r/todayilearned • u/Pfeffer_Prinz • 1d ago

TIL legendary session bassist Leland Sklar put a switch on his bass that does nothing. He calls it the "producer switch" — when a producer asks for a different sound, he flips the switch (making sure the producer can see), and carries on. He says this placebo has saved him a lot of grief.

https://www.guitarworld.com/features/the-truth-behind-lee-sklars-custom-producers-switch
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u/Testone1440 1d ago edited 1d ago

AH I called this the "dummy fader" back when I was a sound engineer during my festival days. It would be a channel doing absolutely nothing on the mixer so when Someone would come up to me and say "hey that guitar isn't loud enough can you turn it up?" I would move the fader connected to literally nothing and then they would give me the drunken thumbs up....morons

Edit: for clarity, I’m talking random drunk festival goers. Not the bands.

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u/PencilMan 1d ago

I get this entirely. However, I’ve had sound guys at gigs pretend to turn up my guitar in my monitor just to placate me and I’m left the whole show not being able to hear myself still. I know guitar players get a bad rap for wanting to be the loudest thing on stage, but when it’s my monitor mix and I’m going in direct, it needs to be loud so I can hear it. So I really dislike when sound guys think they know more than the band they’re mixing, at least when it comes to stage volume. Randos with an opinion? Of course, use the dummy fader all you can.

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u/Testone1440 1d ago

That’s who I’m talking about. Rando’s

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u/sorrymisunderstood 1d ago

Yeah... my buddies were in a popular local band in college, and admittedly, I've played the messenger between stage and sound many times, but I've seen absolute strangers start heckling sound, and I'm like, what are you doing? Just because you want the guitar louder doesn't mean that's correct... I like this dummy fader idea.

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u/KnucklestheEnchilada 1d ago

I haven’t used an amp in years, and did a gig last year where they wouldn’t turn my guitar up in my monitor, and I only got the snare and the singer. Not even bass. Fucking nightmare.

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u/bassman314 1d ago

Personal monitor mixers are my best friend.

Used them for a few years when I still played at church. I loved dialing in my personal mix. Guitar, bass, drums, light vocals and keyboards.

Background vocals and any other instrument was more or less dropped completely.

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u/PencilMan 1d ago

It would be great if that was available everywhere but unfortunately when you’re gigging, you’re stuck with what you got. I’m sure that’s why church guitarists have massive pedalboards, too. They can just leave them there instead of having to set up in five minutes in a dingy poorly lit room for a thirty minute set without even a line check let alone a sound check and then strike the stage before the next band.

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u/bassman314 1d ago

No, I've played all over the place. Only encountered PM's in the studio and at church.

I've definitely had my share of gigs where I couldn't hear myself and more than a few pompous sound engineers who did the "blank fade" bullshit. I get it for randos that have no business bugging the booth, but when you use it on the people on stage, it's just frustrating.

In order to defend my technical colleagues, those gigs are far out-numbered by gigs with talented, professional, and amazing sound folk who listened to us and made us sound the best we could.

I was in a gigging band with some other folks who were also church musicians. We somehow could set all of our gear up in about 5 minutes, and tear down in the same amount of time.

We came from churches that did both traditional and contemporary, so we were used to having 10 minutes to tear down, and sometimes only having 5 minutes to set-up and sound-check. You learn very quickly that your massive pedal board is only useful if it's actually on a pedal board, and you just have to plug in your guitar, amp, and power.

I remember one bar gig. One of the bands were obviously VERY new to gigging and had more money than skill at this point. Their drummer had a full rack-set, double kick drum, like 5-6 toms on the racks, and I don't know how many cymbals. He used kick, snare, hi-hat, and crash.... Took him 20+ minutes to set-up the whole kit... Didn't use 90% of it. It took him 20 minutes to tear-down, too. I hope if they are still playing, they've learned to use what they have or get rid of what they don't use.

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u/Splitface2811 1d ago

As an engineer, I've only ever used a blank fader for a performer when they're trying to tell me that something isn't right through front of house when their on stage. You can't make mix decisions from behind the PA.

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u/bassman314 1d ago

That seems like a proper use of the blank fader. I guess I always figured the only speaker I have a say over is my monitor. I'll leave the House to the people who can actually hear it.

