Live Sound - what dirty tricks do other engineers play?

[saggsy]

Oh my, what have i created ?!!?

Last time i looked at this thread probably 24hrs ago there was only about 5 posts here and today i come on and im like 'shit, i've never had so many responses', im stoked anyway guys, cheers.

I really appreciate some of the info you guys have come up with here as far as liasing with people on site and the like. If and when i do get into this live sound thingo it will be at pub/tavern gigs and working up from there.

Not that i really want to bring it up again (for everyone elses sake) but as far as I know setting up pre gain is 'to get the best possible signal to noise ratio into the desk', so that for each vocal or instrument their 'peak' meters should be just under clipping (usually backed off by 3db) so as te preamp is working efficently so as the main level control is via the fader (and EQ depending on cut and/or boost). By lowering the pre gain you will be subjecting your input to noise and crosstallk from other channels.
The main FOH level is controlled via the main out fader and the monitor levels are controlled by the pre-fade aux masters.

When I mix in the studio, I like to start with the level of the snare, followed by the kick, then the rest of the kit. then bass, then guitars and then place the vox on top of all that.
When i come to mix in a live situation I probably wont have the luxury of sound check so how do i set my optimum pre gain levels, then get the rest of my mix resonably balanced within a few bars of starting the first song?

Or maybe im just being a pansy worrying about a the small things and should throw myself int the deep end.

Bear in mind, all i ever hear of my own mixes is through NS10's so its a daunting thought to have a mix that i am in charge of coming through a couple thousand watt PA or something.
The other thing i have in my studio is the monitor out volume control - which of course is set to the Main Stereo outs but this allows me to control the overall 'volume' of audio where as in the live game the FOH speakers are primarily controlled by the master fader. Are the power amps in PA setups always cranked to full gain so as all 'volume' control in the room is via the master fader??

Once again all, thankyou for your support and advise, hope to bump into some of you aussies in the future maybe

Cheers from
Matt

[JDunkley]

Originally Posted by xmostynx

you know what-

if everyone wants to sit here and pick apart how i describe this and that and what adjective i use to describe sound- lets put the money where it matters..

someone post up a mix of some stuff they did live. and compare it to some mixes that i've done live..

and if my mixes suck ass compared to yours- you can know, that your a 'better' engineer than me..

i'm willing to do this- anyone else?

I dont think this will prove anything. A stereo recording or a show is rarely representative of what the gig sounded like unless your doing larger stages and with all due respect Im not sure you are.

Recordings of club shows are usually drums and vocals heavy when they come out (obviously dependant on size of club) If youre doing any better than this well done to you.

Im not going to start spouting off my CV but I spent the summer playing to crouds of around 40 -50 thousand.

Theres a lot of experience on this forum than we can all learn from. Cos your young it doesnt make your opinion any less valid but please listen to the voice of varied and long stand experience. Without being patronising when I was 20/21 I couldnt be told at all so I learnt it all the hard way.

[burnhard]

i had great fun reading this thread, though there are not really a lot of tricks said here..
i read on because i never heard of that mic ballon thing and really wondered that i´ve never heard about it before in 20 years of doing live and studio work....i´m glad there are some of you that statet me right....gain is gain...by the way, it´s pretty common on festivals to have all the faders at unity and "mix"with the gain...(but there is seperate monitor mix mostly).the other thing Never heard is doing the monitors pre eq,I mean there could be situations it might be useful,but in my world a good sounding source is a good sounding source and it should sound good on a monitor as on the PA....well with some varities...but as it was stated before,the systems should be sounding equal...like you could use the same manufacturer for example....or you are setting them to sound equally whith an eq....and by equally I mean they should "simply"sound good...that´s the trick...
about that record a live mix and let´s show who´s better......come on....you should have learned pretty fast,that you just make louder what the band is doing....so you at least should mix/record the same band....and even the same band might sound different,when they have a good or a bad day.....think it over it was a really stupid to ask for something like that..it really showed at which level of experience you are....and maybe you should look for jobs over 100dB and on desks that react different to an A&H...it´s ok,but not a really good one....and one more thing...I read on because I never heard about your little theory and although I do this job for a long
time now I ALWAYS tried to learn more even if it was a rather esoteric thought that someone came up with.....there are a bunch of realy experienced people on that forum,share your thoughts and take what´s good for you and never think you are "the truth" you will be surprised how often you have to turn your fixed thoughts about 180 degrees in that job.......http://www.gearslutz.com/board/image...ies/freak3.gif

[synthoid]

Originally Posted by Jim Kerr

The Diaphragm of a microphone whether it "is plugged in or NOT" is designed to have a reliable and consistent pickup pattern, physically. (It does not change).

