Tips for a beginner live engineer

[Dudevico]

Hey there!
First I just want to say that Im new at gearslutz. Been hanging here for some days and its great! Dont know if im in the right forum or if there is another thread like this one (couldn't find any1 tho) so I apologize if im causing anyone any trouble

Anyways, Ive been taking a live engineering class at the local club that most bands come and play at. Ive learnt basically how the mixer works and how to set everything up properly but I havent learnt too much about how to get a good sound. Ive got my first gig in the beginning of december. Thought you guys might be able to help me with some basic tips for live engineering. Im running the works (FoH, monitors, etc).

Its a relatively small place (holds 250 people). The room is relatively square and the celing is not that high (10 feet max). The mixing station is placed in the back of the room. Ive heard that the placement could cause some problems? Could there be some kind of bass build up or what?

Thought it might help with a bit of tech info etc:

Mixer: Yamaha 01V96VCM (digital, 32 channels)
Mics: Shure beta 52, beta 57a, sm58, sm57 and also some tom mics which I think are sennheiser but im not shure...
Monitors:4x mackie srm350v2
FoH speakers: mackie SWA2801z subs and the speakers are some older mackie model, which I cant remember.
We've also got a full backline, which consists of a peavy and a marshall stack (both are decent) and a really sweet ampeg bass amp. The drums are ok, ive got an experienced drummer friend who is going to help me with tuning them etc.

Tell me if you need some more info. Thanks!

[bishopthomas]

Since it's such a small space and it seems like you have fairly loud amplifiers, I would avoid miking the instruments. Kick, snare, and vocals (and anything that needs to go direct like keys and acoustic guitar) should be adequate and make your life simple. As far as the room goes, play a CD that you're familiar with and walk the room. You will quickly learn the difference in sound between the center of the room and the FOH position and be able to compensate for it. Use your ears and have fun.

[Jim vanBergen]

Once you have a sense of the room, find out about the band- it's called "doing the advance". Get an input list- if they don't know what that is, it's the complete instrumentation. Drums- how big a kit? Bass? (Upright? does it have a pickup? Electric?)
Guitars? How many? What kind of amps? Acoustics? Do they have pickups? Keys? What kind? Strings? Horns? Wind players? Vocals? How may Backing vox, how many lead?

Once you know this, you can start determining what to mic in that room. You can mic the vocals and any other non-amplified sources (like acoustic guitar & saxaphone) and not worry about miking ANYTHING ELSE YET!

With An 01V, you have 16 mic preamps. So you can only have 16 inputs. If you have six singers, two acoustic guitars and three string players doing early Beatles tunes, you have room to add drum OHs and snare and kick mics. But start slowly, with one device at a time. It might make your life easier to set up mics for more instruments than you need but ONLY TURN THEM ON ONE AT A TIME. There is no problem with not using a mic on that guitar cabinet.

Does this make sense? Going too far, or not far enough?

You are building a mix in the room. BishopThomas made excellent points- you want to learn the room and then make a mix in it, by adding support "reinforcement" to only those elements that need it. And for a room for 250, it won't take much from any guitar amp or drum kit to be PLENTY loud.

Hope this helps!

JvB

By the way, where in the world are you? Do you have an older sound guy who is your mentor? Can you go watch/listen to him do a soundcheck and set up a mix, and see how he EQ's the room and each instrument?

[Dudevico]

Originally Posted by Jim vanBergen

With An 01V, you have 16 mic preamps. So you can only have 16 inputs.

Yeah sorry, forgot to mention that I have an external preamp with 16 additional channels, so I just use the layer function in the mixer and therefore get 32 channels.

By the way, wouldnt it be ok to keep the guitar amps as low as possible and mic them in order to have some controll of their level? Or am I way out there?

Originally Posted by Jim vanBergen

By the way, where in the world are you? Do you have an older sound guy who is your mentor? Can you go watch/listen to him do a soundcheck and set up a mix, and see how he EQ's the room and each instrument?

Im in sweden. Yeah, Ive clamped in and bothered other engineers but most of them work pretty quickly and I dont want to be too much of a pain. I ask questions when I figure theyve got time to answer them.