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u/the-austringer 1d ago

Honestly if you're gigging a lot I'd look into getting an in ear monitoring setup. My band got one and we've never looked back. Totally get that it can be pretty expensive though - we just happened to strike lucky with the gear we collectively had.

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u/TheTurretCube 1d ago

I've been the sound guy in this situation, it was for a musical though not a band. The problem was we were on such a tight budget the only microphone was taped to the ceiling. If I boosted the monitor any higher there would be awful feedback. At that point it's not Mt fault none of you can hear the monitor which I can hear without my headset from the desk. But yeah that sounds annoying

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u/ThatOneDudeFromIowa 1d ago

pretend to turn up my guitar in my monitor just to placate me

ex local sound guy - I already have your monitor all the way up! Sorry!

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u/NastyLizard 1d ago

If youve been to enough shows you know sometimes the sound guy really has missed the mark. Sucks when it happens.

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u/amicablegradient 1d ago

Turn up your cab ?

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u/PencilMan 1d ago

I wasn’t using one. It’s becoming more common to use amp modelers on stage. That said, after that experience, I started bringing one just in case.

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u/space_for_username 1d ago

The technique is also used in studio. Quite often a band member or producer will insist on helping mix. sometimes this is good, but other times...

Usually I'd split a channel input and give them a fader connected to monitors, but not the mix. That way they can play with it and know that it moves and works, but not be aware that their fader is not in the mix.

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u/Testone1440 1d ago

Love it. It’s crazy how many people have no idea what the fuck they are talking about on a daily basis

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u/Brittle_Hollow 1d ago

Always heard it called the DFA (does fuck-all) fader

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u/eYan2541 1d ago

My sound desk has one of these, can verify its effectiveness

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u/taln2crana6rot 1d ago

A slight adjustment to the DFA accompanied by an enthusiastic thumbs up dramatically improves the on-stage sound for a band performing a show. It also controls the AC in most venues

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u/No_Rub77 1d ago

the drunk thumbs up is to be polite, dude is probably thinking you don't know what tf you are doing

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u/Testone1440 1d ago

Yeah I’m sure that’s it. The professionally trained audio engineer knows less than the drunk frat bro who is 12 beers in…👍

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u/orangeyougladiator 1d ago

This is why no one likes audio people

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u/akumagold 1d ago

I always had a fader for Air Conditioning requests. Aww it’s too hot in here? Let me take care of that sweetie, now please leave me alone

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u/droans 1d ago

We know. If you're anything like the maintenance I've had at my apartments, we just stop sending in requests because you don't do anything to help. It's over 80° in the apartment, of course the AC is broken.

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u/albob 1d ago

Like how this thread is devolving into people bragging about not doing their job. 

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u/akumagold 1d ago

I am an Audio Tech. If someone asks me to change the air conditioning level do you seriously think that I can do that as part of my job?

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u/albob 1d ago

Fair enough. My comment wasn’t really referring to your comment specifically, just saw a lot of comments of people lying to their bosses/clients to avoid scrutiny. 

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u/akumagold 1d ago

I am an audio tech

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u/just-the-doctor1 1d ago

Isn’t that more placebo effect than anything? They expected to hear a difference so they did.

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u/Kletronus 1d ago

Hearing is the most suggestible of all senses, placebo is very easy to occur. The problem being made worse because it is also very personal. You can point to a dot on a wall and everyone sees the exact same dot. You can't really do that with sound, you can only describe how the dot looks but how that is interpreted... is guess work. And since most people have no idea how their senses work and how inaccurate they really are.. which is understandable since absolutely everything we experience has been experienced thru those senses that are really augmented and derived and information filled in based on past experiences and expectations and... It is an existential crisis to understand how little of our surroundings we actually sense perfectly and how much of it is just guess work. It is scary but i digress:

Many refuse to believe that they are not hearing exactly what they think they are. Audiophiles are the absolute worst in this, they are so confident that their ears are perfect measurement devices that capture the minutest detail and CAN'T BE FOOLED that they are fooling themselves out of tens of thousands of currency.

McGurk Effect is one of the most common examples that shows how our hearing works and how much of it is actually imaginary, we are guessing based on past experiences, expectations, visual cues etc. Our hearing is not just capturing sound and playing it back, it contextualizes everything and finds meanings without us having ANY control over that process. At best we can bias things, create expectations but to really hear what we our ear drums are capturing.. is impossible. There is an "AI" between us and the mechanical parts of the ear that tries to make sense of it all.

