so im playing at a festival in Norh Carolina tonight and i cant hear my pipes. ive got the mic as close as i can get it without my fingers hitting the mic and no one in the band can hear the pipes…im convinced that the minute a sound-man hears the drones they freak out and start pulling down the volume on my mics…oh well, they have three sets to get it right tomorrow.
anyone else deal with crazy sound people??? 
i shouldnt complain too much the rest of it didnt sound half bad!
Many times.
I have suggested to our booking agent that we charge an extra $100 to play if someone else runs the sound (unless we know they can).
If the equalizer is set up with either a smiley face or frowny face, they can only do rock, not acoustic. The equalizer should start out at all knobs set to 0, then tweaked out to remove the D (sometimes G) feedback that the harp gives.
Dorton Arena in Raleigh NC was terrible!
any stage monitors?
i have played in a theater into mics without moniters,not fun!if you cannot hear the pipes in the house you tend to push with your bag pressure,again not good. tell them you need a freaking set of headphones,monitor.turn it up!
Get there tomorrow in plenty of time and explain how the pipes work and what is required. Play them a tune witout the sound system so they know what they are supposed to sound like. Most sound ‘people’ think the drones are feedback on initially hearing them… not fun, but once you explain politely you will be 100% better off, reminding them that you have two mics, one for the drones and one for the melody and make sure they know which is which.
Good luck!
Pat.
pat, i did that this morning. we were staying at the same hotel and i ran into them at breakfast. we sat together and got to talking and brought up the pipes. i explained it to them. the sound was awesome today.
Great stuff! A little communication goes a looooooooong way 
Pat.
90% of sound men on the mixer desk are total tossers, 
the amount of gigs ruined from these guys is unbeleivable, nothing to be heard but drums & bass guitar thumping out at high level, pipes & whistle & accordion might not have even bothered turning up for the gig, a good night nackered by,“yes” the dick head on the mixer,
There have been times that a certain bone-headed soundman just could NOT get the pipes sounding at all without room busting feedback! The sad thing is that soundman was me!! 
This problem has only happened during St. Pat’s gigs where the overall sound level of the room is somewhere slightly less loud than a freaking jet engine. The “solution” was to sit as far back from the main speakers as possible with the reed opened right up to give maximum volume to the chanter.
As the night goes on and the louder punters start going out (or passing out) I was able to re-adjust the reed to more comfortable setting.
90% of sound men on the mixer desk are total tossers, the amount of gigs ruined from these guys is unbeleivable,
I wonder what sound engineers think of 90% of pipers!?!
You have 2 solutions,
Do what magroibin did and operate the desk yourself from the stage. You’ll be in total control but what you hear will be very different to what the audience hears because the speakers will be pointing to them and not you. So you need to be aware of that when adjusting the sound
You can move speakers a bit toward you so you can hear them but then you get fierce feedback problems then.
What all/most professional bands do, hire your own engineer. They will get to know the sound you like and re-create it evey night.
Tommy
Eric Rigler put forward his own solution in an article on the Seattle Pipers’ club page, where he sets up his own mics into his own small mixer, and then sends one feed from his mixer to the house board. That way he always gets the mix he wants, and the house has less opportunity to f*** with his sound.
djm
When you see the soundman work the first song, then go for a 45 minute smoke break, you can figure he turned up the “suck” fader and left you to fend for yourself. 90% of sound men give the rest a bad name…
Eric has the right idea, do it yourself the same way each time so all you have to think about during your performance is your performance. I play in Irish pubs, and mix all the sound onstage into our monitors and mains. When I play festivals I use the exact same setup (with my own monitor), but I send a main line out to the festival sound dude. That way I sound the same to me, and he can run the mains at the volume he likes. I’ve seen SO many concerts ruined by soundmen that I hate to tell people I used to be one.
I am NOT a good UP player (no drones to feedback), but I play some tunes OK and I love doing it. However, from the get-go I knew I’d need to make them PA ready. I didn’t want to go the sax clipped piezo on the reed itself because you have to bore a hole in the chanter. Mics don’t work in loud situations, especially because the sound comes out in different paces on the chanter. So I took off the windcap and slid a Fishman Flute mic into the barrel (luckily my pipes were built that way, others vary). Some dental floss sealed it in place. PA-wise, All my notes are now uniform volume, and with a little creative EQing my feedback is pretty low and my gain is pretty high. A little reverb doesn’t hurt either. I use a volume pedal which cuts off any unwanted noise, and it lets me swell into some notes which certainly adds to a performance with the group.
Correction—Just checked my electronics and it’s a Barcus-Berry flute mic, not Fishman. Sorry about that. The mic looks like an old car cigarette lighter, a little cylinder that fits inside the barrel of the chanter where the windcap usually sits. Other than that, no modification needed on the chanter.
Over the past 10 years, I’ve seen the Chieftains play at two (different) outdoor venues, and twice at your typical (theater-style) indoor venue (same location).
Out of those four concerts, only once was the sound properly handled for the pipes. On one outdoor occasion, the sound man got Sean Keane’s fiddle so poorly, that Sean got up in the middle of the set and walked into the engineer’s booth at the side of the stage. He was in there for a few minutes (I was wishing to be a fly on the wall of the sound booth 
) and he returned, professional that he is, but the sound was still utterly awful… it sounded like a freight train going by (and note that there was a slight breeze blowing that warm summer’s evening).
The thing is, ickets at those earlier concerts ran about $40 each; more recently, tickets for them run about $65 each.
As I’m the one paying that high price, I don’t give a toss who’s fault it is, as long the music sounds good. If the soundman is incompetent, then it’s the paying public (and ultimately the band) who will pay for it.
I think this old farside cartoon says it all… Unfortunately there is more truth than fiction about being able to turn up the suck on a band from the booth.
Last time Paddy and the boys were in SLC, the sound was so bad (at symphony hall mind you) that Paddy was quite…erm…uh…“upset?” backstage in between sets. I didn’t know wether to chuckle or run for cover in a dark corner! He certainly didn’t hold back about his feelings on the quality of sound that night! 
Boy, I have to admit, I had no idea that there was such a dearth of good ears out there..
But, I don;t get out much, so that prolly accounts for it.
I’ve tons of worship-related experience however..& I can sympathize with the effects of poorly managed sound.
Gee, maybe I can find fill-time gigs just running sound for pipers?!
oh crap, I hate traveling…
My friend here just made the comment: “all the good sound guys are on the stage”.
Out of those four concerts, only once was the sound properly handled for the pipes. On one outdoor occasion, the sound man got Sean Keane’s fiddle so poorly, that Sean got up in the middle of the set and walked into the engineer’s booth at the side of the stage. He was in there for a few minutes (I was wishing to be a fly on the wall of the sound booth ) and he returned, professional that he is, but the sound was still utterly awful… it sounded like a freight train going by (and note that there was a slight breeze blowing that warm summer’s evening).
Thats bad alright.
Especially considering that a band like the Cheiftains, I presume, would have their own sound crew. The likes of Teada, Danu, Grada, etc travel with their own engineer 99% of the time.
Also out door gigs are a nightmare for sound engineers. The sound just escapes everywhere and you need the monitor levels really high. It maker for an awful mix, unless your U2 or Madonna and have the best of the best gear and staff. But then the last time Madonna played in Ireland, in Slane, she charged the Irish promoter $4.2 million for the gig.
I guess she can afford decent speakers!
Tommy