FOH Engineer Soundchecks A Touring Band For A Show (FULL PROCESS)
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 28 มิ.ย. 2024
- A walkthrough of my process in soundchecking a band with examples of both room and board audio.
TIME STAMPS
00:00 - Backing tracks
01:20 - Vocal
03:53 - Bass
05:02 - Guitar
06:50 - Drums
09:44 - Band minus vocal
11:22 - Whole band
12:45 - Final results in show - Room
13:32 - Final results in show - Board mix w/ room
GEAR BREAKDOWN I USE AT THE VENUE: • Music Venue House Back...
AFTER SHOW PLAYLIST GUARANTEED TO GET YOU AND THE CROWD PUMPED UP: open.spotify.com/playlist/4ey...
Instagram: chrishammillphoto
Business: chrishammillphoto@gmail.com
GEAR I USE
Main Camera: www.amazon.com/Sony-Full-Fram...
Main Wide Angle Lens: www.amazon.com/Sigma-14-24mm-...
Main Portrait Lens: www.amazon.com/Canon-50mm-1-8...
POV Camera: www.amazon.com/DJI-Adventure-...
Drone: www.amazon.com/DJI-Mavic-Air-...
Live Mix Audio Capture/POV Drive Recorder: www.amazon.com/Tascam-Stereo-...
POV Driving Binural Audio: www.amazon.com/dp/B003QGPCTE?... - เพลง
![LISA - ROCKSTAR (Official Music Video) REACTION [SHE'S BACK!]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/QBxE30vavMQ/mqdefault.jpg)
Audio Engineer: Can you give me a little bit of everything?
Drummer: I have never been so ready.
😂 It’s exactly as I wanted!
Great drummer and very quick mic 👍
Aside from the great sound you’re getting, the speed you move around that console is really impressive! 👌
Thanks!
Have to agree!! 👍🏼
Man knows his interface.
Absolutely. I want to start offering my services as a sound guy but I just have no idea where to start learning these boards.
There are tutorials online to help you. If you’re in the area and want to shadow a show, I’ll gladly show you the x32. If you learn the X/M 32 you can work most clubs and shows.
Excellent house engineer. You really know your room and have an intelligent process of workflow. Much respect brother, always love seeing what how other techs run their venues.
Appreciate it!
Seems like a well prepared band. Great job on the speed/quality ratio too! That was speed.
Thanks!
One of my favourite moment of any sound check is when the sound guy adds noise gates to the tom and kick, something about that just makes the sound so much better, it is night and day. I also feel like I am playing tighter with the drumer when the sound guy does that.
Most of the time I don’t add any noise gates. Call if the drummers head the drums lighter than the noise gate threshold I don’t hear it. I miss a lot of those lighter notes and ghost notes.
Also, the microphones I use are pretty decent with signal to noise ratio. Hardly any bleeding.
Those polkadot guys sounded great. They also come across as some cool guys with a pro attitude.
Hence why I posted this soundcheck. This is how it’s supposed to go and I wish every band could be like this as far as taking direction, putting egos aside and working towards a great sound for the audience.
Thankfully, most bands are.
@@chrishammillaudio thats cool. I have seen some really shitty attitudes from bands and soundguys. Been watching a few of your vids and you really are very good.
@@chrishammillaudioAnd if they're not, "alright...if you wanna sound like shit, that's on you." lol
Love it when people give you performance level at sound check as they should. People who try that "saving my voice" excuse work my nerves. Great Job
I started running sound for my own band when i was around 14 years old. It was all about trial and error back then. As i gained more equipment for my own band, other bands would always ask to borrow my PA equipment. Well, i didnt want to have my stuff damaged so i started charging bands for me to run their sound. I eventually started my own sound company and slowly learned more and more about being an FOH sound engineer. Gear was becoming more and more advanced. I will never forget when Peavey came out eith the Autograph. It was a great product but it was very rare for any club to allow me to go in early in the day to run the white noise to get the room properly EQ'd. So i ended up reverting back to old fashioned EQ by ear. Which was probably the best thing to happen. I learned to know the different frequencies by ear ( at least close to the right frequency). So when i had any feedback, i can find it quickly. I love these new guitar modules like Kemper and Headrush. You have done a great thing by making this video. So many kids can benefit from it. The inly thing i would suggest would be to explain more if what gear you are using. Type of board, EQ's, compressors, etc. Other than that, excellent job!!!!
