ashcat_lt
Well-known member
This is almost tangentially related to the topic at hand, but it's kind of a fun story. I may have told it around here before, but this is the long version.
Every year, my town throws this week long party called Duluth Homegrown Festival. It's like 200 local acts all playing at the same time and competing for crowds of people who don't come out to see them the rest of the year. I've played something or other in like 7 of the last 9. I've been running sound at least 3 nights out of the week for the last 5.
2 years ago I was booked to play at this tiny little art gallery where I had played before with a bunch of my punk friends who I had seen there before. These are the guys that come in and crank their amps all the way up even though none of the crowd can be more than 8 feet away. The acts where the guitars are louder than the acoustic drums even though dude is always hitting as hard a he can. And we went there and did that every week or two for months. In fact, the "house PA" there was something I had cobbled together:
-A MIDIMan line mixer that I've had since my dad sent to me in 1990. It has four mic pres with individual gain control, and 20 line inputs which can either be 20 mono or 10 stereo pairs with no individual volume controls because anything you'd plug in would have its own way of doing that. It has 4 effects sends with individual level knobs (the returns would presumably go to the line ins), and a left and right master output.
- A stereo 31 band EQ but I only used one channel cause it's only for vocals anyway. I completely neutered the low end with a curve starting around 300Hz and down toward nothing and the Low Cut filter engaged. The bass and drums are going to be louder in this mic than any vocalist really could be, even with inverse square law. Those instruments are already too loud, and we don't have to amplify them I also hacked down some of the very high highs. Partly the same reason - the cymbals are already at least too loud. Also, the speakers we're using aren't likely to give us much way up there so why create extra heat in the trying?
- A compressor set to limit like 6db before the amplifier did. It was all carefully gain staged and basically bullet proof, so I covered this and the eq with some cardboard (I thought part of a case of beer was appropriate) and duct tape.
- A 400W power amp into a pair of 15+horn speakers my bassist got from a cab driver for free.
Up until somebody tried to play karoake through the thing and figured out there wasn't actually any bass, but that they could rip the cardboard off and fuck with the EQ, we never had any problems getting the vocals intelligible over all the other insanity, and we had surprisingly little feedback.
BUT!!!
This show was a part of the festival, and remember how I said I run sound for shows at this festival? Well, the guy that pays me to do that was hired to provide sound for this show, and since I was playing the show in a room I knew with people I knew for people I knew... For most of it, we easily could have gotten away with what we had. We do it all the time, but the contract includes a PA, and I was like "You know, my band doesn't actually have amps or acoustic drums, but I'd like to be at least as loud as those other assholes." So we brought in a pair of newer, self-powered 15+horns that were just a bit more flat, with a bit more high end extension, and just a touch more overall wattage than my amp/speakers. I think I talked them out of a 12+horn, but I also got this nice little sub to work with.
But that ain't really the point either. I "mixed" the whole show through the same computer that my band plays through all the time, plugged directly into the new PA. For most of the other acts, it completely only needed a vocal mic through a clone of the same track I sing through - with the EQ and comp baked in.
Then one of the bands was setting up, and the guitarist had a problem with his amp. It wouldn't stay on or something. We only had like a minute and a half to get them rocking. I told him to just plug into the Instrument input on my Tascam US1641, and I'd bring up a sim and he'd be rocking. He started to turn up his nose like "Amp sim?!? This is punk rock!" Then I pointed at the Line6 amp he'd intended to play through...
Edit -
Which is to say that the "trick" is to hear and understand what each part and stage of the process has what effect, and learn to adjust the right thing at the right time. It's not "plug this and in and turn the knobs to here". It's "plug it and in and turn the knobs till it sounds good. If you can't, plug something else in, or plug into something else." Whether that thing you plug in is hardware or software means absolutely nothing.
Edit again -
Which is also to say that those dudes that everybody thinks sound so awesome were actually just working what they had and doing the best they could. They were building if not wishing for if not completely never thought of the things that we have available today. You still have to listen.
Edit again cause I'm not goonn double post -
Which is to say that if it's worth recording, it doesn't matter how you catch it. Somebody will be happy you did. More importantly, if it sounds exactly the way you (as artist and/or producer) want then it doesn't matter where your compressor's threshold was set or how many decibels you boosted the 3K on the kick drum/. Nodbdy cares if you ran through a Neve or a Nady. Turn the knobs til it sounds good. Helps to know which knobs to turn...
