Cheap Advice On Music

You know what they say about a picture and a thousand words. Well then, I have about two thousand words’ worth for you in this article!

I sometimes get e-mails from people who are uncertain about what components are part of a typical live sound setup, or exactly how to hook them up. Instead of trying to describe all the interconnections that are commonly involved, I decided to draw up a diagram (two, actually) of the setup that Rusty Strings, the band I run sound for, uses for their live shows.

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Most of my articles about PA systems, mixers, etc., are in terms of running live sound for a multi-member band, perhaps because that’s what I do for Rusty Strings. But I sometimes get questions from individuals who are interested in performing alone on acoustic guitar and vocals, or keyboard and vocals, in small settings but who are uncertain about what kind of sound reinforcement to use or how to achieve a particular echo or reverb effect on their vocal.

Before I even start discussing configuration options or specific recommendations, I must stipulate that I will not be addressing computer-based setups for live sound, that is, where a laptop is used as a mixer. Such a setup calls for a different kind of audio interface hardware that I will discuss in a future article. Here, I will be talking about systems based on conventional mixers. With that attended to, I will begin by describing the basic system configurations for solo performers.

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In my opinion, the two worst things that can happen to a band sound-wise during a show are (1) feedback, and (2) talking to the sound man over the PA system (”More of me in the monitors, Biff”). These occurrences make the band seem amateurish and not ready for prime time. Check out my article At the Gig: Five Ways To Avoid Feedback for some ideas about avoiding the dreaded feedback. As for communicating with the sound man (or the lighting guy, or someone backstage) without letting the audience listen in, the Panic Button from Pro Co is a handy addition to your gig bag that gives you this capability.

The Panic Button is a stomp-box style A/B switch with a low-impedance (XLR) microphone input and two XLR outputs (called A and B, of all things). It allows one of your singers to switch his or her microphone signal from Output A (the normal connection to the PA system) to Output B (a separate connection that only the sound man can hear) and back again just by stomping the button on the box. Voila! No more private announcements on the public address system.

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Whether your band uses a standard mixer feeding a power amp or an “all in one” powered mixer as your PA system, you have a fair amount of control over the sound that emerges from the unit. The most powerful of the mixer controls (besides the gain!) are undoubtedly the EQ knobs. Every PA system has at least “bass” and “treble” controls, and many add a third “mid-range” knob. In a few cases, the frequency that the mid-range control boosts or cuts is even settable!

In my work with Rusty Strings, I use the mixer EQ knobs for two main purposes. The first is to compensate for the bass boost that occurs due to the “proximity effect” when a singer gets very close to the microphone. When I see that this is about to happen, I drop the bass EQ for the appropriate channel, and the vocal sounds normal. Later, when the singer backs off, I restore the flat bass setting.

The second, and perhaps more important, purpose for my use of EQ is to make sure that the lyrics are clearly intelligible. Depending on the microphone and the singer’s distance or angle, the resulting vocals sometimes become a bit “muddy,” making the lyrics difficult to pick out. In this case, a slight boost in the treble EQ, or at the high end of the mid-range control, puts that “snap” back into the sound - and I can hear all the words!

[An expanded version of this Mini-Tip appears in my eBook Cheap Advice On Live Sound.]

If you’re the sound man for a band, the tendency is to relax a bit after the first song or two. After all, it sounds balanced, the overall level is OK, nobody seems upset. You may find yourself kicking back, having a few fries, scoping out the crowd, maybe even wool-gathering, whatever that is. What, me worry? The fact is, maybe you should.

There are a lot of things that can happen onstage that can upset the sound of the band. If you spot these events right away, you can usually compensate for them before they happen. But spotting them means watching, really watching, everything going on up on the bandstand.

In my work with Rusty Strings, the main sound-changing event I worry about is one of the singers suddenly starting to sing up close to the microphone having previously been farther away, or vice versa. When I see this happening I can quickly set the vocal fader to the right position for the singer’s current microphone distance.

Other events are microphones being bumped or moved or drooping in their mounts, a guitar or keyboard player resetting his or her own volume too far up or down, or a harmonica or cowbell part unexpectedly played into a vocal mike. Be ready for anything!

[An expanded version of this tip appears in my eBook, Cheap Advice On Live Sound.]

For a band that plays out live, feedback is usually a Bad Thing. But there’s another kind of feedback that can be extremely helpful for your band (and its sound man). I’m thinking of feedback about how your band actually sounds when you’re playing. How can you improve your performance and sound production if you don’t listen to and critique the show afterwards? Baseball teams make and watch videos of their games. Your band should listen to recordings of your gigs, for all of the same reasons.

Now, this doesn’t have to be a fancy, CD-ready recording, but it does have sound halfway decent to be of any use. Your best bet is probably to get a Zoom H4 or similar unit and have it recording somewhere in the audience area during at least one set (preferably the whole show). Afterwards, the sound man and the Main Band Person should listen to the whole recording, taking notes on areas needing fixing or improvement. Doing this can give a sense of direction to your rehearsals and will ultimately make a huge difference in your sound!

[An expanded version of this Mini-Tip appears in my eBook, Cheap Advice On Live Sound.]

Two things always seem to happen when an artist or band plays a bunch of songs at a gig:

I’m not exactly sure why these things happen, but I have observed them at many gigs. The tempo increase is a strictly musical matter, but if you are the sound man for the band you need to anticipate increasing volume and take it into account in your initial PA settings.

If you are lucky enough to have full metering on your mixer channels, you can adjust where the peaks of the signal on each channel fall with respect to the 0 dB reference point to provide yourself a little extra headroom. (Headroom is a measure of how much louder a signal can get at a given gain setting before clipping or distorting, not to be confused with Max Headroom, the fictional artificial intelligence.)

Normally, you would set the trim control for each channel so that the signal almost reaches 0 dB on the peaks with the main channel fader in the “0″ position. But, if you do this during a soundcheck (or more likely, during the first song), you will end up with a signal that will be too hot after a few songs, due to the inevitable increase in volume. So, my advice would be to set the trim control to provide somewhat lower peaks, perhaps -6 dB or so. You will still have to adjust the fader when the volume goes up, but at least the signal won’t clip.

[An expanded version of this Mini-Tip appears in my eBook, Cheap Advice On Live Sound.]

One of the worst events that can befall a band during a show, aside from actual injury to any of its members, is to have a screeching blast of feedback suddenly deafen the audience, sending the band’s approval rating spiraling downward. If there is a sound man, he’ll probably get the blame, although as we’ll see, it might not be his fault!

Feedback can come through either the main speakers or the monitors, although in my experience it is more often the monitor speakers that feed back. (That way the band is briefly deafened too.) Usually, the microphones are behind the main speakers and the system isn’t running at the very edge of feeding back, but if these are not the case, you may be able to coax out some feedback from the mains as well as the monitors!

Back to basics for a mo: what is feedback, anyway? As the name implies, it results from speaker sound “feeding back” into (i.e. being heard by) one or more microphones that are running through that speaker. Round and round goes the sound. It’s like giving oats to a sick horse - you get the feed back. (I’ve been waiting to use that stupid joke since summer camp in 1962.) There are a number of steps that can be taken to minimize the possibility of this unfortunate menace. Here are five of them.

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