Live Sound: Mixing Tips
Yakabuski,
Jim. Canadian Musician
26. 6
(Nov 2004): 60.
Abstract (summary)
An
excerpt from Yakabuski's book, "Professional Sound Reinforcement
Techniques" (MixBooks), is reprinted here; Yakabuski offers tips on mixing and preventing bleeding during a live performance.
Full Text
Don't
Shout Before You Speak
The
lights go down. The dry ice creeps over the front of the stage. The crowd is
frantic as a low rumble builds and builds until the ceiling tiles are falling
out of the roof and people are ready to run from the building. Just as you
think you can't take it any more, the rumble builds to a deafening, throbbing
crescendo and then is abruptly cut off by blinding light and a band on stage
that sounds as if it is playing through a transistor radio.
Sound
familiar? Hey, it has happened to me. The darned intro tape can kill you every
time. And why is it that bands always want to use something that has 4 Hz in it
to open the show? Go figure.
The
problem that causes this discrepancy in level is usually SPL reference. During
the afternoon when you soundchecked the band in an empty room the volume of the
intro tape seemed quite substantial. But after an opening act and the roar of
the audience as the house lights go off, you find yourself pushing the level of
that intro tape higher and higher, leaving the band to come out sounding less
than impressive.
You need
to establish the maximum level that the intro "rumble" DAT can go
before it upstages your band's first song power level, and not be freaked out
if it doesn't sound loud enough as it's rolling. It's better to start out with
the intro sounding a bit low and the band sounding a little loud than the other
way around. I refuse to let all the frequency bands through when this type of
tape is handed to me. If the bottom end of the band doesn't usually live in the 30-40 Hz region for
most of the show, then I'm going to high-pass my DAT intro tape to at least 40
or 50 Hz. You want the audience to remember the first note the band plays with
an overwhelmed feeling, so let it be good and powerful. Don't let a silly tape
that was produced and mixed at Skywalker Ranch give your sub-bass speakers too
much of a workout before the real deal comes on stage. Save the best for last
and lighten up on intro overload.
Stop The
Bleeding
This is
one of those things that hopefully only happens to you once in your audio
lifetime, and if it does happen, you hope that it does so during a soundcheck
and not during the show.
To
communicate to the stage throughout the day, and to speak to the artist during
soundcheck, we set up a 'talkback' mic that is routed through the snake to the
monitor board so that the Front of House guy can have his voice magically
appear in the monitors on stage. This useful process can considerably extend
the life of a Front of House mixer's vocal cords, as he or she doesn't have to
yell 100 feet to the stage all day long. The danger of having this mic is that
if you happen to leave it on while you have the PA roaring away, there will be
a ton of bleed back to the monitors and the monitor guy will begin pulling his
hair out trying to find the root of the problem. This really is more of a
warning to the monitor engineers out there, but the fault lies with the Front
of House mixer. We all hate having our talkback mics shut off by the monitor
guy because we are then forced to scream loud enough for someone to turn it
back on. Therefore, we must be res
The
simplest solution is to get a mic with an on/off switch and always have it in
the off position when you aren't speaking to the stage. One simple rule of thumb
that ensures that the show will not have this problem is unplugging the
talkback completely from the mic cable before the show starts. The monitor guy
should always have the talkback channel muted once the show begins, but this is
an extra safety measure to ensure the front-of-house mix does not find its way back on stage.
This
article is excerpted from Jim Yakabuski's book entitled Professional Sound
Reinforcement Techniques. The book is published by MixBooks, an imprint of
artistpro.com. You can also find the book online at www.mixbooks.com and
www.musicbooksplus.com.
Word
count: 739
Indexing (details)
Narrow
subject
Recording
Engineers, Live Performance, Live Sound Engineering, Bleed
(Sound processing), Advice, Sound
Quality
Broad
subject
People
Title
Live Sound: Mixing
Tips
Author
Publication
title
Volume
Issue
Pages
60
Publication
year
2004
Publication
date
Nov 2004
Year
2004
Publisher
Norris-Whitney
Communications Inc
Place of
publication
Toronto,
Ont.
Country
of publication
Canada
Journal
subject
ISSN
0708-9635
Source
type
Magazines
Language
of publication
English
Document
type
Book
Chapter
Document
feature
Photographs
ProQuest
document ID
1358400
Document
URL
http://search.proquest.com/docview/1358400?accountid=144516
Last
updated
2012-09-17
Database
International
Index to Music Periodicals Full Text
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