MONO or STEREO in live mixing?

music4all

New member
To all experience sound experts,

In live performance (stage), what type of sound system arragement, mono or stereo, do you frequently set up for the best result in both power and sound quality?

As for most live concerts you have seen on TV, what type of setup they usually have? Stereo or Mono?

Thanks for your feedback.

Alann
 
It depends on the room and the speaker system but usually smaller club gigs are mono. Some big acts will do stereo but it's usually just a couple of effects that are stereo. Most of the main music is still mixed mono. If you mix stereo for a club then people on one side may miss out on the stuff panned to the other side. You can get away with stereo easier if it is theater style seating. For general admission standing crowds mono is probably safer.

Almost all TV stuff is stereo but it is mixed in an iso truck with it's own feeds off of a splitter.
 
TexRoadkill said:
It depends on the room and the speaker system but usually smaller club gigs are mono. Some big acts will do stereo but it's usually just a couple of effects that are stereo. Most of the main music is still mixed mono. If you mix stereo for a club then people on one side may miss out on the stuff panned to the other side. You can get away with stereo easier if it is theater style seating. For general admission standing crowds mono is probably safer.

Almost all TV stuff is stereo but it is mixed in an iso truck with it's own feeds off of a splitter.
Tex has it exactly right......stereo just makes people on one side or the other miss stuff.
 
Unless you're in one of those screwed spaces where the audience is unevenly distributed in various little nooks and crannies, I say stereo all the way.

I've even used 5.1 with great success. Of course, when I play live I have the luxury and free reign over a mid sized space (60'x60'x20') with rather nice acoustics, and the audience is mostly positioned towards the center of the space.

Thomas
 
My Vote

Mono

I play mostly arenas and stadiums, and you want as many people "on axis" as possible.

The last sentence was mostly a lie, but "mono" is my vote.
 
Barefoot- How are you doing live surround mixing? Do you just use busses for the different pairs or a true surround matrix mixer? Is it just for special effects or also the main musical elements?
 
I think stereo effects for the vocals sound better than they're in mono setup. I guess many of you also know that. I totally agree with TexRoadkill on his opinion about sound panning. My idea is to set up all equipment going stereo, but panning all channels to the middle, or just slightly left and right on the keyboard and drums. On the master slides, I slightly pan on the left and right, just to have stereo feel of the music.

I think setting up this way would allow me to have total control of the stage sound; mono or stereo if I want to change during the performance.

What do you think?
 
I don't understand the "mono in smaller places" statement?
Especially in smaller places the sound generated on stage can be very directional - so isn't it obvious to compensate for this by using placement?
 
Tex,

I'm doing electronic music, so it's not such a big deal. Except for one outboard lead synth and vocals, everything is mixed on the computer. Virtual synths and loop tracks are pre-assigned to one or more of the 6 output busses (sound card outputs) so I don't have to think about that during a performance. Various "surround" effects are used on the rear channel busses. I use a 16 channel midi fader (Doepfer Pocket Fader) to control my track levels. I typical don't need to touch the bus levels during a performance. I just preset those levels with the mouse, so I don't have to waste any of my 16 faders on them.

Thomas
 
The number of clubs that are shaped well and have audiences in the proper place for stereo to work well are vanishingly small. I play about 200 dates a year and I can't think of a single club I play in where that's the case.

Also......I certainly think that there are those who need it and can use it properly......I'm just saying that for the vast majority of bands.....the benefits aren't enough to bother with it although stereo FX do sound better and, of course, you can pan everything else centered.
For me, that's not a big enough reason to bother with it so I go mono.
 
Lt. Bob,

Thank you for your feedback. It's greatly helpful.

My next question in live mixing issue is, how do you do the connection from the mixing console to the amps to the multiple speakers, floor monitors etc. in mono setup? Most mixers have left and right outputs and are controlled by 2 or more main sliders. Do you just use one output for mono? there are better way?

It's a silly question, but I hope you would help me out. Can anyone suggest a good book for live mix?

Thank You.
 
Lt. Bob and All,

Thank you for your feedback. It's greatly helpful.

My next question in live mixing issue is, how do you do the connection from the mixing console to the amps to the multiple speakers, floor monitors etc. in mono setup? Most mixers have left and right outputs and are controlled by 2 or more main sliders. Do you just use one output for mono? there are better way?

It's a silly question, but I hope you would help me out. Can anyone suggest a good book for live mix?

Thank You.
 
Lt. Bob said:
The number of clubs that are shaped well and have audiences in the proper place for stereo to work well are vanishingly small.
Lt. Bob

This is very interesting from the perspective of someone like myself who is trying to develop a line speakers geared towards very high fidelity, small venue sound reinforcement.

What would you say is most often the reason for this? The audience distributed far to sides of the stage in a single room? Multiple rooms? Other?

Thanks!

Thomas
 
barefoot said:
What would you say is most often the reason for this? The audience distributed far to sides of the stage in a single room? Multiple rooms? Other?

If Bob is playing in the types of blues bars I've been in then the band is usually shoved in a corner by the pool tables and they bring their own PA or use the house 'system' which is some cheap ass mixer and couple of blown PA speakers.

