novastorm Posted November 10, 2014 Posted November 10, 2014 Any one know or recommend and decent Live Sound. Sound engineering PA courses? would be nice to look at some thing with all the AV kit we have at work.
ICTDirect_Dave Posted November 10, 2014 Posted November 10, 2014 Learning how to mix live sound is a tricky thing. It's not easy to teach as you really need hands on experience. I learned by volunteering at my local venue when i was at uni, and then taking over the job when the sound guy left! It was a steep learning curve but there's no better way to learn than by doing. If you're just looking at getting to grips with what you have at work, then a couple of nights a week in your local small music venue (even a pub with a stage will do) will give you a great grounding in the kit and the concepts of putting a good sound together.
antlear Posted November 10, 2014 Posted November 10, 2014 Hi Novastorm, where are you based and what equipment do you have. 1
novastorm Posted November 10, 2014 Author Posted November 10, 2014 (edited) Hi I am based in the midlands and we have a few 16 channel mixing desks at work and I know the basics how to put microphones on how to push sound out to speakers etc. But I want to get involved in some church PAs and they have the full bigger system with a whole band setup and a much larger Mixing desk. Edited November 10, 2014 by novastorm
Oaktech Posted November 10, 2014 Posted November 10, 2014 You can learn a lot from the soundcraft guide to mixing, but ultimately you can follow all the rules, mix off the meters and make a total hash of it. It's all about your ears. Soundcraft guide to mixing.
PotNoodleTech Posted November 10, 2014 Posted November 10, 2014 Great thread! I'd like to do something like this too! I've always just blathered my way through it but when a member of staff punted some personal favours in and got a sound engineer from the Wales Millenium Centre in and I said to him "anything we need to change" and he said "it's fine" I realised I'm actually not too bad at it!! I've always liked listening to music though so I guess that helps.
ICTDirect_Dave Posted November 10, 2014 Posted November 10, 2014 Tha's one of the things that really helps actually. Having somebody who's a professional saying that you're doing fine gives you the confidence to mix better. If you need the practice, find a band who don't mind you mixing their practice sessions. You'll get a feel for it, and they'll get a good practice sound. If you do well chances are they'll ask you to do their live shows as well. Just remember, that as the sound guy, you know best. Don't lesten to people who think they should be louder. Also set up a channel called DFA (Does ***k All), that way then a family member tells you so&so should be louder in the mix, you can adjust that fader and they'll go away thinking they helped a bit. You can also use NPI for this (Not Plugged In). You do have to be a little bossy about it though, whilst people on stage do need to hear themselves, you'll find that guitarists in particular like to turn their amp up way higher than it needs to be. Don't be afraid to nip onstage and turn it down. You can always compensate by giving them a little more through their monitor. If you need any advice drop me a PM. I've done hundreds of shows over the years with some pretty big bands, always happy to offer help 1
PotNoodleTech Posted November 10, 2014 Posted November 10, 2014 Stage monitoring is something I've not done much of as we don't have those facilities here.
Oaktech Posted November 10, 2014 Posted November 10, 2014 Tha's one of the things that really helps actually. Having somebody who's a professional saying that you're doing fine gives you the confidence to mix better. If you need the practice, find a band who don't mind you mixing their practice sessions. You'll get a feel for it, and they'll get a good practice sound. If you do well chances are they'll ask you to do their live shows as well. Just remember, that as the sound guy, you know best. Don't lesten to people who think they should be louder. Also set up a channel called DFA (Does ***k All), that way then a family member tells you so&so should be louder in the mix, you can adjust that fader and they'll go away thinking they helped a bit. You can also use NPI for this (Not Plugged In). You do have to be a little bossy about it though, whilst people on stage do need to hear themselves, you'll find that guitarists in particular like to turn their amp up way higher than it needs to be. Don't be afraid to nip onstage and turn it down. You can always compensate by giving them a little more through their monitor. If you need any advice drop me a PM. I've done hundreds of shows over the years with some pretty big bands, always happy to offer help I've always tried to run a 'silent stage' where ever possible, Direct Inject as much as possible - particularly bass guitars - to keep the onstage noise under your control via the foldback. If you get a setup with in ear monitors for foldback and everyone is using them, it's proper weird sound checking because all you can hear is strummy guitars and drums! Likewise, if you have a question about mixing feel free to give me a shout, it was my profession for 5 years, I toured with Utah Saints, Dave Swarbrick and Martin Carthy and with Idlewild as well as engineering loads of others.
ICTDirect_Dave Posted November 10, 2014 Posted November 10, 2014 I toured with Utah Saints, Dave Swarbrick and Martin Carthy and with Idlewild as well as engineering loads of others. Very nice! Never knew you were a sound guy in a previous life. There's more of us about than you think! Seems like you had more fun than me, in ear monitoring was a pipe dream for most of the venues we played at. You'd always get one band that came along and brought their own though. Good point about DI for bass/keys etc, makes things a lot easier. It's still the pesky guitarist with his wall of Marshalls that causes the problems though 1
Oaktech Posted November 10, 2014 Posted November 10, 2014 It's still the pesky guitarist with his wall of Marshalls that causes the problems though Yeah they do! One venue I engineered a lot had their own Line 6 POD cabinet emulator which I used to trot out whenever I got a fussy guitarist. I poked his preferred cabinet details into it, plugged in his pedal board and pretty much told him to get over himself! Getting musicians to do what they're told is like herding cats and working in schools is great preparation for that!
