Loads of criticisms of the FOH engineer here recently so question for you lot.
What is more important, the sound the audience hears or the sound you hear on stage? And who do you trust?
Mixed a gig today , front of house and monitors with the desk at side of stage but had the ipad. Fortunately the band were not prima donnas and got on and did the job. Standing at the mixer the stage sound was not great. The singer wanted all of me in their monitors to the exclusion of everyone else, the drummer wanted rhythm guitar vocals and” a bit of everything else”, the lead guitarist wanted just him, and the bass player rolled a spliff and said whatever! So the stage sound wasn’t to my ears great. When I moved in front of the speakers to mix what the audience heard everything smoothed out and it sounded like a band should in the space. Audience went mental everyone happy great gig.
www.maltingsaudio.co.uk
Comments
After so many years, I know that I prefer to have my amp loud and have zero guitars in the monitors - even to the point where I'd rather *NOT* hear myself clearly on stage. I hate the sound of guitar coming through those cheap wedges; it's borderline abusive to make people listen to that on stage!!
When we play in a rehearsal room the instruments are balanced an the vocals go through a pa. All the sound man has to do is reinforce what we're doing in the right manner for the room/field.
99% of the gigs I do I have no idea what it sounds like out the front as I'm on ears. I just try and play consistently without any big volume jumps but also easing off a bit under the vocal or when someone else is taking a solo. If you are working for someone at FOH that doesn't know your set and who does what you have to give him /her some pointers.
The key is not to make it confrontational - which it can easily become. I’ve done both jobs and the real problems occur mostly when the band doesn’t listen to the soundman because they regard him/her as some sort of servant to their ‘artistic vision’ - but a good soundman who understands what you’re trying to do can *help* you get that across. They aren’t out to make you sound bad - unless you piss them off enough first.
As a musician I will always try to be accommodating unless it’s really obvious the soundman doesn’t have a clue (or care), but that’s not often the case. I generally prefer to be able to hear something a bit like the FOH mix myself, but if that can’t be done I’d rather hear more of the rest of the band than my own instrument. I’ve said this before several times, but the physical placement of your own gear is critical, and a lot of musicians are oddly resistant to changing it, which can result in real problems - guitar amps pointing straight out into the audience at ear height are a big one, even on huge stages.
Who do you trust? At the end of the day, the most important opinion is the audience. Everyone who goes to a gig knows roughly what a good mix sounds like because it’s like every record ever released - you can hear all the instruments and the vocals clearly. If you’re not at least in that ballpark then someone isn’t listening properly, and it can be either the band, the soundman, or both. If you can’t hear the vocals then no-one is really going to care how good the music sounds. (Instrumental music excluded obviously!)
Often that’s a problem because everything is too loud and you’re then limited by feedback on the vocals - in which case you just have to turn down a bit. A great mix slightly quieter than you’d really like is better than a bad one as loud as the gear will go.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
However, there was a place we played a few times that did multi band set ups that had a decent PA and its own soundprrson. People who knew us said that was always our best sound and watching the other bands their mix was always good. But the onstage stage sound was just a fight and the soundprrson pretty much ignored what we said.
I think oddly enough it just made us concentrate on playing and getting through the gig and abandoned any sense of subtlety ( not that was a big issue really). But would have been a mare on longer sets or if we’d been more of a jamming band.
As Danny says above a lot of band members fight to hear themselves loudest in the mix whereas it's often not necessary. Hearing yourself as the audience hears you makes more sense than being able to hear every last string squeak.
Sometimes the sound both onstage and at FoH is CD quality, sometimes it's less than ideal and sometimes it's a real challenge. It's never bad but consistently "good enough" sometimes means compromises.
The band understand that I'll do everything I can to make things good but sometimes workable will have to do. They're experienced enough to know the realities of the possible. If you're playing in a bucket there's going to be issues.
When things are great I take all the credit, of course.
The drums were behind a perspex shield and were fine. Bass was through an amp and was also fine.
But where we were (ticketed seats so couldn't move), we were directly in line with one of the guitarist's 4x12" cabs which was flat down on the stage pointing straight out... consequently that guitar was way too loud and too harsh-sounding, and overpowered the vocals, especially Maddy Prior's... which are one of the main things you go to see Steeleye for. A bit disappointing really as he was using a digital direct-to-PA setup (Fractal I think), the cab was not mic'ed, and there was no need for it to be facing forwards at all. The other guitarist had the same sort of set-up, but since he was on the opposite side of the stage we were not in the beam of his cab and if anything he was slightly too *quiet* from where we were.
I won't say it spoiled the gig, but it was far from ideal and could easily have been avoided.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
The issue described here seems to be that the onstage volume was completely inappropriate for the venue meaning a proper mix through the PA became impossible.
You cannot mix for the whole audience if you cannot mix the sound appropriately through the PA. Which you can’t do if some instruments on stage are already at PA volume.
Normally I have wet/dry set up but was thinking about dropping the dry amp to simplify and for speed. Was also worried about whether the sound guys would even bother with it. Then judging from the comments above there is a balance between cranking the amp to get the sound but not too loud to avoid catching the audience in the beam.
in terms of monitor mix, I do a little Bv’s so need them, lead vocals so I know where we are in the songs, and drums for rhythm. If I can then clearly hear my amp, either raw or topped up in the monitors, I should be fine I think. What I won’t have is other bv, rhythm guitar and bass guitar.
The guitarist was using controlled feedback occasionally - with a semi-hollow guitar, so he was doing his best to keep the volume down - but in which case, he should have had the cab pointing somewhere else, either tilted back or sideways off the stage.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
If it's a big stage and you do have a lot of room then have some hi hat in your monitor as well as vocals and guitars.