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Re: Ain't there no pro guys out there?

Posted by chi7 (M) on October 14, 2006 at 21:04:28

In Reply to: Ain't there no pro guys out there? posted by Inmate51 on October 11, 2006 at 09:32:34:

Well, Bill and Stuart are correct, first it's damn hard not to be surly when, in order to make some kind of living you have to do SR gigs with every possible geek God awful band that has a following and pays. I apologize for my surliness in advance.

Made me wish I had the budget for 48 “Dynamic Talent Processors” complete with a talent control going to +11 and a suck control going to -11, These are very hard to come by with “Unattainum” being a prime component.

As Stuart says, identify acoustic qualities of the room, and fix 'em with a good 1/3 octave EQ, assuming you have a “standard mike” and the RTA, but don't stop, make the room sound good, and after all of this remember it will change when people are in it. Nova Productions (Earth Wind & Fire) often took several days to tweak in a venue, and it usually sounded great just about everywhere.

EQ, some is good but more isn't necessarily better, the basic Salan & Key circuit imparts phase shift proportionate to the amount of boost or cut, take a guitar, patch it through your EQ, all sliders @ flat, hit a 12th fret harmonic on the A string and sweep the 360- 700 hz sliders one at a time, WOW, sounds just like a Wha Wha peddle. That's whats happening to everything, spread your house curve across the 0 dB line, if your highest boost is +6dB the maximum cut should be -6dB.

Instrument and vox mikes, there are lots of choices and applications, Shure 57's & 58's are good all around choices but have a unique quality in vocal applications that could make even that petite green eyed redhead sound like she had a hairy chest, EV and AT have some very good quality cost effective mikes, AKG, Senheiser, Beyer, high quality but financially challenging.

If you only have 1 monitor mix use the same model mike for all vocals, remembering the only difference between a lead female vocalist and a terrorist is you can negotiate with the terrorist.

Instruments, how does it sound on stage? Does it sound the same from the stacks? A audio guys responsibility is to re enforce what needs to be there and make what is not suppose to be there go away, the sound system should accurately reproduce what the performers are doing, transparently, adding nothing of itself but the appropriate effects and coherency delays.

Mike placement, depending on the mike and instrument / amp will require some experimentation remember the wash from other sources, common sense things, isolating mike stands from mechanical contact with drum hardware, speaker cabinets, sources of vibration.
When you top mike or cabinet mike a piano remember you will also hear all the clicks popps and squeaks of the action and peddles.

Stage volumes, your always going to fume about this, guitarists (Usually compulsive-obsessive) the real pros usually are good to work with, ones who don't get lucky are sure it's your fault, it couldn't be their fault, Marshalls on 11, 148dB on stage, washing every damn open mike. Under these conditions if you have a good desk with patch facilities phase inversion and sweet limey parametric you have options to clean up your vocal buss and monitors, otherwise fume city.

Cro-Magnon drummers “ A 14 X 8 ½ marching snare is perfect for house gigs “ and “I didn't know you could tune drums” there is nothing worse than having the decay harmonics of an out of or untuned drum kit beating against each other, and the crowd will look at you, this is why “Deadringers” are sold and quackstrap is frequently applied to drumheads, drums are usually tuned in 3rd's or 5th's and are considered melodic percussion.

Frequency & horsepower..Piano low C 27.5hz, bass guitar open E 42 hz, hits ya in the chest kick drum fundamental 62 hz, better pro SR cabinets of my era were effective (3dB down point) from 70 to 50 hz, you needed trick subs more amps..... But there is so little important information down there, but you sure can put all of your power into it leave the 20 & 40 @ 0 or cut, if it's below the cabinet cutoff freq, you can heat up the voice coils but it ant gona help the sound. Vocal sibilance S & T sounds 3.6K, back of the throat rasp 1.2K, MMMMMMM 630-800 hz, low guttural (Chutzpah) 160-430 hz, P Popping 160-250 hz.

I get my hearing checked annually, a laminated graph of my hearing loss is always in my face at every gig, I correct my curves cause if it really sounds right to me, 2/3 of the audience are being sterilized. I'm an old timer now, still do monitors and love every second of it, at the most I only have to keep 20 odd folks happy, long as I get eye contact and a smile my gigs right. Only do some blues/rock, jazz and acoustic acts, really love the horn band.

If every form of compensation ever conceived from the beginning of time until now were totaled and offered to me to do a hip hop gig my denial would still be absolutely no.
It's just who I am, music is made by musicians making their own lix, not sampling other cats lix.

Hope I haven't discouraged you, play around with every toy you have, find the effects of EQ on individual instruments where their center freqs, are, learn to identify feedback freqs, and tell the difference between a 4.6 K ring and the smartass playing a wineglass behind you. It's just another challenge in the path of many, just be sure you dig it and the bands, you just do a better job when you dig it.

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Analog Engineering Associates

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