Tips for EQ on live vocals

[soundchaser59]

Anybody have any favorite tips for quick and dirty eq'ing of live vocals. It's a church mix, usually even numbers of male and female, none are professionals and almost all of them swallow the mics.

The board has 4 band eq, each band has a freq sweep, and both mid bands have a switch for broad or narrow Q.

I need some tips on things I can try quickly with eq, cuz they only give us an hour before the show to sound check, and the "musicians" are impatient and inexperienced. I'm wanting to do some quick eq tricks because I never know ahead of time exactly who will be on stage, sometimes the males are too bright, sometimes the females are too bright, sometimes the entire vocal mix sounds mid heavy or boxy, once in awhile we get a special performer who has a huge range from low to high, etc......

Any tips are appreciated... SC

 

[boingoman]

Make sure the PA is set up as well as possible first. People talk about making sure your instrument is tuned before you record, your PA is your instrument if you are mixing. For instance, "too middy" could really be "not enough high end". Horns tend to sound that way anyway, when pushed. Anyway.....

Turn down the low end a lot, then bring it back till it's right. Lots of open mics means build-up of low and low-mid freqs and odd phase problems if they are close together. After that, I mostly find myself constantly adjusting the high-mids, cutting when singers sound strident from pitch or volume changes, and bringing them back in when the singers get quiet or drift off the mic. Try both wide and narrow, sweeping the center freq from 1k to 3k. Don't cut too much. This should catch a lot of stuff that sounds nasty, at least til you can fine-tune. Use compression.

Basically, be prepared to dance on those eq knobs all day, no matter what.

If you find yourself cutting the same stuff out of all the channels, might as well try dialing it out of the PA on the house eq.

If you have monitor wedges, work on getting them as quiet as possible. Loud wedges can really mess with a mix by tossing low muds into the house.

 

[soundchaser59]

Thanks! This all makes sense, and fits what I thought I was hearing.....

How heavy handed are you thinking for the compressors??

SC

 

[michaelst]

For singing, I'd recommend removing some honkiness about 240-260hz. For speech, you can bring it back.
But boingoman is right on with all his tips. And you'll be fiddling all day with EQ for people with bad mic techniques (love those that let the mic hang right over monitors - go walking in front of the PA).

As to compression, I'd try to use as little as possible for speech, and a minimum for singing.

 

[boingoman]

For singing, I'd recommend removing some honkiness about 240-260hz. For speech, you can bring it back.

Yeah, and be ready to dial some lows back in when you do, or try with the narrow Q. A wide cut in that range along with a low cut often leads to too much low cut, as the bands overlap somewhat. The vocals lose a lot of power.

I'm with Michael on compression. Only what you need. Depending on the singer or speaker, that could be a lot or a little. Inexperienced people tend to be worse as far as "P" pops when they eat the mic, and high-ratio compression with fast attack and release times work for this, like a de-popper instead of a de-esser. Set the threshold so it catches the pops. Dialing out some low end helps this, as well. After awhile, you'll find what works best for your gear. My basic setting is high ratio, auto attack/release, threshold set so the gain reduction just barely starts to light up when the person eats the mic. Then I adjust as I need to. There are compressors that show the input level, that allow you to set the threshold more precisely, but I don't have that luxury .

I don't know how you set up your initial mix. Personally, I set all my faders at unity and set up my mix with the gain knobs. I find this easier for a few reasons. In the case of adding in new elements, I can make my "best guess" on the gain, have the fader set at -10 or -15. This way I can be pretty sure at least something will get to the house right away, and I've got room to play with the fader if the signal is too weak or too strong. The channel eq is set flat, and a comp is patched in with the threshold set to it's highest point. I have lots of fader travel to compensate until I set my gain where I want it so the fader is around 0, and can dial in eq then compression while riding the fader at the start.

 

[soundchaser59]

I tried to ride on the tails of what the other sound man did last week, assuming he would leave the board the way he set it. But then I discovered it's like someone comes in mid week and turns loose a 2 year old kid on the board and the kid turns knobs and punches buttons at random. So I found that all I can do is come in 20 minutes early and "neutralize" everything on the board before the sound check starts. It's the only way to clear out bad settings and bad sub assignments, etc. And I think neutralizing the eq knobs is what got me back to this vocals issue.

There are 3 of us rotating on the sound board, one is the pro guy who installed the system and is doing sound for a living, one is a factory guy who used to do gig sound part time, and I'm a home studio guy trying to learn the live application. The other two guys get decent sound, but the board is too big (A&H GL4000) for me to write down their settings every week, and I cant count on strays not to come in during the week and twist knobs and push buttons.

This info will help a lot. Thanks! - SC

 

[boingoman]

Making friends with those guys could help a lot, especially if you feel they get good sound from the system.