I have a gear breakdown video linked in the description of every video I post to answer that very question.
EQ'ing by ear is the only tried and true way to go about it. Play a song you know by heart and how it should sound, tweak the PA to that, and mic up a band. Can't get any simpler than that.
As someone who just got into live mixing after only doing it on my own in my DAW (which is way different), this video is pure gold. Thank you so much!
Glad you enjoyed.
This was incredible to watch! Thank you 🤘
Such a cool band !! Thanks for posting !!
Awesome video man! You're a talented man! Band has a real SOAD sound to me.
This is awesome to watch. Been interested in this stuff myself! Thanks for the video!
This has been my dream job. I am a music loving nurse that ended up serving people in a different way. God bless live music sound engineers.
great sound man!
Very cool video man, really enjoyed it!
Thank you for making this video. You scratched the curious itch I had since childhood of "what does this guy do with all those cool looking knobs".
I'm a guitar player. But never got to see it from the sound engineer's side.
I had never seen how a soundcheck is made and how everything is adjusted so this is pretty cool
i love that started jamming Clutch
This is a killer process, appreciate the comments, thanks for sharing!
Glad you enjoyed!
Thanks Chris great idea for camera to see in real time what your doing and how it effects the band, just subscribed looking forward to more from you . I have the same board which is a plus for me.
Thanks for watching and subbing!
Great breakdown of a soundcheck; thanks for the upload!
Glad you enjoyed it!
GOSH THE BANDS ARE GREAT!!!
absolutely fascinating, thanks for sharing
Glad you enjoyed it
Love this man, great perspective.
Just dropped a gig log myself for a different angle 👌
Hell yes!
Damn that mix was super fast, really enjoyed your video and gave me some insight into live mixing process.
Glad you enjoyed. When you learn a room you know what works and doesn’t. Half the battle is working with the room acoustics.
Thanks for a great video Chris....I'm always interested in how different Engineers do their sound checks.
Glad you enjoyed.
Your attention to detail and pursuit of the best sound possible is why you have 10K followers already with more to come. Fantastic band for a video like this too, they were awesome!
Thanks. This is exactly how every soundcheck should go.
It's nice having that rta view also. It makes it easier to see that feedback
That screen stays on at all times with the RTA view. Very handy.
One thing that helps with your speed in mixing is having a band that is focused on you and aware. Stopping them to move on to your next instrument can take time you don’t have sometimes. I’ve done many shows where you don’t have maybe 4-5 min of sound check cuz the roster is so big. So the more they pay attention to your process then things fly. But your skills behind the board are wild. I wish a lot more engineers had your speed 🤣🤣 great job!
It certainly helps when a band pays attention!
You are an awesome audio engineer bro!!
Thanks!
Great stuff as always!! Congrats on 10k!
You were one of the first people that mentioned 10K and I thought you were out of your mind. Happy to be wrong 🤘
@@chrishammillaudio Haha, it's all about the vision man! Here's to the next 10k 🥂 🤣😂. Good luck with the Mustang btw, definitely want updates on it/the situation
Thanks. When I get the police report and get an estimate on repairs I’ll make a whole video about it. So far I’m still waiting on the police report while the car sits under a canopy with the weather resistant cover on.
Ive played dingbatz before, always really nice guys rockin the sound!
nice job!!
Thank you for this. I know some people turn their noses up at the X32 but you proved that a skilled engineer can make anything sound awesome.
