[gafftaper]

Originally Posted by Van

I feel it's best to wait until all the carpenters are on stage and trying to talk to each other about important set things, Then turn up the system as loud as possible. Find the most obnoxious CD in your arsenal,Preferably something by Sunvolt, or an obscure Christian rock band, push play. Walk away from the board and disappear for the next 45 minutes. Come back to the board at the same time as the TD gets frustrated and decides to turn everything off. Yell at TD for interfering in your sound check. Turn off music, walk on stage with a wireless mic and proceed to say the words
" Syllabants, Syllabants, T- T- T- Teeeeeeesta" for the next 20 minutes.
I'm no expert but from years of observation, I think that's how you do it.

...or you could do what 6ft studios said. Go back to the Scene Shop Van.

Seriously you want to make sure everything you plan to use is given a quick test to the proper volume level. As far as order, do something that makes sense to you and that works with the schedule of how your talent is arriving. If you're doing something like a musical with a bunch of cast members all doing makeup, costumes, and warm ups you've got a whole lot of time schedule hassle to get each of them out on stage, mics on, and projecting properly. You shouldn't be setting levels at this point, you should have already done that, you are just checking that the mic works and that the talent is still going at the same level... for example do they have a cold you need to adjust for. The process is easier with a band in some respects because you've got less people to deal with, but musicians can bring their own level of weirdness to a sound check.

Anyway, the point is you need to develop an organizational plan that works for you, yet is flexible to deal with the weirdness of the particular show. You can do a certain part in the same order every time without the talent... but once you start dealing with talent all bets are off.