A change to the load on a mic (the input impedance of the preamp it is feeding) changes its frequency response, which is another way of saying that it changes its pickup pattern, because the pattern is frequency-dependent. Look in the back of the manual for one of the many preamps on the market with variable input impedance and you'll see microphone frequency response curves as a function of input impedance.

I didn't look into this much at the time that I observed it, but I do remember that it was a relatively inexpensive console and I speculated at the time that the sens knobs were changing the input impedance. I don't know whether it was intentional or not, or even whether that was really what was going on, or whether it is common.

This is all very OT. I was only trying to say that just because someone has observed this effect doesn't mean they are nuts.

-synthoid

[burnhard]

....that sounds very reasonable..I sometimes work in a club with an a&h I´ll try it next time

[analogtodd]

Ok
After a good night sleep, here's what I see.

I'm not discounting your method, what I'm discounting is your descriptions.
What you are trying to describe is just proper gain structure.

Well welcome to audio 101!!!!

There is no magic ballooooon, or any way to "create" an extra couple of db. X amount of gain will give x amount of SPL or db at x point in the system. Now, theres different places that gain can be applied, yes. But again, its all proper gain structure for a given system. You can apply math and all the other boring stuff once you've figured out all the variables.

I'm not trying to cock up here and say I've got a bigger dick than you or anything, because frankly, I don't care. What I do care about is when someone doesn't have a complete or full understanding of something and sorta fills in the gap with there own "explanation" and calls that fact.

I'm not out of line for doing that, because you saw what happened, all the sudden this thread started having people drop in a saying junk like
Hey its Tuesday everybody, SM58's are hypercardioid's on Tuesdays!!! Everyone knows that, I saw it happen once and so did my cat.

I'm not laughing, the audio world is full of loons, I'm just saying, facts get schmeeeared real fast.

[xmostynx]

okay i don't know how the balloon became majic but i just woke up- and i'm going to explain this whole damn balloon theory.

so microphone polar patterns have nothing to do with gain...
and really it matters what SPL you hit the microphone with- your amplifying that-

so the microphone is always working?

now if thats the case- then this is the balloon theory-and its not majical..its just a 'descriptive' word

if that microphone is lets say- 6 feet away from the drums- and 3 feet away from the monitor-and your gain pot is turned all the way down- you get nothing in the microphone- this is a vocal microphone- there are no guitars or anything super loud on stage-

with the gain all the way down- lets picture a deflated balloon tightly around the sm58 so the grill on the 58 is the balloon-all deflated- there is no gain..

as soon as you start turning UP the gain- picture that balloon getting bigger as if someone was blowing some air into it.

the gain pot starts to amplify the tiny signal that the microphone is giving off due to the sPL levels its recieving?

now when you have the gain pot maxed out- you have blown so much 'air' (imaginary) air into the balloon so its now lets say touching the drum kit, the monitor and anything else around the microphone (with respect to its polar pattern)...the polar pattern is the SHAPE of the balloon..


does this make sense?

and just to make things clear- i'm not angry-but if you where sitting here with me- and i wasn't typing this online- i bet you'd all understand exactly what i was saying- and the engineer who told me this 'idea of gain and microphones' is a really known engineer in this area- he's done all stadium tours in the 80's and early 90's with some of the biggest bands in that era-

i just hate it when people see me as a young engineer and pull an opinion-thats lame.

now i'm gonna read the rest of your responses and get another cup of coffee-
ehe what a thread this has become tho- and i'd like to thank everyone for giving me sucha hard time- i spent most of the night reading that sound reinforcement handbook about feedback and acoustic gain.