You don't need a DigiCo to have quality results. If the X32 is good enough for a lot of production companies and traveling bands, it's good enough for me.
@@chrishammillaudio Just curious, what are your thoughts on Mixing Station?
Only used it once. While it worked fine and I didn’t have issues, I prefer real consoles.
Brooooo i love how they started playing Clutch
Was not expecting that awesomeness.
Great job, man!
Thanks!
I used to use that same board brought back good memories seeing it again.
It's a beast of a console.
I used it at a tv station where we had a live talk show that had a band everyday. I ran the mics for the talent, band monitors and full mix. It was great. @@chrishammillaudio
Love watching youre videos im a sound tech on a lokal bar in our place i just use an mackie 1608 on our bar
dream job
Hey, awesome video. didn't expect the action cam audio to be this good but it's really easy to hear what's going on in the room.
Do you ever have problems with having too much cymbal bleed in the vocal mic(s), especially with quiet or dynamic singers? I'm guessing compressing as little as possible helps
That’s what happens with every singer. Cymbal bleed is the #1 cause of feedback for me on that stage. Very annoying to deal with.
Love the og clutch track for soundcheck 😂
Was not expecting that!
How is this guy not at 100k yet?!??
Beats me!
Very, very nice! Fantastic demonstration and superb sound.
I'm really impressed at how incredibly powerful and super functional these desks, in general, have become over the years. It was a lot different not that many years ago. I'm guessing a single cat cable, well protected, is all that's needed for the main run ending suitable in/out boxes at either end?
As for feedback issues, is there anything today that can do a great and reliable job of automating the frequency hunt and filter out process? - is, for example, the Behringer FBQ1000 fully automatic, and good here?
Yep. One Cat 5 cable does the trick.
There are apps that hunt feedback, but I always prefer my ear over anything else.
Love your videos. For bands that bring an IEM rig like this, do you prefer when they bring all their own mics and cables too or do you prefer they plug the house mics into their rig? Also curious what you think of bands bringing IEM rigs in general. Thanks!
If a band has their own mics that’s fine with me. Just make sure you can get your stuff on/off the stage on time and don’t disrespect the other bands by going over your set time.
Any band that allows me to not use the monitor wedges makes me happy.
Awesome man! This is really great, you're a master at this. We're going to be playing live soon, hopefully our sound is good. Any tips? Especially for someone like the vocalist who is a quieter singer in terms of the style
Listen to the sound guy, show up on time, don’t rehearse on stage and don’t turn up/down your amps after the sound guy checks your levels
@@chrishammillaudio Cheers Chris, thanks a lot for your input!
I wish u have CL5 or QL series. I learned x32 basics from you Thx alot.
Give me 20 grand and I can get one of either.
these are the stuffs that i pay my internet bills for 🤟
Glad you enjoyed.
Great vids man new to channel. As a drummer am sorry for this one messing around. During soundcheck your the man they need to listen to not themselves lol
It’s to be expected lol
As a band that's just starting to tour, I have a lot of questions: 1) how should a band present the idea of using a splitter snake, especially in the context of a multi-band show? 2) What do you like to see with backing tracks that makes the tracks "good"? 3) How do you feel about bands that bring their own ground lighting package for the stage? Do you let them tie into the venue's lighting?
1) If the splitter snake is for your in ears, let the sound guy know as you load in exactly what setup you use and be sure to have your ends that go to FOH labeled correctly and clearly so the sound guy has zero issues putting your snake ends into the stage box. Most bands that use IEMs have them for vocals, bass and guitars while using the house drum kits and mics the way they are for the show, so 5-7 inputs is all you'd need. It's a pretty easy setup and as long as your gear and system work properly there shouldn't be an issue. If the sound guy gives you shit, don't play at that venue.
2) I love to see the backing tracks mixed properly. Too many bands use elementary level backing tracks mixed horribly and it shows. You can easily tell when backing tracks were mixed on headphones or piss poor studio environments. They need to be full, balanced and clear.
