Mixing Resources

Re: Mixing Resources

Adam Black said:
A HPF with a corner of 100Hz for guitar? Perhaps you're generalizing or the corner is higher, but if not it strikes me as odd because in standard tuning the low E is 82.41Hz. Could you expound on the rationale please? Or specify the actual corner and the HPF shape and slope. Though I suspect my confusion is that I know enough to be really dangerous. :blush:

See what I mean by I've a lot of theory and am well versed in the math, but little of the practical.
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I believe Silas and Chris Hindle answered that one well. Another thing is the "mathematics" are just a place to start. There are other things going on like room reflections and variations in the analog parts of the signal which are not always as precise as the digital components. As Phil mentioned you have to think of the mix as a whole rather than just concentrating on individual parts.

As I said you need to get rid of the stuff you don't want. Then you have to make a place for everything in the mix. A guitar may sound great by itself but because it is in the same range as the lead vocal we might want to scoop a few dB out somewhere in the midrange to let the vocal be more intelligible. Once you get rid of all the mud and rumble on the bottom and then get rid of all the slosh in the mid and upper ranges it is just a matter of balancing the mix and featuring the things you want to be prominent. You will find that most of the real work is done on the midrange where almost everything has a fundamental or major harmonic tone.
 
Re: Mixing Resources

Chris Nixon said:
It depends what is meant by "gain". If it's the preamp gain, this can't be true as the EQ is after the preamp.

If it's referring to clipping somewhere else in the signal chain then it makes sense. You are turning the signal down, but only in one frequency band.

You could sort of think of the EQ as being like a frequency-band-specific version of a fader.

Do you have a link to that video?

Chris
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here's the link you asked for Chris, what i was talking about is around the 3 min mark maybe a little afterwards, but he is talking about the overhead mics that they aren't showing much of a level since he EQ'ed them.


2/6 Yamaha Live Sound Clinic - Mixing a Live Band w/ Emke - YouTube
 
Re: Mixing Resources

Jimmy Hardin said:
here's the link you asked for Chris, what i was talking about is around the 3 min mark maybe a little afterwards, but he is talking about the overhead mics that they aren't showing much of a level since he EQ'ed them.


2/6 Yamaha Live Sound Clinic - Mixing a Live Band w/ Emke - YouTube
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As Chris said - EQ will reduce the level after the EQ section. If the metering is after the EQ section, then yes, it will reduce the level the meter shows (and the actual level).

Some consoles offer level indication for each 'block' of input processing, and some analog consoles reportedly had a clip LED that could be triggered at any point in the signal chain.

This is why the EQ section on digital consoles has an attenuation knob, so you can make up lost gain or reduce gain if you make a large boost.

Remember that there are many points in a console where clipping can occur and not all of them have LEDs showing this.

The iLive is an excellent example - it shows the clip status of subgroups, even if the subgroup is turned all the way down, because you can still overdrive the input of a group even if the output level of that group is significantly lower than clip, due to the fader being turned down.
 
Re: Mixing Resources

Silas Pradetto said:
As Chris said - EQ will reduce the level after the EQ section. If the metering is after the EQ section, then yes, it will reduce the level the meter shows (and the actual level).

Some consoles offer level indication for each 'block' of input processing, and some analog consoles reportedly had a clip LED that could be triggered at any point in the signal chain.

This is why the EQ section on digital consoles has an attenuation knob, so you can make up lost gain or reduce gain if you make a large boost.

Remember that there are many points in a console where clipping can occur and not all of them have LEDs showing this.

The iLive is an excellent example - it shows the clip status of subgroups, even if the subgroup is turned all the way down, because you can still overdrive the input of a group even if the output level of that group is significantly lower than clip, due to the fader being turned down.
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Yeah as i think about it . I think i see what ya'll are saying . this guy in the video is eq'ing after the gain, so anything after on the parametric eq so anything after that will be reduced in level right?
 
Re: Mixing Resources

Jimmy Hardin said:
Yeah as i think about it . I think i see what ya'll are saying . this guy in the video is eq'ing after the gain, so anything after on the parametric eq so anything after that will be reduced in level right?
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Yes. Let's say you have a kick drum. Big thump at say 80Hz. Now put in a deep cut at 80Hz. There will be almost no signal left - it will be reduced by how deep the filter is.
 
