Elevating Your Live Sound: Exploring Concepts and Mindsets for Mixing Live Audio
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 11 มิ.ย. 2023
- Concepts, discussion points, and tips for live audio mixing. Aspiring techs can sometimes be overwhelmed and more than a bit lost with the amount of information necessary to mix live bands. The first gigs can be very nerve wracking and not always gratifying for the tech, the musicians, nor the audience but that can be mitigated.
In some ways, much of this can be simplified and demystified by getting a better grasp on basic concepts and workflows before being turned loose on your first gig. It's not just about the "how" but also many times it's about the "why". Whether you're a musician mixing your own band, a member of a tech team at your church, an aspiring tech, or a stagehand looking to further your understanding in the more of the technical departments, these are all people is who this video addresses.
It's about advancing the art and science of live audio.
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This video is a bit of free-form discussion on live sound mixing concepts. And of course I'm incorporating some tips along the way.
As always, feel free to share the video link... and likes and subscribes are always appreciated!.
Other Channel Videos-
A Soundcheck in Action:
th-cam.com/video/k2wgnPQI_is/w-d-xo.html
5 Tips for Mixing Live Vocals:
th-cam.com/video/oP4sdpkkNhY/w-d-xo.html
Building an IEM Rig With the Behringer XR18 or Midas MR18:
th-cam.com/video/xT9gTBFxvZk/w-d-xo.html
Direct Boxes - What are they? How to use them? Direct Box 101:
th-cam.com/video/6iwW5_Ia9Uc/w-d-xo.html
3 Tips For Aspiring Live Audio Engineers:
th-cam.com/video/tEX2Prwfh-g/w-d-xo.html
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Channel Facebook Page:
facebook.com/groups/livesoundproduction
Support via Patreon:
www.patreon.com/AlanHamiltonAudio
Nice to finally see the face behind the voice.
Unfortunately, I have to see that face way too much! LOL...
I greatly appreciate you and the content you provide. Thank you for sharing your knowledge.
I appreciate that!
You have made me a much better bar band sound guy. I hear your voice when I’m working and let the band be the band. I use aux subs because of you. EQ my kick drum like your tutorial and I love the wave editor effect on the kick and snare. This year I have seven bands throwing dates at me and I’m working all the time. I’ve become so much better from what I learned from you. Thank you Alan
That's great. Thanks!!
Another great video Alan. Thanks!
Thank you! :)
Thank you, love your channel, you have been instrumental in helping me launch my live stream broadcast broadcast Over the past 3 years. Again, thank you
Thank you! I appreciate that. Glad the channel has helped.
Great advice! No argument is required!
Great video and spot on!
Thanks!
Great advice, as a new engineer these are really helpful. Please keep uploading
Thanks, will do!
Your videos are great thanks for taking the time to creat them
Glad you like them!
Can I ask a question from a consumer perspective? One that is both a musician, have played live in mid size clubs, and have done quite a few recordings, myself and using professional services.
Is there a trend in the industry to mic live shows as if nothing existed but kick drums and bass? :)
Granted I mostly go to hard rock/metal shows, and not a lot of them, but nevertheless in the past 10 years I've noticed this, and it's getting to the point that I just don't want to go to concerts anymore.
Just this year I've been to 4 shows, in 4 different venues, and they were all definitely on the hard rock umbrella but they were VERY different bands.
All 4 were exactly the same, it was ALL kick drums and bass and very little to nothing of anything else! I usually like to get as close to the stage as possible, but on the last show, Extreme at Roadrunner in Boston, I purposefully hung back pretty much perfect middle of the venue and it was the same thing, possibly a little worse?
So What's going on here? am I going crazy? Is this just a hard rock thing? A Boston thing?
I tell ya, it really makes me feel like not going to concerts anymore, if I want to listen to solo'ed tracks I can find them on youtibe! :)
PS> Sorry, I know it's outside the scope of this video but you seem like a knowledgeable person and I am a curious one! :)
Good question. Lots of potential places for answers to come from, but a lot of it is going to be speculation.
For one thing, live mixing is always going to be subjective. What one person likes, another might not. Then, add in bad days for bands and engineers, sound system problems the audience might not even be aware of, room issues that make for compromised sound in some seats or areas, and stage volume can also impact a mix if it can overwhelm the rest of a mix. Or any and all of the above all mixed together.
But that can't explain all things, all the time.
It used to be amp power was expensive and speakers weren't as optimized as they are today. It was harder to get a big kick drum sound 50 years ago, the likes of which are able to be dialed in these days. So, maybe that is a factor too... because some people 'can', maybe they 'do' go overboard with low end in the mix.
Then there are expectations... Band expectations... management expectations... crew expectations... crowd expectations. Maybe the engineer isn't even exactly mixing for himself or herself.
Hard to know who really sets the goals for the mix. It's not always a position of creative freedom for the audio engineer.
There can also be dB restrictions in place. One way to make the music sound 'bigger' at lower levels is to utilize the subs to do it.
