Live Sound Questions

[bugbrain_04]

I've posted this here because I believe it still falls into the realm of "audio engineering," even though I'm not talking about recording. If someone feels this needs to be moved to a different forum, feel free to.

At the risk of boring the shit out of you, let me give you a little background.

I've only been doing this whole engineering thing for about 2 years. Before that, I couldn't have told you the difference between a DI box and a multiband compressor. I'd like to think that I got far more than 2 years of education out of my 2 years of schooling, but I don't know. I guess what I'm getting at is that I'm really quite new to all of this, so please forgive any "newbie ignorance" on my part.

That being said, I've been working with a band that I recorded last spring. They're a "live hip-hop" act. The "beat" behind the two vocalists is played by a power trio. If you're curious, you can here some of their stuff at Notes From Underground on MySpace Music - Free Streaming MP3s, Pictures & Music Videos (This was recorded by me, and some of it was mixed by me.)

I went to a couple of their shows during the summer. They were playing in this small club designed for typical hip-hop artists, who don't require much more than a microphone, a cd player, and someone to hit the "next track" button. Put a full band up there with no kind of monitoring system or instrument micing (miking?) and mains on the back line, and you've got inconsistent sound across the crowd, and either singers who can't hear themselves or feedback issues of the sort that nightmares are made of.

It doesn't help that the club owner knows absolutely nothing about his sound system whatsoever. He couldn't figure out why the subwoofer wasn't working. It wasn't plugged into the amp.

After watching them suffer through this shit the second time, I asked if they wanted me to try to round up what gear I could and see if I couldn't get them a workable stage setup with mics, monitor wedges, and all that jazz. They were pretty excited at the thought, and their third show at this club went off without a hitch. Well, besides the whole subwoofer-not-pugged-in issue that took a whole 10 seconds to sort out. The band loved it, the crowd loved it, it was great. This was about a week and a half ago.

The bassist works for greenpeace and landed them a gig at an art festival about combating climate change or some shit. I don't really care what the event is, the important part is the venue. They're playing an hour set at the Hawthorne Theater, one of the more prominent music venues in Portland. Not only are they going to be playing there, but I'm going to be mixing there. And it will be the second show I've ever run. Needless to say, I'm a bit nervous. A lot hinges on this, both for me and for the band.

This brings me to the "meat and potatoes" (as brandon likes to say) of this post. Obviously, I want to do a good job. I trust myself well enough to mind the faders and bring up what needs to be brought up when it needs to be brought up, and vice versa. I'm much more lost-at-sea when it comes to the rest, though. I guess I'll break it down into catergories.

EQ
I know the can of worms that is opened whenever this question is asked in regards to recording, but I'm hoping that the same will not hold true in regards to live. Has anyone got any tips on basic EQ settings to start with? The band consists of 2 female vocalists, drummer, bassist, and keyboardist/electric and accoustic guitarist. The keys/gtr plays all three through his amp. He says he likes how it sounds, and it's more his band than anyone else's, so I just go with it. I imagine that I'll be changing his EQ settings from song-to-song. Hi-pass filters on everything but bass and kick are a given, but beyond that, anyone have any thoughts?

Compression
It goes without saying (unless I'm grossly mistaken) that the vocals will be compressed. But how much? What ratio? What threshold? I know what these terms do, and what these terms mean, but I don't know how they translate to sound. It's like the difference between a V6 and an inline-6 engine. I know the technical difference, but not how it translates to performance.
Is there anything else that should probably be compressed?

Delay and 'Verb
I'm guessing these will be sidechained from aux busses. Should the send and returns be set to 0, and the fx mixed in with the faders? Which instruments do you think could use which fx?

Misc.
Is there anything it seems like I'm forgetting to ask? Am I even asking the right questions? Am I just worrying too much? I mean, the Hawthorne's a prominent venue, like I said. I'm sure they have their shit together, and that the effects and everything will probably all be hooked up for me already. This event will be a festival sort of thing with many different bands performing, many of which probably won't have their own engineer, so I imagine there will be a house engineer whom I can ask questions. But I don't know whether to expect a friendly, helpful dude, or some stuck-up old codger who will insist he run the show the moment I ask for advice. Regardless, I'd like to come as prepared as possible so that I appear as valuable as possible, since I plan to ask if they need any employees after the gig is over.

If you all can't tell (seriously unlikely), I'm really stressing over this, and any help at all that any of you could give would be appreciated more than working toilets. And I really appreciate working toilets.
~Josh

[paul999]

Well there is a lot to respond to here. I can't respond to all of it but I can start it off. First thing keep it simple. What gear are you using. Depending on what compressor I am using it will change my settings. If there is an auto button for attack and release times use it for now. I would really compress the bass to get it under control as well as vox. Keep delay and reverb out if the room is at all ambient until you really have had some time to mess with it. Eq really depends on what happens with the mixed sound after the monitors and amps are going It all comes into account. Get an SPL meter so you don't run the gear too loud. This distorts everyones hearing and you may as well just go home.

