Good advice for live venue mixers

http://www.audiotechnology.com.au/wp/index.php/time-to-shelve-the-low-end/
 
I almost dread going to live concerts anymore. No matter how great the band, there's a 90% chance the FOH guys are going to ruin it. I'll hear horrid things coming out of the PA, look over at the mixer and he's chatting with a groupie and looking cool and oblivious to the sonic mayhem he's causing. Sure, a lot of it is bad rooms and outdoor venues that the crew can't control, but often they don't appear to even be making an effort.
 
The main stage at NAMM this year was a refreshing exception. In past years, sound there had been dreadful, but they've moved the main stage out of the convention center lobby and into the street outside. The stage sits between two large hotels, which you'd expect to cause problems, but fires down a block-long street. Whoever they put in charge of the PA clearly knew what they were doing, because the sound quality was surprisingly good for an outdoor venue. One thing noticeably absent: the usual stacks of multiple subs.

One of the last live shows I attended was a country concert with Kenny Chesney as the headliner.

It's fairly normal for the headliner to have the PA throttled back with respect to the low end for the opening and subsequent acts so that when the HL comes out, the PA is kicking it top to bottom and the HL sounds so much better.  

Or so I thought.....  of course the lows were lacking for the first 2 bands.... and they were at a reasonable volume....
 
When KC took the stage, the sound level was deafening. And being in the lawn seats, I had to watch the huge monitors to see what was going on with the band. I could not hear any bass..... none.... OK... so for a few seconds I thought the bass was out but it's gonna come in at the chorus..... there went the chorus and the music is still lacking bass. 
 
So I guess, someone forgot to turn the sub amps on, or they were dead. The entire concert went that same way.... no bottom in the sound but the volume never backed off a bit..... I sat down and pretty much stayed there for the rest of the show. Since everyone else around me was standing, I was out of the jet wash of the main PA's blast zone and the music was almost tolerable from that vantage point. I was never so glad to see a concert end as I was with that one.  
 
I guess the FOH guy was either deaf, drunk or otherwise engaged and too busy to bother to try to get the mix sounding good. It was by far the worst show I ever had the displeasure of wasting my money on. 

Unfortunately the "loud is better" crowd has made themselves so deaf they have become the "if it is not loud, I hear nothing" crowd. Self-fulfilling prophecy but incredibly sad since most industries enforce hearing protection except for the one that should the most (you can be deaf as a post and still drive a jackhammer).

I like live music. I agree that I would often twiddle nobs if invited to.

That said, I'm not convinced I always make it sound better, even at home in a post show mix.

A couple of years ago my daughter sang a song (with backup band) for the local community music school.  The concert was in a brand new 1000 seat concert hall.  The sound guys were the hall's regulars, hired for the evening.  [I set aside the fact that the whole concert was much too loud, especially with children and grandparents in the audience].  The girl before my daughter's mic was dead, which I learned after was because she'd been given the 'wrong' one by one of the teachers (it had no switch).  So she sang her entire song with no one able to hear her.  At that point I was really anxious for my daughter and would probably have caused a very uncomfortable scene had her mic been dead as well.  Luckily it worked and her song went very well.
 
Talking to one of the teachers later, I expressed annoyance that the sound guys had made no attempt to fix the problem (I sat right beside the desk and they didn't even flinch), like maybe try each mic until the good one was determined.  Maybe lose the intro of the song but good for the rest.  The answer was that the console was digital and programmed and it wasn't a simple matter to make an on-the-fly change to the setup.  I know nothing of current digital desks, but I didn't buy it.  I would have at least have made the attempt to try each mic until I'd found the right one.

then there are the guys that run sound in churches.  ...almost to the point of total distraction and the people in the booth have their face buried in their phone.  ;-/

Jeff Evans
The other problem is most live mixers have no musical knowledge either.  In one of these posts it was mentioned no guitar was present out front.  I would heard that in a microsecond and gone looking for the problem.  Because one should look up see what is supposed to be there but some live guys just cannot do that for some reason.

 
If the "engineer" had glanced down he would have found it. Or at least should have. The desk was at the back of the auditorium, about 800 capacity. Had a look on the way out, it was an everyday 24-track or so analogue Soundcraft.

Now, call me paranoid but I've always thought it a good idea to take a glance across the desk when a new band comes on following a change-over to make sure the channel indicators, whether meters or just a single LED, are showing there's something coming in on the channels where audio is expected and nothing on the ones where it isn't. Then double check the mutes and solos. Even better do a quick line-check during the change-overs.