Another thing, for one reason or another, the engineer might not be mixing from an ideal spot. Or the system is misconfigured and the mix isn't transferring well to the overall room like it should.
Then there's the potential that for a live show, someone wants the mix to be larger than life. More aggressive. So that could be louder guitar leads, heavier guitars, a heavier use of vocal delays.... or.... more low end... more kick... more low bass.
Then there are some genre things that could come into play. Scooped mids on the guitars seem to be a big thing for some metal bands. By themselves, those guitars can sound 'fat' (or is it 'phat'? ;) ), but in a mix, with the mids scooped onstage, the guitar sound might lack the mids it needs to ride properly in the mix. While things like low mids of the bass guitar and keys can overwhelm the guitars a bit, as does the snare, OH's, and hats on the other end of the spectrum, it can add up to the guitars not really riding comfortably in the mix. But turning them up might not make them more audible per se' but just hurt other things in the mix, while the guitars still not really standing out still. And in rooms where there's crowd noise, and a reverberant room, those things can also be in a range to muddy the guitars a bit in what the crowd is hearing. But, assuming the engineer doesn't want to lose the vocals, they might be a bit stuck. You can't continually turn things up to make everything louder than everything else. Ex: If you want the vocals louder, and you turn them up, then they are louder. But what if that kind of hid the guitars a bit? So you turn the guitars up. Now the snare seems a little weak so you turn the snare up. Now the kick is no longer in balance with the snare drum So you bring the kick up. And the guitars and vocals are masking or clashing with the cymbals... so you adjust the hats and overheads...
And you just went in a giant circle to get right back where you were, only louder. Since the PA is louder now, the crowd noise probably gets louder too... and the PA likely excites the room more and you get even more natural reverb in the room masking elements in the mix. The worse the room, the worse the effect can be. Or if the PA is not properly deployed.
Then there's the age old issue... Is the mix really lacking in highs and mids or is the listener experiencing temporary or permanent hearing loss?
Not to mention the subjectivity issue and what one listener prefers over another listener. Or what one will accept as 'in the window' of an acceptable mix that another person will think crossed a line.
There are just so many potential variables at play, it's hard to pick just one thing and say "This is why-". And, it's possible, in any singular case, it could be wholly different than in another case. Even with the same band if some variable changes (like changing seats, a different venue, or the sound person mixing from a better vantage point).
The man himself!
Blessings brother 🙏
Thanks!
Your videos are great and this might be the best so far. FYI, now that I see your face I don't think so much about how you sound like Ken Porter at Spectrum Sound...
Hi Al!
Hey Hunter!
Hi 👋🏼 Al!!
Hello Cindy!
nice to see your dial.
Thanks 👍
Sound advice..
I need to start a blog and call it "Sound Advice". I like that! :)
I'm a total amateur (but I'm learning!) so I do tend to experiment more than I should... because it doesn't come intuitively to me yet.
I'm wondering... is there somewhere I can practice? I think my biggest weakness is EQ and understanding what each change sounds like. It would be great to have the digital mixer/EQ interface like you showed... with some sample tracks (of individual channels) to mess around with and learn from. I'm sure I could set this up with fancy (expensive) software but I still wouldn't have clean tracks to work with. Anyone know if something like this exists as a ready-to-go package?
Probably the cheapest way to go would be a DAW like Reaper or Cakewalk and some headphones that you could connect to your computer. I would probably try and get decent 'studio' headphones and not the cheapest made just so you know the headphones have a decent reference. Something from Sony, or AKG, Beyer...
You can find tracks online to download.
For EQ you can find vocal tracks alone, or even just load a stereo song into the DAW, and then start experimenting with the EQ.
Besides the functions built into the DAW you can download plugins to add to it to experiment with different versions of channel strips or compression. Some with 'natural looking' GUI's complete with knobs like on an old analog console or rack equip.
What made you decide to finally show your face?
No good way to do a discussion video like this without a talking head. I wanted to do the topic, but logistically, to try and find and create A-roll and B-roll to narrate over it would've made the video take so long to create/edit that it would just take way more time than I have right now. And probably not really have worked anyway as far as flow. So, time was a major factor in sorting thru scenes, shooting scenes, finding scenes. Not unless I just narrated over random scenes. That wouldn't have been all that time consuming, but now we're back to the question if that would've really worked/suited the content. And I'm sure had I done that, I would've been tweaking and adding graphics, digital pans and zooms, redoing dialogue, adding some secondary scenes, etc. to better fit the video and try and keep it more visually moving and informative... so it ultimately would've been time consuming too! LOL.
So I did some rearranging of things to make the room a little better for a talking head style video and just went for it. Every so often I have video ideas that lend themself to a talking head style video, or portion thereof, but I wasn't set up to do that. The room setup isn't perfect for that now... but at least it's do-able.
Dang, this is not at all what I imagined your face would look like 😂 lookin' good nonetheless!
Thanks!
Wow I thought you were younger 😂
Me too.😂 Sorry Alan!
Me too! LOL!
Age and experience trump youth every time.