Mixing live compared to studio?

[æôη]

Hello there. I hope this is the right section

Someone asked me to mix live but I have absolutely no experience in live mixing. I do -however- have a few years of studio mixing under my belt.

I figure it's a completely different beast to mix live so are there any general tips you guys can give me? Any rule of thumbs, any no-goes etc?

I know it's dependant on the equipment, room but any hints and input would be highly appreciated. I told him that I have no experience but they still want me there.

My main concern is EQ and compression, do you guys LP/HP a lot?
What about guitars, boost more mids than usual?

Thanks in advance!

 

[æôη]

Oh btw, I'll get details on the equipment in a few days.
The style I'll have to mix is brutal death, grind/death. Setup is nothing out of the ordinary, 2 guitars, bass, mic'd drums, 1 vox.

 

[HeadCrusher]

HP everything but the bass, kick and maybe low toms. have someone ring out the monitors. EQ: rather substract than add.

 

[guitarguru777]

Hopefully they ring out the PA in the place before hand.

Get the band to keep the stage volume as low as possible if you have monitors.

Give them as much as you can in the monitors without feedback.

If they have a 31 band EQ use it to pull out the feeding back frequencies, if they don't hopefully the board has a parametric you can kill that frequency with. Just run it Post fader if it allows you to (some old boards don't)

Watch for high frequency and low frequency feedback. BOTH are horrible

If you are micing the guitars get the mic as close to the cab as humanly possible. Make sure the guitarists have enough mids in their tone to cut through the mix.

Watch the high end on the bass guitars

If you are micing the FULL KIT. Center your kick around 80hz Bass guitar around 100. DON'T GO ANY LOWER THEN 70HZ or the PA will fart out!

If the singer is a screamer, be sire he is screaming during sound check. If hes not MAKE HIM!

The trim control is your friend!

As HC said, DONT ADD EQ, only Subtract where needed. HIGH PASS EVERYTHING Except kick at Bass at around 100 - 200HZ

As for compression, I only compress vocals and only VERY slightly just to tame the P's and the S's

Guitars, ADD MIDS AT THE AMP if you cant hear them try to NOT reach for the fader if possible.

 

[ahjteam]

tl;dr:

- don't panic
- don't let it feedback
- less is more
- highpass everything


tl;ra:

- Do not panic
- Learn proper gain staging. Open the fader to the zero point and then start opening the gain until the level is loud enough. Note that the band ALWAYS plays louder than during the soundcheck, so if you normally aim for the nominal signal-to-noise ratio especially if you are recording, do NOT go over 0dBV level. Set it ~6dB below during the soundcheck.
- The first thing you have to fix is feedback, if there is any. My rule of thumb is rather have a bit worse sounding mix than feedback
- Keep it simple; if you use less mics, your job becomes easier. If the space is REALLY small, just kick, vocals (and keys) can be sufficient
- I usually try to keep the EQ as neutral as possible if there are no problems, I usually just take out the 160hz wh000mp from guitars
- I highpass everything at except kick, bass and samplers if they have sub drops. Most mixers have fixed value between 80-120hz. If the mixer is not digital, the chances are really low that there is a lowpass filter.
- Start soundcheck by muting all channels and then opening and setting them up one by one. do NOT mute channels during soundcheck, because this way you can usually pretty easily narrow down the source of feedback to one of the latest opened channel.
- Rule of thumb for compression is none or lightly on everything else except squeeze every dB out of bass DI. Minimum of 8-12 dB gain reduction
- Use gates on toms, gate+comp+limiter on snare and gate+comp on kick

 

[acappa]

I´ve done FOH recently in the biggest venues in Madrid, Spain and also last summer in Wacken Open Air...
I´m more used to studio mixing too and big problem doing FOH is the lack of time and that everything occurs in real time. Last gig I had my distressor inserted in the voice channel mixing Vita Imana, with 30 channel plot

When they started to play feedback appeared, but I just could not find where it came from!!! Oh no!!!!! Checking all 30 channel took me a long time!!!! At the end I realized the output of my distressor was set too high and I was distorting the preamp!

As other members have mentioned cut the lows of everything!!

