Live Sound - “Turn that Damned Thing Down!”

Full disclosure, I am NOT a live sound tech, but I am an audio nerd and a performing musician.

The single best “magic bullet” for getting a great live mix - both out front for the audience (FOH = Front of House) and for the performers in their monitors - is keeping stage levels at a very manageable level. Similarly, the number one way to guarantee crap sound at a show is to crank the shit out of everything.

First, I want you to imagine one simple thing. Imagine a venue where you have a single snare drum in the middle of the stage. No PA system. No mics. Just a snare drum on the stage. From pretty well anywhere in the venue, except for right in front of the stage, it will sound like a drum being played at the far end of a cavern - which is exactly what it is. Now mic it up and run it through the PA. NOW it sounds the way you imagine it should. In short, when stuff comes through the PA, it sounds good, and when it doesn’t, it sounds like it is being played at the far end of a cavern.

Being a guitarist, I’ve chosen my own kind to pick on - you know, the one who shows up to a 200 person venue with two full stacks that he insists on cranking up to levels that rival a fighter jet. What follows is why this doesn’t work, and similarly, why doing the opposite creates your best-case scenario.

Now, guitar cabinets are surprisingly directional. As a result, when you are standing in a direct line to the speaker, it is MUCH louder than it is when you are standing, say, along the sides of the room. So, before we run it through the PA, there are a small number of possibilities. One, people right in the front are getting their faces melted with guitar. Two, people to the sides of the venue hear a vaguely hollow, cavern-y sounding guitar. Three, people to the back of the club hear a guitar that sounds like it is coming from the far end of a cavern. Already, the lack of consistency is a problem. The easy solution, then, is to run it through the PA. PA speakers distribute sound much more broadly. Now, the people at the sides of the venue and at the back are hearing a lot of guitar - kind of a mix of that hollow cavern-y sound and the sound from the PA. The people at the front are now dealing with blood coming from their ears.

Alrighty... let’s bring in the rest of the instruments. Bring the bass, keys, drums levels up to match the guitar. Sounds wicked. Of course, the area within about 40 feet of the stage is now a kill zone.

Next up.... vocals. This is where it all goes to hell in a hand basket, folks. You start turning up the vocals. Feedback shrieks through the venue. The singer complains that there is not enough vocal in the monitor. You try EQ’ing stuff so that you can get more vocal in the monitors while minimizing feedback. Singer says, “Can you at least turn down the guitar in the monitors?” But no, you can’t really, because there is practically no guitar in the monitors. It’s mostly all blasting from the stage. We are now in the realm of balancing sacrifices to minimize damage. It is untenable.

So at this point we have:

• ear drums being shattered in the first 40 feet in front of the stage. 
• feedback creeping in and causing discomfort to everyone in the room as you try to keep the dogs at bay. 
• A singer who can’t hear screw all and is forced to scream all night. 

Mmmm.... well.....we *could* turn the guitar down in the PA. Ah, that’s better. Now we can turn down the bass and drums. Now we can get the vocals in the mains and the monitors without everything shrieking at us. Except...

• Although now no longer a kill zone, the people directly in front of the guitar cabinets hear little else besides guitar. They’re wondering why the sound sucks and they can’t hear the vocals.
• The people to the sides and the back hear only a little bit of cavernous guitar and are wondering why the sound sucks.
• The singer can now mostly hear the vocals, but still has to scream to pull it off.

For the final bit, we must accept one simple premise. The more control the sound tech has over each individual thing, the better the sound will be - both out front and in the monitors. When the sound tech has no control, like because of an excessively loud guitar amp, everything else is a compromise at best, or damage control at worst. By keeping stage levels low, the sound tech can give you a great mix in the monitors for you and a great mix out front for your audience - WITHOUT having to worry about mixing around something as loud as a fighter jet in the room.

If I knew then what I know now....

It has been a long time since I posted anything.  It’s not that the Green Room has been dead, or even idle.  I just haven’t thought to post anything.

I don’t consider myself to be a “fountain of knowledge” or anything, but like most of us, I consider myself to be an “enthusiast.”  Over time, that means a lot of learning, a lot of incremental upgrades to the studio, and, most importantly, a lot of mistakes, oversights, and poor priorities.

If I could go back and do it all again, I still would, but I would do some things differently. I love recording, but along the way, you hear things, and your inexperience leads to you not appreciate the wisdom that is behind them.

1.  If there is a single take-away here, I would say this... a few hundred dollars spent on your physical environment will make a way bigger difference than spending a few thousand dollars on gear.  Treat your room.  Do whatever research you need to do, build broadband absorbers, bass traps, clouds, etc and get that room under control.  Honestly, you can make a far better recording with cheap gear in a good room than you can with expensive gear in a crappy room.  You won’t always hear it at first, but when you hear a recording done in a room before being treated, and a recording made in a room after being treated, then you really hear it.   Do this before you shell out on expensive monitors, expensive mics, or expensive preamps, etc.

2.  Read #1 again.  It is that important.

3.  Your first priority is making the performer comfortable and confident.  A mediocre recording of a great performance will trump a great recording of a mediocre performance every time.  I have had clients come to me from other more expensive studios on a few occasions where they have told me that the deciding factor was, “I feel comfortable with you.  I trust you.  The other guy was a jack@ss.”

4.  People will judge you on two factors.  First, on your work.  Your work will tell others more about you than an expensive gear list, or an exclusive client list or your glossy photos.  Second, they will judge you on the experience.  Did you treat them well and make them happy?  Did they have to wait for you to fiddle with stuff that didn’t work?  Did they have to hump gear over the bicycles and strollers in your basement?  Did they have to go down the street to use the bathroom?  So, quite simply, do your best work always.  You never know who will hear it and who will decide to - or not to - record with you based on what they heard.  And keep your personality, space and your gear in ship shape.  Be nice, and offer a nice space with stuff that works.  Have a variety of strategies for dealing with problems so that you can sus things out in a hurry and improvise if need be.  Make sure your client is happy.

5.  Read #1 again.  It is that important.

6.  Don’t underestimate the importance of good preamps.  Yes it does make a difference.  You know ho you have different mics for different flavours?  The same goes with preamps.  There is a subtle, but measurable difference between different types of preamps.  Whether tube or solid state, transparent or coloured, etc.   Sure, whether you record through a Universal Audio or an SSL, it’s going to sound great, but they won’t sound the same.  But you can bet they will sound better than a consumer grade Behringer, Mackie, Samson, etc.
6b.  Don’t underestimate the usability of cheap gear.  Yes you CAN make decent recordings with virtually anything out there.  Getting that extra 10-20% difference of quality will cost you money.  But if you can get 80-90% of the way with cheap gear, don’t let that stop you from getting a start on things.  Nobody is going to NOT buy your record because you used a Mackie preamp and an SM58.  If your gear is your excuse for poor recordings, you probably have something else you are overlooking that is a bigger barrier.