Live sound..

PolarityMan

Drew_fx said:

Stop micing up your guitars. In a pub, it is completely unnecessary and just makes the PA struggle. In small pubs, dedicate the PA to kick drum and vocals.

What's the opinion on kick drum through PA with no subs? I'd have thought it will steal headroom for the vocals, especially since we have alot of harmonies but a bit of extra beef on the kick would sure be nice.

Catthan

based on the assumption that one has to sacrifice a bit of tone to sound good in the mix, can you not somehow ask the soundman to send the gtr back to one of the stage monitors just so you can dial in the amp however you see fit for good fOH tone? Just for a few minutes until you set it up and then obviously remove it. Won't be entirely the same but it's better than nothing and you don't need to shell out funds for new gear.smth which I still don't think you really need to do specially if the problem only occurred at that single strange venue

koneguitarist

Cirrus said:

My live sound credo is simple - start with a well balanced backline, and add sound reinforcement through the PA as required.

So, get the guitar amps, bass amps, keyboards etc up to a level that balances nicely with the unamplified drum sound. The loss of clinical front of house mixing control is more than made up for by the way that lets you actually play as a band and interact musically, plus it makes it harder for a bad FOH sound to ruin your gig - you've made sure that even sans PA+monitors you actually sound like a band and can hear each other.

It's when you have the guitar way down that you start having to crank it in the PA making it a more complex mix job, and putting instruments back in monitors murks up the stage sound and makes performing and interacting naturally more of a challenge.

Generally our best sounding gigs, and the ones we feel most comfortable doing, are the ones where we've only needed vocals in the monitors and the PA reinforces certain aspects of our sound to fill the room nicely (and obviously as the room gets bigger the PA takes on more of the heavy lifting). When we have to turn right down and get our instrument sound blasting back in our faces over the drums I've noticed friends are much more likely to comment that some aspect of the mix was off.

And that kind of makes sense, because the further the backline sound is from what we're aiming for the more we're relying on a sound guy to put on a performance and turn the noise we're making into a good mix. That means the end product is four guys who practice 6 hours a week and have gigged together for 5 years, and one guy who's never heard the band before and is totally winging it. If the backline defines the mix then the band performance becomes the mix - the sound guy doesn't have to do much guessing as the band are defining their own sound.

And I think it was Daniel Lanois who said a good performance equals a good mix.

Have a wisdom for best post so far

Drew_TNBD

PolarityMan said:

Drew_fx said:

Stop micing up your guitars. In a pub, it is completely unnecessary and just makes the PA struggle. In small pubs, dedicate the PA to kick drum and vocals.

What's the opinion on kick drum through PA with no subs? I'd have thought it will steal headroom for the vocals, especially since we have alot of harmonies but a bit of extra beef on the kick would sure be nice.

I think you're largely fine. Just got to get the levels right. If in doubt, get the vocals loud enough, turn the kick up until it starts to obscure the vocals, then bring the kick down a few notches.

digitalscream

PolarityMan said:

What's the opinion on kick drum through PA with no subs? I'd have thought it will steal headroom for the vocals, especially since we have alot of harmonies but a bit of extra beef on the kick would sure be nice.

It'll depend largely on the PA itself. If you're using 15" cabs, you'll probably be fine. 12" and 10" you might start to have issues, depending on their bass response.

I've found that there are two components to the sound of a kick drum - the "thump" (low end) and the "click" (in the high mids). If you're not getting enough low end, you'll just end up with the "click" part which - as well as sounding a bit crap - will start getting in the way of the vocals.

Why not just get some subs?

matone

May be just my preference,but the best sounding pub bands all seem to have the least gear and micing.Backline sounds better in small venues for my money !

ICBM

koneguitarist said:

Cirrus said:

My live sound credo is simple - start with a well balanced backline, and add sound reinforcement through the PA as required.

So, get the guitar amps, bass amps, keyboards etc up to a level that balances nicely with the unamplified drum sound. The loss of clinical front of house mixing control is more than made up for by the way that lets you actually play as a band and interact musically, plus it makes it harder for a bad FOH sound to ruin your gig - you've made sure that even sans PA+monitors you actually sound like a band and can hear each other.