Thanks for the input, if youve got anything else to add, please do. I need as much help as I can get, lol

[DCtoDaylight]

Originally Posted by Dudevico

By the way, wouldnt it be ok to keep the guitar amps as low as possible and mic them in order to have some controll of their level? Or am I way out there?

If you can find a way to make rock & roll guitarists keep their amps as low as possible, you will have succeeded where thousands of others have failed!

Seriously....what you suggest is a very logical approach, but most guitar players believe (rightly or wrongly) that they have to crank their amps to get "the sound." You're better off letting them do their thing, and balancing the other instruments as best you can. Sad but true.

[Dudevico]

Originally Posted by DCtoDaylight

If you can find a way to make rock & roll guitarists keep their amps as low as possible, you will have succeeded where thousands of others have failed!

Seriously....what you suggest is a very logical approach, but most guitar players believe (rightly or wrongly) that they have to crank their amps to get "the sound." You're better off letting them do their thing, and balancing the other instruments as best you can. Sad but true.

Ok, Ill try that then. Thanks everybody for the help. If anyone has got anything to add please do thumbsup

[mingustoo]

stay sober...and when people come up to you and say the snare needs to be louder, smile, say thanks, look into their eyes, and do not move a muscle until they have left.

[DCtoDaylight]

Originally Posted by mingustoo

stay sober...and when people come up to you and say the snare needs to be louder, smile, say thanks, look into their eyes, and do not move a muscle until they have left.

a big +1 on staying out from under the influence.

And on the second part....well....if the person asks nicely, I'd be willing to, say, turn an unconnected aux send knob up a little bit for them!

[Jim vanBergen]

it's great to mic up an amp and say, "If you can turn down your amp, I can turn you UP in the PA!"

You can always leave the mic muted. Sometimes I get people who listen.

[t_chance]

IF your musicians have your trust, and will take suggestions from you to balance all their amps to a good "blend" without the PA on their amps, the PA has more room for the vocals, keys, and other instruments you need to mic.

[iluvatar]

Learn signal flow. Learn how to narrow down & locate problems fast. Download a feedback/frequency trainer and practice recognizing feedback frequencies.

The biggest hurdle w/ live sound, particularly for a noob is getting things up and going to where they're "good enough" fast. You won't have the luxury of spending 20 minutes tweezing your tom sound.

See if you can get some studio experience, too. Lots of people like to talk about the differences between live sound & studio recording, but there are many similarities, too (obviously - you're still putting mics in front of instruments). Each environment has its own set of priorities, forcing you to learn certain things, potentially at the expense of others. For example, live sound expects you to be fast, so with the time crunch and the poor ambient noise situation, it can be easy to get sloppy with your technique (e.g. mic placement, processor settings). OTOH, studio recording expects you to be perfect, so you focus on technique, potentially at the expense of working quickly and efficiently. IMO, learning one can help make you better at the other.

-Dan.

[Dudevico]

Originally Posted by iluvatar

Learn signal flow. Learn how to narrow down & locate problems fast. Download a feedback/frequency trainer and practice recognizing feedback frequencies.

Thanks a lot! Been looking for something like that! Ill get down to practicing!

[Jarp2600]

Originally Posted by DCtoDaylight

If you can find a way to make rock & roll guitarists keep their amps as low as possible, you will have succeeded where thousands of others have failed!

Seriously....what you suggest is a very logical approach, but most guitar players believe (rightly or wrongly) that they have to crank their amps to get "the sound." You're better off letting them do their thing, and balancing the other instruments as best you can. Sad but true.

When the levels really are insane, place the amps a bit higher, and make sure they point at the guitarist's ears. In case they are not already deaf, that probably will learn them to keep the volume low.

[mingustoo]

Along with what Jarp said. Pay attention to where the amps are pointing as this can really influence your mix. Pointing the amps at the guitarists head can influence them to turn down, but can also get in the mics too much. If the g man HAS to have his amp loud maybe put it facing into a box of lights or something.
Get your levels about right, then use your eq to make the vox clear and the guit sparkle and the kik bang etc.
leave most of the bottom in the lead vox but you can hack away at bvox and guits etc. to give room for the kik when you are limited.
If the bvox cant sing, roll off some highs, cut the bottom and drench it in reverb. You can make a couple of hacks sound like a choir.
oh and number one..DO NOT redlight your main outs.