Re: Mixing Resources

Jimmy Hardin said:
And then you can turn your gain up a little more then right?
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I would say "No", if you mean input gain. You can add make-up gain after the eq or turn the fader on that channel up, but adding gain at the input might cause distortion and clipping even if the "level" of that channel now is quite low. Particularly on drums it is very easy to turn the gain up too much and get clipping even if it doesn't seem loud.
 
Re: Mixing Resources

Excellent advice from all.

I particularly found Phil's first post very well articulated and helpful. I'll plan to listen to some genre specific music today and practice that skill of going from single instrument in the mix to whole mix and getting a good mental picture of that integration. Then I'll try to recreate that when I'm at my "gig" mixing at church tomorrow morning. I'm with Adam and many others here that it would be so awesome to get to hang out and mix together with some real pros...I'm sure much would be learned very quickly. Reading on the internet is one thing but hands on instruction seems like it could accomplish so much more in much less time.

Thanks all,
Loren
 
Re: Mixing Resources

Loren Jones said:
Excellent advice from all.

I'm with Adam and many others here that it would be so awesome to get to hang out and mix together with some real pros...I'm sure much would be learned very quickly. Reading on the internet is one thing but hands on instruction seems like it could accomplish so much more in much less time.

Thanks all,
Loren
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I will take this opportunity to plug Robert Scovill's "Complete FOH Engineer" seminar and urge folks to sign up when it is offered again. Speaking of which... go to Robert Scovill on Pro Audio, Mixing, Engineering and use the contact page to let Robert know you're interested. I'm pretty sure there is a face-space page, too.
 
Tim McCulloch said:
I will take this opportunity to plug Robert Scovill's "Complete FOH Engineer" seminar and urge folks to sign up when it is offered again. Speaking of which... go to Robert Scovill on Pro Audio, Mixing, Engineering and use the contact page to let Robert know you're interested. I'm pretty sure there is a face-space page, too.
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I met Robert this spring in Chicago. Great guy to talk to...I learned a lot in the hour I was with him.
 
Re: Mixing Resources

Hey, I'm about 2 miles from your office but you're right - at a gig it's hard to have time to explain what you are doing and why. Plus folks hereabout are mostly too poor to afford me LOL. I had a freebee multiband charity thing up at the Woodstock fairgrounds last month that would have been good for yah and a dive bar gig up in Webster but nothing coming up local that's public :(. I'm also an embedded systems programmer so we'd even be able to geek-speak ;) .
 
Re: Mixing Resources

I reread Phil's first post. I think pretty much everybody really really sucks at live band mixing starting out. It is almost a right of passage that the first time you throw up the faders for a full band you end up with a loud horrible mess where you can't hear anything but loud. If you had a little guidance hopefully it gets better as you tweak. If you don't have a little guidance it usually gets worse.

There are a couple of things I usually see beginning engineers do wrong right off the bat. First is what I call "fader creep" where they keep turning things up. I need more vocals. Now I need more guitar. Now I need more snare drum. Now I need more vocals. You get the idea. More more more and the faders go up up and up until there is no more headroom. What you actually need is BALANCE. This balance needs to be achieved within the headroom of the system with hopefully a good margin left over for the peaks and then some. If you need more vocals and they are already close to unity and gained in correctly then the approach is to listen to what is "stepping on them" and lower the offenders with either a fader move or an EQ scoop. I find the faders of most seasoned engineers to almost all be in nearly a straight line a few dB below unity. If the input gain and EQ are correct it just seems to end up that way.

The next thing I see most novice engineers (and some of you control freak seasoned engineers) do is being "glued" to the console constantly tweaking. Dial it in and let the band do their thing. Make the occasional tweak, but if everything is set up well from the get go then really most of your work is done. We are "capturing" sound. The musicians are creating it. We have to clean it up and make it pretty, but they create it. Yes we have a few more duties like muting the effects between songs when the singer is talking and adjusting delay times as it is called for on different tempo songs and other FX stuff, but constantly adjusting channel EQ and things like that the whole set reek of "novice". If you can easily walk around and listen to the mix in various audience positions by all means take a minute or two every now and then and do it. Your awareness of what it is sounding like to the audience is a part of being professional. The better you get the quicker the mix happens and the less you have to adjust it. I used to tell my soundmen in training, "If it sounds right LEAVE IT ALONE."