It's when you have the guitar way down that you start having to crank it in the PA making it a more complex mix job, and putting instruments back in monitors murks up the stage sound and makes performing and interacting naturally more of a challenge.

Generally our best sounding gigs, and the ones we feel most comfortable doing, are the ones where we've only needed vocals in the monitors and the PA reinforces certain aspects of our sound to fill the room nicely (and obviously as the room gets bigger the PA takes on more of the heavy lifting). When we have to turn right down and get our instrument sound blasting back in our faces over the drums I've noticed friends are much more likely to comment that some aspect of the mix was off.

And that kind of makes sense, because the further the backline sound is from what we're aiming for the more we're relying on a sound guy to put on a performance and turn the noise we're making into a good mix. That means the end product is four guys who practice 6 hours a week and have gigged together for 5 years, and one guy who's never heard the band before and is totally winging it. If the backline defines the mix then the band performance becomes the mix - the sound guy doesn't have to do much guessing as the band are defining their own sound.

And I think it was Daniel Lanois who said a good performance equals a good mix.

Have a wisdom for best post so far

I somehow didn't see the original post at the time but I totally agree as well.

A band should mix itself acoustically on stage - which includes using EQ and amp placement as well as just volume levels - which to me makes for a far more natural, 'live' sound… just like a group of musicians with loud acoustic instruments playing together.

Then if it isn't loud enough or dispersed enough to fill the room, that's what the PA is for - it used to be called "sound reinforcement", and I think that has been largely forgotten now that a sound engineer can be essentially a 'live producer', and the instrument levels and EQ don't actually have to bear any relation on stage to what they do in the mix.

koneguitarist

I am not a fan of 15" for PA as I think they are a compromise, I prefer 10's to 12's for vocals in small pub PA systems and add in a dedicated sub or subs depending on venue size. 

Every band is different though. This video was recorded whilst we played off the back of a trailer outdoors. Nothing was mic'd, acoustic and vocals through PA only. 

Since then I have gone down to a smaller amp and Other guitarist has been replaced by a keyboard player. No bass bins or subs just a pair of RCF 10's

http://youtu.be/gwGcjwtqP2U

koneguitarist

ICBM said:

koneguitarist said:

Cirrus said:

My live sound credo is simple - start with a well balanced backline, and add sound reinforcement through the PA as required.

So, get the guitar amps, bass amps, keyboards etc up to a level that balances nicely with the unamplified drum sound. The loss of clinical front of house mixing control is more than made up for by the way that lets you actually play as a band and interact musically, plus it makes it harder for a bad FOH sound to ruin your gig - you've made sure that even sans PA+monitors you actually sound like a band and can hear each other.

It's when you have the guitar way down that you start having to crank it in the PA making it a more complex mix job, and putting instruments back in monitors murks up the stage sound and makes performing and interacting naturally more of a challenge.

Generally our best sounding gigs, and the ones we feel most comfortable doing, are the ones where we've only needed vocals in the monitors and the PA reinforces certain aspects of our sound to fill the room nicely (and obviously as the room gets bigger the PA takes on more of the heavy lifting). When we have to turn right down and get our instrument sound blasting back in our faces over the drums I've noticed friends are much more likely to comment that some aspect of the mix was off.

And that kind of makes sense, because the further the backline sound is from what we're aiming for the more we're relying on a sound guy to put on a performance and turn the noise we're making into a good mix. That means the end product is four guys who practice 6 hours a week and have gigged together for 5 years, and one guy who's never heard the band before and is totally winging it. If the backline defines the mix then the band performance becomes the mix - the sound guy doesn't have to do much guessing as the band are defining their own sound.

And I think it was Daniel Lanois who said a good performance equals a good mix.

Have a wisdom for best post so far

I somehow didn't see the original post at the time but I totally agree as well.

A band should mix itself acoustically on stage - which includes using EQ and amp placement as well as just volume levels - which to me makes for a far more natural, 'live' sound… just like a group of musicians with loud acoustic instruments playing together.

Then if it isn't loud enough or dispersed enough to fill the room, that's what the PA is for - it used to be called "sound reinforcement", and I think that has been largely forgotten now that a sound engineer can be essentially a 'live producer', and the instrument levels and EQ don't actually have to bear any relation on stage to what they do in the mix.