3) It depends on the venue you play. Some venues have very basic lighting systems and your stage lights will improve the overall lighting. If you control your own lights, that's great. I don't like it when bands plug their stuff into my console because 9 times out of 10 they never hook it up correctly, don't have an LD with them to program it themselves or there is usually a DMX connection issue. If you're playing on a 4 or 5 band bill, unless you're headlining no venue is gonna let you have extra time to get your lights hooked up. If you have a lighting system that is in sync with backing tracks and MIDI, you better have your shit locked in and working properly. I personally am a stickler for time and if you go above the 10-15 minute window in changeover, I will tell you either cut your set time down or don't use lights to play your full set. My venue has a full lighting system so unless you have an entire pro grade lighting system with you chances are you won't have as good quality as my venue's house lights. Always check with the venue you're playing at before you arrive to see what their lighting system is like and always ask if you can hook up your lights. I can tell you personally from experience that if you just show up and start messing with the house lights and changing things, that venue will not like you and it will be an unpleasant experience all around. Always check beforehand what is cool and what isn't. Always better for you to control your own lights with your own gear than either change house lights or rely on house LD.
Actually learned a lot in this video. You explained this in a way that is so nice and neat. For example, in guitars you said they fight for clarity and that guitars always have the same problem: low mids, 1-1.5k, upper 3-5k and higher registers and for me is great because I always felt I was shit at dialing guitar tones in my mixes because I always had to scoop 1k and 3.5k to give space so this totally validates what I always felt.
Is there a way to reduce that much ringing on the toms? Like, even after you scooped around 2-3k on the rack toms I felt the rest had tons of ringing still, but it was interesting to see that the ringing was not present with the full band
PS: the band sounds awesome too
Glad you got something out of the video!
You're hearing the over compressed signal on my camera, so everything sounds louder than it really is. You hear a more accurate representation of the room in the show clip.
Moon gel is your best friend to eliminate those ringing frequencies or tuning the drums differently. If you know how to tune, tune the bottom heads a little tighter to adjust the decay.
Vocals and guitar always compete for the same space. You have to determine what you want to hear more of. For me 90% of the time in the studio and 100% of the time live I always want to hear vocals.
@@chrishammillaudio Thanks for the great insights! Appreciated the tips too!
Cheers
I don't know why but I really want one of these X32 Compact mixers after binging through 5 videos lol
Great stuff! My band just got into using IEM and we have a Line 6 StageScape for our IEM, and a mic splitter that goes to FOH. My question for you: Does every FOH have some type of box that bands can tap into for kick/snare so we can hear those in our in ears? At home we practice with an e-kit, so it's always tough to know how to account for the drums when we play live. It seems most clubs have ability to tap into your mix so we can hear the kick/snare in our in ears, but is this common?
All you’d have to do is put the kick and snare line going into you rack and two extra cables to go from your rack to FOH. That’s an easy setup.
I would love to see a video doing a tour on all the controls of the console. It's hard to really see what's happening, although I can at least understand the EQ part.
I’m filming that video next time I’m working.
@@chrishammillaudio Aw man, I'm getting really excited now! Can't wait!
Watching Polkadot play Escape From the Prison Planet during soundcheck was so awesome! Favorite part of the vid!
Totally! I was really not expecting to hear that.
Would you recomend I start with faders for my main & then my matrix for subs and mid/highs also at unity?
I see your master is at unity
It depends how you want to set up your outputs. For this venue we have a very simple set up. Subs are directly connected with main left and right. I don’t have a separate matrix for subs. I also don’t know what kind of set up you’re doing. For smaller clubs and venues like this, you really don’t need anything more complicated than a basic left and right output.
You’re getting views because nobody does this kind of working process on camera, please keep it up! Going to see what else on your channel
Appreciate it!