ICTDirect_Dave Posted November 10, 2014 Posted November 10, 2014 Yeah they do! One venue I engineered a lot had their own Line 6 POD cabinet emulator which I used to trot out whenever I got a fussy guitarist. I poked his preferred cabinet details into it, plugged in his pedal board and pretty much told him to get over himself! Getting musicians to do what they're told is like herding cats and working in schools is great preparation for that! Great solution! Tribute bands are by far the worst though! They have this extra layer of ego that you need to see off before soundcheck. Professionals like Biffy, Snow Patrol and the Arctic Monkeys were always pretty humble and happy to do as they're told, but Kings of Queen... I've never had more ridiculous requests in one gig! And little Fat Freddie (never learned his name) took to calling me scissors coz I had long hair! Grr!
Oaktech Posted November 10, 2014 Posted November 10, 2014 I used to really love doing folk and classical gigs and mic'ing up weird instruments - you know, "where does the noise come out" weird! I had really good fun with a lot of the bands, The only artist that really got my back up was Sandi Thom. she thought *a lot* of herself. One of my favourite bands to work with were The Bays Soundsystem, with whom you can have a lot of fun. Their set is entirely improv and if you've got a good effects units you can set up masses of echo/delay/reverb/loops etc and they play along with it and will just give you the nod when they want to move on! For sheer musicianship I engineered the Royal Quartet at Winchester great hall during their festival of Mozart, I just made it clear and loud and let them go, they were properly brilliant, real goosebumps stuff! I did some musical theatre engineering, but in the days before digital desks that was just way too stressful to be fun.
Andrew_C Posted November 10, 2014 Posted November 10, 2014 Yamaha have a good book that goes into more detail than the Soundcraft offering. Not being negative about the latter though. Another good trick for "turn it up to 11" guitarists is to turn their cab 90 degrees. Not a fix, but it helps. And speaking of guitarists; they make carp engineers. Most of them have blown the upper registers from their hearing. Consequently, when mixing, the HF gets turned up to "my ears are bleeding". A bit late (as in it is tomorrow), Brit Row have open evenings about their training. See ad here on The Blue Room. 1
Oaktech Posted November 10, 2014 Posted November 10, 2014 Yamaha have a good book that goes into more detail than the Soundcraft offering. Not being negative about the latter though. My only word of caution is that Yamaha have a very individual way of laying out their desks that doesn't translate well to other manufacturers. I've been on the LS9 and M7CL courses and my god, if I stand in front of an Allen & Heath iLive or a Soundcraft Si, it takes me about 20 minutes to transfer out of Yamaha mode!
ICTDirect_Dave Posted November 10, 2014 Posted November 10, 2014 My only word of caution is that Yamaha have a very individual way of laying out their desks that doesn't translate well to other manufacturers. I've been on the LS9 and M7CL courses and my god, if I stand in front of an Allen & Heath iLive or a Soundcraft Si, it takes me about 20 minutes to transfer out of Yamaha mode! Yeah, also not such a fan of the Yamaha setup. A&H and Soundcraft have a much nicer model
jinnantonnixx Posted November 10, 2014 Posted November 10, 2014 Good advice here. One golden rule which I don't think has been covered is to never EQ the instruments in isolation. It's a classic mistake to get a great vocal sound (in isolation), a great guitar sound (in isolation), and so on. Mix them together and it sounds like an indistinct mush. The frequencies of the band parts trample all over each other and nothing cuts through. A quick guide to the crucial frequencies: Using EQ when mixing - analysis of each EQ band Home Recording EQ Frequency Guidelines - For Dummies
antlear Posted November 11, 2014 Posted November 11, 2014 I have found quite a few people worry when transferring from analogue to digital, they find it scary. I regulay use Yamaha, Allen and Heath and Midas consoles. Each manufactuer has there own way of working, allen and heath give you more individual eq controls compared to say midas and yamaha who you need to select the band. I always advise people to learn the basics of an analogue desk and outboard first as the fancy things about a digital desk can easily take over. I am currently looking to get a new digital desk at work either a Allen and heath QU32 or a Soundcraft Si Expression 3.
antlear Posted November 11, 2014 Posted November 11, 2014 I have found quite a few people worry when transferring from analogue to digital, they find it scary. I regulay use Yamaha, Allen and Heath and Midas consoles. Each manufactuer has there own way of working, allen and heath give you more individual eq controls compared to say midas and yamaha who you need to select the band. I always advise people to learn the basics of an analogue desk and outboard first as the fancy things about a digital desk can easily take over. I am currently looking to get a new digital desk at work either a Allen and heath QU32 or a Soundcraft Si Expression 3.
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