And by the way I have heard Phil mix and I can assure you he does not suck anymore.
 
Re: Mixing Resources

^ Great description of the all-too-common "mixing up" and also of what I try to practice, "mixing down". In smaller shows you should be trying to balance out the direct sound from the stage, not overpower it into submission.
 
Re: Mixing Resources

Ron Kimball said:
In smaller shows you should be trying to balance out the direct sound from the stage, not overpower it into submission.
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That is such an excellent point. We have such a great advantage now with being able to delay the mains to (or actually a few milliseconds behind) the backline that this shouldn't even be an issue except for the worst offenders. In a small room the term sound "reinforcement" takes on a whole new meaning. We can build our mix using the stage volume as a major part of it and truly have a three dimensional sound field. The first time I ever heard it done correctly (thanks Kemper) it was like I could reach out and touch the snare drum yet the fader actually would make the volume go up and down. There is another trick that sometimes works a little bit and that is reversing the phase on something with really loud stage volume. It is hit and miss and you have to play with the EQ but sometimes it helps. Also sometimes you can reverse the phase on one or more of the vocal mics and clean up some of the slosh. This often works especially well if you have a matched pair of open vocal mics each picking up bleed from about the same distance.
 
Re: Mixing Resources

Eric,

I definitely have fallen prey to fader creep (probably too recently) and certainly try actively to do subtractive mixing to combat that tendency. Excellent points.

Thanks

Eric Cagle said:
I reread Phil's first post. I think pretty much everybody really really sucks at live band mixing starting out. It is almost a right of passage that the first time you throw up the faders for a full band you end up with a loud horrible mess where you can't hear anything but loud. If you had a little guidance hopefully it gets better as you tweak. If you don't have a little guidance it usually gets worse.

There are a couple of things I usually see beginning engineers do wrong right off the bat. First is what I call "fader creep" where they keep turning things up. I need more vocals. Now I need more guitar. Now I need more snare drum. Now I need more vocals. You get the idea. More more more and the faders go up up and up until there is no more headroom. What you actually need is BALANCE. This balance needs to be achieved within the headroom of the system with hopefully a good margin left over for the peaks and then some. If you need more vocals and they are already close to unity and gained in correctly then the approach is to listen to what is "stepping on them" and lower the offenders with either a fader move or an EQ scoop. I find the faders of most seasoned engineers to almost all be in nearly a straight line a few dB below unity. If the input gain and EQ are correct it just seems to end up that way.

The next thing I see most novice engineers (and some of you control freak seasoned engineers) do is being "glued" to the console constantly tweaking. Dial it in and let the band do their thing. Make the occasional tweak, but if everything is set up well from the get go then really most of your work is done. We are "capturing" sound. The musicians are creating it. We have to clean it up and make it pretty, but they create it. Yes we have a few more duties like muting the effects between songs when the singer is talking and adjusting delay times as it is called for on different tempo songs and other FX stuff, but constantly adjusting channel EQ and things like that the whole set reek of "novice". If you can easily walk around and listen to the mix in various audience positions by all means take a minute or two every now and then and do it. Your awareness of what it is sounding like to the audience is a part of being professional. The better you get the quicker the mix happens and the less you have to adjust it. I used to tell my soundmen in training, "If it sounds right LEAVE IT ALONE."

And by the way I have heard Phil mix and I can assure you he does not suck anymore.
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Re: Mixing Resources

Loren Jones said:
Eric,

I definitely have fallen prey to fader creep (probably too recently) and certainly try actively to do subtractive mixing to combat that tendency. Excellent points.

Thanks
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I think that is probably a right of passage we have all done as well. You have to remember to blame the rig for not being loud enough to fully be a member and get the t-shirt.
 
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