[tiny333]

dont press solo in the middle of the show........

[Jarp2600]

Originally Posted by tiny333

dont press solo in the middle of the show........

Eehrm... Why not? An average PA system shoudln't be connected to any CRM output.

[funkymunk]

Apart from sound one thing that will make your life easier is getting a rundown from the bands of their setup if they're not going to use the backline. If you know in advance what they're bringing and what you have to mic up, it'll make your life a lot easier knowing what mics to put into what channels, knowing how many channels you'll need, whether you'll need to sacrifice a channel for one instrument over another etc. We once had a band bring in vibes, acoustic guitar, horns etc. as well as the usual bass guitar drums vocals. Knowing what you're going to be working with saves you a lot of time setting up. Especially if you have a few bands on in the same night, don't want to make those paying customers restless!

[Gilli C]

following on from what funkymunk said, write up a channel list before hand, and print off copies to leave at the FOH desk and on stage.


good idea to check the back of those mackies you are using for wedges and make sure they are on line not mic. Also make sure the mackies eq is flat to start with and not set on some contour setting.

I'v got an excel spreadsheet for channel list planning , if you want it PM me .

Gilli

[iluvatar]

Originally Posted by Jarp2600

Eehrm... Why not? An average PA system shoudln't be connected to any CRM output.

Yeah, if solo had an effect on the house system, you did something wrong.

-Dan.

[ears2thesky]

I always mic everything--or at least run a line out.
Just because you have a mic in front of something doesn't mean that you have to turn it up. If you don't have everything miked you may not be able to provide adequate stage monitoring.
Like a previous poster mentioned: you may encounter audience members that want to tell you what needs to be different. Try to be polite, but don't be influenced by them. You are the one responsible for the system--not some drunk dude who is standing right in front of the loudest amp on stage yelling he can't hear the vocals.
When you drink alcohol it definitely affects what you hear. You become more desensitized to volume and high-end. Observe a live mixer who drinks all night. You will notice the sound gets progressively louder and brighter as the night progresses. Ouch! Celebrate a job well done at the end of the gig (after everything is struck and put away).

[chrisfromthelc]

Get a set of decent (not TOO expensive) closed-back headphones. You'll want something to be able to help verify levels/connectivity on channels that can't be in the main mix during the main parts of a show.

The Audio Technica ATH-M50 are about perfect for this task. Superb quality, comfortable, and affordable.

Another thing that's really helpful if you're on a new (to you) system is the channel list idea mentioned previously. Coincide your snake/input list with your board channel list (ex: channel 3 on the snake is channel 6 on the board). It'll save you a ton of time and running back and forth.

[chrisfromthelc]

Originally Posted by ears2thesky

When you drink alcohol it definitely affects what you hear. You become more desensitized to volume and high-end. Observe a live mixer who drinks all night. You will notice the sound gets progressively louder and brighter as the night progresses. Ouch! Celebrate a job well done at the end of the gig (after everything is struck and put away).

Plus, if you have my luck, you don't want to spill beer (or anything for that matter) on the board during a show. Talk about ruining it for everyone!

I once got coffee on a Sontec EQ. Luckily, the pots are sealed and it wasn't much liquid. Could've been much worse (and expensive)!

[jude]

Originally Posted by iluvatar

Yeah, if solo had an effect on the house system, you did something wrong.

-Dan.

surely im not the only person who has left solo-in-place running into a show?!

another thing... lable your mic leads, vox l, vox c, vox r etc. it makes change overs between bands that much easier and quicker!

get into the venue a few hours before the band to give you plenty of time to setup and tune monitors/foh

record the show- just the mix outs will do. this way you can listen back and hear any mistakes you made during the show and work out what needs fixing. be aware tho that a 2 track from the desk will be vocal heavy

[BFSound]

Originally Posted by jude

record the show- just the mix outs will do. this way you can listen back and hear any mistakes you made during the show and work out what needs fixing. be aware tho that a 2 track from the desk will be vocal heavy

Thats a good point im trying to throw together a simple yet effective rig to record live gigs. What would be the easiest way to accomplish this. I was thinking like a yamaha MG24c USB to my laptop in a rack with 16 ch of mic splitting. And just split the mics before the main snake and mix on the yamaha and then record in cubcase which comes with the board?...