Some more advices:
- gate the toms, the kick and the bottom snare!!!
- I always mike the bass guitar and the pre out but normally I only use the pre out!!
- B91 inside the kick is just amazing, It has all the click needed
- Be careful when adding reverb to the kit if the venue has enough natural reverb in itself!! Sometimes I use a short reverb to those drums where I set the gate very agressive to avoid sounding artificial!
- Be careful with delay in vocals!

That´s all I can recommend you!!

Something that I´d like to know???

- In standard metal screaming/singing with the standard Shure Sm58, how you tend to EQ?? Cuts? Enhancement? Where??? High pass??

- Same question on guitars using Sm57!!!

Thankssss

 

[Jarkko Mattheiszen]

- don't panic

This is the most valuable advice you can get. Don't be terrified of screwing up. It's your first gig. If there are technical problems or if the band sounds like shit, it's not the end of the world. Get in there, fuck up, learn from your mistakes and don't repeat them. That's what it's all about and that's how it works.

- Learn proper gain staging. Open the fader to the zero point and then start opening the gain until the level is loud enough.

This is something I've always found arguable. I know lots of FOH guys who prefer to do it this way, but I know at least an equal amount that don't. The faders are there for a reason.

 

[timislegend]

- don't panic

so true...

 

[HeadCrusher]

maybe see if you can get in early so you have enough time to soundcheck. since the band insists of you being there there's a pretty good chance they are gonna listen to you if you tell them to turn their amps down or dial in more mids or whatever. that's good. many of us don't get that luxury.

 

[ahjteam]

Something that I´d like to know???

- In standard metal screaming/singing with the standard Shure Sm58, how you tend to EQ?? Cuts? Enhancement? Where??? High pass??

- Same question on guitars using Sm57!!!

Start with flat eq and highpass at 100hz and listen. If there is not something wrong, don't fix it. The 58 usually feeds back around 1k and 3k, but that should be taken out on the monitor graphic eq instead.

 

[ahjteam]

This is something I've always found arguable. I know lots of FOH guys who prefer to do it this way, but I know at least an equal amount that don't. The faders are there for a reason.

If the PA is set correctly, doing it "my way" usually gets the gain close to the optimal settings.

When I started, about 10 years ago, I was taught to do it the "other" way, which is to bring up the level on the preamp to the "optimal signal to noise" zero level. I think after doing 100 gigs of the ~500 gigs of just monitors (the venue hierarchy went so that you started as a monitor engineer), I stopped doing it that way.

There is no wrong doing it that way, but the main downside to me doing it that way is that the mics get really sensitive. Like SUPER sensitive. They start to gather a lot more sound, and gets especially sensitive to handling noise and feedback.

The other reason is that the faders on mixers are logarithmic. If you crank up the gain to the "optimal signal to noise" level and then you have the fader at -30dB level (which would be really common with overheads) on a 100mm fader, you have about 0.5cm movement space until it's too loud. If you set the gain by setting the fader to zero (or just below like I've been doing lately) first, you have about half the fader length.

The main upside to this is that you can mix at pretty low levels. The only major downside to this is that you have to crank the auxes pretty loud, which can be a bad thing especially with cheaper consoles that can have pretty noisy pots when cranked. If you have the delay/reverb/monitor aux send at max but they/you still want more, then you have to bring up the gain on the preamp and drop the fader a bit.


tl;dr:

Main causes for the problems are if the PA is undersized to the space. You can always turn down oversized PA on the master fader. If the PA is setup correctly, you get best of both of these worlds and the downsides usually just go away.

preamp first, then fader:
better suited for outdoors and multitasking like recording and mixing

+ better signal to noise ratio
+ more level on auxes and recording outputs
- makes mics more sensitive to handling noise and feedback, especially if PA is undersized
- if PA is undersized, you might not hear the signal

fader first, then preamp:
better suited for smaller indoor venues where loudness is an issue

+ you usually can mix quieter if needed, because the amplified sound level rises barely over the acoustic sound
+ usually less prone to feedback
+ longer fader length in use and if there are band changes, setting the initial fader levels to zero is way faster and easier
- you might distort the PA if it's undersized
- you usually have to cranck the auxes if PA is oversized

 

[TomCase]

Don't be afraid to start small. I'll start a mix with just vox and kick and snare. Bring the rest of the drums in then slowly bring in the bass and guitars.

