Briefcase mixing gigs

[Roel]

I mixed 2 bands on a festival last saturday. The gigs were pretty good. Didn't like the drum sound of the first band I did, it's been a while since I mixed...

Anyway, the last band (friends of one of the bands I mixed, called circle for the belgian guys...) brought there own mixer. Well, not their own, they brought in a freelancer. The guy that does the mix of .calibre (an upcoming belgian nu-metal act). This guy was good. It was the clearest mix I ever heard. Wow....

He brought a rack too... In his rack, a midas XL42, a 4 band compressor (don't remember the brand), and a distressor. All used on the main vocal. That would be a 5000$ voice for a band on the small stage of the 10000peeps festival. Mix sounded better than most bands on the big stage too. Damn... He was playing with delays and reverb on the vocals all the time. Screams that really filled the entire place because of the delay, distorted voices at times,.... Amazing. And he used it in a good way, it didn't get boring.

The guitars sounded extremely clear and in your face. (it's a hardcore band, with alot of rockinfluences.) Also very nice. I asked him how he got that: alot of it came directly from the amps. He used 2 mics on both sides of the same speaker, pointing away from eachother, panned them completely. You got to move them around a bit for phasing issues. He didn't like doing it like this, but with limited efx gear (2 Yamahe SPX and one digital delay, only one spx was attached to the board, but still pretty ok for 'smaller' concerts)... He was talking about harmonizing etc... I cannot imagine putting a harmonizer on a guitarplayer during the soundcheck of a gig... oh boy...

Anyway, somebody else got experience with this? I know I'm gonna take my voicechannel (symetrix) next time, just because I know the thing, and to see what I can get out of it. And I'm mixing a full festival on august 3, gonna experiment with more mics on the guitars too...

[Alchemist3k]

You should have pointed him the direction of this board so we could all be enhanced by his expertise.

[Roel]

I don't think he needs this kinda board... He's working for television, big ass studios, one of the few belgian bands that recently got signed by a major...

But I'll try discuss it with him next time. This is the second time I met him. The previous time was a small festival at my youthclub. I was behind the boards, and he came to mix the last band (which was facedown, the same guys as .calibre, before they got signed. they were filming the gig for a reportage for national tv....) After the gig, he came to me with a little paper with some EQ-tips. That was a really nice thing to do. I still got them somewhere in my agenda...

[BrettB]

hi Roel,

sounds amazing. When I hear stuff like that I kinda feel ashamed about the few simple live mixes I do. I don't know if you ever heared from Gyuri Spies (he is a well known arranger in Belgium, wrote a lot of material for Brussels Jazz Orchestra, and did several TV work), but he's also a great mixer! He now also does the live mixes of the mambo band El Tatoo Del Tigre (he also recorded their CD) and the brussels jazz orchestra. Amazing how he can blend a brass band as one.

Good PA men also tend to have great ears for frequencies. I saw guys at a moment of feedback just going to the graphic EQ and shut down the right frequency at once. Or saying stuff like: yeah the mix is ok, but you I don't like that frequency on the bass. And when you shut it down, you actually hear he's right. Absolutely amazing in my eyes.

I don't know if any of you ever mixed for a big audience, but a guy who mixed in the Sportpalace in Antwerp once told me that you have to use delays when having several speakers. when you got speakers on stage, and other once a few meters further in the audience you have to use delay to prevent the last row for hearing the sound at different times (only it's a few ms, it is annoying). Kinda logical, but I wouldn't know how to start with it...

Btw Roel, sorry I couldn't watch you at Rock Herk

cu

[Roel]

No problem man!

I knew about those delays. Actually, some dely unit allow you to give the delay in METERS!!

Tricky part comes when you are mixing open air, those big festivals that have speakers half way. There the delay time has to vary with the wind direction/speed! Don't know how they do that.

