Posted in: Live Music by Bob Craypoe on May 22nd, 2009 | 0 Comments
This is for musicians who intend to perform live at various venues. It makes recommendations that should reduce setup time and allow for a better overall mix.
When you play live as a musician, one thing is crucial and that’s a good mix. Even the best musician can come off poorly if his mix is bad. One way of making it more likely that you have a good mix when you play out live is to keep a record of your settings.
I have played out as a solo acoustic act. All I had to mix was my microphone and acoustic guitar. Now mixing sounds easy when you only have two channels being used, but there are still some tricks I’ve used that a larger group could employ.
One of the things I did was set up my sound system in my house and played live. Sounds stupid to do that by myself, doesn’t it? After all, if I wanted to practice, all I really needed to do was grab my acoustic guitar, play and sing. Well it wasn’t for practicing my performance. I was for the purpose of finding the right mix.
anyway, I would play for a while and keep tweaking the sound until I was satisfied with the mix. Once I found that mix, I wrote down all of the settings. Then I typed everything up all nice and pretty and now I keep it with the songlists I use when I play out.
Another trick is to have my microphone up slightly higher than I need it. That gives me more options to change my mix without having to touch the mixer. If the vocals need to be louder, just get closer to the mic. If the vocals need to be quieter, just pull away from the mic. This works especially well for me, since I am a solo acoustic act and only have to adjust the volume of the vocals in relation to one instrument.
I also have an acoustic guitar with built in electronics. I set everything in the center. The gain, bass and treble are all set in the middle so that I can change the settings for any one of them without touching the mixer. So what I do when I play out live is make minor tweaks on the guitar and pull away from the mic or get closer to the mic in order to find the right mix. Those are obviously quicker and easier adjustments to make than having to reach over to the mixer.
Even though you may have things set perfect when running your sound checks at home, every place you play at is going to be different acoustically. Also, if you are setting up in your basement or garage to run your sound checks and you have cinder block walls, you will have to boost the bass in order to sound good in that environment. When you play out, you may be playing in a building that is primarily a wooden structure. That means that any bass you have in your mix will resonate more since the bass tones resonate more with wood.
I use a six channel powered mixer that has an overall EQ. That’s where I make the adjustments that allow me to adapt to the acoustic properties of the venue. I basically leave the individual channel settings as they are. In most cases, I don’t even have to touch them. If I do, it’s usually a couple of minor tweaks in the beginning of the night.
As I’ve already stated, it is more difficult to mix your sound if you have a large group. However, it would still be beneficial if everyone wrote the settings down, once the right sound is achieved. It will reduce setup time in future rehearsals as well as when you play out. Poking and hoping does not work. Write your settings down and you’ll see how much easier it will make things.
