Originally Posted by enorbet2

The stuff I snipped was good stuff but I have a question about the above. Granted, this mix was done before the mics on a drum kit resembled a small forest (in fact, to my ears and eyes I doubt there was a single dedicated drum mic) so they are a tad weak in the mix but still audible.

On what system did you listen to the video? That is an important qualifier question, I think, when comparing sounds/mixes reduced to WebM or mp4 on YouTube through amps/speakers all too common on most PCs... not to mention phones.

Originally Posted by deedeeyeah

besides levels, direct sound/room/reverb don't match (at all imo)...

monitoring was via a pair of tannoy dmt10 plus a kh805 sub, on clair co-12 tops (sixteen boxes per hang) and a sub array (nine cs-218m subs) and a sennheiser hd-25 - mix was a bit more forgiving on the large rig (due to some room sound) but much less on the studio speakers and cans...

and no, data reduction imo doesn't account for much with this kind of music/mix.

however, if there wasn't any mic on drums (i didn't watch the video but justlistened to audio), this would explain A LOT... (wasn't meant to put you down: it's just that this mix indeed does sound unbalanced and not much refined)

Originally Posted by enorbet2

OK I see now. You misunderstood the purpose of my post and the example choice. I chose it exactly because it is so primitive. I wouldn't be surprised if there were only 2 or 3 FOH vocal mics onstage as the only sources though I can't even guess about recording mics, although there is not a second mic for Grace's vocals so it is likely just a simple "bleed" FOH board mix.

The precise point is that despite such an incredibly primitive setup, and including a lead guitar player using 2 cranked Twin reverb amps loaded each with 2 x JBL 12s that kind of stage SPL only resulted in a recording mix "only this bad", which frankly, I'll take any day over the kick heavy, buried guitar mixes at under 100db today..

Originally Posted by deedeeyeah

got your point now - thx for elaborating.

Originally Posted by deedeeyeah

btw: i'm always wondering about those 'engineers' who spend hours on kick and toms only to be in a rush for lead vocals towards the end of soundcheck - once up, the vocal mic/s then of course throw off the whole balance again, at least in loud stages...

Originally Posted by L.A. Dude

I always say, I'm just trying to get a balance with drums. Amps keep getting smaller, but the drums don't change. They might even be louder than the old jazz kits rockers used.

http://www.wtv-zone.com/ruexperience...imiNYE69_R.jpg

(anybody know how to post a pic on this board?)

I also think that if you have to put amplified guitars in the monitors, you're doing it wrong. Fight me.

Originally Posted by norfolk martin

I have noticed the same thing. Many club soundmen seem interested in kick drum, toms and bass, in that order. The seem to see guitar as competition for the vocals

I did what is probably going to be my last sound gig a couple of weeks ago, after over 40 years of live mixing. A lot of musicians I know were there, and several said that they were going to miss me because I did an "old school balanced mix" instead of the kick-oriented mix they get at many places now.

clip from the last show

Originally Posted by enorbet2

(...) I'd always mix like that if it got girls to dance like the one at 5:17 (...)

Originally Posted by norfolk martin

sound and normalized all the channels,

Originally Posted by norfolk martin

A question for those of you who play out more than I do. I have pretty much retried after playing and running sound at the local level for some 35 years, but I still do some recording and mixing for local bands. Some of the stories they tell me about the newest crop of sound engineers they are encountering at live gigs are very confusing to me.

For example, several local guys have recently been quite hostile to a young friend of mine for bringing a model 2204 50W Marshall head and a 4X12 to a gig. The amp is a MV model so he doesn’t need to distort the power tubes, and I know from experience that he runs it a lot quieter than I would have been considered normal even 20 years ago. One sound guy told him that “no-one uses amps in this place that don’t have a direct out.”’ Another told him that he’d have to face the cabinet towards the wall, because “you can’t have the guitar amp interfering with the sound from the PA.”

I have noticed at many local gigs that I attend that the backline appears to be almost inaudible. I am not a volume freak. As a sound guy in the 80s, I was heartily disliked by a few players in town because I was not keen on people running guitars so loud that it hurt to be within 20 feet of the stage. Now, at the one sound gig I still do, I spend a lot of time asking people to turn backline UP, because I’m struggling to keep the drums out of the bass and guitar mics. I’ve met bassists who seem confused by the idea of putting a mic on their cabinet, and guitarists playing at (to me) at extremely moderate volumes who thank me for “letting them turn it up for once.”

Equally, most young musician now seem used to hearing all the instruments, including their own through the monitors rather than from the amps. Last month, faced with a request for bass guitar in all four monitor channels on a 20 X 15 stage, I suggested that they just turn the bass amp until they could hear it on stage. The idea seemed quite novel to them.

Anyone else seeing stuff like this?

Originally Posted by deedeeyeah

i had to watch the video after reading your comment:
truer words were never spoken... :-)

Originally Posted by Butthead

Bathe her and bring her to me

Originally Posted by deedeeyeah

how would you call this technique/approach then?

Originally Posted by enorbet2

If, as I strongly suspect, the recording was either a "bleed" mix from the board or a hybrid with a couple of "field" mics blended with the vocal mic "Send" it may be worthy of contemplation how the dancing girl at 5:17 heard the mix, since I'm sure it was quite different than what ended up on tape.