PG Music Home Forums General Discussion Off-Topic Sound for gig

Hey, HEY! You guys just need a better class of audience is all.

R.

Thanks Mac for that. I actually understood everything!

These units are designed to sit right onstage with you, rather than out in front, so you hear the exact same thing your audience hears. Works well.

There is one mic input and one line input on the things.

One can hook the line output of a mixer to the line input and expand to as many mic/line inputs as the mixer provides. This works well also.


--Mac

I was taught how to set up a console a little differently then the way Mac does. I attended a Live Sound school at the University of ? in Anaheim, Ca. It was 7 days 10 hrs a day. Lots of big names there. The mixing classes were given by the head engineer for Garth Brooks, The head Engineer for Showco and the head Engineer for Clair Brothers. There was a stage with a band set up and then there was the standard FOH and Monitor consoles. There were also about six sound isolated booths with duplicate consoles patched into the band for individual instruction.
In a nut shell when the band is cooking along nothing special happening engineer just standing back listening all faders should be at 0. In other words the basic mix is acquired by placing all faders at 0 and then using the trim controls to acquire the nominal mix. The faders are then used for what they called "specials". Solos, drop someone back, special effects etc. When it was time to go back to normal all faders at 0.With faders at 0 you get maximum throw and still have 26 db of gain available.
This procedure can't be followed if you are mixing monitors from the FOH console using a pre fade aux send. Won't be enough gain on some instruments for effective monitors. In this case set the gain to just below clip.

Mac is spot on with all of his recommendations.

I will expound on his response just a wee bit. It's possible that if you get a mixing board with the PA system, that it may not have clipping lights for each channel. If not, there is a good chance that there may be PFL or Pre-Fade Listen buttons for each of the input channels.

When these are depressed, on most boards, the VU meters for the board will be switched over to meter those channels that are PFL-enabled, rather than the mains of the board.

This just turns the VU meters into a fancy clipping meter. I recommend a few steps when I encounter a new board I haven't touched before.

Step 1. 'Zero' the board. Sometimes, this is as simple as taking the edge of your index finger, starting at the highest input channel, and running it from right to left across all of the input trim controls so they go to their extreme counter clockwise directions. If you can't do that easily, just go through and turn all the trims manually to their zero settings. Some boards have a switch for mic vs. line level. Make sure to get those switches set properly first as well. Second part of zero'ing the board is to put all of the aux channel settings for each input channel strip to zero. Last step to zero the board is to put the channel EQ settings at their neutral positions (usually straight up and down). Most boards and setups sound pretty doggoned nice at their neutral settings for line level inputs (like program material on CD, keyboard outputs, etc.) if you get the mains EQ'ed properly for the room(detailed below).

Step 1a. If the board has a high-pass filter setting for each channel, where the corner frequency is at 80-120 Hz or so (sometimes written right on the board itself, always in the manual if there), then enable that thing for every single channel except any bass guitar or kick drum. There is absolutely no need to have that frequency content in any signal except your lowest end instruments. Enabling it will help to eliminate unnecessary rumble that can occur from bumping into mic stands and what not. This is also very good practice for recording. Always, always, always put in high pass filtering if possible, on most mic'ed and line-in channels if you really don't need the low end (again, generally true for everything except bass instruments and kick drums). This can clean up a muddy mix tremendously.

Step 2. Set the trim control for each input channel and the main output as per Mac's instructions, or if you have PFL, enable it one channel at a time and use the VU meters, letting the max hit in the yellow region of the VU meter (most are color coded green-yellow-red).

Step 3. EQ the main output/speakers. Good practice to bring along some music you know well on CD in CD format and put it into the board's tape-in connections. Run that to the output and set the EQ for the main speakers either on the board (if there is a main EQ section - many smaller boards have a little 7-10 band EQ for this) or in the outboard EQ that should be after the output of the board and before the amp for the speakers.

Step 4. From here, usually my next step is to set monitor levels and EQ, but often times, this isn't available or even necessary for smaller venues and setups.

Lots of further steps, but following these, can help you to get the basic signal gain staging set properly for mixing on a board. If you get reasonably good at even these steps, you will be considered a hero by many. It's amazing how many folks don't get these pretty basic steps and end up with a feedback-prone, terribly EQ'ed setup.

Other tricks of the trade for live sound:

1. Know your formant frequencies. Forming these vowel sounds with your lips while exhaling/whispering can help you pinpoint at least octave band issues.
'ooooo' = 250-500Hz, 'aaaaaahhhhhh' = 1000 Hz, 'anh', voiced as the nasal 'a' sound in the American English pronouned 'bank', 'cat', 'flag', etc. = 2000Hz, 'eeeee'=4000Hz.

If you feel silly doing this, then another way to learn these is to find a graphic EQ and put your favorite music through it - first setting the EQ flat to zero, then one at a time, raising a slider all the way up, and all the way down (easier to hear peaks than it is a lack of content). Do it several times, with several types of music - but best to do it with the kind of music you'll be mixing. If you practice this for even an hour and make some mental notes, you are well on the way to learning to hear 'peaks and valleys', but likely 'peaks' easier.

2. Don't use speaker monitors if you can avoid it. Hey if the singers and instrumentalists are keeping time and relatively balanced - kill the floor wedges and hot spots. On-stage volumes are the bane of running a good mix. If you have to have these in place, it doesn't hurt to bring the levels down gradually if there are no complaints and no detriment to the mix.

I've got more, but I see I've typed way too much.

-Scott

OK here's a really brief summary of what happened at the gig.

I arrived almost two hours before performance time.
Good thing too because it took 1.5 hours to unpack/move, set up the sound system!

Once the system was operating I let the vocalist adjust the settings to her liking (she had a lot of experience performing and mixing).

She removed basically everything (guitar, bass, drums) from the monitors and had just her vocals coming from them.

I could hear everyone but I felt that my guitar was a bit weak at times and should have either boosted the level in the mains or increased my level on my amp or guitar pots.

We didn't have the luxury of doing a sound check before the gig nor of having someone knowledgeable check out the sound from the audience.

We were basically winging it. What it sounded like from the audience was anybody's guess. The audience seemed to enjoy the music so that was nice and people were even dancing at times.

A few audience members came up during the evening to sing some songs with the band and got a good reception from the audience as well.

Overall it seems everyone was happy with the performance but as to what it actually sound like mix-wise?

My biggest lesson though was the work required to set up the sound system. I don't mean the actually mixing. I mean the lugging of the equipment putting everything together. The 2.5 hours setup and tear-down + the renting the equipment loading the car etc. etc.

I have performed many times prior to this, but it had always been simply, guitar and amp into car, unload guitar and amp, re-load guitar and amp, drive home!

When I was doing my one man show I had a Spirit 12 channel console.
4 channels for inst.
1 for live keys
4 drums
1 vocal
2 harmonies

I didn't use monitors so I was able to set my mixer like the big shows.
Yes the last time I did a big show a VCA console was a big deal. Now there all digital as you mentioned.

...

If you need some pro consultation on how to sound better, do not hesitate to conatct us anytime.
http://numberonemusic.org/
best wishes guys