Exactly, reinforce the sound you have not create it with the PA.

PolarityMan

digitalscream said:

PolarityMan said:

What's the opinion on kick drum through PA with no subs? I'd have thought it will steal headroom for the vocals, especially since we have alot of harmonies but a bit of extra beef on the kick would sure be nice.

It'll depend largely on the PA itself. If you're using 15" cabs, you'll probably be fine. 12" and 10" you might start to have issues, depending on their bass response.

I've found that there are two components to the sound of a kick drum - the "thump" (low end) and the "click" (in the high mids). If you're not getting enough low end, you'll just end up with the "click" part which - as well as sounding a bit crap - will start getting in the way of the vocals.

Why not just get some subs?

Originals band so we dont use our own PA that often. If I saw a bargain id be tempted to snap some up but 90% of the time we are playing venues with a PA.

jpfamps

PolarityMan said:

Drew_fx said:

Stop micing up your guitars. In a pub, it is completely unnecessary and just makes the PA struggle. In small pubs, dedicate the PA to kick drum and vocals.

What's the opinion on kick drum through PA with no subs? I'd have thought it will steal headroom for the vocals, especially since we have alot of harmonies but a bit of extra beef on the kick would sure be nice.

The current obsession with micing the bass drum, is in my view responsible in a large part, for the poor quality of live sound I often have to suffer (I usually see 2-3 bands a week).

I'm not sure where this idea originated from, but my suspicion is that it came from drummers who can't hear the bass drum on stage. Hardly surprising as they are sitting behind and very close to the bass drum. 

Regardless as to whether you equipment is capable of amplifying the bass drum cleanly without distorting the vocals, how many gigs have you been to that have been disappointing because you can't here the vocals cleanly, compared to how many that have been ruined because the bass drum wasn't loud enough? 

Even if you like the sound of a close miced bass drum (I generally don't) and like a large amount of bass drum in the mix (again I don't), unless you have a good FOH engineer then it's not a risk worth taking in my view.

p90fool

Have a wisdom. The reason I'm booked solidly until March 2015 is because for me its all about the vocals and the songs.

I think a lot of musicians need to take a step back and view live music the way pub going girls in their mid 20s do.

ICBM

p90fool said:

Have a wisdom. The reason I'm booked solidly until March 2015 is because for me its all about the vocals and the songs.

I think a lot of musicians need to take a step back and view live music the way pub going girls in their mid 20s do.

Have a wisdom too.

I've always said that if the "drummer's girlfriend" (or substitute any other non-musican in the audience) thinks the mix is wrong, *it is*. The reason is simple - almost everyone is now familiar with high-quality recorded music. If the mix doesn't sound at least fairly similar, it's wrong. If an instrument stands out as too loud, it is - drastically, or possibly too bright/harsh as well, particularly with  guitars - because otherwise they wouldn't even notice that instrument.

A good mix is pretty simple - it's one where you can hear all or most of the instruments, nothing stands out as being obviously too loud, and you can hear the vocals. A *great* mix is maybe a bit harder to define, but if you don't start with at least a basic good mix you'll never get a great one.

That said, the kick drum *is* often slightly too weak in relation to the rest of the kit unless reinforced slightly. That doesn't justify making it (or a DI'd bass for that matter) loud enough to overpower everything else just because the system can, though.

Danny1969

These days with decent PA equipment you can have the kick drum thump you in the chest and still have the vocals screaming above everything if you want. But you have to invest some money. We use an HK Actor DX which cost about 5K, which seems a lot but it's probably equal to the the total cost of backline .... in our case my Marshall rack rig, Fender Twin, AER rig and Ampeg rig. I've seen loads of bands with Bogner and Mesa Boogie rigs worth thousands gig with some shitty Peavey PA that cost about £500. The moneys gone in the guitars and amps and the vocals sound are distorted and squealing. No one wants to spend on the PA but some will  frett endlessly about their tone from their amp and how it needs to be a certain volume etc 

The advantage of mic;ing everything through a quality PA is that someone out front with an audiences prospective can balance things properly and add a production quality to the mix. It's the live equivalent of the automation you hear on a record.  This frees up the band to just enjoy playing. 

