Setting Your Gain Structure On Analog Sound Systems By Scott Grove

okay folks we're going to learn about gain structure on an analog mixing board i'm going to show you what the gain knob is for and when we start twiddling knobs adding our base our mid-range our treble and so forth what happens to everything and why you have to change the gain knob after you twiddle all the knobs and get your base set and your blah blah all set you have to redo your gain knob one more time and then you never touch it again for the rest of the show that's very important you never ever ever touch it again okay reason i'm getting ready to tell you and show you why okay i personally am a very loud singer i put the microphone right here and i flippin and probably one of the loudest singers there is um if you have your microphone and you are singing this far away uh fine and dandy if you're singing this far away shame on you okay so your mics are meant to be up here if you've ever seen celine dion and you're like she sings 40 feet away from her mic yeah chicks suck when it comes to singing they like to do that crap so it blows to have a chick to be a singer because they like to think they're using mic techniques my technique is sitting there going like this go watch anne wilson of heart life she knows how to sing that mic is right here 100 of the time that's how you get her done kids okay reason i'm mentioning how close i sing to the mic is so you'll do the same and that you'll understand what the gain is getting ready to do okay i'll get out of the picture here um i'm not turning any speakers or power ramps on you're simply going to be focusing on the led ladder meter right here okay i've got the game completely shut off i'll turn it off on this channel too um so i'll be right here where the level control is at zero or seven out of ten same with your mains seven out of ten that's what's called unity gain that's where all faders should basically start and basically stay if you get your gain structure set correctly okay you have a person like me who sings uh loud what we're going to do first of all to check any channel if you are talking in a mic like i am and you see some green blah blah and you have other microphones on everything's on um you want to go to the board and there's a button down here by the fader that says pfl that stands for pre-fade listen okay so you could actually have your headphones on and it actually listens to only that channel so you can hear how bad the guy sings it's over here okay so but the pfl also uh singles out just that channel just like when we're listening to it in the headphone jack but it it makes it so that it's the only one showing up on this ladder this is very important so hit the pfl button okay that's on um and that keeps all the other microphones from bleeding through and somebody hitting a kick drum while you're trying to do this so if you have that on even if somebody's hitting the kick drum it is not going to show up on this ladder okay so what we're going to do is set a basic gain okay the gain is simply what is coming into the mixing board the signal okay so we want the loudest if you tell us this is a vocal mic and i'm doing vocals if you're doing drums and stuff you'll do it the same way as this uh if you're doing keyboards you adjust everything the same way so we have the pfl on this channel only i'm gonna start turning the gain knob up okay i'm gonna go here two two two two two two turning it up i wanna get it uh maybe hitting the yellow never the red the yellow here and there okay so i'm still turning the gain knob up two two two two two two two there it is two two hitting yellow and that is assuming that that is the loudest i could ever possibly sing ever in the night if i'm wired on crack cocaine and whatever that is the loudest i would ever sing two two two two two and you want to make sure that okay if you know the people in your band and you know that they're holding back or if they're taking that mic and they're holding it way back here so they can get louder later um bust them right now you know because you know how loud they sing okay so we have that up to where it needs to be even though i'm talking now and it's not going up there that's because i'm not singing okay a person like me would actually sing and two two one two yes that's how loud i do it two two way up in the yellow and i will continue to do that so if it's me i have to turn that game down two two two two two two two two two two okay so that's good for when i'm actually uh singing and you notice it's way down here fine we just want the loudest possible point that will be hit to be the one that is measured okay what happens now is we start doing our gain structure which means when we're adding or subtracting frequencies via the lows the mids the highs and so forth me i have a lot of bottom end in my voice and i like it to be accented when i get really close to a mic like this that has um a nice proximity effect built in which means it has a deal that adds a lot of low end when you get really close to the mic but i like to even accentuate that more so i'm going to turn up the bass let's say i have my speakers on and i'm listening and okay that sounds good i'm going to go to my low mids and i know it sounds good at 80 hertz so i'm going to set it at 80 hertz with sweepable med then hey hey start turning the volume up on the that mid that i selected two two two two two okay so far i'm barely even into the game thing and two one two i'm three yellows up into this thing i'm one away from being in the red two two two okay and this is going to keep on happening okay now i'm going to go up to my next mid-range which i like it 2k okay so it's set there that's the one that really gives it that presence right about there so the actual talking and singing part um that's where it gives you that real vocal mid-range upper mid-range clarity so i need some of that two two two two one two okay now i'm going to add i need some sizzle on here so i'm adding frequencies to everything instead of subtracting a lot of times you need to subtract frequencies you set your notch filter or your sweepable mid on a frequency that you find in dial it back a little bit if it's a trouble frequency but for the basic um lesson on eq and getting your gain structure there i'm going to turn up the highest now for me really crispy okay two two two two two one two okay right there just went in the red that can't happen okay not allowed two two but i'm there i'm gonna shut the gain down until it quits going into the yellow hardly at all two two two the gain is off and this is what i want you to see two okay it's going all the way up and one away from the red two two two okay that is not good so if you have somebody all sudden that sounds great but your gain is off that's fine that your gain is off it doesn't matter but it does matter that i'm up so high and almost peaking on the ladder here two two so i'm going to hit the uh what's called a pad there's a pad button all right up here next to my phantom power button there's