I could do that frequency thing a little bit a while ago... But I lost it again. You really have to practice, and just mix a hell of alot... I would hear the guitarsound on a solo and think: that's got to much high mid, that's annoying, and I would just get some of a certain frequency off and it sounded better... That was cool.

Btw; that guy I was talking about is about as old as I am. That's pretty young.

[BrettB]

The thing with live mixing when you don't really know the band is how they want to sound.

When I play guitar at a gig, I have my amp and my sound kinda set the way I want to, and I am quite happy when the guy at the PA just mixes my volume with the rest of the group and doesn't fiddle too much with my sound. The most enjoyable way to work is to have someone behind the PA you actually know.


Delay in meters, never heared of that! A great feature though... If someone now can tell us how it is done in open air?

[Roel]

I have no idea how it is done in open air.... I think there are systems that dynamically calculate the delaytime for that...

I know the sound for both bands that I mix. And mostly I mix hardcore-bands at concerts, they all sound the same.

Hypnos69 is fun to mix too. Both guitar and bassplayer have an amazing good sound (all vintage tube amps, bassplayer could use a tad more bass in his sound though) and hardly need amplification! It's only bad if the room's too small.
They also got a theremin in their setup these days, to fill up some of the hardrocking pieces. Very nice to mix. Rewarding. They always sound good...

[Alchemist3k]

I don't know if it's the same band but I remember hearing the album of a metal act called Facedown from one of the European countries. It got 4/5 in Kerrang! too.

[Roel]

Could be them... They were a metalcore band and sold over 10000 records so they might have gotten over there somehow...

[Alchemist3k]

Almost certainly was them.

Anyhow, when you say he miked both side of the speaker, do you mean the front and rear of the cabinet or that he miked the same cone from the front on opposite side's of its radius (if you know what I mean).

[TexRoadkill]

When they time align speaker cabs it is set and forget. The basic formula is 1 sec delay per 1000ft.

I can't imagine an auto adjust for wind because it would be changing the pitch when the delay time changed.

[Roel]

Originally posted by Alchemist3k
Almost certainly was them.

Anyhow, when you say he miked both side of the speaker, do you mean the front and rear of the cabinet or that he miked the same cone from the front on opposite side's of its radius (if you know what I mean).

Same cone, front on opposite side's of it's radius. The band plays marshall cabs so you cannot mic the back...

[Roel]

Originally posted by TexRoadkill
When they time align speaker cabs it is set and forget. The basic formula is 1 sec delay per 1000ft.

I can't imagine an auto adjust for wind because it would be changing the pitch when the delay time changed.

Good thinking... Probably true...

[BrettB]

One of my next gigs, I'm going to try to mic my two speakers of my Fender amp seperately, and pan them hard. I'llgive you the results as it actually gives a better sound.

[Roel]

Hmmm... How can you do you own sound??
Anyhow, I'm looking forward to hear your experiences with this!

I have a little festival comming up that I'm mixing. Gonna take my own preamp, see if I can get better results with that as the basic setup, and try the 2 mics on some of the bands...
I'll post my experiences with it too.

[BrettB]

Originally posted by Roel
Hmmm... How can you do you own sound??
Anyhow, I'm looking forward to hear your experiences with this!

Good Point Well, there is no harm in asking the PA man to try and do it. And when trying to mix my fellow band, I'll also try it, although there less 'rock orientated'

[Roel]

Ok.... Good luck. Hope it's the better kind of soundengineer... You might loose alot of lowend on your guitars if he hasn't got an idea of what he's doing.

The festival I'm mixing is a hardcore/punkrock festival. Ideal for trying this kindof trick. Cornflames is playing too. Don't know if you've heard of them. They are friends, but opened in the marquee of pukkelpop twice already. And circle (that's the band that rented the mixer) is playing the skatestage of pukkelpop this year, I think... But they aren't playing on the festival. I'm looking forward to mixing them again someday... See how much I can get out of them now I've seen what that pro could do...

[BrettB]

sorry, didn't heared of them yet.

