BrettB
Well-known member
Here is , for who is interested,as promised i, a review of the live mixing job I told about in in the previous live mixing thread.
I'll just begin with putting everything up and the soundcheck: I used the mikes they had overthere which were a heap of Shure copies (DAP audio I), and a few real shures.
beginning with the drums: I had a basdrum mike which made the bassdrums sound ok, but it is just a great bassdrum, so I had no troubles with that. I just mikes it inside the basdrum aimed at the point that's been hit. The snare had a Sennheiser clip on: this one needed a bit of EQ fiddling to get some nasty mid frequency out of it, but overaal it sounded ok. Not superb like I wanted it to be, but the best within my EQ capacities
. The tom miking was no problem, the Hihat also was ok, but Roel was right about overheads: There were songs were I just put them (two condensors) completely down. His cymbals sounded really loud and natural in the room, plus the fact that the tom mikes gave lots of crosstalk!! I had the luck the crosstalk sounded, surprisingly OK, even with the EQ settings on the tom, so they weren't really a pain in the ass. But I have to remember: next time if possible use a gate on the tomsand 1 overhead will do. But again, I had the luck of working with a great drummer who had a well adjusted drum set.
The bass was mikes with a Sm57 copy. Sound on it's own wasn't that great, but after cutting some muddy sound in the low frequency area it sounded ok in combination with the drums. and that's the most important thing with a bass, isn't it. I had some troubles with crosstalking with the drums (the bassist liked his amp near the drummer) but after playing with the amp position that problem was solved.
The guitar was done with that same kind of mike. No single problem with that one. The guitarist had an ok sound, and the miking sounded pretty neutral.
The keyboardplayer had made a submix for me: really handy!! Btw, I did put him through in stereo. Maybe in smaller rooms it is indeed stupid to mix live in stereo, so that people at one side of the speaker will have another sound, but now the room was way to big for the small amount of people (there were about 150-200 ppl in a room for 1500) so most of the people stood a few meters from the stage and quite in the center.
I only had 2 monitors, but there were also amps on stage, so everybody was heared as needed to be on stage. I had no feedback troubles (I even put the feedbackdestroyer out of the monitorline), I even could boost the monitors up quite a bit.
The guy who owned the material and the concert hall i sstill a strange guy though: you know those people who one second sound like they really know what they are talking about but another do really strange things. He tried to convinve me to put the monitor lines on two groups. When I said I couldn't make a different mix for the monitors that way, I suddenly had to use the L-R output (Speakers were groups, so L-R wasn't used) to which you could send, according to him) a seperate mix due to some controlroom buttons on each channels on the table (but that didn't work shit off course). When he left me to soundchek, I just put the 2 monitors on the 2 free auxiliaries: problem solved.
Concerning the Virtualizer: That same guy was searching a good setting for it by just talking in a mic and fiddling with the knobs.
Strange way, especially when you think that after all his testing he just used a standard preset of the machine. It didn't sound that great at all, but because of the natural, usuable reverb the room had (remember the room was acousticly treaded) I only sent the vocals a little bit to the virtualizer, and that sounded OK. I didn't investigated the machine any further, didn't feel like it and didn't really needed it.
So actually I was just kinda lucky the room sounded really good on it's own and the musicians had their own sound under control.
The balance was really ok I dare to say! I know their songs, so I could ride the faders pretty easily (know where to boost/diminish the snare, where the guitar solo's come, where the keyboard has to be loud or just at the background,... ). So I used my ears, stayed focussed and I really got a nice balance. Something like that is a part of concentration: If you aren't focussed you loose nuances you would have heared otherwise.
Roel, I didn't mix loud
. I also tried to play softly with the master volume, and it seemed to work. some ballads a bit quieter an a small volume boost when a more uptempo song comes after a few ballads helps for the atmosphere.
After the gig several ppl came to tell me they were satisfied of the mix and my PA job. Taking my my lack of experience and the equipment that was there, I also was really happy with my job.
I really hope I can do regulary some live mixes. It's a completely different way of mixing, listening, plus that there is much more pressure on you: you don't have the homerecording down to try several EQ settings during the song.
