this in other years, but that was for a single performer (Voice and Guitar). I really wanted to get out of that pocket but there was no dissuading the owner. I also had a little of that “Classic” thinking going on and I was imagining trying to get to the back of the L1™ Power Stands to make connections and change Presets. That's tough enough on straight wall, but near impossible in a corner.
  
  
• Small stage
  The stage was 4 x 8 feet, hollow and raised about a foot. There as a thick carpet on top of it. This straddled the corner facing the room diagonally. I managed to pull it out about two feet and put three L1™s behind it. There was a Model II in the middle and a Classic on either side. I was running T1™s on all three. More on this a little later in “The Headliner Arrived Early.”
  
  
• The Line Up
  We had one headliner and four warm-up acts. We were expecting five, but we lost one in the snow. Throughout the evening we flipped the stage six or seven times. No Drums (sorry), this was a Folk, Light Jazz, Acoustic Blues kind of night. Easy changes. The location is a fair hike off the beaten track so there were no on-site rehearsals or sound checks in advance.
  
  The longest turnovers were on either side of a duo where one Guitarist brought his own amp and insisted on using it instead of the “house” system. They arrived late and there was no way to set them up in advance. Besides it was a small stage and I didn't want any back line amps cluttering up the view.
  
  
• T1™ Scenes
  The T1™ Scenes made it easy to switch between settings for the different acts.
  The headliner had arrived early, found the T1™, figured it out, and tweaked all the settings before I got there. All I did was suggest some different Presets to try for the microphone on his acoustic Guitar. Then I got as far as telling him about the Scenes, and he created one on his own. More on this a little later in “The Headliner Arrived Early”
  
  
• T1™s on stage for the first time
  This was the first show for me where I had T1™s on the stage for other performers to use. Although it would have been easy to run the T1™s from offstage, I really wanted to see how the performers would fare with it. It all went very well.
  
  

The Stage
When I went down to do the initial set-up, I asked if we could do without the stage altogether. Because it was so small (4 x 8'), low (only 12”) and hollow, I didn't think that it was going to do any more than create an artificial constraint on our working space. The owner was insistent because although the headliner puts on an extremely energetic show waltzing with his Guitar all night, some of the other acts were more sedately seated. He wanted the stage so that the quieter, seated acts would be more visible.

I wasn't particularly happy that the L1™s were a foot lower and behind the stage, so the owner offered to build a platform behind the stage to elevate them. At the time, I declined the offer and set up all the gear. After sleeping on it I called back and asked him to make the platform. He agreed. He was to make the platform and I would get there early on Saturday to tear down and set things up again.

The Headliner Arrived Early
Normally he rolls into town a few hours before the show, we do a quick sound check, and then he relaxes, visits with folks, and then the show begins. This was the first time we were going to have several warm-ups.

Unbeknownst to me, he flew in the night before and stayed at the house. I wish I had known because it would have been nice to head down there and visit. After all, how often can you hang out with someone who has been on the road for nearly forty years? He figures that he's up to around 12,000 shows.

Anyway, I was headed out the door around noon. I like to have a lot of lead time to get there and I was anticipating an hour or two of work at the other end. The snow was already falling and the weather forecast was dire. I phoned ahead to see if there were any last-minute pickups to be made on the way. I found out that our headliner had helped build the platform for the L1™s, torn-down all the gear, put the platform in place, and then set up all the gear again. He has a lot of energy.

By the time I arrived, he had acquainted himself with the T1™, found the Presets, explored the effects. He had basically done everything but save his settings as a Scene. He had also discovered my microphone case and suggested that we try something different for mic'ing the Acoustic Guitar. So we did that, and tweaked a few settings. Then he saved it all as a Scene. Just an aside, he runs his Guitar with a pickup and then likes a microphone on stage with all the low end cut out, and the gain relatively low so that he can lean into it when he wants some more “air” in the sound. We ended up using an AKG C1000s with the hypercardioid insert for this.