@@chrishammillaudio I have 6 person band, learning how to properly sound check, if you ever get a chance to comment what you do during getting bands ready, I would highly appreciate it, understood half of what you did but something is difficult, not used to x32 console
You basically saw everything I do. If a band can’t get their instruments in tune and know how to get themselves ready for soundcheck, that’s half the battle.
I set my input gain, then I listen on the faders. I know what my PA needs gain wise in order to work properly and the acoustics of the room, so I know what volumes I need from bands and how loud I need their amps on stage. This is why I always say guitar players who refuse to lower their amps are the bane of my existence.
After gain structure and volume, I set EQ then compression, which I use only for drums, bass and a tiny bit on vocals. After all of this is done I set monitor levels for that source.
After that I ask the band to play something and adjust my FOH mix from there. It’s a very simple process.
Question: about the vocals- guitars competing on the stage , would you suggest sidechaining them to solve the problem? Would that be a good idea? And if so, could you please do a tutorial on the x32? Thanks in advance
All that would do is lower guitars and I don't want that. Plus it doesn't solve the issue.
Great as always!!!
Hope someone can help me: how can I rid off the annoying sustain of tom and floor tom?
Tune the Toms, use moon gel or EQ out the sustain.
@@chrishammillaudioI’m still learning, since we don’t have a sound engineer in my band. So sorry if I ask stupid questions. Anyway, apart from the tuning etc can I also use the gate for that?
No such thing as stupid questions.
Noise gate only affects the volume. You’ll still hear overtones. The best bet is to tune the drums differently or use gels. It also depends on the type of drum you have and heads on the shell.
It looks like you selected the wrong channel at 8:25 😅
Great video, greetings from Germany!
I did in fact select the wrong channel and didn’t notice it until I was editing the video.
How would you recommend adding monitor checking in this process? I work at a casino in Mississippi and often have trouble balancing my time for fixing monitor wedges (we have 4 front mons) and having enough time to properly soundcheck the mains. Most of the time, I check monitors first and then mains. With limited time before doors open, I usually have to mix on the fly for the mains. Thank you for all the high quality vids! This industry isn't very beginner friendly so it really helps.
You literally see my entire process including monitors in this video.
@@chrishammillaudio aight thanks
Were there any mics for the cymbals, or is it just the room sound plus whatever bleeds into the other mics?
No need to. The cymbals carry throughout the club.
Nice insight, but it seems you missed the channel select button for the 2nd rack tom, so its adjustments were made on rack tom 1 channel?
You are 100% correct. I thought I hit the select button and I just didn’t notice until you just pointed it out now. Drums sounded great, so it wasn’t noticed.
Easily done on a digital desk (This is why I like to have the 'select follows fader movement' or whatever it's called on the X32 turned on.. for me it makes this less likely to happen - and in your Tom 2 example above there were half a dozen fader moves where that that setting would have got you back on the right track - .... but it's still all too easily done.) Also funny - fascinating really - how our brains can tell us the sound is changing according to our tweaks , where in fact the tweaks are being made to a drum that is not even being hit! @@chrishammillaudio
Totally. Classic case of "hearing with your eyes"
Hey, another engineer here. What order do you do your latch list in? Seems to be very different than the standard 🤔
Drums first on stage box. Vocals first on board.
The fact that i see that there is Rammstein on the Laptop makes me happy
the band is inda interesting, primusy
QQ: When you started hearing the feedback in the vocal mic with the kick drum. Why not reduce the feedback on the monitor vs the Vocal channel as you did?
Two reasons:
First, I would rather EQ the source than the monitor and have the monitor be as less “messed with” as possible.
Second, the vocal mic was coming in a little harsh anyway in the top end and I didn’t like the tone it was giving me. Eliminating the feedback was two birds one stone.
@@chrishammillaudio Gotcha, that is what I was thinking. I'll switch between the options. If a single moving vocal across stage then I'll notch the Vocal channel. But if multiple people are (2-3 vocals, some wireless say accordions or brass). Then i'll notch the monitor.
