How to Have a Great Sounding Live Sound Mix Every Time!

hey it's buck from bacon trees thanks for stopping by my channel happy may 31st Thursday morning in Toronto I think it's around 10:45 or something like that I got to keep an eye on the time because I have a class a couple of classes to teach you later on but I've been doing live sound videos for a few years what I wanted to do today was put together a summary video on the six basic steps to getting a great sounding show every single time so I've titled it how to have a great sounding live event every time even in challenging environments you can still get great sound some people don't follow all these or they're guessing at certain things I'm trying to simplify it I know some people might say well it's not that simple it actually is I mean if you do it enough it's simple and I just want to share how I've simplified the process over the years and that's that I don't even know how many events I've been involved with but it's over 4,000 I stopped counting maybe three years back and I'm just just because you know I want to I just want to share my experience here with live sound and how I manage to get great sound like every time number one set a good gain structure so your gain structure is really important to get going so if you don't have a good game structure like your channel strips your master output your amplify amplifying stages you're gonna compromise the sound somewhere so good game structure simply means you're avoiding red indicators whether they're LEDs or LCDs it doesn't matter red peaks are bad so if something's peeking red is a warning sign that you're near distortion or you're probably distorting depending on that piece of gear so avoid red Peaks all the time you know even if you want to redline something because it's an analogue piece of gear I suggest don't even do it there are ways to avoid it if you have a good game structure and you balance everything out go for strong greens some indicators have clean sound in the in the yellows which is like a right between the greens and the Reds but in most cases I don't even hit the yellows I stay in the greens for every channel the master sometimes might hit the yellows a little bit but I trim it down and I turn I am supper I balance it out so I'm basically always getting green signals unity gain don't forget as a guideline it is not an absolute because people never have the exact same settings when they mix so unity is a good guideline to follow but you're always gonna basically go out of unity gain a little bit here and there which is okay so just keep that in mind it's not absolute now what I mean by strong greens of course is just make sure the signals are strong with not necessarily going to 0 DB they don't have to they can go minus 3 minus 6 so you don't have to take the trims all the time and boost them so you're always hitting 0 that's that's not correct all the time sometimes that works for certain instruments but I typically avoid 0 on the individual channel strips my master might hit zero but the channel strips definitely don't hit zero and I'd say 95% of the cases when I mix there are exceptions but generally I keep everything in the green so that's what I mean by healthy greens use subtractive EQ that's next so subtractive EQ meaning get rid of problems so with a 31 band EQ or 15 band EQ let's just say graphic EQ you're gonna have different sliders of course to represent frequency bands you're gonna average the zero line it makes no sense to cut everything below the zero line like if you have a your EQ set so most sliders are below zero that means you're getting more ripple depending on the EQ you have I know Ashley EQ is have less ripple but you're getting more ripple on the output so keep everything as close to zero as possible and only get rid of problems when you get rid of feedback number one it's good because nothing's feeding back and if it's loud enough at that point you can start getting rid of other issues like frequencies that are masking good frequencies so let's say you go oh it doesn't really sound sparkly enough on the highs okay try to get rid of some lower mids or lows because maybe they're masking the highs and you're hearing more of that where you should take away that area then you'll hear the highs better so this goes all the way back to home stereos when people had a bass middle and treble control if it's not travel enough turn up the trouble I used to do it because I didn't know it just heis and they well the highs are the high frequencies and it sounds cleaner or more more detailed when they turn the highs up however if you get rid of the bass and a little bit of MS leave the highs in the middle and turn the volume up you're gonna get the sound you want but without having to boost anything so I I don't boost anything ever on a thirty-one band EQ the most I will boost on a channel strip when I EQ on a channel strip make about three decibels I'll find other ways of getting the signal the way I want like miking techniques and stuff like that but I'm using subtractive EQ again ninety-five percent of the time but a hundred percent of the time for a main EQ for a front-of-house system or a monitor system subtractive EQ I'm going for natural sound after I get rid of the feedback so just I want things to sound natural I'll use my voice because I know what it sounds like I'll use track 2 and 3 off boku fish by underworld great excellent techno recordings with clean sounds I used those two songs a couple of prodigy songs I'll play because they have a really good balance in the mix I know what they sound like in virtually every system and I get a good idea of what that sound system is gonna sound like in that room in a natural way I'll use I gotta pause that for a second so that's the reality of the situation the phone rings sometimes and it's usually spam I don't even know why I answer at my landline anyway so pink noise that's up to you whether you want to use pink noise too pink a room or a system and the big leagues people they usually use pink noise it's a good indicator but it's not going to tell you everything so I don't use pink noise I prefer to use my ears even with larger systems so that's a whole other discussion this is what I mean by subtractive EQ just get rid of problems and then you'll hear what you want to hear so stage volume must be reasonable you can't have a super super loud band and then just turn the monitors up because loud monitors actually ruined mixes too and you can't have the band too loud because you can't mix around them so you got to make sure that the instruments are a reasonable level the monitors are mixed well with the instruments and then you've got a happy stage and you can bring your front house up and it'll mask the stage sound and actually sound clean vocals first base your mix on vocals and mix around them that's the number one thing people complain about people sing along with songs they don't sing along with snare drums so if your snare drum is like 4 DB lower than it should be it most people are gonna think that's just the way the band sounds but if the vocals are too low that that's gonna be an issue for most people so vocals first bass you're mixed on vocals I bring the channel faders up make sure the vocals are loud and clean and then I start mixing around the vocals so I have a video on that actually EQ instruments on their channel strips not with the 31 band EQ 31 band EQ for me vocal based then individual channel strips for instruments and then all correct so I'll usually do mostly cutting like you say sometimes I might do a little boost here and there but it's mostly cutting subtractive EQ answer the four questions is allowed enough can everybody hear can everybody understand and will it feedback you might need a delay fill or a fill a delay cluster delay speaker to fill in an area where people can't hear that well compared to the front of house so keep these questions in mind and basically that's it those are the steps to get great sound every time let me know what you think maybe we can open this up for discussion and thanks for dropping by please subscribe have a great Thursday

Channel: bacontrees

Views: 26,845

Keywords: live sound mixing, how to mix a live show, live sound engineering, how to get rid of feedback, eliminating feedback, live sound feedback, how to eq a sound system

Id: LszlEIBAT5Y

Length: 8min 8sec (488 seconds)

Published: Thu May 31 2018