I run my vocals to a submix then lightly compress that channel. I'm running monitors from FOH, and this method keeps the monitors from compressing also.

With grindcore I'll spend most of my time riding the snare drum fader. Everything else is usually pretty even.

Lots of good advice already in here.

BTW I'm a fader at 0 and adjust the gain...just can't do monitors until the signal is where you need it.

Tom

 

[pikachu69]

I have been mixing live sound far longer (10 years) than I have been attempting to record and I have found my live sound engineering has improved alot since I have learned to mix in a studio style situation.
I know you hear bands saying that studio guys don't make great sound men, and there is SOME truth in that, well I found that being a live sound guy for several years had a dramatic effect on my recording process, and not in a good way. I could not get used to the idea of 'slowly and surely wins the race, Jim...'
Micing was done in a hurry etc. Its taking a long time to combat my 'live' bad habits lol.

Here are my thoughts:

Faders to 0 is a must. After years of not doing it I made the shift and I never looked back. Everything sounds cleaner and clearer. Mixing became easier.

I must say that all of this setting faders to 0 thing is only good if your gain structure through your power amps is setup correctly. If you find setting up this way creates feedback, I would say you gain structure is not set up correctly.

I found that an easy way to get maximum gain without clipping FOR A METAL GIG (and you only ever have to do it once) was to disconnect your speakers from your amps, turn your amps down and play a CD of a mix you know to be heavily limited in mastering, def magnetic comes to mind. Hey, I didn't say you had to like it lol.
While looking at the input for the channels you have your CD plugged into, (faders at 0) slowly bring up the trim until it JUST clips and then back it off slowly until it just stops clipping.
Set your master faders to 0 with the mix playing. Remember your speakers are UNPLUGGED so you will not damage your hearing doing this. In fact, you can whistle while you work!
Slowly bring up your amps gain until they just start to clip then back them off a touch until they no longer light up. You may not end up with your amps turned all the way up as alot of sound guys do, but your gear will not break down or be fried.
you can stop the CD and mute the channels and reconnect your speakers as you have maximized your gain structure.

If you now do the set faders to 0 rule it should sound great with no feedback and you will know that you can bring a full mix, limited to -7db, with your master fader on 0, and its still won't clip anything!
This only takes 5 minutes to do and is well worth it in my experience.

Once you have done this play your favorite reference CD through the system at moderate levels and EQ the FOH as necessary.
Then, mic your band.

Say for a drum kit multi miced:
With your faders at 0 and muted, balance your channels with the trim to be just over 0 on a good quality desk with nice pres, or just below 0 on a cheaper desk.
Now test each mic in isolation to EQ and set up the basic compression required, more on that soon if you are interested.
Re mute all your channels, go back and re level each one as mentioned above.
Set your required panning for each mic, I like to really pan the toms extreme from audience perspective.
With faders at 0, un mute all the drum tracks and get the drummer to play a beat. It should be sounding huge and well balanced but hardly use up any headroom at all. This is of course just my way of doing things but the good thing is it gives you a very usable drum sound in a matter of minutes. It will require fixing in the mix, but thats the nature of the beast.

Do the same for each instrument, except vocals, bring the lead vocal in a few DB hotter while still allowing headroom.

Set faders to stun, I mean 0, ( the vocal should sit just above everything else) and let the sound check start. 1 or 2 run through's a song and you should be good to go. You may find you end up moving a couple of faders a DB or 2, thats all good, anything more drastic use the trim while watching the PFL.

Thats all for now i'm hungry.

Cheers.

 

[Fox Mulder]

Ahjteam dude, what are those l;dr: / tl;ra: stuff that you've been posting?

 

[ahjteam]

Ahjteam dude, what are those l;dr: / tl;ra: stuff that you've been posting?

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=tl;dr
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=tl;ra

 

[Zozobra]

Some great advice in here, but one major difference thats only been touched on very lightly is - its real time.

