Live... what the hell!

  • Thread starter Thread starter Karl_
  • Start date Start date
K

Karl_

New member
so im fresh out of a live show. What the hell is going on with live engineering>

Ive been going to the same pub for the last 6 or so gigs. this also lines up with me trying to understand acoustics and homerecording. to me, live engineering seems like a grey, scary extreme sport... UFC. you have to act on the spot, get shit done with differenc sounds, genres, maybe rooms too... and if you stuff it up, hope that everyone is that drunk that noone notices.

Like, im trying to deal with a standard room with my own standard guitar tones.... live... wtf?

Could someone give their experiances with live sounds and explain or point me in the direction of some info to explain it. to me it seems like you have very variable room acoustics (variable people, shit acoustics, big room, what ever), a max of like 10 min of time to get things sorted and!!! your at the back of the room! how do you compensate/ calibrate for the front row listeners? or are they just ignored because the sound intensity + bass distorts their ears to the point that it doenst matter.


Cheers a trunk load

Karl
 
I'm not sure what the question is, but I can say that live sound is hard to do well. With adverse acoustics, time constraints and challenging interpersonal stuff it often devolves into combat audio, trying to keep the whole thing from going off the rails. Once the show starts you've got a tiger by the tail and you can't let go until the set break. There's a reason many live sound guys seem grouchy and impatient.

As far as compensating for different parts of the room, there are techniques. I tend to angle the mains in so the edge of the speakers' dispersion pattern just covers the front. That may reduce the amount getting to the back, but having some quieter areas in back is not such a bad thing. And you have to walk the room. Go around the whole perimeter of the area. Check the sound at different distances from stage up the center and off to the sides. Figure out the differences and decide on a compromise.

Control the stage volume. Find ways to aim the guitar amps at the players rather than at the audience. Mic them so you can put them in the mains. Guitar amps are "beamy", the highs disappear off axis. So if an amp is on a stage aimed at the player's calves he'll tend to run the treble too high, and any audience member that is in the firing line of the amp gets his head torn off. Raise, angle up, aim across stage or do whatever you can to get the player to hear his amp on axis. The PA can distribute the sound much more evenly in the venue.

Lower stage volume will help the vocals immensely. If you are dealing with a house system the eqs are often hacked. Odds are that simply resetting them to flat will make a huge improvement, but be careful because if most of the sliders are lowered you'll increase the gain quite a bit when you zero them out. If you're not allowed to mess with the eqs then simply bypassing them might improve things, depending on the type of monitors and the acoustics of that particular stage.

Learn the procedure for setting gains on the board in question. You should be able to do it in seconds. Start your mix by getting vocals over stage volume, and then fill in with whatever else needs reinforcement. If your gains are set correctly you should be able to put the lead vocal fader at 0 and set the master fader (or some other overall gain, like on a system processor) so the vocal sits on top of the stage volume. If the master fader has to be above 0 then something downstream isn't right, like inadequate amps and speakers.
 
cheers man

that clears up a lot of things. So you basically angle amps to make things more pleasant for the front row, then do your best to get the rest of the room right... plus the million other things before and during the show.

Very cool. Also, I can understand the sound guy being grumpy with that much going on.
 
bouldersoundguy said:
...it often devolves into combat audio, trying to keep the whole thing from going off the rails. Once the show starts you've got a tiger by the tail and you can't let go until the set break. There's a reason many live sound guys seem grouchy and impatient..
Click to expand...

:laughings: "combat audio" is my favourite description for live sound engineering EVER!!! because it sums it up so beautifully. Well played sir, have some rep :)
 
bouldersoundguy said:
Lower stage volume will help the vocals immensely.
Click to expand...

Guitar amps are often the culprit. But sometimes a loud foldback is too. Sometimes you have to mix the FOH higher than you want to counteract the muffled sound coming back from wedges. Encouraging performers to settle for lower foldback levels can be tricky.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top