Keeping Murphy at Bay

Mar 13, 2008 5:21 PM, By Karen Stackpole

           

THREE PRO ENGINEERS OFFER ADVICE ON HOW TO KEEP YOUR LIVE SOUND UNDER CONTROL

Andy Heller, who runs his own live sound and location recording company, says that even with a small sound system, it often helps to mike the band and put at least some of the instruments into the P.A. along with the vocals.

Photo: Andy Lipnick

You and Your Monitor Mix

Consider what kind of monitor mix you want before you get to the club, then write it down or tell the engineer. This gives the engineer a reference point. If possible, don't ask them to put all the sound in the monitors, as this can bog down the mix.

Karr, Lipnick, and Heller all agree that the louder the stage volume, the worse it usually sounds out front. Loud stage volume makes the engineer's job harder because suddenly the stage mics are picking up more of the monitor mix than the actual instruments and vocals. "You're just getting a bunch of spill, and it sounds like hell," Heller says.

A Helping Hand

Karr advises bands who want to do their own sound to hire someone instead. It's difficult, if not impossible, to mix your own sound from the stage because that environment is completely different from what's happening soundwise out in the audience. You need to walk out and listen to what's going on. Better still, give a friend a crash course in acting as your ears in the crowd-he or she can help you mix. "You'd be so much happier doing this than if you try to mix yourself," says Heller. "I've done it-put my mixer next to my drums-but I don't know what's going on. I walk back and forth, and I say, 'Well, I guess that's okay.' But someone in the audience will invariably yell, 'Turn up the vocals!'"

When it gets right down to it, you probably want to focus on getting into the music, not on playing the role of technician. "The thing about having a P.A. of your own," says Heller, "is that someone's got to haul it around, you've got to have something to haul it in, and at the end of the night, when it's four in the morning, you've still got to take it somewhere and put it away again. And bands that are playing clubs should remember (I'm talking mostly rock bands here) that most clubs have P.A. systems. Unless you can put together a P.A. that can handle what you're doing adequately, it may not even be worth it. A couple of speakers on sticks can only do so much."

If You Must D.I.Y.

Let's say that, despite the above admonishment, you still want to do your own mix. You've acquired a new powered mixer, or a mixer and an amp, speakers, and a couple of monitor wedges. You've got a milk crate full of assorted microphone cables and dynamic mics-a few Shure SM57s, a Beta 58 or two, maybe an AKG D112 or a Sennheiser MD421, plus a direct box you found on eBay. Now what? Let's start with a few technical pointers and some general mixing tips from our panel of pros. Then it's time to think about more gear (it never ends) as we cover some basic techniques for maximizing your P.A. system.

You can patch keyboards, samplers, sound modules, and other electronic devices directly into your mixer at line level, but you're best off using a direct box for a long cable run. Although miking an amp often yields a fuller sound, you can also use a direct box for bass or guitar. If you run into a ground loop (a low-frequency hum), switch the ground lift on the direct box. If it doesn't have a ground-lift switch, use a 3-to-2-prong ground lifter.

To avoid potentially damaging pops and thumps, always remember to turn on low-level electronics (mixers, graphic equalizers, and signal processors) before turning on power amps. When you're powering down, reverse the sequence.

Mixing It Up

Lipnick advises that you build the mix around the vocalist (provided you have a song-oriented band). "If you can get the vocals to sound good, it's a lot easier to get everything else to sound good," he says. With a smaller P.A. you could put just the vocals in and it would sound fine, but Heller encourages bands to experiment a bit. "If you have the inputs, you can also mic the band," he says. "I often will, even when I'm working with a smaller system. I may not put a lot in the speakers or get the baddest sound in the world, but there's a certain cohesiveness when you do that. If you just put the vocals in the P.A., the vocals are up here and the rest of the band is back there somewhere. I'll mic the kick and snare and put in just enough to bring that out."

One technique that Lipnick often employs to clean up a mix is to take the low end out of instruments that don't need it. "I'll roll the lows off every instrument except the bass guitar and the kick drum," he says, "because the other instruments don't need it, and it muddies up the bass and the kick drum. Doing that makes room for those aspects to come through."