PolarityMan

jpfamps said:

PolarityMan said:

Drew_fx said:

Stop micing up your guitars. In a pub, it is completely unnecessary and just makes the PA struggle. In small pubs, dedicate the PA to kick drum and vocals.

What's the opinion on kick drum through PA with no subs? I'd have thought it will steal headroom for the vocals, especially since we have alot of harmonies but a bit of extra beef on the kick would sure be nice.

The current obsession with micing the bass drum, is in my view responsible in a large part, for the poor quality of live sound I often have to suffer (I usually see 2-3 bands a week).

I'm not sure where this idea originated from, but my suspicion is that it came from drummers who can't hear the bass drum on stage. Hardly surprising as they are sitting behind and very close to the bass drum. 

Regardless as to whether you equipment is capable of amplifying the bass drum cleanly without distorting the vocals, how many gigs have you been to that have been disappointing because you can't here the vocals cleanly, compared to how many that have been ruined because the bass drum wasn't loud enough? 

Even if you like the sound of a close miced bass drum (I generally don't) and like a large amount of bass drum in the mix (again I don't), unless you have a good FOH engineer then it's not a risk worth taking in my view.

I dunno but with metal the bass drum is a bit of a bitch, cos you want it really loud and full bodied for the groove parts but then when youve got the double bass going you dont want it stamping all over everything else.. Then youve got the parts where rolls are split across teh bass drums and toms and you need fairly matched volume. I'd love to have a sound guy with a full PA but realistically since we're not really earning much money out of it it's hard to justify the expenditure.

Danny1969

PolarityMan said:

jpfamps said:

PolarityMan said:

Drew_fx said:

Stop micing up your guitars. In a pub, it is completely unnecessary and just makes the PA struggle. In small pubs, dedicate the PA to kick drum and vocals.

What's the opinion on kick drum through PA with no subs? I'd have thought it will steal headroom for the vocals, especially since we have alot of harmonies but a bit of extra beef on the kick would sure be nice.

The current obsession with micing the bass drum, is in my view responsible in a large part, for the poor quality of live sound I often have to suffer (I usually see 2-3 bands a week).

I'm not sure where this idea originated from, but my suspicion is that it came from drummers who can't hear the bass drum on stage. Hardly surprising as they are sitting behind and very close to the bass drum. 

Regardless as to whether you equipment is capable of amplifying the bass drum cleanly without distorting the vocals, how many gigs have you been to that have been disappointing because you can't here the vocals cleanly, compared to how many that have been ruined because the bass drum wasn't loud enough? 

Even if you like the sound of a close miced bass drum (I generally don't) and like a large amount of bass drum in the mix (again I don't), unless you have a good FOH engineer then it's not a risk worth taking in my view.

I dunno but with metal the bass drum is a bit of a bitch, cos you want it really loud and full bodied for the groove parts but then when youve got the double bass going you dont want it stamping all over everything else.. Then youve got the parts where rolls are split across teh bass drums and toms and you need fairly matched volume. I'd love to have a sound guy with a full PA but realistically since we're not really earning much money out of it it's hard to justify the expenditure.

That's a common point you make there, you have to mix the drums on a per song basis. Sometimes you want the kick to have a lot of weight if there's the space for it and then when the pace picks up you have to thin it down to make space for other stuff. Likewise the toms ..... a lot of the time you have the toms down because there's so much bleed in the tom mics from the cymbals but then a part of the song comes where the drummers on the toms and those channels have to come up for that part before coming back down. It's a rehearsed move if the engineer knows the songs. Sometimes it's not even the volume but the amount of aux send on the snare mic to the verb channel that gets moved to create effect and such. 

If you run a compressor on the kick channel it helps the PA a lot, likewise some decent EQ

Drew_TNBD

jpfamps said:

PolarityMan said:

Drew_fx said:

Stop micing up your guitars. In a pub, it is completely unnecessary and just makes the PA struggle. In small pubs, dedicate the PA to kick drum and vocals.

What's the opinion on kick drum through PA with no subs? I'd have thought it will steal headroom for the vocals, especially since we have alot of harmonies but a bit of extra beef on the kick would sure be nice.

The current obsession with micing the bass drum, is in my view responsible in a large part, for the poor quality of live sound I often have to suffer (I usually see 2-3 bands a week).

