Cheap Advice On Music

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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As the sound man for Rusty Strings, I come to every show with a table and chair, microphone cables, an AC extension chords, and two duffel bags filled with stuff. What stuff, you ask? Lots of stuff, I say! In fact, I take with me everything I have ever needed at any of the gigs we have played. With time, I have developed a list of items that have proven vital at one time or another and are always on hand. Here are seven of the most important:

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We all remember hapless 60s TV detective Maxwell Smart, also known as Agent 86. (He was the one with a phone in his shoe.) Poor Max bumbled through caper after caper, making it out alive only through the dumbest of dumb luck, and a little help from Agent 99.

When you set up the mixer for your next live gig, don’t be like Agent 86! Some of the choices you make regarding the channel assignments, connection points, etc., that you use can have a big effect on the ease with which you can get a good sound and then keep it that way through the show. Why count on dumb luck when you can “get smart” instead?

Here are five specific tips that will make life easier for the sound man, who just might be you!

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One of the first things I check when we start to set up for a Rusty Strings show in an unfamiliar venue is, “Where’s the AC power source?” We’ve had everything from a multi-tap outlet right at the sound man’s position and another one onstage to a single two-prong outlet “around back of that other building there” for everything to plug into - that was at an outdoor gig. I always take a long extension cord, just in case.

Naturally, our gear all uses 3-wire, grounded AC cables, as do our power strips, cube taps, etc. Most venues, like restaurants or clubs, have grounded AC wiring in place, as required by modern electrical codes. But sometimes we find ourselves playing at someone’s old house or homestead that still has the old style ungrounded 2-wire AC outlets.

I take 3-to-2 AC adapters with me to handle such a case, but plugging in to an ungrounded system is always a bit iffy because of the possibility of introducing hum into the system, not to mention the risk of “ground shocklets” from microphones, guitar strings, etc.

The fact is, even if there is a nice-looking grounded outlet for you to use, there is no way to tell by looking at it whether the ground connection, or any of the wires for that matter, are hooked up right. Well (singing heroically) here it comes to save the day: the portable AC line tester!

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I recently came across an article on the Web whose author argued that it is inappropriate to expect to transfer mixing skills and practices developed in a home studio to the world of live mixing with a PA system. His thesis was that live mixing is not really even “mixing” and is strictly a matter of sound reinforcement.

Well yes, in the case where you are running live sound for a rock band with unmiked drums and with none of the instruments running through the PA, you’re not really mixing the whole band, since you can’t “turn down” the drums or any of the instruments, so much of the resulting sound balance (or lack thereof) is beyond your control. But even then, if there are two or more vocals, you will surely find yourself tweaking their levels to keep them in balance. Isn’t that “mixing”?

Ever since I upgraded my home recording studio to a 4-track (cassette) recorder in the early 90s, and particularly since I upgraded to 8 tracks in the late 90s, I have gotten used to the idea of balancing sounds against each other, setting vocal levels with respect to each other and to the instruments, and making various moves during a mix to re-balance an errant vocal level or pump up a lead.

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One of the best things about XLR-type microphone cables is that they can be plugged into each other end-to-end with a locking connection. This is handy for making a 20-foot cable out of two 10-foot ones, for example. It is also the basis for a handy way to store and transport the microphone cables you use for live shows or on-location recording.

The best way I have found to store my XLR cables is to plug them into each other end-to-end and wind them up onto inexpensive cable reels of the type found at Lowe’s or other hardware stores. As you can see in the photo, I have separate reels for 10-foot, 20-foot, and 25-or-30-foot cables. To keep them from unwinding prematurely, I bring the “inside” and “outside” ends up through the holes in the reel and plug them into each other.

I can carry all three of these on my arm at once and still have a hand free for something else. (I hate extra trips between the car and the playing area!)

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

So your band is playing three sets, with two 10- or 15-minute breaks to chat up the fans and visit the loo. What is coming through your PA during the breaks? Before you start playing? After? Probably nothing. This gives the club or restaurant owner (or party host) a chance to turn on their jukebox, or AM radio, or whatever they’ve got hooked to their in-house speakers, and play whatever tripe they want to. Their choice of interim music becomes part of your show.

So take control! Hook up a CD player to the PA and play what you want people to hear when you’re not onstage - stuff that goes with what your band plays - stuff that makes you sound good. (For example, don’t include any original versions of songs you are planning to mangle in your next set!)

There’s no need to drag along a regular CD player like you would use with your home stereo. Any portable unit (even the tiny ones) will be fine, as long as it has a headphone jack! Warning: you may have to devise a Rube Goldberg style set of adapters to get from 1/8″ stereo to TRS (or TS) mono, like I did. (Don’t forget to combine the stereo channels into mono at some point.) And use a fresh set of batteries every time!

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