Thanks for feedback!
1:52 Did you mix for the wedge or only the channel for PA.?
PA
My dumb question is,are you running sound for Dainties in Portland? Because I swear this is Danties!
I mean, the venue name is on the banner on the stage, so… 🤷♂️
Is there a way you can do this BUT with a very old mixer? Something more like a folio sx mixer??? Just thinking it might be a good challenge for you to do this without modern mixers. I bet you can do it!
Present me a situation where I’m mixing on one and I’ll gladly do it.
Great job man !!!!! What a small Club. One Question does any Guitarist use an Amp anymore or is it all Effects units run directly?
Depends on genre. A lot of metal bands still use real amps.
The band definitely has good music taste, Escape from the Prison Planet by Clutch :)
peep the Rammstein Zeit 👀
But then what happens to the sound when the room fills with people, is there a predictable preset adjustment, or nothing?
I adjust from there.
I always wondered why any band i have seen has had the speakers by their mics during a show. Thought they were there for show. Lol
How do you compensate for 100+ people in the room? That's obviously gonna change the sound at FOH as compared to the empty room soundcheck. What do you find you need to to tweak for the addition of people to the room?
90% of the time it’s adjusted the low end. Specifically raising the volume of the bass guitar.
100+ people, ... 100+ bass traps, ie., fluid filled skin bags!
Now bring in a full house and sound dampening people!
Now watch the full video to hear what a full house sounds like both board and room!
are those JBL SR4732X/F speakers as mains?
Yes
@@chrishammillaudio nice
I wonder what the reasoning is for starting with vocals instead of drums like most other soundchecks
I explain why in the video.
@@chrishammillaudio My bad, I must have spaced out at that mention ♥ Thank you :)
What this guy really does : setting levels for every frequencies for each instruments, preventing larsen, interferences, making the band sounds like they want to be heard
What I see : guy turning knobs randomly
You forgot: begging guitar players to not blast their amps.
The fewer members I find can more challenging to get a full mix, and you've got a great one here. Curious, what sort of verb setup where you using? It almost sounded like a gated verb, or was that byproduct of empty room and gopro mic? Interesting band - metal psychobilly? Metalbilly? I dig it either way good job!
That’s the camera mic. My reverb’s are pretty standard. I have a very simple plate reverb for the drums, a stereo delay for the vocals, and a very basic room reverb for everything else.
So how do you balance getting the eq right but also letting rhe guitarist/bassist getting to have the tone he wants?
I never asked him to adjust his EQ, just lower the volume. The EQ adjustments are for FOH not monitors. When it comes to FOH I only care about how the mix sounds to the audience.
@@chrishammillaudioyea I understood that part but does eqing guitars change the overall tone?
Yes, but as long as it sounds good in FOH I don’t care. The guitar player gets unchanged signal to the monitor, so everybody wins.
@@chrishammillaudiohuh. So do they ever listen back and get all mad like hey that's not how I wanted that to sound. Just asking questions cuz I'm about to run sound for a small fest in putting together.
The only time I ever got lip from a guitar player is when I asked him to adjust his volume and EQ because it sounded like a cheap, shitty dimebag wannabe tone. He got an attitude and said “my sound”. I then made it know to him and the band that I cannot hear any instrument other than the guitar but “I’ll do what I can”. Rest of the band look pissed at the guitar player.
The bane of my existence are guitar players who refuse to take any direction from the sound guy. My job is to help the audience hear them clearly.
Are you implying that its better to start with vocals first so you set the volume around the loudest the vocals can/would be? This is the first time I've seen it done in this order and just want to learn why
I build my mix around vocals. It opens a line of communication to the stage and if there is anything that causes feedback I’ll know immediately what it is.
👍👍👍👍👍👍🍺🍺🍺
Great insight, but that’s a weird workflow, I normally have drums bass gtr instruments Vox then busses left to right I guess I’m old school
Also did u tune the FOH before line check? Then fine tune when they started just wondering?
