Clarity not Volume

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Nick Williamson

Freshman
May 17, 2012
3
0
0
Franklin, IN
I'm the FOH engineer at a church in Indiana and the system is not that great, nor the room. I'm trying to bring the instrument out, without increasing the volume. I've taken out a lot of the low and high mids, but I'm still struggling. Any thoughts?

Thanks.
 
Re: Clarity not Volume

Nick Williamson said:
I'm the FOH engineer at a church in Indiana and the system is not that great, nor the room. I'm trying to bring the instrument out, without increasing the volume. I've taken out a lot of the low and high mids, but I'm still struggling. Any thoughts?

Thanks.
Click to expand...

Have you tried turning down everything else?
 
Re: Clarity not Volume

Nick Williamson said:
...I've taken out a lot of the low and high mids, but I'm still struggling. Any thoughts?
Click to expand...
Nick,

The low-mids are where a lot of the "power" and "body" of most sources are and the high-mids are where "articulation" and "intelligibility" are found. (Please excuse the technical terminology.)

If you can, post some pictures of:
1. the space
2. the equipment you have available

AND provide a detailed description of the signal chain, starting from the source and finishing at the loudspeaker.

Also, it would be good to know what sources are involved in your services - guitars, keyboards, organ, vocals, etc.

Those things would help us a lot.
 
Re: Clarity not Volume

Nick,

One of the biggest issues I have when mixing worship bands, etc. is with their guitars and getting them to sit nicely in the mix AND play well together.

I find that, often, the guitarsits are playing very similar chords, etc. which makes everything blend together. Do your guitarists do lead, rhythm, etc. well enough to have separation on their own? If not, there's no way you'll get the separation you're looking for.

How do they sound just running through their amps? If they're not on amps, how do the sound solo'd at the console? If they're not doing different stuff, it'll just be one big pile of mush.
 
Re: Clarity not Volume

Jordan Wolf said:
Nick,

One of the biggest issues I have when mixing worship bands, etc. is with their guitars and getting them to sit nicely in the mix AND play well together.

I find that, often, the guitarsits are playing very similar chords, etc. which makes everything blend together. Do your guitarists do lead, rhythm, etc. well enough to have separation on their own? If not, there's no way you'll get the separation you're looking for.

How do they sound just running through their amps? If they're not on amps, how do the sound solo'd at the console? If they're not doing different stuff, it'll just be one big pile of mush.
Click to expand...

That is one of my complaints about many Christian musicians/arrangements. You have multiple people playing THE SAME THING! A couple of acoustic guitars-an electric or two and then you add a couple of keyboard players who believe that every finger has to be playing a note at the same time-and you end up with a big "mush" of sound.,

There is no way to get any seperation.

THE MUSICIANS have to start the seperation. leave space in the music-play in different octaves-don't play full chords-add nore fills than just "strumming along" and so froth can go a long way to a "clearer" sound.
 
Re: Clarity not Volume

Ivan Beaver said:
That is one of my complaints about many Christian musicians/arrangements. You have multiple people playing THE SAME THING! A couple of acoustic guitars-an electric or two and then you add a couple of keyboard players who believe that every finger has to be playing a note at the same time-and you end up with a big "mush" of sound.,

There is no way to get any seperation.

THE MUSICIANS have to start the seperation. leave space in the music-play in different octaves-don't play full chords-add nore fills than just "strumming along" and so froth can go a long way to a "clearer" sound.
Click to expand...

The music exists in the spaces between the notes.
 
Re: Clarity not Volume

Is there any kind of time-alignment in the system? If the stage sound and the speaker sound is not time-aligned and the volume from stage is within 20 db of the total volume you'll have some smear, if the levels are fairly equal and you don't have perfect alignment (which you'll never achieve) you'll also experience cancellations.
 
Moving one guitarist to "Nashville" tuning is a great way to get an acoustic guitar to sit in a busy mix.

But there is no substitute for good arranging on the part of the band.
 
Re: Clarity not Volume

Jay Barracato said:
Moving one guitarist to "Nashville" tuning is a great way to get an acoustic guitar to sit in a busy mix.

But there is no substitute for good arranging on the part of the band.
Click to expand...

+3

i remember many a festival date where i just couldn't get a mix together on a band to save my life and i'm really starting to think i don't know what i'm doing. then the next band steps up and suddenly i'm Scovill...

like gravity, GIGO isn't just a suggestion, it's the LAW!

from a more practical standpoint though... if you have no control over what's happening on stage [and most of us don't] the next step is to start taking stuff away. one of the very common mistakes made is to make each instrument sound good by itself during soundcheck. then when they all start playing at once it's nothing but mudville. i try to make sonic 'lanes' for things to sit in. this often means hacking up some of the instruments sonically to make them fit. but the sum ends up sounding much better than the parts.

also, when working with lesser polished bands, compression is you friend. and often it has to be applied VERY liberally....

still, it's often very difficult to apply a shiny finish to that which has been properly digested and excreted...
 
Re: Clarity not Volume

Jordan Wolf said:
Nick,

One of the biggest issues I have when mixing worship bands, etc. is with their guitars and getting them to sit nicely in the mix AND play well together.

I find that, often, the guitarsits are playing very similar chords, etc. which makes everything blend together. Do your guitarists do lead, rhythm, etc. well enough to have separation on their own? If not, there's no way you'll get the separation you're looking for.

How do they sound just running through their amps? If they're not on amps, how do the sound solo'd at the console? If they're not doing different stuff, it'll just be one big pile of mush.
Click to expand...

I have found the exact same thing... most often with two acoustic guitars playing the same thing. Well, almost the same thing, but "off" just enough to make it mush. If you can't get them to change what they're playing, just figure out which one sounds better, turn the other one down. Or... if you must have both coming through the system, try panning one to each side (assuming you have a stereo system). Sometimes it helps, sometimes not...

To add to that, many churches have an electric guitar player that ends up strumming along doing the same thing as the two acoustics...
 
Re: Clarity not Volume

Rainer Halonen said:
I have found the exact same thing... most often with two acoustic guitars playing the same thing. Well, almost the same thing, but "off" just enough to make it mush. If you can't get them to change what they're playing, just figure out which one sounds better, turn the other one down. Or... if you must have both coming through the system, try panning one to each side (assuming you have a stereo system). Sometimes it helps, sometimes not...

To add to that, many churches have an electric guitar player that ends up strumming along doing the same thing as the two acoustics...
Click to expand...


Or the keyboard player stomping all over the bass lines.......
 
Re: Clarity not Volume

Silas Pradetto said:
That's why I have a sweepable high pass filter 8)~:cool:~:cool:
Click to expand...

Make sure if there are electric guitars that they're not scooping their mids. Some folks like that smiley face curve on their amp, but then it can't be heard in the mix.
On amps, I play a fender, and the other plays a Vox, which helps. We also make sure we're usually playing very different parts so that you don't have the "molly hatchet" effect of everyone trying to do the same thing. So even when the keyboard player picks up a guitar, it's 3 different parts that work together vs. all trying to strum the same chords.

We had to convince our keyboard player to play an octave higher to get out of the guitars - now his parts are loud and clear.

I'd get the band orchestration settled first without PA, and then add to reinforce to taste.
 
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