Okay – so let's review. Here is a fellow who: with no help from me, tore down my set up, and set it up again, discovered the T1™, figured out how to use it including Presets, Effects, zEQ all within a couple of hours. His prior experience with the L1™ was having played through one a year ago, and once, the year before that. Oh, and somewhere in there he managed to rearrange all the chairs in the room and clear the snow from the patio deck. So any concerns that I might have had about the complexity of the user interface have been allayed.

For the rest of the night as we moved different acts on and off the stage, he was right in there helping people with their settings on the T1™. He wanted to make sure he understood it, and this was his way of doing that.

Later, during his part of the show, he frequently mentioned the great gear -- “It's marvelous, don't you think?”-- and the wonderful job I was doing with the sound. I felt guilty taking credit for any of it.

Except for the snow, it was a great night. One of the acts got stranded on the way, so we had to stretch my set. That was nice because it was an unrehearsed reunion with an old musical collaborator. Good times. We've now got a few more gigs booked in December and January.

After the show was over, I could not dissuade our road-warrior headliner from helping me to tear it all down, pack it up and load it into the car. While we were doing this, other volunteers were cleaning up the debris and putting the house back in order. Somewhere in there we took half hour to just sit back and enjoy our experience with the L1™s, explore the differences between the models, ponder the history of ToneMatch™ Presets, and share raves about the design of the overall System and specifically the T1™.


If you are still with me, thanks for reading. A few things to take from this:

• T1™ - very, very, very good.
  You don't have to invest hours with the manual to use it at a gig, although I would recommend reading the manual at some point.
  
  There is a little more to explain (compared to the R1 Remote) now that we have separate EQ for each channel, but people seemed to understand it very quickly. You can explain volume, mute, channel switching for the Tuner and EQ – all in a couple of minutes.
  
  The Tuner was a big hit.
  
  
• T1™ plus Classic is a wonderful working duo.
  Most of the night we used the two Classics with T1™s. We used the Model II for our headliner. It just works.
  
  
  
• Avoid the corners. It was very bass-heavy in there; although, it sounded great out front. I find it can be really tough to control feedback on the open strings of my Acoustic Guitar in these situations.
  
  
• House concerts are great!
  
  

That's it for me for now. Thanks for reading, and if you have any questions, fire away.

edit: spelling fundraiser, grammar

This message has been edited. Last edited by: ST,

quote:

No Drums (sorry),

You should have called me ST.I would have driven the 1500 miles for that one.
It sounds like a great time. I wish I could have been there.
Rick

Hey Rick,

I would have been happy to pick you up at the airport!

To all - I completely forgot to mention this.

Preamps, DI Boxes, Tuners, Cables, Wall Warts and Batteries

I have a carrying case with Preamps, DI Boxes, Tuners, Cables, Wall Warts and Batteries that I drag along to events like this.

Although there was at least one Acoustic Guitar with at pickup for each set. I didn't need anything but the T1™. Not even for the passive piezo pickups without preamps. That's another 30 pound bag I don't need to carry! The contents of that back well exceeds the cost of a couple of T1™s. That's not a completely fair comparison because there's stuff enough in the bag for at least three Guitarists - but you get the idea.

It's not just the weight and the money, but the care, feeding and maintenance these thing take. For shows like this I used to put an Acoustic Guitar preamp or DI and often a Tuner on the floor beside each microphone stand. You can go through a lot of nine-volt batteries if you don't run power supplies for these on the stage.

I'm just sayin' - glad those days are behind.

Hi ST!

Sounds like you had a busy weekend! Glad it all worked out, despite the snow!

Couple of questions... 1) How many B1's, if any, did you use per system? 2) Can you sketch up a diagram of the stage and layout for reference?

Lots of times we are put into the "corner" to perform. I'm just wondering if you had a different orientation of things, than us.

House concerts are new to me. I'm not familiar with folks holding them in my area, but I'm sure they must exist around here. Sounds fun! Thanks for the report.

Hi ST,

Great report. I felt like I was there.

We just had our first snow last night and it's cold here.