I have my tracks in order of importance during soundcheck L to R. Drums are first on the stage box.
I check the PA before every soundcheck but I mostly don’t change my EQ on the PA. I play a few songs I know how they should sound and adjust, rarely, if necessary.
Musician: Can you make it fuller and pull all the bass out and more in your face but like a soft in your face.
FOH: Can you please shoot me in the face.
This was a real dialogue I had with a musician. No joke!
All jokes aside though. You’re great! This is how it’s supposed to be done.
I had that same exact conversation with a black metal “artist” who took his sweet time getting on stage, refused to have me hear anything before he went on, then proceeded to have the absolute worst sound I ever heard in my life. To make it worse, he gave me EQ instructions like that and was nearly 10 minutes late getting his “I do my own sound” rig together. I couldn’t even adjust anything because I was a glorified volume control! Icing on the cake for a 8 band black metal festival.
@@chrishammillaudio dude! That’s the worst.
The mixer is running way too hot... -16 dBFS should be ok...
Well, it isn’t for this system.
Digital clipping happens at zero. I am hovering around -8 to -6. Far from clipping, as you can clearly hear in the board audio at the end of the video and the room audio.
Very true that bad drums ruin any mix. Saw Korn last year, and the toms sounded like complete ass near the stage.
ESCAPE FROM THE PRISON PLANET!
Kemper direct works great except it sounds like ass.
Strange, I played hundreds and hundreds of shows and never had a sound guy not two drums first. Also way too much compression. Obviously they’re just a Smashy kind of band but this wouldn’t work for a bandit actually plays with some dynamics. Way too much processing going on. And especially changing their whole sound is killing everything. Pretty crazy
Ok I have to step in here having mixed hundreds of shows. In a small venue like this all compression on drums is parallell compression since it's just added to the sound coming directly from the stage. Your job as a soundtech isn't really to create a full mix out of the board, but to add what is needed to make it sound great in the actual room. On smaller stages I tend to compress a whole lot more than on stages where most of the sound will come from the PA. Also he has a pretty long attack time, which affect the transients less. Doing vocal mics first is actually a good practice on this stage size since it will work as overhead mics for the drums.
Things other than procesing in the console which are also "changing the whole sound" of the band and that will be part of the mix:
- The actual room with its dimensions and materials
- Amplifier placement
- The PA
- Selection of mics
- Placement of the mics
- How crowded the room is
I do vocals first because they’re the most important channel in a mix. Also it opens a window of communication between me and the band on stage. Once I do vocals and adjust monitors I rarely need anything else in the wedges. Plus, with vocal mics on and as I add more instruments it gives me a chance to handle any feedback. The stage is small, so the vocal mic gets feedback from the other instruments blasting through the wedges as the mic picks it up. I don’t get why people are so hell bent on doing drums first, but this is how I work and it works perfectly fine.
I adjusted the EQ of the drums because that preset is for my house kit, which we use most of the time. Since the drums were tuned differently and were made of different materials the EQ settings I had was overkill, so I adjusted. If this were a more low key band that played with a lot of dynamics as you said, I’d adjust the compression as well. Had plenty of bands come through here that didn’t play “smashy” and I had zero compression on the drums. My attack doesn’t squash the transient. I mix drums live how I’d mix them in a studio. Let the transient breath, fatten up the decay.
The whole point of a preset is to get you 80% of the way there and adjust to get your mix.
You’re also hearing the soundcheck through my camera mic. It over compresses the signal. Watch the samples at the end for a more accurate representation. It doesn’t sound “over processed” at all.
The bottom line, I do whatever I need to do in order for the sound coming out of the PA to be good for the audience.
As an old dude, I get pretty set in my ways too, but there's no rules.