In my experience any place that even considers buying decent sound systems has also considered where to put the band. Even the better places usually are setup to maximize occupancy so that means as many people are to the extreme sides of the stage as out in front.

Music4all- You just use one of the main buss outs to feed the PA. Monitor sends are usually off of the Aux sends and those are mono anyway.
 
barefoot said:
Lt. Bob

This is very interesting from the perspective of someone like myself who is trying to develop a line speakers geared towards very high fidelity, small venue sound reinforcement.

What would you say is most often the reason for this? The audience distributed far to sides of the stage in a single room? Multiple rooms? Other?

Thanks!

Thomas
Hmmmm.......well, I think all of the above and a few others too.


Disclaimer: Before I even make my observations I want to say that these are simply my opinions and I'm not one of those who believes with a religious intensity that only my way is right. :p
However, I have done the sound for most of my bands for over 30 years so I do have some experience with it and although I acknowledge that there are probably a few "old school" prejudices that we geezers tend to have, I've stayed pretty current as I play with 20 year olds in college clubs so I've had to keep up. Whew! :D

OK....well, some clubs put the stage in bad spots such as a corner which is often a problem even if the room is shaped ok.
Then there are rooms that are shaped oddly or have, as you said, multiple spaces.
Also, I commonly see clubs where the stage is set so that you are facing only a part of the club which means that the is gonna be a substantial portion of the club that's off to the far side on one of the speakers, these guys will tend to only hear whats coming out of the speaker closest to them.
And even in rectangular rooms, you often end up with people standing outside your speakers which, again, will cause them to really only hear one speaker.

Now, I'd love to hear your 5.1 set-up as I am an audiophile (vinyl) and I love good sound. I saw ELP in Quad and it was wonderful.
Also, I think the suround thing would work easier in some ways than stereo 'cause it surrounds the audience and that seems easier to implement. I'm just saying that with mono, I don't have to strain my brain trying to get it dialed in right.....to a large degree, I can turn it on and it sounds fine.....easy is good for me. :D I don't want to sound lazy but man.....I'm carrying; and hooking up and running, the PA, the lights, my saxaphone and a guitar rig with 10 pedals plus in my duo, all the sequences and the singing.......I just don't want the slightest extra thing to do. :rolleyes:
And since I hear lots of bands whose sound is 'challenged' shall we say anyway, they'll have an easier time in mono.

And Music4all...............if your mixer doesn't have a mono sum,.....you can just use the left or right output.....just pick one. I would probably leave my pan centered though. It'll work fine and the pots sometimes get wierd or noisy at their extremes.
 
Tex,
Thanks for your tips. About the Monitor out, if you use up the Aux for sending out signal to the monitor's PA, I think there's no place for effect processors. I understand that we can use Aux for monitor purpose, but I often used Aux to connect to effectors, and used monitor out for "monitor" (my mix has separate output for stage monitor).
Thanks,
 
The club I'm playing next weekend is set up so that a decent portion of the crowd is actually BEHIND the mains, lol. I guess we'll have to make sure we have an absolutely BRILLIANT stage sound. :D

Mono for me.
 
chrisharris said:
The club I'm playing next weekend is set up so that a decent portion of the crowd is actually BEHIND the mains, lol. I guess we'll have to make sure we have an absolutely BRILLIANT stage sound. :D
:rolleyes: Oh Lord! Isn't that always so much fun. :D
I like the ones where most of the audience is in the next room!
 
Re: aux sends, it just depends on how they are labelled. Some mixers there are 4 aux sends all labelled aux, 2 are prefader and two are post. Thus you use prefader for monitors and post for effects sends. Other mixers have the prefader sends labelled monitor and don't have returns on those channels. For live use I prefer that because I have to use untrained help a lot and it's easier to explain, plus my mixer has faders for the monitor sends which is nice. I have a mono main send plus L-R sends, so sometimes I'll use the L-R for a basic stereo recording.

I always run the mains in mono. Honestly, live sound is hard enough without stereo. You ain't gonna pan that much anyway, and considering you'd need more complicated connections from mixer to amp to cabinets it just isn't worth it.

The whole point of stereo is to reproduce the sound of live music. Unless you are playing halls over 1,000 people, the sound is a combo of direct sound from drums, amps, etc. and mains. So you already have instruments separated in space.

For me the reality is most halls sound like crap because they have poor acoustics and using stereo is like putting a bandaid on a sucking chest wound.
 
Anyone who mixes live sound in stereo is doing the audience a major disservice, and therefore the band (your client). There is NO way a stereo mix is going to translate to every seat in the hall. The job of a live sound engineer is first and foremost sound reinforcement. Every person in the hall needs to hear every instrument. Next time you go to a show which sounds like crap (you have all been there), go stand by FOH, and the sound will probably be an amazing stereo mix. That is the problem. You can not tell what other parts of the hall sound like from FOH, so you will NEVER be able to make it sound good everywhere. The only thing I will pan is effects like reverb, and even then I only pan it to 9:00 and 3:00.


Light

"Cowards can never be moral."
M.K. Gandhi
 
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