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.