Don’t Step on the Applause: Listener Tips for Working Musicians
Gig Gab - The Working Musician's PodcastShow Notes
Your fellow working musicians just handed you a year’s worth of gig hacks, and this week Gig Gab pulls the best listener tips from Instagram and Facebook into one episode. You’ll get a hand-raise monitor check that knocks out soundcheck in minutes, a dedicated soundcheck song for when the room’s already full, and the mixing moves pros swear by: high-pass the bass at 80 Hz, sidechain it to the kick, and carve 2.5 kHz out of everything else so the vocals cut through. Then you’ll build a smarter set list. Space out the songs that wreck your singer, keep a back-pocket list of crowd-grabbers, mark who sings lead for the sound person, and track song lengths so you never blow past curfew.
Booking and pitching get the same treatment. Pitch yourself as the hyperlocal fill-in for cancellations, ask for the next date while the room is still packed, send thank-yous that name the bartenders, and turn a dead Wednesday into a residency. You’ll dial in your in-ear monitor mix with the STP formula (self, time, pitch), add reverb and drum overheads so it feels real, and stop asking for “more me.” And when the crowd is thin, the song falls apart, or the applause hits, you’ll know exactly what to do, because the show starts the second you walk on stage. Always Be Performing.
00:00:00 Gig Gab 556 – Monday, October 19, 2026
October 19th: Evaluate Your Life Day
Guest co-hosts: Megan Ihnen & Alan Theisen from Neonautica
Soundcheck Tips
00:04:58 Roland J. Beckerman-Run the monitor check like this: go through each instrument one at a time while the other band members raise a hand if they want it in their ears or wedge. Move to the next player when no more hands are up. Quick line checks one by one for FOH. (also suggested by 3 others)
00:06:35 jbellitz775-We wrote a soundcheck song: a basic rock I-IV-V at around 124 bpm where each instrument enters one or two measures after the last, in this order: drums, bass, rhythm guitar, utility instruments like mandolin or fiddle, lead guitar, male lead vocal, female lead vocal, harmony vocals. We only use it when the room already has people in it. (also suggested by kurt_ackermann, +2 more)
00:08:56 More soundcheck tips
00:10:27 Donald Bundy on Facebook-Never ask the audience ‘how does it sound?’ mid-show; that got worked out at soundcheck, and breaking the rhythm is hard to recover from. Bassists and guitarists can check the house mix on a wireless; keys and drummers can’t, and don’t have a friend play your drums while you stand at the mixer, because they’ll never play like you. And the moment you walk into the venue, introduce yourself to the sound person and build a quick rapport.
00:12:33 A Facebook listener Tim Greig-High-pass the bass at 80 Hz; that’s about -12 dB at open E (41 Hz), a Motown-engineer trick, because the harmonics are roughly 10 dB louder than the fundamental anyway. Then sidechain a compressor on the bass from the kick so it dips about 3 dB on each kick hit, and the low end stays felt without drowning the guitars.
00:16:00 Notch 2.5kHz out of other instruments to leave sonic room for the vocals
00:17:15 Patrick Storey A Facebook listener-Keyboard players: leveling your patches is the single most important thing. Plug into a mixer with a PFL button to meter the input, go to your softest patch (a Rhodes is always quiet), note the level, then go through every other patch you use and turn them down internally to match it. (also suggested by 1 other)
Setlists & Repertoire
00:20:43 Todd Clark Sr. A Facebook listener-My 30-year formula for building a show: once the bulk of 30-40 songs is learned, ask the vocalist to label the most fatiguing songs to sing and the easiest ones, then spread them apart from each other. Then make sure no two slow-tempo songs sit together. That becomes the show list, and I play the list with confidence, never off the cuff, just like the pros. (also suggested by 2 others)
00:22:21 Gerard O’Neil A Facebook listener-Annotate your setlist for the sound person
More from Gig Gab - The Working Musician's Podcast
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