christopher ridley
Facilitator
It's all good. It's how it was for me years ago as well. Analog console with little to no outboard gear. Those were the days.
Anyone have some advice for FOH?
- Thread starter arvoitus
- Start date
It's all good. It's how it was for me years ago as well. Analog console with little to no outboard gear. Those were the days.
SimonTaddio_Qc
Headbanger
Yeah, I know that the guy that mixes at the Madison Square Garden or at Earl's Court probably gets to use boards and gear racks that are worth more than a lot of people's house, but it's not the kind of gear I get to work with very often.
...But I'm not stupid, I know such beautiful gear exists, lol
...But I'm not stupid, I know such beautiful gear exists, lol
ahjteam
Anssi Tenhunen
I could really not care about the individual channel pan pot, but I really hate that it doesn't have the controls that LS9 has, because if the touchscreen dies, you are fucked.
Yeah, I know that the guy that mixes at the Madison Square Garden or at Earl's Court probably gets to use boards and gear racks that are worth more than a lot of people's house, but it's not the kind of gear I get to work with very often.
...But I'm not stupid, I know such beautiful gear exists, lol
I maintain a Finnish website http://www.keikkapaikka.info where I have info on gigplaces in Finland and there is about 120 places listed from which over 100 have a PA, and atleast in Finland they've understood that in places that they want people to play live music (so that they can have the bar open until 04, without it they can be only open til 02), the restaurants/whatever have invested on the PA-equipment because otherwise the thing is that the guitar will blast 110dB from the stage to the audience etc and that will sound shit, and scare away the regular customers in the long run.
christopher ridley
Facilitator
ahjteam
Anssi Tenhunen
he was talking about analog consoles. And unless you are doing both monitors and FOH, I disagree on that one; I usually open the fader to unity or -5 below unity and then bring up the input gain until I hear the signal coming from the PA. This way I have better fader control vs keeping the fader at -40dB mark.
egan.
daylightdies.com
I don't have that option sadly because the venue I sometimes work at doesn't allow PA checks, only monitor checks
ahjteam: would you say that learning other digital boards such as the ones you use is not too hard if you know how to use an LS9?
Btw does anyone have any advice in dealing with diva vocalists who stand right next to a hard hitting drummer and whine about not being able to hear themselves in a tiny bouncy stage without causing feedback?
ahjteam: would you say that learning other digital boards such as the ones you use is not too hard if you know how to use an LS9?
Btw does anyone have any advice in dealing with diva vocalists who stand right next to a hard hitting drummer and whine about not being able to hear themselves in a tiny bouncy stage without causing feedback?
MortenDK
Member
- Dec 3, 2007
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Yep I did that for a number years aswell, till someone pointed out to the benefit of getting as much signal to EQ on, plus your outboard gear will work at the proper lvls aswell!.
My mixes started to sound better!! I was like wow it gave me that extra clearity on my mixes.
I had a big discussion about it over on Harmony Central, and got a good b**** slapping by all of the older FOH guys overthere for "only gaining till I could hear it" man I got a beat down and a lesson in how to gain stag to 0 to get the proper lvls in the mixer.
If you think about the S/N ratio its actaully pretty importent all so for aux sends!, when you send signals to effects like reverbs ect. if you dont have good S/N ratio you just put a lot hiss and noise into you reverbs aswell which will make it sound less clear.
Another benefit is that, if you do Monitors from the FOH position you dont have to think about, taking you lvls down or up on your aux sends for the monitors if you need to regain something during the show, you can really just concentrate on mixing the show and not worry about the monitors lvls if you have to regain a lot! and use time to get the monitor lvls back in the middle of the show.
Try it, it worked for me I havent looked back since.
On digital consoles I usually gain to the first couple of yellow leds comes on.
christopher ridley
Facilitator
I gain stage like I would in the studio. The whole... turn it up til you hear it thing isn't that great. Doesn't give you any relativity between things you want to keep even. Overheads, Toms, Guitars. When you crank the gain til you hear it, you never know if they are equal volume. Maybe I'm a little OCD about it, but I always have to have my guitars, toms, overheads, at the same level when panned like that.
MortenDK
Member
- Dec 3, 2007
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Heres the thread if anybody is interrested.
Its a good read!, and a bit funny too
http://acapella.harmony-central.com/showthread.php?t=1342033
Its a good read!, and a bit funny too
http://acapella.harmony-central.com/showthread.php?t=1342033
ahjteam
Anssi Tenhunen
I had my first experiences with the 01-series mixers, the LS9's weren't out by then yet. Atleast learning the Yamaha (DM1000, 01V2V96, LS9 and M7LC) and Tascam (DM4800) mixers were quite fast to learn easy, except the Tascam was pretty alien to me for like the first few time.
