Live mixing in bad rooms...

[Roel]

Last two concerts I mixed, I had some problems with the rooms. One really sounded as a very bad 'Large Cave' patch, and the other was a medium-large hall... Both concerts weren't crowded enough to damp these reflections, so they both sucked.

What can you do about that?? How do you deal with this?

 

[camn]

curtains and carpet.

xox

 

[vox]

There are basically two approaches, the first is to change the type of enclosures that you are using, a lot of the new designs are concentrating on focusing the sound only where it's needed and avoiding too much 'spillage' this is the aproach to take for band reinforcement in a concert setting.

The second approach is similar in concept but different in application, the concept is basically to get the sound where it's needed without 'exciting' the room too much, if it's more like a theatre/play type of setting I have found that using several small enclosures in a 'delay stack' type of arrangement can get a speaker close to everyone so that the volume can be kept reasonably low while still allowing everyone to hear everything clearly.

The worst possible thing to do is to set up one huge stack and pile a lot of power into a reverberant space, all that power is just going to bounce around in there and sound like shit.

If the hall is empty you can improve the sound a little by dropping the volume of the PA to a more 'Intimate' level.

I'm assuming that you have no authority or cash to acoustically treat the rooms.

 

[sonusman]

I don't agree with not putting a big stack of speakers in one spot. I went to a clinic years ago that was taught by Peaveys main developer guy in that day and he pointed out the obvious about big reverberant spaces.

The more places you have source coming from the worse the sound is going to get. Phase concelleation doubles. blah blah blah....

At the club I am working at, they used to have the subs split on either side of the stage. It was awefull. The low end carried a lot in the room, and we didn't get good focus at all in the sound. The day we put all the subs in the same spot, what the Peavey guy recommended, we got tremendously more focus on the subs, and the carry of the sound in the room cut down a bunch. It was amazing really.

Not a whole lot you can do about big open rooms that don't have a reverb that is suitable for music. If you are going to amplify the stuff, it is going to reverberate a lot. I do agree though that bringing the volume down helps a bit.

You COULD go the other direction and just blast the room with shit loads of volume! I have had luck with that approach!

Ed

 

[Roel]

Well... Blast the rooms with shitloads of volume is what the guitarists and the bassists do in the bands I mix... On both concerts, we had to ask the players to turn down their amps. And even then they just played it from their amps.
Which is a good thing in one of the bands, their sound is just a brick wall, doesn't need anything... But the other band needed more low on the bass. No way you can put it in if it's not amplified.

And both concerts were at different places, with the PA allready set up when we got there. So no carpets or placing speakers. Could lower the level. But I generally don't mix that loud.

Actually, the last concert, I got comments on the sound: it was good, but, in comparison to the other bands, not loud enough. Not my fault if the other mixer is allready deaf. I took it as a compliment.

 

[vox]

Ed, I understand and agree, the situation I was talking about was trying to get sound to the back of the room, if its reverberant I think it's better to put in a small delay stack/fill than to try to drive the big main stacks to fill the back.

 

[sonusman]

sorry vox, didn't mean to come across like I was dissing your advice. Actually, your idea is not only viable, but is used in very large factories and business offices that have paging systems.

I more or less assumed though that spacing speakers would not be an option for a Pop music show, and barring being able to do what you suggest, having all the speakers in one spot is the best solution in reverberant rooms. Worked very well in theatres way back when when a 10 watt amp was "the shit".....

Ed