Poll: what's your flavor -- recording or live?

[Eric]

Lately I've been thinking that with guitar, people tend to focus their energies (or at least their expertise) on either making recordings or doing live sound. Which are you? Do you have a preference?

I've given recording a spin, but I'm definitely more into live sound at this point. Though I know some pertinent information, I've learned relatively little about recording. I have picked up a good-sized chunk of live-sound knowledge.

Just curious to see where all of you are. Some people on here can easily be pegged in on or the other, some can't be, and some people seem like they'd fit in either.

[hubberjub]

Mix. I do a lot of home recording. I think having a live show is important but having a good representation of the band is essential for promotion. Two summers ago, the band I was playing in put together a four song demo and handed out over 10,000 copies for free. We'd go to festivals, music venues, bars, etc. and pass them out. We definitely saw a large jump in booking after that. The current band that I play with records all of our shows and practices. We're actually set up to record 16 tracks at a time in our rehearsal studio. If we feel that we played a song well, we can clean it up afterwards and post it to our website or use it on a future CD.

[deeaa]

I seriously hate playing live on gigs. It's really fun to jam and play with a band, but gigs are largely just a nightmare.

That's mostly because when you play with a band in training etc. there's no rush anywhere; you're not tired or anything, you can take a break and just have fun, and you can hear everything well.

When you go to a gig, it's first hours of work setting up, then lots of hours just waiting and waiting until the organizer sends you on stage, and then you must deliver 45 minutes to over an hour of intense playing and singing with no breaks, probably around midnight when you're at your lowest performance level anyway, and are supposed to jump and be active and put on a proper show, or the audience will sneer at it.

All this of course on Friday night when you've just had a helluva week at work and all you'd want to do is curl up and sleep for a full day for once and your head is just buzzing with stress from the week and throat sore from lecturing 8 hours a day for 5 days straight, OR as it's often happened, you just happen to have a mandatory trip right before a gig and have to come there directly from there hoping the guys have set up your stuff and desperately trying to remember what was agreed on what are we playing etc.

Not to mention it's been arranged months ago so there is no knowing if you happen to have a flu or something that particular night that makes it hard for you to perform anyway. Or in most cases there is no real time or opportunity for soundcheck so you just pray that you'll be able to hear at least something of your singing from whatever monitor systems there may be etc. and hope the mixer hasn't yet passed out from too much beer by then (which has also happened a few times)

Then mostly afterwards it's a great buzzkill to have like 15 minutes to clear the stage for the next act/put back tables for bar use or whatever, while now and then some drunken chick perhaps pesters you with questions about the band or yourself, and whom you don't want to talk to either because you're married and all, or anyway the wench is just plain ugly as hell or drunken like an ***, and then it's time to make way home dead tired and sweaty, most likely a hundred mile drive in a rickety van or someone's tiny crappy car, hopefully someone else driving so you can at least drink beer.

Yep, I do bloody hate gigging, I'd rather dig sewers with a spade for living than endure those endless waits in the back rooms of sleazy bars and dealing with stupid barkeeps and inept mixers and playing for audiences who've never ever hear your music before, are drunk so they can hardly stand, and just stare at you while you're doing your best, most likely never to return to the bar/town again and wondering why the hell should you even do this or whether anybody even cares.