live sound help, PLEASE!

[daled]

Hi Everybody,

I was recently given the opportunity to engineer at a live venue in my city, but unfortunately I had to turn it down because I felt I didn't have enough experience with live audio besides the few volunteer shows ive done and a little bit of home recording with my own band. Can anyone please offer me some advice (or helpful websites) that would help educate a beginner in live sound? Also, does anyone know of any good affordable earplugs, that won't cut frequencies but just reduce the overall soundlevel, that could be used while engineering in a club?

Thank you for your help.

 

[Opus]

There's a great book called Live Sound Mixing by Duncan Fry which explains everything in laymans terms & at times is quite amusing. It's published by Roztralia Publishing in Australia.
As far as headphones are concerned I'd buy a good set of headphone inserts (e.g. Koss) and a pair of ear muffs from the hardware store. It may look a bit silly but they'll last you for years.
Any other questions? Contact me at adrianashdown@hotmail.com

 

[Sound Cracker]

daled

I will not comment on the live sound thing. If you understand signal path, gain structures, and a bit about acoustics, then you know more then many live soundmen I have met do!

You WILL NOT find ANY earplugs that will make the music sound the same but at a lower volume. The bass will always seem to be more present with any kind of hearing attenuation device in your ear.

The problem is that much of the low end you "hear" is acutally body cavities that are picking up the sound waves then transferring it to the ear drum. Putting something in your ear will not reduce this one bit.

I purchased some rather expesive "state of the art" earplugs a few years ago, the ones where they make a wax mold of your ear, blah blah blah.....The sound better then foam earplugs, but, the bass is still very heavy when they are in.

What I do when mixing live sound? Well, mix the first couple of songs with your regular hearing, then put in your hearing protection device. Take them out like every other song or so and check the mix.

One thing you have to remember is that by doing this, you are NOT fatiqueing your ears like the average listening in the room it. You will have a tendency to mix too much low end in the mix because once you take off your hearing protection device, the mix will sound overly bright until your ears start to shut down from the excessive SPL. If you left them off and mixed for 30 mins, then rested your ears for and hour and came back and listened to your mix you left, there would be a hell of a lot of high end in the mix. As you ears fatigue, you start adding more high end.

Good Day!

 

[sjoko2]

There are earplugs available which attinuate frequencies quite accurately, I always use them if / when I do live sound.
Problem is - they are made for individuals after hearing tests, and they cost me almost 500 bucks.

If you don't want to spend that much - take the filter of a ciggarette, peel the paper off, split the filter in half, roll each half into a little ball and put them in your ears. Works surprisingly well, better hearing compared to proper earplugs.

Sound Cracker's advise was spot-on. For the rest - as long as you know gear and how it works - practise! Or find a local sound guy / sound company and work for them for free for a bit, as a "volunteer", to get experience.

I remember this guy who always turned up at Golden Earring gigs at about 11 in the morning, helping the crew load-in and set up. First vacancy he bacame part of the PA crew, and when I left GE to go on tour with the Who, he took over running the sound, now he owns one of the top hire companies in Europe