How to make the perfect tech rider for your band

Being a live sound engineer has taught me many life lessons; one of those is ‘not having a tech rider is better than a bad tech rider’. If you came looking for this post, I don’t have to tell you what a tech rider is. It’s your band’s technical profile/requirement for the organizers, sound vendor and engineer to be prepared with stuff you need on stage.

Do you need one?

If you want to put a gig together without too many words flying around during sound check, yes. Tech riders are great, they not only bring the sound vendor and sound engineer up to speed, but also work as a brilliant check list for the band.

It’s your insurance policy in case the equiment is a mess. I am using some screen grabs from a tech rider I use for Swarathma, a band I frequently travel with.

What goes into a tech rider?

1. The line up
This gives a simple but precise overview of the band.

Audio Workshop for Musicians – A series starting in Bangalore

In all these years of gigging and traveling, I met many great musicians who were either partially or totally handicapped by technology. I tried to help many on stage, at the last minute, tweaking their tones and helping them with all the stuff that is “pro-audio”. I thank all those wonderful musicians who inspired me to come up with this special “Audio Workshop for Musicians” series aimed at enabling musicians to conquer technology and concentrate on music.

Rahul Samuel’s Audio Workshop for Musicians