Sometimes, I never want to hear the word 'audio' again after days like this.

J

John O'Brien

Sophomore
Mar 2, 2011
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Behind a bush.
www.johnheywarddesigns.com
Ok, this is kind of a like rant, kind of like an embarrassing story, and completely just me being super frustrated. Maybe some of you have had issues like this that make you want to hide in a corner before?

I currently work at Liberty University, where we do a Convocation three times a week, for 10,000 students. We have installed boxes in the ceiling(not sure the brand, but they're delay zones) and we hang Vertec every morning for the floor seats. Today, was a super crazy day as we had presidential hopeful, Rick Perry, speaking in our Convocation.

I'm currently manning FOH, working off of a 5D, and we had one of the teams that travels and represents the school, leading the music today. Keys, guitars, drums, bass, sax, loops, 6 vocals... nothing crazy.

The day was high pressure as it was, given our guest speaker, and with all of that I was a wee bit on edge myself. Going through it, I was really happy with the mix, my bosses were happy with my mix, and I was expecting to roll right on through and be done with it. Until the third song....

It starts off with track and vocal, and all of sudden out of no where, 100 htz comes out of no where and blows everything out of the water. I'm astounded and know it didn't come from MONS, and start pulling faders to figure out where this thing came from. Finally the monster goes away and I start easing my faders back to my mix levels, and it appears again. I finally isolate it to one of the electric guitars, kill it, and recover for the last few bits of the song.

I'm pretty frustrated at this point, because this was not a little rumble, but more like a roar that took over the entire system until I killed it. 10,000 sets of eyes, cast upon me and looking for me to fix it. And not only that, it was all being fed to our broadcast booth for a mix being sent to the internet, TV, CSPAN and the like. It was bad. So of course, I'm kicking myself and expecting to get chewed out because of this, but I know that everything was fine during my soundchecks. Not the case, yet.

Upon the end of the Convo, I was under the deck trying to figure out where my guitar feedback came from, and I found the issue. I found the bloody issue....

The amp was 'here', and the mic... was 3 feet away from it, pointed towards our subs. How it got moved, when it got moved, and who moved it, are a mystery to me. It boggles my mind! My crew knows nothing of it, the guitarist claims innocence(and I believe him, as he's a good friend of mine), and I'm clueless myself.

It just gets me, because it's not something I did wrong at the board or in my mechanics of mixing. The gain was the same it was in last nights soundcheck, everything was set. I didn't move the mic... it just gets me inside, because if it was something that I knew I did, I'd make a mental note and then never do it again. But now I'm just left with, well, 'just check the mics' and go.

I know life will go on and this mix has already faded away, but it still bugs me. Now you guys know, and feel free to drop some comments if you have questions. End rant.
 
Re: Sometimes, I never want to hear the word 'audio' again after days like this.

That sucks, but how you handle it is what really counts. You did well.

My only question: Why would the guitar mic be feeding the subs (thus creating that feedback path)?
 
They weren't feeding the subs, but they were picking up sub frequencies as the sub was 10 feet away. Now, I did have a roll off on the mic(a 421) so my guess of the frequency could be off. It was in the moment, and truthfully it sounded like much more than just one isolated frequency. Another thought I had, and I could be off, is that because the mic was in open air under the deck, and not directly against the amp, it might have been picking up low end build up under the stage. :/ It was most frustrating given that this screw up, however it happened, bombed on national television.


Sent from my iPhone
 
Re: Sometimes, I never want to hear the word 'audio' again after days like this.

As another politician once said "I feel your pain" :(~:-(~:sad:
 
Re: Sometimes, I never want to hear the word 'audio' again after days like this.

John O'Brien said:
Ok, this is kind of a like rant, kind of like an embarrassing story, and completely just me being super frustrated. Maybe some of you have had issues like this that make you want to hide in a corner before?
Click to expand...

Yikes! Yeah, that brings back some memories for me. My worst experiences had nowhere near as wide an audience as yours, but I still had my times when I felt like sliding down my mixing chair and hiding underneath my (relatively large) mixing desk. The fact that the "talent" I was mixing for drew unnecessary attention to me didn't help the situation at all.

In any case, for me it was not due to anything I did either. Someone else had changed something without my knowledge or understanding. (friendly fire)

Best thing to do is change or fix whatever it is that you can, and keep going at it!!
 
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Re: Sometimes, I never want to hear the word 'audio' again after days like this.

I was running a wedding where I brought an 01v96 in to replace the Mackie 1604 onsite. The output to the house system was a 1/4" TRS that normally plugged into the 1604. I removed the Mackie, and plugged the TRS jack into the monitor out of the 01v96 (which is the same bus as drives the headphone jack) - the only TRS output that was convenient. I figured as long as I don't adjust the monitor out gain, I'll be fine.

Right as the minister was getting ready to speak, I attempted to turn his mic on, but inadvertently pushed the solo button instead. Since my fader for that channel was below zero, the PFL level was hotter than the main path through L+R, and feedback city. This was made worse because it took about 9 or 10 seconds to find it, since even turning off the main fader didn't silence the noise - I had to unsolo the channel.

We all have crashes. Figuring out how to not do that particular thing wrong again indicates a functioning brain, and you'll live to fight another day.
 
Re: Sometimes, I never want to hear the word 'audio' again after days like this.

Hey John,

Kudos to you for finding the problem and keeping the show going...never easy.

