- Soundings -
My good friend Tim Wilson, sent me a question about mixing their band themselves from the stage instead of hiring a sound guy, thought my reply was worth sharing here:
RL:
I only know of one band around here that does it successfully "Fly By Radio' and that is because the guitarist is a good sound man and they bought some of the best PA they good, EAW cabs Crown Digital Amps, Yamaha digital console that he can remotely control so his sound checks are done with him in the middle of the room, tweaking it..
First thing to doing it from stage is to turn the guitars DOWN.. the PA HAS to do the work.. if the guitars or any other instrument is in a situation where they are carrying the room by themselves any attempt at mixing from stage will fail miserably because you are at the mercy of a guy or guys who don't give a rats butt about the sound.
second, your monitor mixes cannot suffer the same problem, if the monitor needs to be so loud that it bleeds off stage to the FOH or worse thru the mics, it becomes a mess.. Identify why people cant hear and fix it (I refer to problem one, turn instruments down) get your drummer to not bash the crap out of cymbals.. If your drummer has two volumes loud and louder replace him with a real drummer, not one who expounds "hey man' it's a rock band I gotta hit 'em ' that is the excuse of a non-professional (I chose that term over the more obvious 'a**hole' descriptor)
What you are striving for is a wide personal dynamics spectrum that will reflect through the PA since you won't have someone bringing out vocals and solos..
The technical aspect is not so difficult, get it to sound good at a medium level, leave yourself two notches on the main output faders for room to get loud if more people show up, but sound check at the louder level and then come down 3 db or 4 for the start of show..
Mix tips
Over accentuate the kick drum, give it more click than you think it needs and more 45Hz and 63Hz than you think it needs, it's one of the first things that disappear in medium/small venues when as little as 20 people get in front of the speakers,
related to the above, when bodies in small/medium rooms get over the 20/30 mark your high end from 3.5K and up will suffer, you will experience a darkening of the vocals, at sound check, when you think it's just right, after you turn down 3db or so, dip a little 6.3k on the graph, add it later when folks come in. it may not sound pristine at end of sound check but you are engineering 'looking ahead' ! And know that the excitement of the actual performance will make drummers guitarists and vocalists dig in more, you won't miss the lower hi-end if no one shows up to your gig till later and you won't annoy the employees by being too loud or too bright..
TW:
At our dry-run last night, the most apparent problem to me was overall 'boominess', which, in my amateur opinion, was due to too much competing bottom end. I cut some bottom away from the guitars and it helped a lot, but I got some squawk back from the guitarists about that.
RL:
Ok, good question.. guitars, VOCALS, some keys, ( like piano.. synths a different story, they need compression to even out massive low end) do not need anything in a live situation over 200Hz the instrument inherently does not have those freq present, why add something that is not there, you are manufacturing 'boominess' from 'dead air'
On your graph, cut the shit out of 100Hz, no speaker cab or speaker basket like that freq! I mean it, there is not a speaker or system in existence that does 100Hz well, it adds boominess in a big way,
When I mix vocals ALL of 200/220 Hz is GONE.. thats what the bass guitar is for.. same on a guitar, if you are doing death metal and need 160 HZ in a guitar, you are doomed live.. guitars are mid-range 'squonk and tink' instruments.. PERIOD
The point is you are 'mixing' -that means not just levels, you have to fit frequencies together like a jigsaw puzzle as well.. the only things that will sound good as a 'stand alone' instrument thru the PA will be kick drum, bass guitar and speaking vocal (if you compress correctly) it's an art..
Also, remember, adding a compressor to anything will alter it's tonality, heavy compression flattens out the high end as well as the low end, depending on the quality of the compressor, in addition placement of the comp - pre or post EQ make a HUGE difference in finished product on a channel..
Putting an EQ pre-compressor means adjusting the tone of the instrument or vocal will adjust how the comp responds to input, you can end up chasing your tail as the compressor starts to react differently when EQ is altered, remember an EQ is just sub-divided volume controls.. On a channel i prefer the gate/comp first ., on the Mains L/R to the FOH i prefer the comp after the house EQ since the adjustments to a FOH comp are a lot more subtle than a channel comp.
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"To have the arts of peace, but not the arts of war, is to lack courage. To have the arts of war, but not the arts of peace, is to lack wisdom"
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