If you've got 3 vocal mics, this is going to be real quick. If you're fully mic'd up with all the instruments going through the PA, this is going to take a bit.
Before you start mixing, you need to have some idea what you're going for. It's no different than if you sit down to draw something. If you just start, there's no telling what you're going to wind up with or even when you're done. If you're a band member that running sound, you should have some idea what you want to sound like.
If you're working with a sound man, take a moment to convey some idea of what you would like in the house mix. If you're a country band, you don't want a death metal or funk kick drum dominating the mix. Likewise if you're a rock band, you don't want the vocals 12dB in front of everything else. Try to put it in general terms, such as a well known band. One of the best examples I've heard was from Pat DiNizio of The Smithereens when he told the house sound man "make it sound like The Beatles...just louder". That gave the sound man an instant point of reference to start his mix.
For vocals only, get things balanced and intelligible, add a dash of reverb and away you go. Don't get really hung up on a lot of effects on the vocals unless you have a way to turn them on and off. Otherwise, if you're talking to the crowd between songs with a lot of echo on your voice, it's just silly.
And don't forget to use the low-cut on your inputs if you have it. I pretty much use it on everything except kick, bass guitar, and keys. Your voice has no useful information below 100Hz...the only thing down there in a vocal mic is rumble and bleed from other instruments.
If you're running instruments through the PA, there are entire books written on various mixing techniques. How you set this up, again, depends on the band, the style of music, and the room.
Just remember that unless you're in a huge room, you're not trying to displace the stage sound completely with the PA...you just want to build on it. The idea is just help the instruments project into the venue.
Somewhere down the road, we'll go a little more in depth on different ideologies of building a mix. For now, just keep these bullet points in mind:
But there are a lot of technologies out there now that let you drive your console by remote control. Behringer (those guys again) just introduced their X32 digital console that lets you set the fader levels through an iPad wirelessly. Presonus steps that up a notch with their Studio Live consoles by giving you access to every channel function via iPad remote. I just built a new PA around the Studio Live 24.4.2...it's an amazing piece of gear that not only sounds good, it replaced the equivalent of a 24 space rack of compressors and EQs.
Granted, those solutions will set you back from $2000 up to over $15,000. Mackie, however, has broken the $1000 barrier with a 16 channel host frame that uses an iPad as it's user interface and mixing engine. The DL1608 is a game changer...it's the first digital mixing system I know of at that price range and in a small console format. If you're looking to upgrade or replace your mixer anytime soon, you at least owe it to yourself to look at some of the digital solutions.
That's enough for today. I gigged last night and still have to clean my instruments and gear.
Next week, we'll take a step away from the heavy duty tech stuff. A few weeks ago in the "What's In Your Tool Box" post I talked about a few of my go-to gizmos that I have to have in my tool box. I'll share a few more of my "gotta have" things next week...still in time for you to drop hints for the holidays!
Until then, keep the meters out of the red!
Ken
Ken Carver has been a musician and performer since the early 70's, and involved with live music production since the mid 70's. He worked for 15 years as a broadcast engineer, building numerous studios and transmitter sites around Texas. He's also worked in Critical Care Communications for the medical industry, R&D for an automated lighting manufacturer, and owned Project Lighting & Sound in the 80's. He currently heads up an R&D Hardware Technician Team at National Instruments in Austin, and still performs on the weekends in the Central Texas area. You can reach Ken at itsjustlogistics@gmail.com
Before you start mixing, you need to have some idea what you're going for. It's no different than if you sit down to draw something. If you just start, there's no telling what you're going to wind up with or even when you're done. If you're a band member that running sound, you should have some idea what you want to sound like.
If you're working with a sound man, take a moment to convey some idea of what you would like in the house mix. If you're a country band, you don't want a death metal or funk kick drum dominating the mix. Likewise if you're a rock band, you don't want the vocals 12dB in front of everything else. Try to put it in general terms, such as a well known band. One of the best examples I've heard was from Pat DiNizio of The Smithereens when he told the house sound man "make it sound like The Beatles...just louder". That gave the sound man an instant point of reference to start his mix.
For vocals only, get things balanced and intelligible, add a dash of reverb and away you go. Don't get really hung up on a lot of effects on the vocals unless you have a way to turn them on and off. Otherwise, if you're talking to the crowd between songs with a lot of echo on your voice, it's just silly.