Especially on those hardcore punk stuff is sound one of the caractheristics that seperates a great band from a sloppy one.

Btw, I don't know that you as engineer had allready trouble with pain in the ass artists. I noticed that young bands often blaim 'the bad soundengineer' for that louzy gigs.

I once had to mix Chris Joris, the Belgian jazz percussionist. He has all this kind of African percussion stuff, he wanted mics and man, I sweated with that stuff. He also had this large Djembé and talked to me how he wanted it to have that boomy bass sound, but also that crispy high end when he hits the side.

I started experimenting with some mic positions, and after he just hit his djembé once he imediately shouts: "What a dreadful sound: This is NOT the sound I want!!" I was, as an not that experienced guy and also kinda young whn you compare to that belgian jazz monument, really intimidated by that approach, and tried very friendly 'I'm just trying some stuff to make it sound good, please give me a little bit time sir'. After a lot of fiddling with the EQ and putting an extra Beta underneath his chair, I got a good sound of his djembé.

During the gig, he was constant giving signs to me that he wanted more piano in his monitor. Well, the piano was as loud as it could get in his monitor! Even if I pushed his monitor button just one mm further, you could hear a little feedback. But he kept giving me weird faces during that gig. Also when he played kalimba (that African hand piano stuff) he suddenly started gesticulating that I had to put it harder in his monitor, while during soundcheck he had specifically said I shouldn't have to put it any harder in the monitor as it was. While gesticulating he dropped his kalimba () and gave the audience a face like 'that dreadfull soundengineer'.

I personally hate people who use that kind of approach against the PA man!! Compare it to a football coach: I also couldn't work under a guy who's tactics are shouting and humiliating from second one.

Me personally thought I did a great job that day, and I must say, he eventually came up to me to thank me, and that several people in the audience told him the sound was really great. I appreciated that, and he stays a super musician, so I don't want to talk bad on him. I just don't like that irritated approach he uses. I also heared from other PA mixers he always shouts at them and is bad tempered.


I also once mixed a guy who played some modern classical avant garde electronic stuff, at a series of concerts that evening. He put several sounds to a KAOS pad from Korg, and insisted that he did his own mix on stage with his Behringer Euromixer, o the only thinng I had to do was put the L-R fader up. During soundcheck the Behringer mixer seemed to mess it all up (surprise, surprise), started crackling, giving bad signals etc, so a friend nearby could lend him his Mackie.

Anyway, during his gig, something goes wrong with his Kaosspad, and whole his avant garde concept totally fails: people hear only some crackled stuff and his electronic sound field totally isn't there.

After the concert he told several people that 'the sound was bad because of the bad engineer'. Give me a break!!! I only had to push 2 faders up, and his fucked up signal was his own faulth because of his dreadfull performance and lack of technical knowledge.

It's the eternal destiny of the PA man I guess

[Roel]

I saw Chris Joris a few years ago. Must be hell to mix. Good thing he came to thank you afterwards. Otherwise he'd really been an asshole.

I'm lucky with the bands I mix. They know what I'm worth. They are friends that have grown into this band-stuff together with me, but on the technical stuff, I'm way ahead of them. (My electronics engineering degree helps...)

And most of the bands I mixed really are quite happy with the sound. Either they don't know better, or they know that I've got a good attitude and try my best.

I've had some Antwerp band giving me a hard time once. They were acting real professional. Roadies taping micstands to the drums so they really couldn't move. They even replaced the mix. Guess what, the snare mic was to horizontal to my liking. But I couldn't move it, cause they taped it to the hihat. During the concert the 'proffesional roadies' were bugging me about the snare sound, it needed more body, they even came checking my SPL levels! I was REALLY close to letting them do the mix (which they would've fucked up royally probably). But I stayed cool. The SPL for the snare couldn't be more perfect btw. And it was a small room, the snare they heard was acoustic, not amplified. Idiots.

But mostly I've had good luck.