No such caution for our hero though it seems. When he finally realised something was badly wrong the first thing that happened was a stage hand walked on and shifted the amp mic, an SM57 by the look of it, a few inches. No change. OK, switch the cable to the stage-box. No change. Lengthy pause for head-scratching. OK, engineer goes on stage and fiddles around with the mic and cable for a bit. Taps mic. Takes it out of clip and - queue fanfare - turns it on. Instant howl so turns it off...

Eventually sorted after an unscheduled 10 minute plus "interval".

Jeff Evans
Another problem too is when someone takes a solo most live mixers cannot hear that and they end up just at the same too low volume.  I move that person to the centre and turn them up to bring out the solo and then when finished moved them back and turn them down a little.  That is something from my Jazz days I suppose.
 

People with the ability and musical feel to get sound right are out there, and there's a lot of them. But, as you say, there are also quite a number who are in completely the wrong profession and sound engineering can make or break a gig.

From a musician's point of view the problem isn't just bad sound during the gig. If the sound is rubbish the punters tend not to think "really good band sadly let down by poor sound engineering, not their fault" but "rubbish/boring band".

Saw Lenny Kravitz play once, didn't hear him. I heard him sing, I heard the band, I saw him play, but couldn't hear him. Whole gig, nothing. I think it was the last Glastonbury I went to about  15 years ago.
 
Been to a lot of festivals with a great sound. Not normally the main stages though.
 

I've also witnessed intentional sabotage. Usually, it's the headliner making sure the opening act sounds worse.

bitflipper
That was not the case. It was a flown array, but it was the band's own gear and their own FOH guy. And he was an old guy! Old as me. Old enough you'd assume he had a lot of experience.
 
Or perhaps old enough that he just didn't give a sh*t anymore.

The Old guy probably has the same issue I do.  Lack of mid range hearing.  Too many concerts/gigs with sound too loud.  I don't trust my ears any more for live sound, but get a general consensus when I do it.  I also rely a lot on my DriveRack for initial settings.
 
 

bitflipper
I won't make excuses for the Old Guy. 30 years of live mixing probably has degraded his hearing, but surely he knows about spectrum analyzers.
 
They've had some pretty sophisticated auto-EQ systems for many years, too. Heck, I was using an RTA for PAs back in the 80s because I didn't have the luxury of a sound guy to make corrections on the fly. It wasn't ideal, but at least I could avoid the icepick-to-the-ear syndrome.

I agree if he had a spectrum analyzer available, there IS no excuse.  They definitely help me out.  Just someone who doesn't know what he is doing in that case.  Sad that they can make fair $$$ and not know anything.
 
On the other side of the coin, I went to see Spyro Gyra (sp?) at Wolf Trap (in Virginia).  I had a seat right next to the FOH!  Best seat in the house and the guy did a great job mixing it.  After the show, I told him so!

bitflipper
I always make a point of thanking airline pilots and FOH mixers on my way out the door. My theory is that maybe they'll do their jobs better if they know the customer's paying attention.

+1 on this definitely thank the pilot!  FOH mixers too!

Church sound... oi vey... when I used to set up church systems, the main EQ was always put in a locked cabinet.
 
Church sound people are generally very well-meaning people. They just lack the training and generally never attend rehearsals with the band. They NEED to be considered a member of the worship team and be expected to show up for every practice.
 
I have witnessed the "throw money at the problem" issue too. SOOO much money wasted on "cure-alls" like fancy consultants, state-of-the-art equipment like motorized digital mixers with scene memory, expensive in-ear monitoring systems... all stuff that serves to further confuse a well-meaning, untrained sound tech. I was deeply involved in  a church that had such a crazy "live" room that getting a good mix was VERY difficult. They spent a bunch of money to do some acoustic room treatments and THAT was money well-spent.
 
A wise church board will save their money (or better yet invest it in their community or missions) and send their sound techs to a week of training somewhere BEFORE buying all that fancy gear. More often than not, they'll realize they never needed all that expensive stuff to begin with and can get along just fine with what they have or maybe just augment/upgrade one or two key weak links.
 

jpetersen
I hate this job. I very rarely volunteer anymore.

Been there, a long time ago.  Back when I knew nothing.  Large choir and rock band.  Everything you said brought back memories (including stuffing cigarette pack tin foil into the desk's fuse holder during a show because the fuses kept blowing).  The guitar player hated me.  Every time he turned himself up I'd turn him back down (very slowly).

jpetersen
Very stressful job.
 