I do have one comment (I wouldn't blame anyone for overlooking a step of troubleshooting, especially under pressure): when you PFL a channel that consists of a close-miked guitar cab, you expect it to sound a certain way. Now, I know from experience that, to my ears, a mic moved away 3ft. would cause that amp to seem much more distant. My immediate reaction would probably be to crank the gain to compensate.

Knowing that, I would try to take an extra moment of time to listen for what had changed sonically and then research it of possible.

Again, I hope this didn't come across as negatively critical - I just wanted to point out that sometimes taking a little more time to listen to the problem can keep us from creating another one.

All the best,
 
Re: Sometimes, I never want to hear the word 'audio' again after days like this.

I had a similar experience where I was mixing FOH for the audience while the event was taped for a TV show. The TV production was basically calling the shots and had a bunch of special requirements like we had to use their mic package, nor could I be onstage at any time. The producers had the band so wrapped up about time on stage and not touching anything that they were going to basically start their set and plow on to the end regardless of what was happening tech wise.

We did get an extensive sound check, but still had to share a couple of channels on an analog board so I quickly memorized some settings. Fortunately, I was able to arrange things that the shared channels were not any of the vocal channels. I was pretty happy with the sound check and the stage crew then went through spiking the stage. they even did things like measure the heights of mics.

When our turn in the show came, the stage was reset for us, and the band started playing. I immediately had problems with two vocal and two instrument channels. I could also tell from some of the bands body postures that something just wasn't right but they were just going to keep on playing.

Turns out one vocal channel I had almost no level because the singer couldn't get close to it because of where her guitar mic was placed. The booming guitar I was able to turn down but there was no way to get enough gain in the vocal mic. The mandolin player is doing this back and forth dance between playing and singing because his instrument mic stand is on the wrong side of his vocal mic stand.

I had no direct com, so I am shouting back and forth with the cameraman in front of FOH. He is saying that if I can't do better the producers are going to replace me, I am saying I can't do anything with the mics placed the way they are, please tell the stage crew to fix them. And we went back and forth till about the second to last song, when I don't know if the stage crew finally got a message to the band or if the band just got tired of the placement but the band moved the stuff themselves (a big no no by house rules). So everything was better just in time to leave the stage.
 
Re: Sometimes, I never want to hear the word 'audio' again after days like this.

Ha, thanks Bennett. It's the little things that help. While I am pretty bummed, it's over, done with, and the shows must go on. Needless to say I'm going to start gaffing guitar mic stands to the ground... ha.

Jay, that is one crazy situation. I hope that you had someone that could defend you and stand up for what you were seeing and not just assume that you were screwing everything up carte-blanch. I'm lucky in my situation because my boss is sticking up for me against any of the 'higher ups' that might be freaking out.

Jordan, this was the crazy twist, and I was able to confirm this with the broadcast engineer after show too. We BOTH had that electric guitar, as normal, for the first two songs of the act. Those songs were followed by a talking head who was introducing the speaker and what not. We both LOST the guitar at the start of the song after the talking head. Sometime between the end of the song, the talking head, and the start of the next song, that mic magically moved. We're talking a span of about 3-4 minutes here. :/ Not knowing this had happened, and assuming the best(which, could be good or bad. ha) I rolled with it and that's when things started happening. It was the weirdest thing
 
Re: Sometimes, I never want to hear the word 'audio' again after days like this.

Not a TV show but podcast world wide and also sent to 2 other campuses, when the main speaker is just leaving the stage and making his closing comments the idea was the band come on and start to play quietly, so mute groups off huge low end feed back, this at the end of a 10 hour day with NO issues at all, turns out the accoustic guitar tuner battery had ran out and the thing had unmuted while the guitar is sitting right beside 4 ARCS and 2 SB218s. Scared me well and truly and completley ruined the moment but nobody died and all that, though I was looking for a 6ft deep hole to hide in for a while G
 
Re: Sometimes, I never want to hear the word 'audio' again after days like this.

Mine was a CD Launch for 2 artists using the same backing band, which had 3 critically acclaimed cd's to their name as well.

However it's a christian gig; not much money and i'm doing a favour; it's also early in my career so I didnn't know better then. Mix position was on balcony of the theatre.

We get to a part for acoustic guitar and vocal song towards the end of the show. DI for acoustic fails. I don't know why (turned out later to have been unplugged - who did that ?). I can't communicate with artist; I can't get to stage 'cause of the balcony. I don't have a crew (I didn't know better then..).

I wanted a hole to open up and swallow me.

Artist however turned it into a golden moment. sang without a mic and played acoustic with no mic/di. Audience quiet as a mouse. Great moment.

I still wish it didn't happen though !

Andrew
 
Re: Sometimes, I never want to hear the word 'audio' again after days like this.

I was doing a heavy metal show with the act on a clam shell stage. I couldn't see much of the band because of the crowd in front. Suddenly the kick sound dissapeared. the band has a fit and wouldn't play the next song until it came back. I brought up the inside kick mic and the show resumed. After the show I discovered that the D6 on the stand was no longer even pointed at the drum let alone in the hole.

You would think that any one of the musos would have noticed but I guess they were to busy standing on my new EAW monitors.
 
Re: Sometimes, I never want to hear the word 'audio' again after days like this.

Bennett Prescott said:
Hey John,

Just repeat the Sound Guy's Mantra: "I've fucked up bigger gigs than this."
Click to expand...

That's exactly what I was thinking.

I wouldn't have lost a wink over the OPs situation. Sometimes things happen that you have no control over. Recover quickly, repair if necessary, and move on.
 
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