Mixing Milestone

Lisa Lane-Collins

Lisa Lane-Collins

Sophomore
Dec 9, 2012
270
0
16
Adelaide, Australia
A bit of a delirious post gig debrief, cos this is monumental event for me and I want to share it with people who get it..

mixed my first festival set today.

Didn't ace it.... didn't fail it... Generally good feedback from the band (said it sounded good on stage), family and friends (thought it sounded good out the front). Know a lot of things I will do differently next time, like not use a bunch of omni Audio Technicas for a really quiet all acoustic Gypsy Jazz ensemble (these are what the stage and floor tech recommended.....I thought they would know best what to use out of what was available......I was wrong...), make sure I get the bassist's cheap crappy bug plugged into a DI just in case... never ever Ever rely on just an omni Audio Technica for bass ever again (everyone else had a bug as well but he was just mic and that mic had as much of everyone else in it as it did of him!!!! So much rumble, so not tight bass out the front at all!)

First time mixing for an audience of more than 100 (at least 150, maybe 200 people, sat, filling up the space between the stage and the sound tent and spilling out to either side of it, entranced, from start to finish, watching this little Adelaide band that no one had ever even heard of before they got booked for WOMAD. Amazing!!!)

First time mixing as a team, I've never done a gig before where someone else sets up the mics on stage and someone (in the end) does the sound check while I stand on stage and act as liason between the system tech and band.

First time mixing with no foh sound check (just a thorough foldback check).

First time mixing without resorting to the graphic EQ to fix everything from feedback to bad tone.

First time using headphones as part of the mixing process (eureka moment, THAT's how I can find out what channel has that resonant frequency that is bugging me!!!!)

Not my first time mixing outdoors by a long shot but first time mixing outdoors in a really professional setting, being the filter between how the band Actually sounds and how they sound to the audience o.O

I know it could have gone worse, I wish I had stuck with my initial specs of SM57s on everything, I fudged a good mix but I could have done so much more if I had had more control. Do we get another go of this? I know I will be more valuable to This band as a band tech for having experienced tonight because now I can assert "these guys are really quiet on stage, omni condensors are a bad idea" also "the mic for the clarinet looks a little low, I really Really think it needs to be higher" (man that thing was SHRILL). Having this knowledge, that I could only gain through actually Being there, and trying things, that's kinda cool :-)

Reeeeeeeeeally want more hands on experience with this kind of mixing gig. Want it SO BAD!!!! Now even WOMAD has been snapped up by the only company in town that does festivals. There's no two ways about it, I am going to have to do my time as a lowly box pusher for this hire company if I ever want to go in as system tech....although.....getting into festivals as a band tech might actually be the cushier gig. Security think I'm an artist at WOMAD, I have a free four day pass, I can go ANYWHERE I WANT TO MWOAHAHAHAHA (and the furthest cry from how I was treated when I did work experience there some years ago). So, all in all, pretty stoked about today! :-D
 
Re: Mixing Milestone

I don't know if it's just me, but the words "omni" and "live" really do not belong together in the same sentence on a regular basis. :)

Glad you got some time on a gig like this.
 
Re: Mixing Milestone

Sounds like a good experience overall. If you hadn't been forced to use the omnis, you would have lost some of the "teaching moments" you had of mic choice and why. That size fest is a lot of fun - and one comes away with lots of new experience they can use elsewhere in their jobs. I'd say we never ace it - always something we notice and wish for a do-over. Eventually those things we notice are only things we notice.

Does whet the appetite for more of the same - so different from a walk-in bar or regular club gig.

As far as becoming a box pusher - sometimes one has to take a step or two backward to move forward. Is the reward worth it? As far as wandering around WOMAD with a four-day pass... WooHoo!

Be sure to introduce yourself at the different stages/FOH - of course at the appropriate time. Get your face known. Pass a card or two around.

Yeah - you should be stoked. Congrats!
 
Re: Mixing Milestone

Lee Douglas said:
Except on a drummer where they quickly become face mounted cymbal mics. :)
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Okay, I'm actually interested on this one… first off, how did the lav end up on a drummer? Some theatrical sequence where the actor plays the drums or something? Or did he just move around a lot on stage otherwise? I'm honestly intrigued.
 
Re: Mixing Milestone

In reality it's a Omni on a headset that a drummer I work with insists on using, not really a lav, although the result is pretty much the same. Not a theatrical application. We're about to make a switch to a gooseneck/boom set up after a few board recordings showed how truly awful his vocal mic sounded. Thought about moving to a Crown headset but for as little singing as he does (or should be doing/another thread altogether) a boom will work fine. I christened "The Face Worn Cymbal Mic" years ago and it stuck.
 
