Written by Neil Watson | 06 July 2012

Why is it that whenever there is an early morning soundcheck, that the levels change as soon as the performance starts???????
You come in, as sound engineers, ready to do a professional and excellent job.  We get up early, make sure everything is working well and everything is ready to go.

We get there before all artists and performers which makes our start time much more earlier than everyone else. 

The artists and performers then arrive onsite. 

You normally get 2 types of artists and performers in regards to doing early morning soundchecks.

You first have the ones which take a professional attitude to a soundcheck and have arrived FULLY awake, FULLY warmed up and are fully ready to go with the soundcheck by doing the liveliest, loudest song of their set.

You then get the ones which do not really understand or appreciate the need to come perfectly ready to do a soundcheck.  They may arrive a bit late, in an early morning bad mood!!, may have to sort out some of the kids that are fighting and would do the slowest songs they can manage!!!

What are the end results?????????????

Performer one gets the best results in the soundcheck and in their event.  The audience comes and receives a wonderful early morning experience which can make all the difference to what they are receiving from the stage.  That experience sets up everything for the people of the audiences to have that event permanently etched in their mind as being brilliant.

The perfect result!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Performer two starts singing after their soundcheck when their performance starts and EVERY single red danger LED on the mixer board, the eq and all outboard signal processors starts flashing like da Clappers!!"  The engineer busts their guts trying to pull everything back!!!  The audience is bazooka'ed with harsh SPL's that leaves them traumatized!!!!

And all they REALLY leave with, is the impression, "THAT WAS TOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO LOUD!!!!"

Can they really remember what the event was about and what was either said or sung????????

Which type of performer would you want to be, the smart and wise individual that takes a professional attitude to their soundcheck or the performer who really still needs to stay in bed???????????????????????????