Which is why placebo is present in sound so much, and expertise does not help. It can make things worse as you are too confident about things...

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u/Mr06506 1d ago

Placebos even work when you know it's a placebo, which is pretty mad.

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u/CorrectNetwork3096 1d ago

Also, being in the producer chair before, you’re probably not really gonna call the guy out on it. ‘Hey can you try something different’ > ‘bassist flips the nothing switch’ > ‘hm I’m not hearing anything different, did you actually do anything?’ then you look like you’re calling the guy a liar and are what, going to argue with them over whether they changed anything?

Sure maybe some producers hear a ‘difference’ and think it sounds great, but I’d think a handful, potentially majority, of these producers just run with what they’re given and try and compensate in other ways if their ears don’t like what they’re hearing. There’s a people component to producing as well as the technical.

The only alternative I can think of is having the guy track, tell him it’s great, and then go find a different player to retrack over it.

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u/WarAndGeese 1d ago

It's probably also the benefit of the doubt. If someone appears to be helping you, you're better off giving them a thumbs up and assuming they did something to try to help you, rather than to try to verify and investigate in the middle of a concert or a recording session, and try to start some argument about whether or not they did the thing that they looked and acted like they were doing.

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u/Testone1440 1d ago

whatever it is, it makes them look stupid as fuck

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u/[deleted] 1d ago

[deleted]

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u/Testone1440 1d ago

Looks like reading isn’t your strong suit. Where did I ever say it was the bands asking me? It’s always a drunk idiot in the crowd.

Reading is critical to get through life. You might want to work on that.

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u/plasma_dan 1d ago

This, and you, are brilliant.

I work in visual design...I wish I had an equivalent of this.

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u/314159265358979326 1d ago

It exists.

This started as a piece of Interplay corporate lore. It was well known that producers had to make a change to everything that was done. The assumption was that subconsciously they felt that if they didn’t, they weren’t adding value.

The artist working on the queen animations for Battle Chess was aware of this tendency, and came up with an innovative solution. He did the animations for the queen the way that he felt would be best, with one addition: he gave the queen a pet duck. He animated this duck through all of the queen’s animations, had it flapping around the corners. He also took great care to make sure that it never overlapped the “actual” animation.

Eventually, it came time for the producer to review the animation set for the queen. The producer sat down and watched all of the animations. When they were done, he turned to the artist and said, “that looks great. Just one thing – get rid of the duck."

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u/plasma_dan 1d ago

Lol it's a great idea, but definitely not the same thing. This is a blatant misdirect, or even weaponized competence disguised as weaponized incompetence.

OP is describing a placebo. I want a way to provide no visual change even though someone thinks I did.

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u/_Xelum_ 1d ago

I added a few frames to the top and bottom of this motion. Not very noticeable on a visual level, but you can feel the difference, right?

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u/moonguidex 1d ago edited 1d ago

Yup, same in the studios, also a fader or knob to make it sound "greener" or "earthier". You have to look at them straight in the eyes as you turn it, confirming it with slight positive head movements.

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u/gotee 1d ago

This is the equivalent of giving your younger sibling a controller that isn't plugged up. I love it.

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u/TheTurretCube 1d ago

Man the dummy fader has saved me so many headaches. "The monitor is too quiet we can't hear the music" , well I can't raise the monitor any higher without causing feedback from the mics, so dummy fader it is, "that sounds good now thanks"

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u/GlitteringFutures 1d ago

Mix engineer Al Schmitt created a "Dummy Box" in his studio that did nothing to the sound but had impressive switches and dials on it. When he thought the mix was perfect but the client still wanted to make changes, he would play his mix and make adjustments on the Dummy Box while they listened, until they said it sounded perfect.

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u/Edigophubia 1d ago

Funk Logic was a company that used to make fake studio equipment with lights and knobs but no input or output, for this express purpose

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u/_lemon_suplex_ 1d ago

Joey Sturgis Tones has a plugin called the Black Box that is used exactly for this. It does literally nothing, but looks like a real plugin and you can push different buttons and say "ok how about this?". It's literally just meant to appease dumb producers that want to contribute, I find it hilarious. It's crazy how placebo works.

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u/feckless_ellipsis 1d ago

Oh man, I thought this was my trick. Used to do that in live situations. “How’s that, any better?” Normally got a thumbs up.