Re: Mixing Milestone

Lee Douglas said:
In reality it's a Omni on a headset that a drummer I work with insists on using, not really a lav, although the result is pretty much the same. Not a theatrical application. We're about to make a switch to a gooseneck/boom set up after a few board recordings showed how truly awful his vocal mic sounded. Thought about moving to a Crown headset but for as little singing as he does (or should be doing/another thread altogether) a boom will work fine. I christened "The Face Worn Cymbal Mic" years ago and it stuck.
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Good name. At least he saved you the trouble of micing the drumset.
 
Re: Mixing Milestone

Lee Douglas said:
In reality it's a Omni on a headset that a drummer I work with insists on using, not really a lav, although the result is pretty much the same. Not a theatrical application. We're about to make a switch to a gooseneck/boom set up after a few board recordings showed how truly awful his vocal mic sounded. Thought about moving to a Crown headset but for as little singing as he does (or should be doing/another thread altogether) a boom will work fine. I christened "The Face Worn Cymbal Mic" years ago and it stuck.
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I like Heil PR35s on drummers. Drummers like em too. Lots of external rejection.


Sent from my iPad HD
 
Re: Mixing Milestone

IMHO omnis are a good choice for a lot of sources on a stage.

Their main problem is a tendency to feedback due to a lack of proximity effect.
And if you compare a directional to an omni the omni will have a higher noise floor(more unwanted sound) but the source will sound better.
So they are a bit more tricky but not un-usable.
 
Re: Mixing Milestone

Rob Timmerman said:
Somebody doesn't mix much theater...

Or deal much with live broadcast...
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Actually, I mix theater all the time, and while it doesn't count for much, I spent several dozen hours in our school's broadcast studio fighting issues due to directional lavalieres (that also happened to be heavy and limited my placement options). I just thought that in context to Lisa's situation we would naturally be excluding these situations. BUT SINCE WE AREN'T...

Omni directional microphones have their place in live sound production, however, they are realistically unusable most of the time, especially on smaller stages or busier stages. They are far tricker to use and sometimes impossible to use on anything where they are miking something that's quieter when compared to the other sources in the room, but of course, as most of us know, work out well when they are placed within half a foot of the sound source (i.e. live theater) or when the noise floor is low enough or proximity effects due to movement of the head can be a problem (i.e. live broadcast). I've had almost no success with omni directional microphones on instruments (unless they are gated and very close to the source), choirs, and orchestras - but those were poorly designed reinforcement systems anyway.

I THOUGHT about adding "festival" instead of "live" but thought the extra syllables made the humor less effective. I, of course, failed to remind myself what my audience would do to even the slightest inaccuracy or exceptions or the indication that I didn't know what I was talking about. Back to the joke drawing board...
 
Re: Mixing Milestone

Helge Dr. Bentsen said:
IMHO omnis are a good choice for a lot of sources on a stage.

Their main problem is a tendency to feedback due to a lack of proximity effect.
And if you compare a directional to an omni the omni will have a higher noise floor(more unwanted sound) but the source will sound better.
So they are a bit more tricky but not un-usable.
Click to expand...

Propensity to feedback is a function of the omnidirectional pattern and lact of off-axis attenuation that brings. The lack of proximity effect simply means no low frequency buildup (and there are directional microphones with significantly reduced proximity effect as well)
 
Re: Mixing Milestone

Lack of proximity effect means that the mic can't see any low frequencies on longer distances. They are cancelled out in the mics due to the mechanics that create their directionality. So a omni will "see" low freqencies on a distance where the directionals won't, and feed back more easely in the low end. Proximity effect works both ways from the tuning distance where the mic is linear. We are used to think about it in one direction, the closer the mic gets to the source, the more low end you get. But it's an equally powerful force working in the opposite direction. If you move the mic farther frim the source you loose low end. Thats why stereo recordings using omnis tends to sound much better than recordings using directional mics :)


Sent from my iPhone
 
Re: Mixing Milestone

frank kayser said:
Good name. At least he saved you the trouble of micing the drumset.
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Except when he turned off. The exception should have been when he turned it on.

Back on topic: Way to go Lisa. Easy gigs are good but easy and bad gigs suck but make you appreciate the better gigs. My favorite gig is the one where I really feel I've earned it, and made the most from adverse conditions and learned something along the way. And usually can't wait to try and improve upon what I've learned on the next show and learn something new.
 
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