“The luxury of foldback”

The other night I got asked to run foldback for a band that was performing at an award dinner at the Grand Hyatt. Each venue has there own pro and cons, and some venues are more music-friendly than others.

FOH Shot Here’s a shot from the camera operator right before we began. Now look how clean the stage is, there nothing really on stage so you probably wonder what band did I mix if their not there. But I can tell you that they were there twenty minutes ago. Grand Hyatt’s Savoy room is a beautiful room, the stage is good size, but it lacks wings off stage, that is to say there is nothing beyond that stage, off stage. If you noticed a line of black drape under the screen on the left, that’s where we hid everything.

So when the band first got here, we did a sound check and everyone was happy-mostly. Only because we were required to clear the stage because we were filming the awards, and they wanted nothing on stage. All the band equipments from drums, keys, amplifers, guitars, and wedges all had to come of stage. Cables hidden as neat as possible along the back. Having done that, we only had about seven minutes reset for when they come on later on the night.

So how do you get a band on and ready to go in seven minutes? Preparation. Specifically a lot of looms. During sound check, we kept all the access cable agaisnt the back and ran out only what we needed for mics, wedges, and power. Having done that, we taped those cables together to make a loom, so when the time comes, we pull it out and we have exactly what we need.

What about my foldback desk? Well this time round, I’m just using a small Soundcraft SI Impression. It’s a small console, but it packs a lot for it size. FB It manages to fit just between the wall and the stage to the stairs, and there’s enough space for me between the desk and a stack of subs.

This leaves me with one thing left, my cue wedge. I need to hear what each band member is hearing. I couldn’t leave it out and off to the side or else I’m just blocking the stairs, and there wasn’t really anywhere else to put it. Cue I had it place literally behind me, but the angle of the wedge would just be sending audio to my legs, no use for that, so the solution was just to prop it up to aim it at my ears. It works well enough.

Here I am, standing side of stage, in a very small little spot that is my own. I don’t have the luxury of having space as other venues, but at the end of the day, luxury dosen’t really matter if I can get the job done.

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