also a high pass filter button but where it says pad that will actually turn down the gain even lower than zero okay so if i hit that okay look what's going on right now on the meter two i'm going to do that now and then push the button two okay so now it's down lower than it was two two two two two two okay so that gives me a chance to actually start taking the gain up two two two two two two now that's fine i've got the gain up halfway now two two two two two and everything's groovy so that's what the pad does it actually cuts the gain down below zero two two two two okay so that is fine and gravy okay two two two i'm gonna bring that game let's say two two two two i'm gonna show you the peak there's peak two two two two two two two that's as hard as i'll sing two two two two two okay see it's halfway almost halfway up now where before it was on zero okay so we're looking good now now what you want to remember is like i said before you will never touch this now that it sounds great you'll never touch it again what if you do well the mains out front will turn up on your channel you do not want that you will turn that up on the fader down here and you won't need much if your stuff is set correctly and everything is at unit unity gain up here at zero which again out of a scale from one to ten it'd be about seven um it's marked there for you okay and plus if you turn that knob up or down it affects all the monitors at the same time too so you spent time trying to get your monitors correct which you do after this point you get all of the mains done first then you do your monitors why because if you did your monitors first and then you go to change your gains afterwards you just screwed up your entire monitor mix okay so that's why i was talking about monitors at the beginning that we leave them alone until we get our gain structure set so that gain is set for its optimal uh usage you get it sounded great through the mains and you leave that sumbitch alone okay so if you've ever twiddled it and tried to get more volume or less volume or what have you quit doing that okay that's why you're here to learn to do that and not to do that so you have your gain structure set two two two okay everything's fine and you actually set just for a note your monitors uh to what's called a pre it asks it'll have a switch on there whether you want to go pre or post and you want to set it for pre um because that means before all of the eq before the fader down here because if you turn the fader up and down and it's set in post the um whatever you do to the fader is going to happen to your monitors you're going gonna be pissed if somebody turns your guitar down and all of a sudden out in the mains and then all of a sudden you have nothing in your monitor because they just turned it down or if they turn your vocal down and you have nothing in your monitors that's what happens so you set it on pre not post post is for your effects only okay so i have four monitor sims and two effects since the effects sends are automatically set to pre in the i'm sorry um post so they actually affect as far as your eq goes actually affects the built-in or your outboard effects unit okay and so on but you don't want changes that happen all over the mixing board affecting your monitors and believe it or not you do not want whatever you do to the mains with eq to happen in your monitors okay you're like well man give me some more highs in my eq and my monitor that's when you actually go to the graphic equalizer and change it there you don't change it here that's for the mains period nothing else okay so all of this is for the mains your monitors whole different situation you have a volume and you have a graphic equalizer and that is it nothing else should change anything about your monitor volume and a graphic eq okay so that is your gain structure again leave it alone okay can't stress that enough if you change it from here you are doing a huge disservice to yourself and everybody else never change it throughout the night no matter what you've heard or think you've learned once it is set and sounds amazing leave it alone because that will destroy and change everything in your mains and your monitors at the same time okay and then we click off our pfl everything's coming through the ta now and you go on to the next thing and the next thing and the next thing and the next thing once you get them all done um then yeah it's sound check time after you do the monitors which are a whole different thing i'll do a video on that later um so there you go you do the exact same thing to everything and if you're in the same band doing this uh setup you'll basically only do it for the most part once because your sound system will sound great everybody's amps and vocals and everything else and keyboards and so forth will be set the same for every gig and again amplifiers are personal monitors they're not meant for the audience to hear so yes you put your entire band through the pa system that includes drums if you're like oh drums are too loud or whatever it's like the drums need to go into the pa system as loud at least as what they're coming off the stage that way you can make them sound good without being any louder than they are coming off the stage if he's going to play as loud as he is and it's fine out front but this is going to make it sound a million times better even if the volume isn't any louder so don't say well the drums sound okay volume wise because the tone will be because that's just the way it is it's like he's beating on oatmeal boxes so anyway what does that have to do with anything it just means everything once you get it all done show goes great sounds good then you're going to the next gig you don't have to do this anymore probably not ever unless you've with it so don't dick with it and if you think somebody has changed their crap simply come over to the pfl button hit it and you can tell because it's going in the red now that he with something so you confront them or you just go up there and change and he won't have any monitors and he'll and say well that's what you get for with it it's one way to tame people from that okay so i hope that helps you out and is that all that i can tell you about that no but that's the main deal um and that is game structure whatever you add as far as eq will bring it up bigger and heavier here on the ladder whatever you take away on your eq will actually make that gain softer okay and then you will always whether it goes less or more on the ladder you will adjust the gain to compensate and get it to hit about that first yellow on the hardest possible signal that will ever go in there at any gig okay so uh you guys be groovy i'm already groovy and i'll catch you on the next uh audio lesson take care bye-bye you

Channel: Groovy Music Lessons

Views: 28,332

Keywords: Sound, System, PA, Scott, Grove, Doctor, Groovy, Setting, Gain, Structure, Analog, Microphone, Mixer, Mixing, Board

Id: 2TTCuEazRdU

Length: 18min 19sec (1099 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 03 2020