Haven't used the Midas, Soundcraft, EAW, Digico, Mackie, Presonus, Euphonix, Behringer, Allen&Heath or the highend Yamaha PM series digital mixers, so I can't speak about them, but with the Digi Venue having Pro Tools background helps a lot. I had an option to use it once on a festival and I was very tempted, but since I had never used it before or used PT at that point, I opted for the analog mixer because there was quite a few people there.
I already adressed this as separate case on my earlier post.
I have mixed ~1200 gigs (200 this year alone) and been a house engineer on 6 different venues, you think I haven't tried it? There are few reasons why I don't do it, few are just personal preference and some are just empirical studies.
- I rather have a good sounding AND feedback free show, than meters that look good.
- I really don't give a fuck about the "optimal" signal to noise ratio because the band is blasting 90-100dB from the stage anyways. A bit of hiss is a piss in the sea there.
- If you bring up the level to zero level at soundcheck, when the band starts to play together the meter "suddenly" shows +6...+12dB.
- I hate feedback. Thats why I never mute the channels either during the soundcheck, because finding the culprit becomes much harder the other way
- Bringing up the gain the unnessecary extra 30-50dB to get to the 0 level on the meter with the input gain and then bring it down on the fader, you unnessecarily increase the microphone sensitivity, which makes especially vocal microphones and condenser microphones really feedback prone.
- I always check on the soundcheck that I can hear the delay and reverb return properly and if the PA is properly setup (not too loud or too quiet), the gain staging usually is properly done. Somewhere between -12dB and +3dB on the meter on analog mixers and -24dB and -6dB on digital mixers
- cmon, Harmony Central? They also tell you to mix the gigs with your headphones...
That is why I always return to the way I do it now. But thanks for the suggestion.
MortenDK
Member
- Dec 3, 2007
- 119
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Look Im merely giving my feedback to this thread like you are!.
Well Ive been doing live sound for 14 years now..... ymmw!.
If you like you way of doing it great!, do I know if you have tryed it all ready? How im I suppose to know!?.
Im not saying your not a good sound engineer, its was a friendly suggestion, to try it!.
I just said I used to do it your way, I found another that in return actually help me aswell.
Peace
Well Ive been doing live sound for 14 years now..... ymmw!.
If you like you way of doing it great!, do I know if you have tryed it all ready? How im I suppose to know!?.
Im not saying your not a good sound engineer, its was a friendly suggestion, to try it!.
I just said I used to do it your way, I found another that in return actually help me aswell.
Peace
arv_foh
Brian K
I don't have that option sadly because the venue I sometimes work at doesn't allow PA checks, only monitor checks
ahjteam: would you say that learning other digital boards such as the ones you use is not too hard if you know how to use an LS9?
Btw does anyone have any advice in dealing with diva vocalists who stand right next to a hard hitting drummer and whine about not being able to hear themselves in a tiny bouncy stage without causing feedback?
ring out your monitors better?
I know you didn't ask me but the first time I mixed on an M7 I was breezing through it in about 5 minutes. It's VERY easy to learn.
SimonTaddio_Qc
Headbanger
Heres the thread if anybody is interrested.
Its a good read!, and a bit funny too
http://acapella.harmony-central.com/showthread.php?t=1342033
Picking a fight about what is gain and what is volume and calling yourself an AE is, in my humble opinion, pretty stupid, but anyway.
Like Slipknot said, People [on the internet] = shit
I probably should do that.
I was hesitant to do it with her because she always complains about the eq of her voice as well
So frustrating, I feel like I can't win with some people. Maybe some singers are just naturally never fully satisfied even if you do the best you can with the gear and acoustics in mind. Because I've done sound for plenty of other bands who are all very happy.
arv_foh
Brian K
I probably should do that.
I was hesitant to do it with her because she always complains about the eq of her voice as well
So frustrating, I feel like I can't win with some people. Maybe some singers are just naturally never fully satisfied even if you do the best you can with the gear and acoustics in mind. Because I've done sound for plenty of other bands who are all very happy.
Just explain that you have to EQ them that way so it's not feeding back the whole night. I always stand on stage before a show, point the 58 right at the horns, and pull out offending frequencies. Feedback at shows is unacceptable to me personally so I make sure it is a rare occurrence at my gigs.
