Cheap Advice On Music

This summer Rusty Strings, the band I run sound for, had one of their strangest gigs ever! It was a reunion-style party, held in a park-like setting featuring a good-sized pond with an island in the middle of it. Here’s the strange part: the band was set up on a covered wooden dock/pier projecting into the pond, and the “audience” was partying on the mid-pond island, several hundred yards from the “stage”. I hope they could hear the band way over there, since we could barely hear them. And they were pretty loud!

Anyway, my topic today is not the weird gig where the band played on a dock (and yes, they did play “Dock Of the Bay”!). My topic today deals with the problems we had with setting up the sound system in this unique location. One problem was that the sheer distance to the audience, plus the fact that we were outdoors, required us to turn the two main speakers WAY up, thus flirting with distortion at those moments when everyone was playing. (See my article Playing Outdoor Gigs: What’s the Difference? for some tips about outdoor shows.)

A much worse problem, though, was our inability to turn the vocal monitor speakers up far enough to be useful (i.e. audible to the singers) without producing howls of feedback from the three vocal mics. We repositioned the speakers, we repositioned the mics, we did all the things you do in this situation, but still the feedback came. Then we discovered what the real problem was!

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If you use your laptop and your favorite recording software as the basis for your home studio (like I do), you are accustomed to the idea of playing your studio keyboard and recording the part as a MIDI track, giving you the flexibility of assigning a new voice to the already-played part right up to the time when you mix the song.

But has it occurred to you to use that same recording software to turn your MIDI-ready keyboard into a synthesizer with all the latest and greatest voices that you could play as part of a live show? Me neither! (Until recently.) Here’s how to do it.

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When your band starts looking into microphones to use onstage, one thing you will notice right away is that there are two kinds of mics in wide use: dynamic mics and condenser mics. Condenser mics tend to be more expensive (sometimes much more expensive), and their sensitivity and frequency-response specs tend to be better than their dynamic brethren. So, you might assume, we should get condenser mics to use at our live shows if we can possibly afford them. Well, in my opinion, no. Dynamic mics are the way to go. Here’s why.

1. They are more rugged. Condenser mics are sort of “studio sissies” that don’t take well to being dropped, stepped on, etc.

2. They are less sensitive. Onstage, super-sensitive condenser mics can aggravate leakage and feedback problems.

3. They are cheaper. You can get Shure SM58s for vocals and SM57s for instruments for around $100 each.

Save the high-priced jobbies for the studio. For the real world, get yourself some dynamic mics!

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

In the band I run sound for, Rusty Strings, there are three singers and two lead instruments, namely guitar and keyboard (the keyboard player also plays flute on some songs). Each different combination of lead vocalist, harmony vocalist, backup singers, and lead part(s) calls for a slightly different mixer setup: turn Singer 1 up and Singer 2 down for this song, get ready to bring up the keyboard solo in the middle, and so on.

For me, it is vital to at least know what the next song is so that I can preset the mixer appropriately for it during the prolonged applause for the song the band just finished playing. Having a simple list of songs may be enough if the sound man really, really knows the band’s songs and arrangements. But even then, it’s nice to have something beyond just a list of titles to go on. If the sound man is unfamiliar with the band, it’s even more important to provide a proper set list. OK, what would be a proper set list look like? I’m glad you asked!

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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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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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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.]

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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