Can You Say Ear Training

Brad hit some of my thoughts.

My first guess was that it is not feedback in the primary vocal mic/wedge and she even moves the position of the mic significantly to see if that helps.

Given the wind onstage, the fact that it starts at a transition, that it doesnt seem to increase in level, and the fairly low tone she sings in reproducing it leads me to believe it is a resonance rather than gain related feedback.

Add to the fact that she sings the problem to the monitor tech who for all we know was involved in a list of cue changes or making changes to the needy but deaf guitarist who needs changes for every songs mix. Fairly shortly after her first couple of song lines she smiles at something so I would guess he said something in her ears to acknowledge the problem.

As far as the minute that elaspes after that before the problem appears to be fixed, that seems quick to me considering the tech has a stage with a footprint twice as large as my house, a six or seven piece band plus a horn section and backup singers, probably 8-10 wedge mixes and possibly as many iem mixes that he found and fixed the problem at the source fairly quickly without hacking the stars mix to shreds.

My bet is the that the wind was exciting a tenor sax with a clip on mic, and since the wind often significantly changes at sundown, I am not sure how you would prepare for that in advance.

Once again I know all the statements about mixing with your eyes, but helping with this problem is something having the spectrograph in Smaart on the cue bus excels with.
 
Re: Can You Say Ear Training

How do you know it was her mic feeding back?

I wouldn't suspect it feeding back in her primary wedges, maybe the sidefills... (judging by the video clip)

What I would suspect (since the rest of the band is on wedges), and this happened on an intro to a song, is that an acoustic instrument was unmuted when it shouldn't have been, and started resonating.

I just finished an acoustic tour leg where 90% of the time, it was the dobro feeding back in it's wedge due to incorrect pedal presses (the player kept the dobro inches away from the wedge, compared to his playing position a few feet away). A gate works well until the rest of the band starts playing, then it opens up and starts the whole feedback process. And hacking that much lo mid out of the strip made it sound too thin to the artists and myself.

The other 9% was FOH related (proximity to speaker stacks with very resonant instruments).

The last 1% was zingers off of background vocal mics due to temperature and humidity changes throughout the show, or in some cases, the stage ceiling geometry.

BRad

my experience would echo Brad's assessment. As an Acoustic Guitar player, i've found 250 and 500 to often be the resonant frequencies that tend to take off. A dobro is just an acoustic slide guitar, so same basic difference. If the instrument wasn't being played on that tune, the feedback would stay constant [since it wasn't moving with the player's movements] and the player would not have realized it and palm muted it. And with everything else going on on stage, that'd be an easy one to miss as a monitor engineer, especially if the instrument was supposed to be muted by the player.

If i was the ME, i'd want to have a few words with that player.... :)

Joss did do a good job of playing it off and not going all diva, which is the mark of a true pro. I wish some of the more seasoned 'professionals' i've worked with had that same ability.
 
Re: Can You Say Ear Training

Brad and Jay have it pretty much figured out.

Anyone that went for her wedge first was not following the visual cues.
You should all know by now that her mic in relation to her wedges would not give that even, slow of a feedback, given the amount that her mic moves around.

And its a good lesson in using your eyes to figure out problems. Usually they come from change, and if you are following the changes on stage, such as sudden movements, and as pointed out, in the weather, then you will be able to fix the problem faster than just going for the vocal mic and mangling the EQ.
 
Re: Can You Say Ear Training

How do you know it was her mic feeding back?

I wouldn't suspect it feeding back in her primary wedges, maybe the sidefills... (judging by the video clip)

What I would suspect (since the rest of the band is on wedges), and this happened on an intro to a song, is that an acoustic instrument was unmuted when it shouldn't have been, and started resonating.

I just finished an acoustic tour leg where 90% of the time, it was the dobro feeding back in it's wedge due to incorrect pedal presses (the player kept the dobro inches away from the wedge, compared to his playing position a few feet away). A gate works well until the rest of the band starts playing, then it opens up and starts the whole feedback process. And hacking that much lo mid out of the strip made it sound too thin to the artists and myself.

The other 9% was FOH related (proximity to speaker stacks with very resonant instruments).

The last 1% was zingers off of background vocal mics due to temperature and humidity changes throughout the show, or in some cases, the stage ceiling geometry.

BRad


I couldn't agree with this more.
 
Re: Can You Say Ear Training

Spoken like someone who has never done a big league gig.

Actually you know what, no I do not get to regularly do a "big league gig". Ive still had my fair share, and big league or not I also hold myself and fellow techs to higher expectations. I try my absolute best to take in account for different variables that could cause problems once the room fills up, heats up and the band goes on. If Im in a 500cap room feedback on my gigs is unacceptable, so if Im at a 20,000cap gig it is ALSO very unacceptable. I think its pretty critical to hear all mics left open unmuted as well as all mics left open while the entire band is playing. You can even run the vocals pretty hot during soundcheck in the FOH PA to figure out what may be a problem or future problem. Does it ever happen? Yeah, Shit happens things change.


The good is that once they found the problem, they fixed it and it seemed to go away permanently. I too also liked how she and the band handled it.
 
Last edited:
Re: Can You Say Ear Training

Spoken like someone who has never done a big league gig.

At a Folk Festival I provide sound for, we have a stage manager who gets worked up over everything, and loses her cool, every single year.
This last year was no exception. We were having breakfast on Sunday, when she calls my co-worker/employee. (my phone was off)
She was at the stage and wondering why we were not there yet to sound check the headliner. He explained that we would be there, when we said we would be. I could here her yell at him over his phone, "This is a Big Goddamned Deal!"

Pretty much is a catch phrase and laughing stock round these parts now.
 
Re: Can You Say Ear Training

You know, just a thought: A really, really cool (but definitely abusable) feature on a digital console would be the ability to put a notch filter on every single input and/or output at once, and then undo each one on it's own to find the problem. Of course, it would be possible to slice a mix to shreds with it (not to mention lock up the console), but in an emergency? Boom- problem solved.
 
Re: Can You Say Ear Training

You know, just a thought: A really, really cool (but definitely abusable) feature on a digital console would be the ability to put a notch filter on every single input and/or output at once.

I'm going to try something like this on a GLD. Ring out the wedges individually with the parametrics then gang the graphics on the aux mixes.

Chris
 
Re: Can You Say Ear Training

You know, just a thought: A really, really cool (but definitely abusable) feature on a digital console would be the ability to put a notch filter on every single input and/or output at once, and then undo each one on it's own to find the problem. Of course, it would be possible to slice a mix to shreds with it (not to mention lock up the console), but in an emergency? Boom- problem solved.
Hmmm, if the console can be controlled via software you should be able to accomplish this.

On the x32 where you have the osc-protocol implemented you'd be able to this quite easy. I'm not sure about other mixers implementations...
 
Re: Can You Say Ear Training

Some of the spectrum analyzer programs might have the ability to actually output the frequency of the peakiest point of the spectrum, and thus might supply a frequency for an osc application. I've only used the analyzers for visual output, so I don't know for sure if that facility actually exist. Just a thought.