Cheers.

[bugbrain_04]

Thanks for the tips, Paul.
I'm going to be using the house's gear, which I am for the most part completely unfamiliar with. I found a list of it on their website, and I've been tracking down the manuals and reading through them. This is not exactly helping the overwhelmed feeling I've already got, haha.

What would you say a good overall SPL (at FOH) to shoot for would be?

[paul999]

Over all spl I like 95-100. 110 is crazy but about normal. At 95 -100 you can still talk if you want to but the music is loud. At 110 if you put some cotton in your ears it will cut off some high end so that you hear the music about like what the "deaf" people do. Useful tip as an audience member. Not useful as a sound tec.

[venuestudio]

Some time ago I wrote a primer for another site for people starting in live sound. All of it may not apply but it might help. Below is the link:

Live sound primer

[TonyB]

Originally Posted by venuestudio

Some time ago I wrote a primer for another site for people starting in live sound. All of it may not apply but it might help. Below is the link:

Live sound primer

Good stuff. I added it to my fav links!

[venuestudio]

I figured I should write some things down before old age set in and I forgot everything the years in the business taught me!!

[bozmillar]

Wow man, sounds like you have yourself a pretty good opportunity here. I'd say since you are relatively new at this and you've never done a bit live show, the most important thing you can do know your signal chain. If someone grabs the wrong microphone or whatever, you need to know how to react quickly and calmly in order to get yourself recalibrated.

There are a million tiny things that can go slightly wrong, and if you can't instinctively reach for the right knob or button to do a quick fix, then small things can get out of control fast.

What I would do is spend as much time as possible before hand getting used to the setup. Know the board you will be mixing on. Spend plenty of time on the sound check making sure you know exactly what everything is doing. I'd label everything as clearly as possible. I know for myself, it's amazing how retarded I become when I am put on the spot, and there's no better way to be put on the spot than to see someone speaking into a microphone and having no sound come out.

If you have time before or after the sound check, I would stick around and go through some practice scenarios in your mind and physically practice what you would do in that situation. The more familiar you are with the entire system, the less time you will spend troubleshooting the situation if something goes wrong.

As was said above, keep it as simple as possible and you will have less to think about. Make sure you are relaxed because being nervous usually just makes things harder.

Then there are the obvious but not so obvious things you should do. don't eat a huge bean burrito or drink a gallon of lemonade before the show.

There's no better way to learn than to be thrown in the deep end. It's inevitable that if you do live sound on a regular basis that you will do something that will completely piss someone off. Take those experiences and learn from them, do better the next time.

[bugbrain_04]

Thanks to everyone for your tips and advice so far! I knew I could count on you guys!

Awesome link, Kent! I especially appreciate the general guidelines on where the fundamental frequencies of certain instruments lie. This information is available everywhere, but it's nice to have it compiled into a simple, 5-part list. Training my ear to recognize certain frequencies is definitely something I need to work on.

One thing I think you forgot to touch on, however, was reverb and delay. While working as a "grip" for a live engineer over the summer, I noticed that the delay he used was often so short that it didn't sound like an echo at all. I suppose this could be likened to the direct reflections from acoustic reverb without all of the rest? My thought, then, would be that using delay like this could give a reverb-like effect without muddying up the signal with excessive decay? (These are just speculations on my part.)

@bozmillar: Again, great tips. Thank you. I'm not sure how much time I'll have for sound check, but being a festival sort of thing with many bands playing, I'm not expecting it to be much. Probably a half hour at most for getting the last band off, my band on, and sound check. During which time the crowd will still be present, so ringing out the monitors doesn't seem feasible, nor do I think I'll have time for it.

I would also think it would be wise not to smoke off of these alleged blunts that I've been rolling for the band. It would feel so unnatural to break the "roller sparks it" rule.

And yeah, I think I would consider jumping from a club with a 6-channel behringer mixer to a theater with a 40-channel Soundcraft Europa by my 2nd gig "being thrown in the deep end," hahaha. (Twelve aux busses? Twelve???)

Again, thanks to all for your tips and advice. Feel free to add more! The gig's not 'til Saturday!

[newkid]

Originally Posted by paul999

Over all spl I like 95-100. 110 is crazy but about normal. At 95 -100 you can still talk if you want to but the music is loud. At 110 if you put some cotton in your ears it will cut off some high end so that you hear the music about like what the "deaf" people do. Useful tip as an audience member. Not useful as a sound tec.

Danger alert!!
If you are not deaf you soon will be at those levels.
And if you end up with tinnitus or worse you will wish you had protected your ears. That ringing in the ear can drive people crazy because it never stops.

Check out H.E.A.R and similar sites.

I find that anything over 80db is too loud and people start to complain.

A good listening level would be closer to 65-70 in a good room.

Wish I had my sound meter with me, but at a phish concert while using 33db ear plugs AND 25db over the ear noise silencers I found the level to still be unpleasant but not quite painful. "hearing" the music because my fillings are vibrating is not the highest fidelity nor most pleasant way to listen.