#1 priority is: don't let feedback happen. Sometimes you have a desk with a mid parametric but not always.
So all the "experts" will say, easy! Turn it down! Right. Tell the band that.
 

 
Personally I prefer a 1/3 octave graphic strapped across the mains after any compression for that job, preferably one with an indicator per band that can show me which bands are running wild. More surgical and very quick because there's no need to start trying to track down which mixer channel needs adjusting.
 

jpetersen
Next: Guitar amp stacks so loud, the bass doesn't even keep up.
So I tell the guitarist: Turn that down, please!
No way! The tone only comes when the speakers are at their limit.
Hoo, boy. So get a 30W combo - yeah, I know. Not as macho as a solid wall of Marshalls.
I try get guitarists to turn themselves down by putting them very loud in their own monitors.
Sometimes it works, sometimes they revel in their own ego.

 
I'd just like to give a very special mention to the sound person who told me that my guitar amp was way, way too loud for the 500 capacity room. The FOH PA being a full-range 8 kilowatt system, 4K foldback and the guitar amp a 5 watt Epiphone Valve Junior turned about half way up.
 
Eventually we realised he was actually complaining about the piano, which was at the volume he'd turned it up to. :-/
 

jpetersen
And the guitarists turn themselves up as the evening progresses.

 
Usually the result of an unavoidable hearing shift that takes anything up to 30 minutes to kick in. Assuming the holdback mix is any good to start with and is holding its own against echoes coming back off the FOH rig that's the most common cause of people wanting the foldback turning up all the time. That or my personal hate, musicians/singers who soundcheck quietly and timidly then let rip once in front of an audience, so destroying most of the point of having a soundcheck at all.
 

jpetersen
What the heck can one do.

 
If the band's doing more than one set, try turning the foldback down 3dB between the sets. They'll want it raised again in due course, but you're starting from a lower point than you left off.
 
If the guitar amp is too loud to go in the PA, maybe don't put it in the PA. Unfortunately telling some guitarists that two or three cranked 100W Marshalls or screaming Twins was only done that way back in the 60s/70s because the PAs of the time were really meant for vocals only so the guitar volume was very dependent on the backline amps is wasted on some. The rest of us, when we want a cranked or breaking-up amp sound, use a smaller amp between 15 and 40 watts as you say. Easier to carry, less hearing damage, a consistent tone because it's always run at the same level and so long as it can compete with the cymbals for stage volume plenty powerful enough.
 
One trick that's worth trying with an over-loud guitarist is to turn their amp so it's projecting across the stage diagonally, not straight at the audience. And if you've a 4x12" cab pointing at the mix position, take a walk around before judging the guitar volume in the mix. 4x12s have a very narrow dispersion and can be deafening in front of them and much less audible a few feet to the side (and bass heavy). The closer you are to the cab the more that happens, and sometimes guitarists who can't hear themselves are off to the side of the cabs and out of the dispersion pattern. They can fix that by getting in front of their amp. Which in turn means they'll turn it down if it's blasting their head off. For the same reason, get any guitar speakers off the ground or they'll be blasting the front row of the audience but the band can't really hear them unless they keep their ears where most people have knees.
 

jpetersen
In the end, when the sound's good, it's a great band.
If the sound's ****e, it's the sound guy's fault.

 
As far as the audience is concerned, it's rarely the sound engineer's fault. Because most people have no idea at all what sound engineering is or what engineers do. Other than say "one two, one two.." into microphones.
 
A good system run by a good engineer can make an average band sound huge, a good band with a lousy PA/engineer can sound spectacularly bad. Being on stage with a rubbish foldback mix is horrible, and doesn't inspire the slightest bit of confidence about what's coming out of the FOH system either. For any venue where the main sound is through a PA, not backline, the band are completely depending on the sound people to get it right.
 
It's a two-way thing, each is dependent on the other. And it really helps if the band understand PA and the engineer understands what musicians need to hear on stage. And, going back to my earlier comment, if the engineer can tell the difference between an electric piano and a slide guitar/lap steel.
 

jpetersen
I hate this job. I very rarely volunteer anymore.

For some reason the jobs you volunteer to do to help someone out often turn out to be the worst nightmares that you carry with you to the grave. A phenomenon not limited to music or engineering either, it seems to be one of life's universal truths.