Live Sound: Red Hot Mixing Tip
Rat, Dave. Canadian Musician 22. 5 (Sep 2000): 60.
Abstract (summary)
Presents an interview with Dave Rat, Front of House engineer for the Red Hot Chili Peppers, discussing mixing tips, what is unique about the Red Hot Chili Peppers' playing, whether they are a complex band to mix live, mixing inside versus outside, and what he thinks of in-ear monitors.
Full Text
For this issue's Live Sound column, CM brings you a review of Dave Rat's mixing tips for the Red Hot Chili Peppers from last summer. Dave has been Front of House engineer for the Red Hot Chili Peppers for well over a decade.
CM: Let's start off talking about the band itself. What's unique about the Chili Peppers' playing compared to other bands you've mixed in the past?
Dave Rat: Well, there are a lot of bands I've worked for that are either really good songwriters or not very good, but they'll write a real catchy tune that'll do well. The Peppers are really a jam band. A band that likes to jam together and play - they're creative. They're a really good band as a band, rather than relying on structured tunes like some bands do. That's what I enjoy most about them.
CM: Are they a complex band to mix live?
Dave: No, in fact, when a band is really good, they're really consistent, it's a lot easier to mix. If the band is inconsistent, nervous, plays one song harder than the next, or know one song and don't know another (so they play it softer), that's kind of difficult to control. Whereas a band that's confident and knows all the songs will come off much better. I apply the same theories to mixing in general, and each band requires something different. I'll deal with bands differently depending on how they play. With the Peppers it's really easy to relax a little bit because you know that if there's a problem with the sound, it's going to be equipment related. I know the songs well enough to the point where I know what's going to happen before it happens.
CM: With the Chilis, bass is an important part of the mix - maybe more upfront than most bands. How do you mix Flea?
Dave: Well, with the Chilis, it's not that the bass is in the front. Everything's equal. The four pieces in the band are of equal importance. The vocals are right there with the guitar, with the bass, with the drums, and nobody is dominant or stands above or is mixed above anybody else. Each one is equal in volume. I want to be able to hear every instrument.
With other bands I've been on the road with I might push the vocals and bury the bass player, bury the guitar player, or bury the vocals depending on what the songs are structured like. You can tell a lot about a band by how its albums are produced and sometimes it'll come from the band itself.
CM: When you listen to an album, do you study it a lot before you go out on the road with the band and offer your own suggestions?
Dave: I don't study it structurally. I'll study and I'll listen for very apparent things, like maybe it's obvious it's got a 500-millisecond delay maybe at the beginning of the chorus. Or something on vocals or this song tends to be reverby or there's a nasally vocal sound or a megaphone-type vocal sound. I'll look for standout effects. I won't try and copy the album, but I will pick ones that are very noticeable, that are kind of like markers to a song and try and do that, just add some more familiarity to the song.
The way I mix, I don't put my mark on the mix, and I don't add effects. I'm very, very minimalistic - I don't use a lot of inputs. For the Peppers, I'm using 21 inputs. Very rarely do I use more than 20, 21 inputs. Even for Woodstock with 500,000 people or large European festivals - 21 inputs is fine. I don't use a lot of effects. I try and take what the band's doing and present it to the audience as unaltered as possible.
CM: Now how about mixing inside versus outside? Any tips a musician should be aware of?
Dave: Most important thing for me for musicians for the stage side of it is if it sounds good on stage, if the bass - if they can set their instruments so that you stand in the middle of the stage, you're getting great sound. If the drummer hits as hard as he hits, so the guitar player's playing loud enough so the drums sound pretty good in a small rehearsal room with no PA, everything is fairly well balanced. If the songs are correct, and nobody's overpowering anyone else, take that situation and put it on stage. Keep that balance - it makes everything so much easier and cleaner and everybody sounds better up front. It's easier to take that and present it. So it's finding that balance among band members and helping them get that great sound.
CM: What do you think of in-ear monitors? Do you deal with that a lot?
Dave: Some bands, I have a theory about that... it's kind of fun, to see which bands, you think is going to go in-ear and which ones won't. I've noticed the tendency that bands that jam don't like in-ears. Bands that play structured songs do like in-ears. Take a band and look at the way they play their performance to determine more than likely what they're going to do. The Peppers don't use in-ears because they're very much a jam band. They'll take a song, and they'll play it very perfect, and they want to hear everything. They want to have everything just right. In-ears don't really apply to that scenario, just kind of open jamming, they don't cut it.
CM: They kind of lose the feel or...
Dave: Yeah, the feel onstage, and they rely of the vibe of each other and what stage everybody's in, where using in-ears becomes a form of isolation. So they kind of distract from that jamming.
CM: Anything I've overlooked with your mixing style or any tips?
Dave: Just be minimal. I try to take a snapshot, or like using a magnifying glass, to take what the band is doing and show the audience. I find a lot of engineers to be very distracting. It's almost like an ego problem in that they have to put their mark on the mix, as far as adding a bunch of extraneous stuff, or adding a bunch of channels. There's more things to go wrong, more things to do, more distractions and more production there to do. Some bands do need it. There are reggae bands that totally rely on the engineer. People get caught up in too many inputs, you get a guy with 28, 35 inputs onstage, and one of the two timbale mics are down and he's fucking with that, meanwhile the bass isn't loud enough or it sounds like shit. So you've lost track of what you're doing, nobody gives a fuck about the timbale. Another tip is that I mix with the lights off.
Word count: 1169
Indexing (details)
Cite
Narrow subject
Rock Bands, Rock Musicians, Sound Engineers, Mixing (Recording), Opinions, Rock Music
Broad subject
Rock Music
People
Rat, Dave
Company
Red Hot Chili Peppers
Title
Live Sound: Red Hot Mixing Tip
Author
Rat, Dave
Publication title
Canadian Musician
Volume
22
Issue
5
Pages
60
Publication year
2000
Publication date
Sep 2000
Year
2000
Publisher
Norris-Whitney Communications Inc
Place of publication
Toronto, Ont.
Country of publication
Canada
Journal subject
Popular Music, Music, Canada
ISSN
0708-9635
Source type
Magazines
Language of publication
English
Document type
Interview
ProQuest document ID
1357379
Document URL
http://search.proquest.com/docview/1357379?accountid=144516
Last updated
2012-09-17
Database
International Index to Music Periodicals Full Text
No comments:
Post a Comment