I've been watching the house concert trend for about five years now. The whole idea sounds so unbelievably right to me, and I'm watching for that inflection point when the wheels finally leave the runway.

What does this community think about the house party as a concept? Can it become a mega trend?

Ken

Hi John,

Here are some Sketches of the stage layout.

Please Note:
I would NOT set up in a corner like this again. It sounded great for the audience but on stage it was a little boomy.


The room was approximately 50 x 50' with an extension off the opposite corner. So we were playing to people as far away as 85 feet at the far end.

This is pretty close to scale for the distances, so the performers were about 3-4 feet in front of the L1™s. Not a lot of room given the 2500+ square feet we were trying to fill.

Duo

Here is how things looked for the warm-up acts that were duos.

I was on the left side as you view this, and found it very bass heavy for my acoustic Guitar. My partner on the other side said it was a little boomy but not too bad. We both had the zEQ settings with the bass at -6.0 db or so. I had the ParaEQ at -12db at 50 Hz with the width at .5.

I play finger style, no picks - so when I dig in, especially for soloing, I get a bit of finger "thump". The parametric EQ really helps with that.

My partner for the night plays mainly with a pick so he doesn't have that issue.

.

The Piano was not used.
The L1™ Model II was not used for the warm-ups acts.

more coming...

This message has been edited. Last edited by: ST,

Here is how our headliner looked on stage. He ran through the Model II.



It felt a little bottom heavy but not nearly as much as it did in the duo setup.

We have done other shows where it was just him, with no warm-up acts. We used a single L1™ Classic in the same position as the L1™ above. Things sounded fine.

Minor note: We pulled the other microphone stands off to the sides during this part of the show.

Not shown: There was a T1™ on the microphone stand on the right. Inputs were:
1 - Vocal microphone
2 - Guitar - internal pickup
3 - AKG C1000s just for 'air'

He was all over the stage. He literally dances his way through his set most often like a graceful waltz. When he was 'on the mic' he was really 'on the mic' (close mic technique). The same was true for the AKG microphone on his Guitar. He used it like an effect. Not all the time, but when there was a particular sound he wanted.

And I know you want to know... there was one little squeal at the beginning of the show as he stepped off the stage to hit the switch for the lights. We reoriented the Guitar microphone so it was aimed as you see it in the sketch above. No issues with feedback for the rest of the night.

more coming...

Toward the end of the last set our headliner called the owner and me up to the stage. We thought he was going to acknowledge the cause (Cancer research) and the house (the owner's purpose built room for musical performances) and he did. He also mentioned the wonderful sound system and thanked me yet again for doing the sound. But then he surprised us.

It took about 60 seconds to pull the other microphone stands (with T1™s mounted on them) back into the stage area.

Here is how we ended the night.

Epilogue

The owner of the house has been doing these kinds of musical get-togethers for as long as I've known him, going on twenty years I guess. They have evolved from the wild and crazy jam parties of the 80s and 90s to the somewhat more sedate concerts we have been doing lately. I met him at one of the wild ones.

He (the owner) is a wonderful performer, and I was reminded of that as he opened the show.

30 odd years ago I did my first public performance. I was billed simply as "guest artist". I played and sang one of our headliner's songs that night. Imagine what it was like to share a stage with him and one of my oldest musical pals on Saturday.

ST,

You could have pulled the B1's out even farther out of the corner with long cables to cut down the bass more. I've done this with some luck. Of course it's a balancing act to get enough bass from the player's position for monitoring.

Good report!

Tom

A little about House Concerts.

John, the best way I know of to find a house concert, is to hold one.

It doesn't have to be big, and with the L1™s it doesn't have to be complicated or outrageously loud. In the old (pre-L1™ days) it could take the best part of 24 hours to plan, assemble, load, transport, unload, set up, tear down, load out, transport, load in, store.... the gear. I know that faced with that prospect today, I probably wouldn't have the energy to do these things.

We used to do these as jam parties - mainly for musicians. So the people there were musicians and those who travel with them. Out of those get-togethers grew some of the nicest collaborations you can imagine. We still do those too on occasion.