-and one more thing- i've seen some crazy live sound guys- guys that threw all the faders up kept his master at 0 and groups at 0 and mixed from the gain pots...

idk why he did this-but he mixed a hell of a show- so there is all kinds of crazy ass PEOPLE and methods-

if i got anyone pissed lastnight sorry- but i'm just as passionate as you guys are about this-

[xmostynx]

Originally Posted by burnhard

about that record a live mix and let´s show who´s better......come on....you should have learned pretty fast,that you just make louder what the band is doing....so you at least should mix/record the same band....and even the same band might sound different,when they have a good or a bad day.....think it over it was a really stupid to ask for something like that..it really showed at which level of experience you are....a

you know its easy to jump on the band wagon..but what you fail to see- is even with my at my level of experience, i have put up a very decent 'fight'...and if i was some engineer who didn't give a shit about audio- i wouldn't of even responded to this post..so just bashing me at this point is rediculous- i'm obviously interested please don't try and deter me.

lets take that into consideration here- at 21 i'm still sitting here- still trying to see where my theory is wrong. call me stupid and young- but i'd say a little more like passionate and enthusiastic

there is no reason to mix a band over 100dB thats loud as hell, and if you have enough speakers and power 95dB-100dB is a pretty comfortable listening level for a live show- i like to still be able to have a conversation after the show loud shows doesn't really mean much to me- its when guys can pull a good mix together when its quiet- there is no reason to be mixing a band at 105-110 you can take like 30 minutes of that before you start hurting whats important.

-to the guy who asked how my faders usually look on the board- my individual channels usualy hover around -10 -0- +5 (pushing them above unity for solos/speaking) and my group faders hang out around unity-5- and my master fader is usualy set around unity -3

-the guy who also said something about how recording a 2 track- (i always tell the band to lower their stage volume if they are getting loud- a loud stage volume is a muddy mix right in front of the stage- and i try to always record 2 track from my board- just so later on i can listen to the mix i did..and yea- sometimes if there is a slammer on the drums- my drums are weak-but you can still hear the overall quality of the night-

[dbbubba]

If you start worrying about how mic pres on different consoles effect the SENSITIVITY of the mics you are using you are wasting your time with minutia that is pretty small in the whole picture. The change is completely irrelevent and you need to spend quality time with a small p.a. rig and a few books on audio. You then need to ASSIST someone who has experience on a larger rig.

Once a mic is connected to a mic pre there will be a load applied to the mic's circuit and changing the gain of the mic prer WILL NOT change this load. Well, concievable there could be a circuit that does, but it would be quite un-common in today's world. In fact, console designers purposely work to make sure that this DOES NOT happen.
If the console has transformers at the input stage (few if any modern live console do) the transformer sets the impedence and the load does not vary. In fact, the signal is physically and electrically isolated.

The "balloon" of sensitivity doesn't grow as you vary the mic pre's gain.
If it does it some miniscule amount it isn't anything in the order of 3db.

What does happen is that you are AMPLIFYING the low level stuff that is already there.

A mic has an upper range of sensitivity where it distorts due to too much sound pressure. It also has a lower range where the vibrations from sound pressure changes that the diaphragm picks up are so small that they approach or start to fall below the noise floor of the system.
This is all pretty well isolated from the rest of the signal chain downstream.

I'll be truthfull with you:

If I heard an "engineer" talk about the topics in this post in the way that some of you have then I would be certian that you were not very experienced.
Since the original post was asking about having enough experience to mix on a larger rig (and getting help from the resident engineer) I'll just tell you that the lack of understanding of the principals of audio would make me VERY warry of your abilities.

I wouldn't hire you to mix or run monitors.
I would maybe let you mix after I set the system up.
I would watch you very closely.

This post has been devided between guys with experience with a rig at an actual venue and guys with very little real world experience that appear to have read a few books and articles.

Reading and talking about things is not going to give you anywhere near the knowledge you will get in a real world setting.
XMOSTYNX... you are thinking about the whole gain stage consept in a wrong way.
There are rules and commonly accepted principals in audio and what you are talking about is NOT among those.

