F.O.H. Mixing.

[arv_foh]

Been mixing FOH at an 800 cap. venue for almost 5 years now. A few tips I can think of.

1. Ring out the entire system before the show (both PA and monitors) to ensure a. no feedback on stage and b. no feedback if the dipshit singers step in front of the PA, remove any offending frequencies from the house graph, what you remove will depend on the room you are mixing in so I can't offer any tips there. If you aren't good with identifying frequencies bring an RTA with you

2. Make sure you aren't clipping any of the amps once you get your mix going (or the channels for that matter)

3. Soundcheck will sound completely different from when the band plays, because as someone already said, having the room filled up will definitely affect the sound

4. Be prepared for shit to go wrong. Cables break. Have a spare mic for the center vocal. Tape the cable to the mic so dumbass singers don't pull it out

5. If band members are cocky or come in with attitudes, put them in their place, you're the engineer and you run the show

6. Gates/comps - I gate the kick and toms, and use comps on the snare, bass, and all vocals

7. If the equipment you are working with is subpar, and the band starts bitching, tell them to talk to management. It's not your problem (unless you brought in all the gear)

8. Go in to the venue first to check out what they have so you know if you need to bring any of your own gear. If it's not possible, call and talk to the house engineer. I usually carry my own rack (comps/gates/efx) and mic package when I'm not mixing at my own venue

9. Bring a cable tester

 

[LeSedna]

Google says - Front of House

f*** you marcus For some reason I wouldn't have trusted in google for that search... Mea Culpa

 

[HeadCrusher]

[...]
1. Ring out the entire system before the show (both PA and monitors) to ensure a. no feedback on stage and b. no feedback if the dipshit singers step in front of the PA, remove any offending frequencies from the house graph, what you remove will depend on the room you are mixing in so I can't offer any tips there. If you aren't good with identifying frequencies bring an RTA with you
[...]

How do you go about this, especially on monitors? I mean how do I know which frequency to remove?
Sorry if this isn't very clear but I don't really know what to listen for...

 

[Hotstuff]

Good tips from ARV_FOH.

I do a fare amount as a FOH tec for a few bands and cause it is always a different venue the best thing is to get there early and inspect the the PA system, get to know it and if the house engeneer is not a a-hole he will setup all the sends and efx at your request, he should do really, it is his gear you are going to fuk with!
Keep your faders at 0 then apply gain and as you go from one channel to the next do not mute the previous, keep headroom, don´t max out the gain on individual channels.
Drums and vocals and bass have fast peaks because of the fast transients and guitars have stronger rms power as they have sustain and keep the levels longer.
So, gate and compress the drums, compress all the vocals and bass, and just eq the guitars as they usually don,t have a lot of dynamics though palm muting may cause some excess low mid rumble (120hz).
As with anything only experience will teach you.

 

[noiZefloor]

- compress less than in studio. On festivals I have the compressors inserted and start to use them when everything sound ok.
- lowcut nearly everything
- always remember that a venue will sound totally different, when there are people in there. Keep that in mind, when you are eqing the PA.
- When the band starts, try to get the levels right(VCA-Groups are your friend), then take a minute and just listen. Then start to change your settings.
- Use your headphones to set the release and the sidechainfilter of gates.
- If you wanna change equing on a signal, listen to the signal on the PA, then take your headphones, pfl the channel and try to find the freq. you wanna cut/boost. Boost/cut it while listening to the PA, not your headphones!!!

 

[LeSedna]

Why do you all say "gate the snare". I don't get why gating them specifically ?

 

[ahjteam]

I just was mixing ~200 gigs in the last 7 weeks and I really have to say that FOH mixing is easy as long as you stay cool and keep the levels low. Panic, feedback and/or ringing ears usually leads into total failure.

MICING:
Just use minimal micing and keep things simple. Finetuning the mic positions is usually really pointless unless it sounds totally awful and you need to make a major move.

GAIN MANAGEMENT:
I have come across two types of approaches to gain staging. One is "keep the fader down, push the solo on and bring up the gain to 0..-6db level and open the fader". I was taught this way and I really have to say that it really sucks because it's really prone to feedback. I personally use the "put the fader to +-0db level and then bring up the gain". This way is also more logical (atleast in my opinion), because then if things go as they should, all the faders should be nearly at the same position, at the zero fader level. But lately I have been doing it so that I open the channel fader to 5db below the zero line and when you start cranking up the gain and start to hear the mic opening up barely from the PA, it's usually loud enough. Then you have ~15-20 dB of headroom to play with just the faders alone.

FEEDBACK:
Feedback is always a bad thing and Avoid at all costs. It's also good to know what causes it; it is always caused by combination of too much gain and bad mic position or bad mic choise.

EQ:
Highpass everything except the kick and bass, rather cut than boost and don't boost anything above +6dB.

COMP/GATE:
gate only the drums, use compressor only if needed. I usually send the vocals into a bus and compress the bus instead of the individual channels, this way I can get less feedback prone signal to the monitors.

I could write a book about this, but I'm too tired now. Hope it helps

 

[Pot]

so write it when u have the time.... i will apreciate it and so will many for sure

no hurries

 

[DanLights]

oh yeah Ahjteam, a FOH tutorial from you would be AWESOME. please do when ever you have the time and energy!