I know, I know....when I "wrapped" up this blog back in 2013 I said I would still write from time to time when I came across and interesting repair or other event. And it's not that I haven't had anything interesting happen or come across the bench...on the contrary, it's been almost non-stop.
In the past several months, I've gotten to work on a couple of really cool old amps...including a late 60's Fender Princeton Reverb that was in immaculate condition (it just had a loose solder joint). I'll be writing an article about that repair a bit later. But today, I feel compelled to share an experience from this past weekend.
As most of you know, I've had the pleasure of playing alongside a very talented guitarist and genuine nice guy, Dana Vandiver, in The Rhythm Dawgs for the past 16 years. About 5 years ago, Dana started up a side project where he got to play his favorite music...blues. And ever since I upgraded my PA system to a digital console, I've been saying that we should record his band SUIT sometime. This sometime finally happened on Saturday, July 25th. And since my system is so tightly integrated, we decided it would be easier for me just to do sound that for that show rather than trying to hook up two different systems that we had never put together before. Besides, that freed the band up from PA duties and let them concentrate on playing.
The idea of loading in and setting up an outdoor show on an afternoon where the heat index was about 105 wasn't super appealing, but what was appealing was the thought of getting to run sound for what I consider a good band. You see, I've had my Presonus Studiolive for a couple of years, and never have really had a chance to drive it for another band.
After everything was connected and mic'd, I fired the system up. Since I've had that system in the venue (Junior's Icehouse & Grill) many times before, I already had a house EQ curve that worked so that saved having to run SMAART analysis. And while it was tempting to try to adapt one of my other band's settings to this show, I decided to start with a clean slate and zero out the board completely. That's a little scary...at least it was for me.
Keep in mind, this is a 3 piece band (guitar/bass/drums) with 3 vocals. But since we're recording I ran some extra sources that normally wouldn't be there (snare bottom, both mic and DI on the bass, and stereo crowd mics). We wound up using 21 channels that night. Yep, you read that right.
Before bringing up the channels, I went through and applied my best guesses for high pass filtering on all the channels (100Hz on guitar channels, 180Hz on vocals, 80Hz on snare and toms, 40Hz on kick and bass guitar). Otherwise, every channel had flat EQ, and no compression or gating. I also set up groups for the drums and vocals, and did a rough in on the monitors for the guys based on what they told me they liked.
We were ready to start sound check at 5:00PM (we started loading in at 2:30). I brought the kick drum up, and even though we were using a inexpensive mic (a Shure PG-52) I didn't have to touch it. It was clear and punched you in the chest, but didn't boom like a Roland 808 drum machine. We were through a 5 piece kit (9 channels total) in about 10 minutes. Guitar was about the same (2 very different amps, a Mesa Mark V and a very old Magnatone).
Bass was equally as quick. A quick song, and 40 minutes after we started we were done.
During the course of the night, I tweaked a couple of things (a bit of presence peak on the vocals and kick), and added some bus compression across the drums and vocals. People were coming up during the night wanting to know if the band was performing to backing tracks, because in their words "...it's sounds like a record".
So....how did this go so easy and so well for a first time working with this band? Actually, the "secrets" are pretty easy.
Start with a great sound source from a great player
Everyone in this band has good gear and good tone. And major plus, the drummer actually knows how to tune his kit for live performance.
Drums are traditionally the hardest thing to get right in a PA as they're a purely acoustic instrument. They have to be tuned and played correctly. I did a festival gig a couple of years ago where the drum kit was provided for all bands. We thought we had the kick mic'd up and EQ'd well, but it sounded like crap for the first band. During change over, we checked everything again and couldn't find anything wrong. The second band started up, and things sounded great. The only thing that changed was the drummer. And while I'm picking on drums...
Drums are 1 instrument, not 5 or 6.
You want to know what drives me crazy as a player and a sound man? A 1 hour sound check that spends 50 minutes on the kick drum! Seriously, I seen it dozens and dozens of times over the years. I'm sorry, but unless you're playing in a death metal or thrash band, the kick drum is not the lead instrument! And even if you are playing that style of music, I've never heard anyone leave a concert humming the kick drum part. Just make it work within the context of the drum kit and the band.
And before I get off this rant, don't go crazy with gates and expanders trying to isolate each drum. OK, maybe that's important in an arena setting...but you're reading my stuff so you're not likely playing there...yet;). In a club, the drums are going to be heard acoustically off the stage (unless you're playing behind a shield). Don't worry about bleed...it's gonna happen.
Along the above lines, it's 1 band, not several instruments
Everything has to work together. When the players understand that, it makes a sound man's job so much easier. Once the show starts, nobody is listening to individual instruments in the mix (except the other musicians that don't have a gig that night). The way I mix a band live, the vocals are going to sound a little thin on their own, but are clear and understandable when the band is playing. The vocalist that demands that their voice sound like Pavarotti through the PA is missing two key points...we ain't playing opera music and they can't sing like that.
Likewise, every drum is not going to sound like an explosion. In case you haven't noticed, they're supposed to be different pitches. And for the guitarists that insist on cutting all of the mids on their amp...they'll sound great when they're playing alone. But once they band kicks in, they'll be eaten alive.
Pick the right mic for the job
You don't have to spend $6000 for a pair of studio condenser mics for your drum overheads, but you're going to have to do better than those "7 drum mics for $100" kits (unless you're buying used). If you're using a mic on your drums that has an aggregate cost of about $14, there is nothing in the world you can do to make that sound good other than throwing it away (and the sound of it going into the trash can is the only good sound it will ever produce). If you've got the budget then Shure, AKG, or Sennheiser condenser mics are the ultimate for drums. But if you're of more modest means, the Shure PG series is the best bargain out there.
Likewise, there's not excuse not to be mic'ing your guitar amps with SM-57's ($90) or e609's (about $110). Even the PG-56 on a guitar cab sounds very good.
Finally, build the mix on what's already there
Again, I'm mixing in a club. I can't "replace" the stage sound with the PA without getting the system so loud that I would drive off the patrons. My philosophy is to give the sound coming off the stage a bit of a lift to carry it to the back of the room. Want to know my "secret weapon" for mixing in a room like this? I delay the main speakers so that they're time aligned with the amps. It doesn't take much...I believe I used 12mS at this gig. But it really gets rid of the "smear" that I hear a lot of times in the upper midrange and the bass build up.
The only thing I really had to fight was the guitarist's vocal mic picking up a lot of his amp when he wasn't singing. It took me a while to figure out why the guitars were so bright in the PA when I had done some pretty significant EQ cuts, but once I realized it was his mic I added a downward expander to drop the channel level about 10dB when he wasn't singing...that seemed to do the trick. Next time, I'll try an Audix OM-7 on the vocals to combat that problem.
After listening back to some of the 2-track recordings from the board, I was very happy with what we captured that night. I'll be distributing these to the band over the next week or so. From that, they'll pick what we're going to go back to the multi-tracks and mix down.
I had a lot of repairs and a couple of custom engineering projects I've gotten to work on since we last visited. I'll update you on those in a couple of weeks!
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