You could read all kinds of books about driving a formula one race car, but if you were turned loose with one you'd kill yourself if you weren't carefull. The same thing applies with a large p.a. rig. Maybe no one would get killed (the owner might beat someone for tearing stuff up) but the damge can happen VERY quickly and it is expensive and time consuming to fix stuff. At the very least the production will suffer.

[Windtaken]

xmostynx:

It sounds like you're based on experience without much study. It's fine but your facts base is built that way as well. The result is that you're not saying things properly and that people would rather argue your words than correct them.

Explain this to me, would your theory work if it was just a single microphone and there was nothing else coming out from the speakers? I don't think so. Try it for yourself. Be the one speaking into the microphone, listening to the speakers to get the same level, and operate the A&H (all on your own).

But I would bet that you only experience this benefit when a whole band is going. And you wouldn't be the one at the microphone nor hearing the monitors.
Sure it gets rid of feedback, but the vocalist might complain about not being able to hear him/herself.

You can test this again yourself. Just do the talking into a microphone but with a CD going through the system at the same time. You won't be able to achieve a higher feedback threshold with your voice. You may get the CD to play louder but not your voice.

In the end, you'll benefit from studying and learning the semantics of the audio world. You're making things difficult for yourself.

[xmostynx]

Originally Posted by dbbubba

XMOSTYNX... you are thinking about the whole gain stage consept in a wrong way.
There are rules and commonly accepted principals in audio and what you are talking about is NOT among those.

atleast shed some light- or point in the right direction-

[dbbubba]

Take it from a veteran....

You ARE making things difficult for yourself.

Another race car analogy of your description:

The engine runs and turns the wheels faster and faster.
The wheels PULL the track under the car faster and faster.

[xmostynx]

alright-

[Samc]

Originally Posted by synthoid

A change to the load on a mic (the input impedance of the preamp it is feeding) changes its frequency response, which is another way of saying that it changes its pickup pattern, because the pattern is frequency-dependent. Look in the back of the manual for one of the many preamps on the market with variable input impedance and you'll see microphone frequency response curves as a function of input impedance.

Talk about a subversion of logic and the principles of physics..........

[xmostynx]

i went back through this thread-

and still no answers- just bashing

i mean...all you vets- you started out on something right?

the 'dirty' little trick i stated when this was only 1 page-has been ripped apart-agreed with by the same guy that ripped it apart-disagreed with again-and then not only did my explanations get tore the **** apart- but my choice of words has now been introduced ...'uneducated' ..but STILL

no other knowledge as of WHY- my method is wrong- except 6dB reduced here- is 6dB gained here...

we went from not needing to Eq a monitor, to running monitors pre eq as being foolish- all the way around and then back again..

and you know whats funny- this conversation doesn't just happen here- i've seen many engineers sit there and bitch at each other about this and that and this and that--just like here.

but still-nobody has solid answers-nobody ever seems to have solid answers...hmmm?


so..we have some vets here- that would not hire any of us-and thats fine i'm not looking for a job right now- but still- nothing close to concrete audio logic or physics..

just a bunch of sideliners bashing people that don't have enough sack to post up what they do-and why they do it.

so lets hear it guys- i mean your vets for a reason right?
shed some light on:

gain structure- lets hear about it.

maximum gain- lets hear about it.

polar patterns-

signal to noise ratios-

and why not while we are here- monitors and compression? disaster?

compression on the master fader?

buss compression?

or compression on individual channels?

or we can sit here and bash people like most live sound guys like to do- and learn nothing... what do you say? vets you can surely put people down pretty good- but i still haven't seen many long winded descriptions on audio...

[Kris]

By the way, what IS the question you are seeking an answer to? Seems like you've got all the answers...

Maybe you should start your own thread... just a suggestion...

Here's a question for you... When you turn your gain down '3db' and your monitor send up '5db'... how do you know for sure that you did exactly that? Are you positive you didn't turn the gain down '6db'? Can you tell with perfect precision on your board? Is it because the musician on stage said it got louder? I can't tell you how many times I've seen someone ask for more "x" in their monitor,,, then they say 'perfect'... before the sound engineer had a chance to bump it up...