I don’t think anyone has ever described polkadot as “just a smashy band”. I might be insulted if you were anything more than a self important, TH-cam know-it-all.
everyone does it differently, depending on the outboard you have available. this video just seems like a flex, no educational purpose here
This is what a soundcheck looks like in a small venue in the real world. I’m not fake and have a studio with an already pre-planned segment that is scripted so the soundcheck and sound of the band is absolutely perfect. Nowhere in this video did I ever say that this is for educational purpose.
Turn down Guitar, turn down: no Guitar..
Do you not understand the difference between stage volume and front of house volume?
Would you ask Tom Morrello if he could turn down his amp, which he hasn't changed in 40 years?
If he was playing the small stage at my venue and he was considerably louder than everyone else on stage and I couldn't hear anything BUT him, then I absolutely would. In the 7-8 years I've been doing live sound, I can count on one hand the number of guitar players who gave me lip for asking them to turn down and they flat out refused, and I've worked with local and national touring acts. @@dominik4614
Hey Chris,
Once again another great in depth and first eye look into what goes into sound and a rock show! I first seen your video a week or so ago about the Metallica show and have been absolutely enthralled by not just your content, but the subject matter as well. I've probably have gone to 1,000's of rock shows and always wanted to know what was going on with the 1-2 or even 3 sometimes individuals behind the soundboard. So I wanted to ask you a kinda in depth question, I mean you can make it simple and give me your Top 3 all time artists throughout history who you would love to work on a show with, but also if you could pick a Top 3 venues as well where you would love to work at for those gigs for one show a piece. I know if I had just one choice (or if I could even do sound or lightning to begin with) I think I would want to do U2's ZooTV tour at either Madison Square Garden or the Rose Bowl in Pasadena. I understand if you don't have time to answer this, if you do I would love to see your answers. In the meantime, I await your next upload. Stay safe out there, have fun and above all KEEP ROCK N ROLL ALIVE!!!! \m/ \m/
As much as I'd love to do a huge stadium tour for a huge band, give me Green Day playing medium size venues and I'd be thrilled.
Best concert I've ever seen - Paul McCartney
Best show I've ever seen (yes, there's a difference) - Rammstein
As far as venues, I'm really happy where I'm at now. A realistic goal to achieve if I were to ever get another gig is QXTs in Newark, followed by the Starland Ballroom in Sayreville, NJ. Ultimate goal would be the Stone Pony in Asbury Park.
@@chrishammillaudio I took my 12 year old brother in 1994 to see Green Day at the Aragon Ballroom which was later shown on MTV in full. Oh man to be 17 again without a care in the world. It was me, my brother who was 12 and our mutual friend who was 15 jumped in my 1992 lumina on a cold snowy November night telling our parents we were sleeping at the others house so they didn't know haha. I think back to that now that was kinda risky driving 72 miles to the show in that weather and only with 8 months of driving experience. But, we were all diehard Green Day fanatics and still are all these decades later. We just reunited to see them play the Harley Davidson anniversary weekend this past August :). And man going from seeing them play the Aragon with 2000 sweaty kids packed in to right on the shores of Lake Michigan in front of 50+ thousand was a sight to behold. You are so right when it comes to show you ever seen and best concert you ever seen. Big time.
why have you got so much compression on every input ? You're squashing the life out of the band
What on Earth are you talking about?
- Zero compression on backing tracks
- Only compressing vocals to contain loud projection, almost zero compression on quieter vocal
- Bass is compressed -2 to -6 with a 4:1 ratio to make it consistent the same volume no matter how hard or light he's playing. Pretty standard for mixing hard rock/metal bass in a studio
- Zero compression on guitars, only there to act as level control if the guitar player has low end chunks.
- Drums are compressed to fatten up decay, not transient, hence the 25-30ms attack.
Hardly "squashing the life out of the band".
@@chrishammillaudio again, way too much compression on every input...your ears must be painted on
Are you a brain dead parrot? Read my comment again. Slowly. Then proceed to look up industry standards of compression with hard rock/metal. Stop repeating yourself. It's embarrassing. @@jamesmccabe1702