Every year, my town throws this week long party called Duluth Homegrown Festival. It's like 200 local acts all playing at the same time and competing for crowds of people who don't come out to see them the rest of the year. I've played something or other in like 7 of the last 9. I've been running sound at least 3 nights out of the week for the last 5.
2 years ago I was booked to play at this tiny little art gallery where I had played before with a bunch of my punk friends who I had seen there before. These are the guys that come in and crank their amps all the way up even though none of the crowd can be more than 8 feet away. The acts where the guitars are louder than the acoustic drums even though dude is always hitting as hard a he can. And we went there and did that every week or two for months. In fact, the "house PA" there was something I had cobbled together:
-A MIDIMan line mixer that I've had since my dad sent to me in 1990. It has four mic pres with individual gain control, and 20 line inputs which can either be 20 mono or 10 stereo pairs with no individual volume controls because anything you'd plug in would have its own way of doing that. It has 4 effects sends with individual level knobs (the returns would presumably go to the line ins), and a left and right master output.
- A stereo 31 band EQ but I only used one channel cause it's only for vocals anyway. I completely neutered the low end with a curve starting around 300Hz and down toward nothing and the Low Cut filter engaged. The bass and drums are going to be louder in this mic than any vocalist really could be, even with inverse square law. Those instruments are already too loud, and we don't have to amplify them I also hacked down some of the very high highs. Partly the same reason - the cymbals are already at least too loud. Also, the speakers we're using aren't likely to give us much way up there so why create extra heat in the trying?
- A compressor set to limit like 6db before the amplifier did. It was all carefully gain staged and basically bullet proof, so I covered this and the eq with some cardboard (I thought part of a case of beer was appropriate) and duct tape.
- A 400W power amp into a pair of 15+horn speakers my bassist got from a cab driver for free.
Up until somebody tried to play karoake through the thing and figured out there wasn't actually any bass, but that they could rip the cardboard off and fuck with the EQ, we never had any problems getting the vocals intelligible over all the other insanity, and we had surprisingly little feedback.
BUT!!!
This show was a part of the festival, and remember how I said I run sound for shows at this festival? Well, the guy that pays me to do that was hired to provide sound for this show, and since I was playing the show in a room I knew with people I knew for people I knew... For most of it, we easily could have gotten away with what we had. We do it all the time, but the contract includes a PA, and I was like "You know, my band doesn't actually have amps or acoustic drums, but I'd like to be at least as loud as those other assholes." So we brought in a pair of newer, self-powered 15+horns that were just a bit more flat, with a bit more high end extension, and just a touch more overall wattage than my amp/speakers. I think I talked them out of a 12+horn, but I also got this nice little sub to work with.
But that ain't really the point either. I "mixed" the whole show through the same computer that my band plays through all the time, plugged directly into the new PA. For most of the other acts, it completely only needed a vocal mic through a clone of the same track I sing through - with the EQ and comp baked in.
Then one of the bands was setting up, and the guitarist had a problem with his amp. It wouldn't stay on or something. We only had like a minute and a half to get them rocking. I told him to just plug into the Instrument input on my Tascam US1641, and I'd bring up a sim and he'd be rocking. He started to turn up his nose like "Amp sim?!? This is punk rock!" Then I pointed at the Line6 amp he'd intended to play through...
Edit -
Which is to say that the "trick" is to hear and understand what each part and stage of the process has what effect, and learn to adjust the right thing at the right time. It's not "plug this and in and turn the knobs to here". It's "plug it and in and turn the knobs till it sounds good. If you can't, plug something else in, or plug into something else." Whether that thing you plug in is hardware or software means absolutely nothing.
Edit again -
Which is also to say that those dudes that everybody thinks sound so awesome were actually just working what they had and doing the best they could. They were building if not wishing for if not completely never thought of the things that we have available today. You still have to listen.
Edit again cause I'm not goonn double post -
Which is to say that if it's worth recording, it doesn't matter how you catch it. Somebody will be happy you did. More importantly, if it sounds exactly the way you (as artist and/or producer) want then it doesn't matter where your compressor's threshold was set or how many decibels you boosted the 3K on the kick drum/. Nodbdy cares if you ran through a Neve or a Nady. Turn the knobs til it sounds good. Helps to know which knobs to turn...
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