You lot are giving advice that good AEs give. Thats great, but mixing live you may well have to deal with changes in performer volume (especially singers), a player dropping way out of time or guitar out or tune as and when it happens. Maybe this is horribly obvious, but what I see all too often is a sound guy throw up some mics, set some levels and then put his feet up. Dont be that guy, be on the ball and respond to changes as needed to keep things as smooth for the audience as possible. You may have to do some things that make your toes curl, like cut back a vocalists level by 10db when they start belting with the mic right up to their mouth twice as loud as they have at any other point in the gig and just suffer the brief burst of drowns-everything-else-out volume that happens before you can drop the level, or drop out a guitar almost entirely and raise the other to compensate or whatever; you got to be ready to adapt to this sort of crap.

Of course this depends on the standard of musicians youre dealing with. The better they are, the easier live mixing is.

 

[if6was9]

I definately found being a live guy helped being a studio guy and vice versa. Like with how to use eq and helping get a mix together. I'd also say it's the kind of thing where you never stop learning- I've been doing gigs for 2 years in the same venue(as well as in lots of other places) and I still learn new ways of working in there.

Use EQ to make room in your mix, same as in the studio. I boost the bass where I cut my kick, I do a small dip in the guitars mids to make room for the vocal. Do this across the board and you'll have a nice even mix with everything cutting nicely.
If you can, gate the drums, adds so much extra punch to the mix and brings the overall level down and makes your job so much easier.
Guys say don't se additive EQ, I say use it if you think you need to. I always add high end to my kick to bring out the click for metal. If I get to gate my snare I usually add high end there too. Sounds better so I do it.
Overheads are overkill everywhere but the biggest of rooms with large stages. In fact most of the time the cymbals are too loud naturally anyway! I sometimes mic the hats depending on the drummer and the band but it never gets that high in the mix.
Be relaxed and be nice to the bands, makes your life so much easier. It's easy to get overwhelmed by the fact that everything is happening NOW and problems need to be addressed instantly. Having the bands on your side will make this much easier.

Also, the quality of band and backline plays the biggest role in the quality of sound. A band that can't play with cheap guitars and crap amps/drums just won't ever sound good. I'm not saying don't try to make it sound as good as you can but there's a point where you just have to realise it sounds shit because the band is shit.

If you're doing monitors too then realise that 90% of the time no matter how loud the vocals are, the singer will ask for more. Guitarists also tend to want loads of themselves. Try to avoid putting bass in the monitors as much as possible, it eats up headroom, muddies up the stage sound and monitors aren't really that capable of having the low end so bassists won't be happy anyways.

Enjoy!

 

[chrisrivalry]

A lot of live sound is just common sense once you get passed the technical side which if you have any experience in recording you should be fine with, just make sure you don't feedback and have a balanced mix and you should be fine. Like I said on the live sound thread, which you may want to look up there was some good information on there but proper time management is a key especially if you're in charge of getting the bands on and off if it's a smaller venue. Believe me, if you hustle those bands off the venue owner is going to love you, and the show will run 10 times smoother. Another thing is make sure your stage is clean, have the snake positioned so that the cables can run neatly so no one is stepping on them, wrap them all up after the band plays because they will roll their big ass bass rig all over it without a care, make sure you have everything labeled as well, it's a time saver to not have to look around the back of the board to see what's plugged into what, having a separate limiter on your two buss is a god send as well. hope this helps!

 

[ahjteam]

Try to avoid putting bass in the monitors as much as possible, it eats up headroom, muddies up the stage sound and monitors aren't really that capable of having the low end so bassists won't be happy anyways.

Rather don't give them the low end of the bass, because the monitors usually can't handle them well enough. When I was mixing Major Label, I had the low end from DI after the tuner and before the pedals, then I miced up the amp with a 57 and cut a lot of the low end from it with the low shelf and fed that to the monitors. That way they can get the definition of the bass without eating the whole headroom.

 

[HeadCrusher]

Anssi, with your method of opening the fader to 0 db and then adjusting the actual volume with the gain pot have you ran into situations where you couldn't get a signal loud enough? Also, how do you adjust volumes during the show? Using the fader or the gain pot? Does this method work on analog and digital consoles alike (I haven't used a digital desk so far)?