alanis at radio city: hang the soundman!

[judah]

I saw Wilco two or three times in the past years. Three different venues. One of the best live sound I ever heard in my life. Don't know who's the guy mixing FOH, but it was quite an experience. There's hope.

BTW, I do quite a bit of live sound this day and the digital mixer thing is really a pain in the ass (especially when digital means a Mackie TT).

[soundrick]

I've been posting about this subject quite a bit in the "all about the music" forum.

The sound of live shows is suffering. I have been watching a lot of the big acts that come through town, and in some cases working them.

Best sounding shows lately have been the country acts. Most of them are still using XL4, Heritage, lots of outboard......

[Sigma]

my friend just did FOH the last Stones tour and was with tina turner for 19 years

he used to work for Clair bro's..over 15 years ago they had sytems that analized the room acoustics and did time delay/phase coherence for differnt arrays in differnet rooms...basically they called up the sytem and room and it was all set up

i can see may some small venue ..but the big boys in the big rooms have that stuff dialed in

In fact when i asked my friend about the system with the Stones [granted it was stripped down because i caught the Atlantic City show which was a 10k seater and prob their smallest show] which didn't impress me as much sound wise as the system he used for Yes years ago he said the the sytem engineers at Clair brothers create the gear list and set up..he just controls the rest..[which is pretty damn cool..he has a remote at the mixing station that can chang x overs , frequency response curves, gain, etc etc of every part of the array..either from the preset for that room or from scratch..i went to the set up and watched from the rigging to the audio check and played with the remote box..it was fawking amazing esp from when i was 13 and got to tear down alice cooper and black sabbath back in early 70's..giant retangular boxes sized to fit perfectly in a semi and later down the line those cool custome made folding Clair consoles]

[on the Yes show i went to the rehersal the day before and he had 20,000 watts of sub wofer power on a volume pedal for when Wakeman played the bass pedalsstike]

BTW the Stones take home mixes off the FOH for EVERY show and listen to them..they are No slouches

[peeder]

Originally Posted by soundrick

I've been posting about this subject quite a bit in the "all about the music" forum.

The sound of live shows is suffering. I have been watching a lot of the big acts that come through town, and in some cases working them.

Best sounding shows lately have been the country acts. Most of them are still using XL4, Heritage, lots of outboard......

It may not be the gear, as I'm saying. Nashville has a unionized, separation-of-powers industry arrangement: you have each individual doing individual roles on a project, and people respect each others' turf. (At least from what I can see from the outside) And so it makes total sense that a country act will not try to inflict its "artistic sensibility" on their soundperson: they will hire the best one they can find and let them do their jobs, as they do with all the other aspects of the music business. It's also so nepotistic, from the sounds of things, that the whole industry probably doesn't take kindly to turf intrusions when they happen.

I think artists should assert themselves to an extent, and participate in the development of their sonic signature. It is excruciating, however, for a professional to be confronted with a "bad is good" situation. Where fidelity is intended to be harmed in unbecoming ways. This generally strips the professional of their internal compass, and since the band can't replace that compass entirely, we have a random walk through a sonic house of horrors.

If an artist can find professionals who can give them their desired flavor of "bad" and yet still make it "good"...they should pay them every penny they are worth and never hope for anything better.

[plexisys]

Best sounding shows lately have been the country acts.

I've toured mixing with pretty much every style of music. Pound for pound the country acts are the best musicians. They also spend much more time on the road than the average rock act. Better musicians and more time working together tends to create the better sound and show.

I've been saying this for years, country is the new rock.

BTW the Stones take home mixes off the FOH for EVERY show and listen to them..

This is pretty much true of every act I have toured with since the 70's. You should see my cassette and CD collection of live shows.

[peeder]

Originally Posted by plexisys

I've toured mixing with pretty much every style of music. Pound for pound the country acts are the best musicans. They also spend much more time on the road than the aveage rock act. Better musicans and more time working together tends to creat the better sound and show.

I've been saying this for years but country is the new rock.

Their other advantage of course is that the country style generally is trying to get everything sounding as good as possible, in its intended range of use. Much like classical or traditional jazz.

Modern styles are about pushing the limits of gear and breaking and distorting things. It's anti-euphonious.

So how surprised can one be if country sounds "better" when that's exactly what they are all focused on?

[plexisys]

Their other advantage of course is that the country style generally is trying to get everything sounding as good as possible, in its intended range of use. Much like classical or traditional jazz.

Very well put.