[analogtodd]

Again,
I'm not here to slam ANYONE
or argue, I'm simply trying to keep
people from perpetuating misinformation.

I don't know everything, never met someone who did.

I learn something new everyday, no shame in that.

When you've got the fundamentals down, it makes it easier
to spot BS.

[analogtodd]

Thats a lot of questions...

Search button works wonders

There are A LOT of people out there willing to help
and ready answer questions

[xmostynx]

Originally Posted by Kris

Seems like you've got all the answers...

did you read what i said?


shed some light on:

gain structure- lets hear about it.

maximum gain- lets hear about it.

polar patterns-

signal to noise ratios-

and why not while we are here- monitors and compression? disaster?

compression on the master fader?

buss compression?

or compression on individual channels?

or we can sit here and bash people like most live sound guys like to do- and learn nothing...

[xmostynx]

Originally Posted by monkeyt

Thats a lot of questions...

Search button works wonders

There are A LOT of people out there willing to help
and ready answer questions

this whole thread blew up- and nobody is willing to answer any of those questions?

how come...5 pages of bashing- no questions answered?
thats foolish to me.

[Kris]

Originally Posted by Kris

Maybe you should start your own thread... just a suggestion...

Here's a question for you... When you turn your gain down '3db' and your monitor send up '5db'... how do you know for sure that you did exactly that? Are you positive you didn't turn the gain down '6db'? Can you tell with perfect precision on your board? Is it because the musician on stage said it got louder? I can't tell you how many times I've seen someone ask for more "x" in their monitor,,, then they say 'perfect'... before the sound engineer had a chance to bump it up...

Maybe you didn't read what I said...

[Windtaken]

It seems like you take everyones words as insults. What are we supposed to say?

[Samc]

Originally Posted by xmostynx

no other knowledge as of WHY- my method is wrong- except 6dB reduced here- is 6dB gained here...

You are more interested in "winning" an argument, than learning from a debate.

The reason(s) have been stated many times throught the thread but you are too busy trying to prove how much better a mixer you are than everyone else.

This is beyond silly at this point. Please go back and read the responses to your posts...keep re-reading until you understand what is being said. You might also realise that waveterm did not agree with you, and while you're at it you could also lose the attitude.

[Harley-OIART]

Originally Posted by xmostynx

this whole thread blew up- and nobody is willing to answer any of those questions?

how come...5 pages of bashing- no questions answered?
thats foolish to me.

I already answered your questions on monitors & compression.
Page 4 - middle of page

Gain Structure : Self Explanatory really...

Maximum Gain : You Maximum Acoustic Gain? AKA Unity Gain? What do you want to know about it? In the shortest of terms it is the highest point before feedback. I don't have time to write a detailed essay on it right now.

Polar Patterns : Choose the Appropriate one for the application. Depends on Monitor Placement, or a host of other factors. Choose the one that will assist you in getting the maximum acoustic gain out of your system, wether it be monitors or mains.

Signal to noise ratio : Not much to say here - get a good signal to noise ratio. goes hand in hand with gain structure.

monitors and compression? disaster? IMO - Sort of, but there are some exceptions.

Compression in the Monitors is generally a poor idea.
For those who might not know why, It is because compression in the monitor mix gives the preformer a "false" sense of level. So a vocalist might strain his voice trying to get louder as an example. Maybe maybe you can sneak a little on the bass guitar, snare, or overheards (probably a fair bit more on the overheads) but in general it is a no-no.
Compression @ FOH is a whole other situation. "Slam away" =) j/k Dynamics are always good.

buss compression? if you mean parrallel compression @ FOH to fatten up an insturment, or insert a compressor on an submix of an instument (bg vox maybe) and catch a few peaks, then yeah sure... whatever go crazy. Again its all to taste here.

or compression on individual channels? Again FOH, whatever, if you need to catch some peaks because it must be done for the good of the mix, then do it.