Any comments are welcome
greets
Brett
I'll just begin with putting everything up and the soundcheck: I used the mikes they had overthere which were a heap of Shure copies (DAP audio I), and a few real shures.
beginning with the drums: I had a basdrum mike which made the bassdrums sound ok, but it is just a great bassdrum, so I had no troubles with that. I just mikes it inside the basdrum aimed at the point that's been hit. The snare had a Sennheiser clip on: this one needed a bit of EQ fiddling to get some nasty mid frequency out of it, but overaal it sounded ok. Not superb like I wanted it to be, but the best within my EQ capacities
. The tom miking was no problem, the Hihat also was ok, but Roel was right about overheads: There were songs were I just put them (two condensors) completely down. His cymbals sounded really loud and natural in the room, plus the fact that the tom mikes gave lots of crosstalk!! I had the luck the crosstalk sounded, surprisingly OK, even with the EQ settings on the tom, so they weren't really a pain in the ass. But I have to remember: next time if possible use a gate on the tomsand 1 overhead will do. But again, I had the luck of working with a great drummer who had a well adjusted drum set.The bass was mikes with a Sm57 copy. Sound on it's own wasn't that great, but after cutting some muddy sound in the low frequency area it sounded ok in combination with the drums. and that's the most important thing with a bass, isn't it
. I had some troubles with crosstalking with the drums (the bassist liked his amp near the drummer) but after playing with the amp position that problem was solved.The guitar was done with that same kind of mike. No single problem with that one. The guitarist had an ok sound, and the miking sounded pretty neutral.
The keyboardplayer had made a submix for me: really handy!! Btw, I did put him through in stereo. Maybe in smaller rooms it is indeed stupid to mix live in stereo, so that people at one side of the speaker will have another sound, but now the room was way to big for the small amount of people (there were about 150-200 ppl in a room for 1500) so most of the people stood a few meters from the stage and quite in the center.
I only had 2 monitors, but there were also amps on stage, so everybody was heared as needed to be on stage. I had no feedback troubles (I even put the feedbackdestroyer out of the monitorline), I even could boost the monitors up quite a bit.
The guy who owned the material and the concert hall i sstill a strange guy though: you know those people who one second sound like they really know what they are talking about but another do really strange things. He tried to convinve me to put the monitor lines on two groups. When I said I couldn't make a different mix for the monitors that way, I suddenly had to use the L-R output (Speakers were groups, so L-R wasn't used) to which you could send, according to him) a seperate mix due to some controlroom buttons on each channels on the table (but that didn't work shit off course
). When he left me to soundchek, I just put the 2 monitors on the 2 free auxiliaries: problem solved. Concerning the Virtualizer: That same guy was searching a good setting for it by just talking in a mic and fiddling with the knobs.
Strange way, especially when you think that after all his testing he just used a standard preset of the machine. It didn't sound that great at all, but because of the natural, usuable reverb the room had (remember the room was acousticly treaded) I only sent the vocals a little bit to the virtualizer, and that sounded OK. I didn't investigated the machine any further, didn't feel like it and didn't really needed it.
So actually I was just kinda lucky the room sounded really good on it's own and the musicians had their own sound under control.
The balance was really ok I dare to say! I know their songs, so I could ride the faders pretty easily (know where to boost/diminish the snare, where the guitar solo's come, where the keyboard has to be loud or just at the background,... ). So I used my ears, stayed focussed and I really got a nice balance. Something like that is a part of concentration: If you aren't focussed you loose nuances you would have heared otherwise.
Roel, I didn't mix loud
. I also tried to play softly with the master volume, and it seemed to work. some ballads a bit quieter an a small volume boost when a more uptempo song comes after a few ballads helps for the atmosphere.After the gig several ppl came to tell me they were satisfied of the mix and my PA job. Taking my my lack of experience and the equipment that was there, I also was really happy with my job.
I really hope I can do regulary some live mixes. It's a completely different way of mixing, listening, plus that there is much more pressure on you: you don't have the homerecording down to try several EQ settings during the song.
Any comments are welcome
greets
Brett
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