How to Write a Tech Spec

One PDF. Everything the engineer needs to get you sounding your best.

The audience for this document is a FOH engineer who has never met you, hasn't heard your music, and has limited time to get you sounding your best. They don't need your influences or your logo... they need the input list, the stage plot, what you need from them, and a phone number for someone who can answer questions. (In the touring world this lives inside the technical rider... at club level, the tech spec is the rider.)

Send it to the venue or promoter ahead of the show, and keep printed copies on you always, because it's not uncommon for that email to go missing. Put a date and version number on it. An out-of-date tech spec is almost as bad as no tech spec at all. As a FOH engineer, I can confirm that getting everything patched and then being told it's wrong is a pain in the ass.

The 30-second summary

Two sentences about the band and the line-up. Heavy? Acoustic? Guitar Focussed? Synth Heavy? How many bodies are on stage, what they play, and anything electronic. Keep it short, clear, and to the point.

If this gets to the engineer's hands 30 seconds before soundcheck, reading that summary should be enough to give them a good idea of what they'll be mixing. Everything below is detail.

Contacts

Email and phone for the band, plus manager and technical contacts if they're different people. Mark one of them as the on-the-night contact: at 6pm on changeover, the engineer wants exactly one number to ring, and "the singer, probably" is not a contact.

Stage plot and kit list

A top-down drawing of the stage. Personally, I prefer simple shapes and labels... it doesn't need to be pretty, it needs to be unambiguous. Better still, mark preferred locations for your playback/IEM rack, amps and pedalboards, every mic position, and where you need power and how many sockets. Clearly indicate the point where you hand tails to the venue, if applicable.

Under the plot, a short kit list should cover the basics of what you bring. Amps or pedalboards? How many toms on the kit? Brass section? Keys? This gives the venue and engineer a heads-up on what to expect, and helps them plan the logistics of the stage handle any non-standard gear.

The input list

The core of the whole document: every signal you send to the desk, numbered, with a preferred mic and any notes, such as needing the house to provide a DI box. "Preferred" is the professional word: it tells the engineer your first choice while letting them substitute what they have. A worked example patch list, with a location column so the engineer can patch the stage box and place stands before you arrive. It's fuller than a pub gig needs (fully mic'd drums, a spare vocal, crew shout mics)... trim it to your show. Note channel 8: on most consoles you stereo pair channels starting from odd numbers, so the overheads land on 9/10 and 8 is left spare.

Example: Below is an example of a real, complete input list for a modern metal band.

* Mics listed are a preference. Where the listed make/model is unavailable, an industry-standard equivalent is acceptable.

Monitors

Spell out your monitoring in one short block: do you run IEM's? Do you run your own splits from the stage (see our guide to running your own IEM's)? How many mixes do you want, and do you want vocal processing (reverb etc) in the monitors? If you run the full Tier 2 setup, this is three lines: we carry our own IEM rack and mixer, we hand you tails from our splits, we need one mono drum mix back on one XLR.

Be specific about whether you still want a wedge or two as reinforcement and where, and if you run wireless anything, include a list of every transmitter with its exact frequency. That list is the low-effort version of proper RF co-ordination, and it's how the venue spots a collision before it happens instead of during your set. An example plan for the band above, running two wireless IEM sends and a wired drummer pack:

Update this table whenever a transmitter or frequency changes, and check band legality before you travel abroad. If the venue or another band runs wireless on or near these frequencies, someone needs to reshuffle to make room.

The tech rider

This section is about the PA and the engineers, and it scales with the show. At club level, delete most of it: the venue has what it has, and a pub gig spec demanding festival production gets laughed at. As the shows grow, this is where you state: do you bring your own engineer and/or console? Your own mics? A PA spec appropriate for the genre... for heavy music, asking for a full-range system capable of "120dBA, clean and undistorted, at the mix position" is pretty standard. And anything spatial: side-stage space for a guitar tech, a table for the playback rig, power at the tech position.

Guidance for an engineer to mix you to YOUR taste, not theirs.

Everything above is requirements. These two sections are guidance, and they're what helps guide an engineer to build a mix that sounds like you. Without them, you get the engineer's defaults.

Processing and FX

Say what effects your sound leans on and what kind. Lots of delay, reverb, chorus? Is the delay a long musical repeat or a short slapback? Is the vocal reverb a big hall or a tight plate? One line per effect is plenty: "lead vocal: long dotted-8th delay, big dark hall reverb" tells an engineer more than any amount of soundcheck pointing.

Mix guidelines

A few sentences on how the mix should sit. Should the synths sit forward or under the guitars? Is there a lot of screaming, and should it cut or blend? Should backing vocals sit up front with the main vocal or further back as texture? Are the drums big and crushed or more subtle?

• Keep it clear and to the point. Two pages is fine, with a dedicated page for an input list the engineer can reference on stage when patching.
• Date and version every revision, and put the date in the filename. "band-techspec-final-v2-NEW.pdf" helps nobody.
• Update it in rehearsal, not at the venue. When the input list changes, the spec changes the same day. This is the same discipline that keeps your IEM mixes consistent.
• Name a human. One band member's name and phone number on the spec. Engineers have questions, and "the singer, probably" is not a contact.
• Bring printed copies. Two on you at all times, and assume the engineer has never seen your email.

All of the above is baked into the Word template, including a send-it checklist at the end.