The House Concerts we are doing now tend to be fundraisers. This can be raising dollars for a cause, or collecting for the local food bank. This seems to bring a different tone to the events. We set out the chairs and invite people who are not players.

Sometimes we hire the talent, and sometimes we just draw from the pool who will generously donate their music to the cause.

We state on the tickets and invitations "appetizers welcome" and we always have more than enough food and drink. That part just turns into a gigantic pot luck.

There is a sense of sharing and community about all of this. People arrive early to help set up, and others stay late to help with clean up.

I don't know what the rest of the world does for parties and such, but these gatherings pulled together by the gravity of good music and local caring are a wonderful way to invest a little of life's fleeting moments.

There are a couple of really informative sites to do with house concerts... A good place to start is at the Russ & Julie's House Concerts site. There's a "house concerts resources" button that has nice info and links.

http://jrp-graphics.com/houseconcerts.html

Thanks Mary,

That was really helpful. There are some really practical tips and real-world advice at the end of those links.

I had no idea that this house concert business was so wide spread.

In case anybody missed it, Ed pas posted recently about his Home concert success

Thanks Tom,

quote:

Originally posted by Tom Munch:
ST,

You could have pulled the B1's out even farther out of the corner with long cables to cut down the bass more. I've done this with some luck.

I should have pulled out my extra long cables for the B1s.

I had set my focus on getting the sound right for the headliner, and by the time I noticed the boomy bass issue, we were on the stage playing as people arrived.

I hope that we will set up on a wall next time. We have done it before and I'm pretty sure that it doesn't take any more space to do it. We have done that for louder shows where we had a dance floor in front of the stage.

For the sit-down type concerts, having the stage setup on the wall will mean that the people at the front at the extreme edges of the audience will be at a wider angle, but I'm confident that using Model IIs for everyone will make that a non-issue.

Yes, the house concert is quite a phenom. Russ and Julie get the most amazing talent in LA to play in their living room. We felt quite honored when they decided to reach a bit outside their envelope and host us, too.

My husband and I have hosted Celtic musicians needing a spot between LA and SF dates. One time we even moved the living room furniture out on the back patio to make room for more chairs!

It's a pretty neat deal, all the way around.

Mary

I went to a couple of 'Cabin Concerts' last year. It's the best way to go. We only see live music at small venues now, my arena days are over.

Word of the Cabin Concerts made it all the way out here, actually, but we couldn't act on it... wish we could tour the Midwest someday. And the east coast. And oh...the list goes on, and gas prices go up, and...

Anyway, I hear they're great!

Mary

Hi:

quote:

"What does this community think about the house party as a concept? Can it become a mega trend?"

Personally, I think it is just a fantastic idea...if you are able to host them. My house, right in the city, is not an ideal venue in my opinion. If nothing else I'm sure the neighbors wouldn't appreciate losing their parking spaces for the duration of the show. Otherwise you can be sure I'd be hosting them every month! Which is a shame because my house already hosts all the (Bose, of course) sound system gear one would need

Also, I think it would allow folks who are musically talented, but who are not necessarily well-known, to have a chance at performing for people, etc.

I helped a friend of mine host one at his house, two Christmases ago. It went well enough that he indicated a desire to continue to do it but, like many folks with a life outside of music, he got the impression that it would be a ton of work to undertake on a regular basis. I didn't think it was/would be a lot of work. I could stand to do that once a month. But then again, it wasn't my house!

I think it takes a really dedicated (to the point of obsession) person - with suitable accomodations - to regularly host such and event - especially if they are providing all the food & drinks, prepping the house, providing more chairs than most people would ever need to own in a house, cleaning up afterwards, doing it all for zero $$$, and doing it simply out of the goodness of their hearts for the desire to host music, etc.

And then there is the bit about knowing where all the musical acts are to be found, and being able to negotiate price, etc. The latter being a talent in and of itself for sure.

I'm sure, like most things, it's probably a learning experience that gets easier the more you do it.

Any comments?

Stu