And don't forget to use the low-cut on your inputs if you have it. I pretty much use it on everything except kick, bass guitar, and keys. Your voice has no useful information below 100Hz...the only thing down there in a vocal mic is rumble and bleed from other instruments.
If you're running instruments through the PA, there are entire books written on various mixing techniques. How you set this up, again, depends on the band, the style of music, and the room.
Just remember that unless you're in a huge room, you're not trying to displace the stage sound completely with the PA...you just want to build on it. The idea is just help the instruments project into the venue.
Somewhere down the road, we'll go a little more in depth on different ideologies of building a mix. For now, just keep these bullet points in mind:
- Make sure the vocals are present and intelligible. People like to hear the words to the song so they can sing along.
- If you're a Cookie Monster-vocals death metal band, you can forget about the above
- Fortunate enough to have a stereo PA? Keep the vocals, bass, kick, and snare in the middle and pan guitars to the side. If you have keyboards and enough channels, run 'em in stereo and pan 'em 9:00-3:00.
- If you're playing to a dance crowd, then a solid kick drum in the mix is very advantageous. But keep in mind that the kick you hear on a lot of recordings is either electronically generated or is a result of a complicated chain of multiple mics / EQs / Compressors. It's more important that you make it work well with the bass guitar than it is to have this huge monster sound all by itself.
- In reference to the above, don't burn 50 minutes of your 1 hour sound check on the kick drum...nobody has ever left a show humming the kick drum part from a song.
- If you notice you're cutting the same frequency on every channel, then you've got an issue with the house EQ. Make your system adjustments there...not on the individual channels.
- The idea is to make the instruments fit together like a sonic puzzle. If you have both the kick drum and the bass guitar trying to dominate the low end, it's not "heavy"...it's just mud.
- Likewise, if you have 2 guitar players with similar tones then you just wind up with a bunch of white noise. EQ them slightly differently and pan them if you have the option.
- You can always cut what you don't want, but you can't add back what isn't there. Guitarists who insist on scooping all of their mids out are guaranteed to be totally covered up by the drums in the PA. The midrange is where the majority of a guitar's sonic information is...don't throw it away before your sound man has a crack at it.
- Once sound check is done...don't touch the input levels on the channels!!! If you do you've not only jacked up the main mix but the monitors as well (unless you're using a separate monitor board...and if you are you don't need these articles).
But there are a lot of technologies out there now that let you drive your console by remote control. Behringer (those guys again) just introduced their X32 digital console that lets you set the fader levels through an iPad wirelessly. Presonus steps that up a notch with their Studio Live consoles by giving you access to every channel function via iPad remote. I just built a new PA around the Studio Live 24.4.2...it's an amazing piece of gear that not only sounds good, it replaced the equivalent of a 24 space rack of compressors and EQs.
Granted, those solutions will set you back from $2000 up to over $15,000. Mackie, however, has broken the $1000 barrier with a 16 channel host frame that uses an iPad as it's user interface and mixing engine. The DL1608 is a game changer...it's the first digital mixing system I know of at that price range and in a small console format. If you're looking to upgrade or replace your mixer anytime soon, you at least owe it to yourself to look at some of the digital solutions.
That's enough for today. I gigged last night and still have to clean my instruments and gear.
Next week, we'll take a step away from the heavy duty tech stuff. A few weeks ago in the "What's In Your Tool Box" post I talked about a few of my go-to gizmos that I have to have in my tool box. I'll share a few more of my "gotta have" things next week...still in time for you to drop hints for the holidays!
Until then, keep the meters out of the red!
Ken
Ken Carver has been a musician and performer since the early 70's, and involved with live music production since the mid 70's. He worked for 15 years as a broadcast engineer, building numerous studios and transmitter sites around Texas. He's also worked in Critical Care Communications for the medical industry, R&D for an automated lighting manufacturer, and owned Project Lighting & Sound in the 80's. He currently heads up an R&D Hardware Technician Team at National Instruments in Austin, and still performs on the weekends in the Central Texas area. You can reach Ken at itsjustlogistics@gmail.com
Best advice I've seen - "And don't forget to use the low-cut on your inputs if you have it. I pretty much use it on everything except kick, bass guitar, and keys. Your voice has no useful information below 100Hz...the only thing down there in a vocal mic is rumble and bleed from other instruments."
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