What are your thoughts.

[BFSound]

Hmmm... Seem like my post might have wonder from the OP's question. Maybe ill start another post where people can comment on simple recording rigs.

[padawon]

Originally Posted by Dudevico

Hey there!
First I just want to say that Im new at gearslutz. Been hanging here for some days and its great! Dont know if im in the right forum or if there is another thread like this one (couldn't find any1 tho) so I apologize if im causing anyone any trouble

Anyways, Ive been taking a live engineering class at the local club that most bands come and play at. Ive learnt basically how the mixer works and how to set everything up properly but I havent learnt too much about how to get a good sound. Ive got my first gig in the beginning of december. Thought you guys might be able to help me with some basic tips for live engineering. Im running the works (FoH, monitors, etc).

Its a relatively small place (holds 250 people). The room is relatively square and the celing is not that high (10 feet max). The mixing station is placed in the back of the room. Ive heard that the placement could cause some problems? Could there be some kind of bass build up or what?

Thought it might help with a bit of tech info etc:

Mixer: Yamaha 01V96VCM (digital, 32 channels)
Mics: Shure beta 52, beta 57a, sm58, sm57 and also some tom mics which I think are sennheiser but im not shure...
Monitors:4x mackie srm350v2
FoH speakers: mackie SWA2801z subs and the speakers are some older mackie model, which I cant remember.
We've also got a full backline, which consists of a peavy and a marshall stack (both are decent) and a really sweet ampeg bass amp. The drums are ok, ive got an experienced drummer friend who is going to help me with tuning them etc.

Tell me if you need some more info. Thanks!

Make sure you get your gains set and don't adjust them during the performance as that effects everything else. Take the time to get those gains right. Check one, check two is great to make sure the mics are working but it is no where near performance level singing, make sure the band does a good three songs so you can set your gains. Also every band in the world gets a bit louder as they warm up so under shooting a db never hurts.

[mixedupsteve]

Originally Posted by BFSound

Thats a good point im trying to throw together a simple yet effective rig to record live gigs. What would be the easiest way to accomplish this. I was thinking like a yamaha MG24c USB to my laptop in a rack with 16 ch of mic splitting. And just split the mics before the main snake and mix on the yamaha and then record in cubcase which comes with the board?...

What are your thoughts.

Most of those USB mixers only record the stereo out . I have no problem with recording that way as long as you have really good isolation to monitor with while your mixing. You can't go with what you hear in the house.
As far as posting a new thread, read the sticky about recording basics first.

[BFSound]

Originally Posted by mixedupsteve

Most of those USB mixers only record the stereo out . I have no problem with recording that way as long as you have really good isolation to monitor with while your mixing. You can't go with what you hear in the house.
As far as posting a new thread, read the sticky about recording basics first.

So what would be an easy way to capture let say 16 tracks at once. I thought these units yes recorded the stereo outs, but i thought you could record multiple tracks at once...

[Beyersound]

Originally Posted by Jim vanBergen

it's great to mic up an amp and say, "If you can turn down your amp, I can turn you UP in the PA!"

You can always leave the mic muted. Sometimes I get people who listen.

+1! Listen to this great piece of advice from Jim. There is a huge part of working with artists live and in the the studio that is purely psychological/political. A lot of guitar player amp volume issues are related to their sobriety and/or insecurity levels. For example in my first few years of club mixing, I had many battles with musicians, especially guitar players over too much stage volume in those smaller rooms. A guitar player actually punched me during a set, his volume issues were so bad that the band had begged me to manually turn his amp down. It was a silly and stupid situation. On the other side of the coin, after I started mixing big tours I came across many sober, accomplished, professional, and confident players, but not always. An example of how good it can get is when I walked into production rehearsals the first day for an upcoming Queensryche tour and met the band for the first time. The first order of business for the guitar players was to ask me "how quiet do you want our amps, we can get our tone at any volume, the monitor guy can just turn us up". Because of that attitude, we were able to sound great in every venue, with a minimum of effort, and have incredibly leakage free vocals for our amazing singer. That is as good as it gets, you will be lucky to work with anyone who can muster that kind of logic. It really is very psychological!