Hardest thing I did was some sort of "swingpaleis" kindof quiz with 2 panels. 2 mics per panel. They were shouting all thru eachother, very unprofessional. I had to shut down their mics from the organization, in the break they come bugging me about it. Acousticly the room was as bad as it could get too... And they had CD's and a tracklist. I was really playing tracks on their cue. Nono!!! The next track!! Oh boy...

[BrettB]

hehe some nice anecdotes.

I hope Chris Joris doesn't read this though, I really admire his music abilities. But I was idd a little bit pissed off at that time.

Dreadful, bands who have roadies while they hardly mean a thing. Actually kinda funny some times, how bad bands can act like they are all experienced.

Well, it's a bit natural I guess, when I played in my first band, and did a few gigs, when I was 15-16, we also acted like we were allready big. We could discuss hours on playlists, and several stage appearance stuff, while the only audience we had were the same bunch of friends and some family now and them. And when I talk to them right now about that period, I doubt they have listened closely to what we did

[Roel]

We had the same thing. But we were kinda 'big' for 17-18 year olds, especially if I look back at the music we played... Hehe. After our second gig (in the same crowded small hall as our first gig with over 300 peeps and just us playing!) we signed a contract to open a Boerenrock, a small festival with about 2000-3000 pees back then! And 2 weeks later we played on another festival at 22h! That was cool. It really was a local band contest, the winner could open the real festival the next day. But the real festival had less audience (due to bad weather). We know, we opened it. We really had alot of succes that first year... Those were the days...

The soundguy really was the bad guy back then. If it didn't sound good, well, it sounded 'good' in our rehearselroom?? Oh well... Live and learn. Those guys that were checking my spl were actually above 20. Not unexperienced kids that are just playing around and willing to learn. I like that. I mostly give em tips as far as sound is concerned.

I'm gonna start organizing gigs for starting bands in the local youthclub. We can lend a decent PA-system for free (government thingy), so it doesn't cost us all that much. I really want to get that young-band thing going again. It was so much fun back then. Those kids really don't know what they are missing out on. If you got a band and are willing to play cheap, let me know! (Don't know the budget I'll get yet, but I guess the bands that can provide a decent demo or reference will get about 50Euro. Maybe 100 at most. I'm gonna try doing this on a regular base, and keep it cheap...) (Very cheap. hehe.)

[Alchemist3k]

Yeah, it's funny being in a band and the cool feeling you get from it. Me and some friends made a rock group when we were 15. We thought we could 'play' back then and were going to do something 'innovative'. We made some DREADFUL recording using a karaoke machine and the supplied mic in the attic of one guy's house.

I laugh now. We used to listen to those tapes and think 'man, we're really great! Neil that's such a cool solo there man! Nice drumming there Richard!..' etc Now we listen and literally almost cry laughing at how unbeleivably shit we were. Thank god we didn't play any gigs as it is embarassing.

Now two of us have an industrial project underway. We have good equipment now and are currently recording demos. We would like to play some day but I don't know how we would go about it. Around these parts a lot of places don't even supply a PA and due to the technical nature of our stuff a PA would be essential. I think I would just DI my POD into the PA to save hassle. I have good amps as well but they are too heavy and what's the point in hauling them around when you are playing to tiny crowds? We would also need to play several parts off sequencer.

[BrettB]

hey Roel, great initiative! I'll can ask some local young bands if you want... I've heared of several beginner bands in the Area. Keep in mind, when you want it cheap and aim at young groups, they aren't always going to sound that good. But if I hear a young band that sounds ok I'll mention it.

[Roel]

Ok... I'll try to keep in touch. Not all that sure if it's going to work out ok. If I don't get the unemployement thingy arranged I'll have to take a job in between my studies and might lack time... We'll see....

(ik moet een vrijstelling krijgen om te studeren, normaal krijg ik die ni, maar 't zou nog kunnen lukken. Studeren, en dop trekken.... 't Zou mooi zijn....)