I'm not sure where this idea originated from, but my suspicion is that it came from drummers who can't hear the bass drum on stage. Hardly surprising as they are sitting behind and very close to the bass drum. 

Regardless as to whether you equipment is capable of amplifying the bass drum cleanly without distorting the vocals, how many gigs have you been to that have been disappointing because you can't here the vocals cleanly, compared to how many that have been ruined because the bass drum wasn't loud enough? 

Even if you like the sound of a close miced bass drum (I generally don't) and like a large amount of bass drum in the mix (again I don't), unless you have a good FOH engineer then it's not a risk worth taking in my view.

Something tells me you're not working with rock.

Anyone who mixes heavy music and doesn't like the sound of a close mic'd bass drum has something wrong with them. I jest... I jest...

It's mainly about giving the AUDIENCE the punch of the kick drum, which means you're able to keep the bass guitar lower in the mix, which means you're not creating a room full of standing waves. It has nothing to do with the drummer wanting to hear himself, although that does happen too. Separate issue.

If a PA cannot handle a kick drum and a vocal at the same time, I am tempted to say the venue is the WRONG place for heavy music. There is a reason some venues will only have acoustic guitars and singer/songwriters.

Drew_TNBD

There is a bunch of stuff I would do as a matter of course - I'd lowpass everything at 70hz. Even the bass guitar. I'd notch out 100-128hz on everything, even the bass guitar. About -6dB. It sounds a bit hollow at low listening levels, but at volume it really helps to control the low-end and stop everything from getting mushy.

I like toms that thwack, so I would pay careful attention to the direction of the microphones - the centre is the thwack, the rim is the tone. Balanced in between. I'd also find the resonant frequency of each tom, and REDUCE IT. Most engineers seem to boost these, I don't understand why. All you're doing is making sure that when THAT particular tom hits, the audience gets a huge resonant mess in their ears.

For vocals, I'd parallel compress, and I'd notch out some mids - around 400hz probably. I'd also have a high shelf with a bit of boost, and I'd have a gate.

Vocals are tricky. The engineer generally will keep them as low as he can get away with, in order to avoid feedback. Why does feedback occur? BECAUSE YOUR STUPID IDIOT SINGER KEEPS CUPPING THE MICROPHONE LIKE HE'S TRYING TO SUCK OFF A CAMEL!! Tell him to stop doing that. He really needs to ensure his mouth is at least 2inches away from the capsule of the microphone at all times. They NEVER understand this point though, because in their idiot minds closer equals louder.

Closer does NOT equals louder. Closer equals bass lift and feedback.

For guitars, if you're really going to mic them, then I'd shape them so that there is room for the kick and snare to poke out of. Most engineers balls this up too, because they just put the mic on any old speaker, low and high pass it, and think it's done. Fucking stupid. You're essentially shaping white-noise (which contains all frequencies) with guitar sounds. Makes no sense to leave them natural.

And guitarists need to stop boosting their mids so much. It's not big and it's not clever.

The number one problem with live sound right now is low-end. It's not the sub frequencies that are screwing up your sound. It is the lows and the low-mids. That 100hz all the way up to 400hz region. But you need to be careful. Too much EQ, and you'll completely kill the impact of the music.

Drew_TNBD

p90fool said:

I think a lot of musicians need to take a step back and view live music the way pub going girls in their mid 20s do.

What? That it is created by loser nerds, some of them kinda hot, but pretty much losers... and that it's completely worthless unless it is disco, so I can shake my tits to it?

Nah mate.

I don't know about you guys, but I know that a good chunk of the people who see Tacoma and bands in our scene tend to be people who are either in bands themselves, make music in some capacity, or are huge nerds for music and to them it isn't a throwaway thing - it's life and death shit.

These people may not always be able to articulate why something sounds crappy, but they know what sounds good. They have high expectations.

ICBM

So much wisdom there!

The only thing I would disagree with is taking out the low end on the bass - I would keep it in, but *only* on the bass (and kick drum) - that way they sit under everything else and don't compete. On the other hand I like a very deep bass sound which purposely doesn't have much mid to conflict with the guitars...

The trick to a good mix is in the EQ as much (or more so) as the levels.