Last but not least... The whole mixing with the Channel Faders @ Zero (Unity). This is a can of worms but flame away. Rant on -> If your board is has cross talk that bad that I can't 'run my board cold' by setting the faders to unity and bringing the preamps up until enough level is achieved, then frankly that board needs repair, or is plain $h*t. The reason for doing things this way is pretty damn simple : Faders on a console are not linear. They are logarithmic. Move the fader 3mm at the bottom of the fader, and you have just added nearly 10dB gain to the system. Move the fader at 3mm while it is sitting at the unity mark (zero) and you have just added 2.5dB to the system. So, not only do you have much more control, but you have the added benefit of 'not having to listen to the noise the channel fader introduces @ -70dB. Unity = no boost or cut right? Well I'd argue that worse than crosstalk from channels on a working decent console (even a damn behringer) is the noise introduced by crappy faders attenuating my signal by 60dB...

THat being said... a balance between the two is always an option. Anyways just do what works, and constantly work your ass off to make it sound the best it can. Just don't get to caught up in little things. A famous engineer said to me, in giving advice to young engineers : "No one cares what the ****ing impedance is. Does it sound good?"

[Jim Kerr]

Theres nothing wrong with asking, thinking and trying. In that order or not.

Monitors and Compression.....well I always put a comp on the snare. Even if it is not used. I think the snare drum (usually) sounds pretty lame when its clean, turned up to where it is either loud in the mix or even real soft, it just seems too dynamic for the stage and in tearms of monitors a comp will sqwoosh it and then you can really bring it up, and its nice.

I almost never throw a comp on VOX, Maybe if its 4 screamo hiphopers, just to save some resistors and such in the board though.

1. I PFL the Channel and cue it in the the cue wedge.
2. I then bring the gain to where (Someone is checking the mic) it is +2 +3.
3. If there are any known on stage or in the house hotspots ie 315hz, 200hz pull those on the graphs.
4. Set the Aux master sends are at unity.
5. EQ the channel strip for a starting point.
6
Now I have my usual sm58 channel strip eq curve. I usually go back to that 90% as well. However if you have John Legend or Ryan Adams singin through a kms 105 or a Shure 7b you have go by the book.

Don't get me wrong. The book is right.

The trick is to pull only, and share (I sometimes boost a little 40 or 63hz in the drum fill and pull out 100hz etc.).
If the Subs are under the stage you can roll off every front line wedge at 160hz.

Sharing. I utilize the freaquencies that will cut through.
Thats all for now.
I hate monitors. Not really. Thats another story.

[xmostynx]

Originally Posted by Samc

You are more interested in "winning" an argument, than learning from a debate.

The reason(s) have been stated many times throught the thread but you are too busy trying to prove how much better a mixer you are than everyone else.

and while you're at it you could also lose the attitude.

you've got me all wrong man-

[xmostynx]

what i said :

Originally Posted by xmostynx

know alot about how hard your pushing your pre's. That will make the world of difference in your monitors feeding back etc.

Don't push your mic pre's hard, we are using A&H GL 4000 consoles, and i keep my mic pre's around 1 o'clock ..and i don't send anything up to my monitors above 2 o clock without turning down my mic pre..

when you give a mic more gain the "balloon" around the mic gets bigger and its got alot more chances of feeding back, when you reduce it, that balloon of feedback is going to get smaller so you can push it a little harder in the monitors..

what he said:

Originally Posted by waveterm

Lets say that you have a vocalmic that you send to all monitorsystems. By lowering the micgain by 6db you will probably be able to raise the primary send by 8 or 9db !

This is because you have lowered the total volume on stage by 6db but also made that mic even less sensitive to feedback.

Due to different timearrivals and phaseissues you´ll be able to raise the mic in its monitor more than 6db.

you guys are just ganging up on me now- we said the same damn thing- and people jumped me when i said reducing the gain is going to make the mic less sensative- blah blah blah- man o man.. i have never had this happen on GS before-

[Jim Kerr]

Are you really pushing "IT" harder into the monitors?

[analogtodd]

You win at the internets dood

[xmostynx]

c'mon guys! i got nailed for nothing- we said the same thing- this isn't winning or losing-

we said the same thing! thats all i'm trying to make clear-