Soundcheck wordpress rapidshare

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Each engineer will have their own preferred order for performing soundchecks, but there are a few established methods. Pooch starts with singers: "If it is a band I am starting from scratch, I always start with the vocal, as this will dictate how all the other instruments will lay in the mix.

Mick adds: "I always start on the ambient mics. It was Mick who first introduced me to this way of working and it makes total sense. I now always start with the lead vocal and listen to somebody on stage talking through it in a normal voice. By 'normal', I mean without shouting or endless 'one twos'. If I have a quiet singer, I will get somebody to talk in a quieter voice so I can judge how the system responds. They will affect the sound of everything else on stage, adding lots of top end to the sound of other instruments.

I will then usually start on the drums. If you just do the bass drum the drummer will always hit it just a bit harder than when they are playing a pattern. Playing a proper beat helps alleviate their boredom and gives you the chance to hear the drums together.

At this point I will always try flipping the phase on the mics to see how things sound, before reaching for the EQ. This is also the time to set up your noise gates, remembering to set the threshold low enough to capture all the beats. I will also introduce the overheads at this point to get an overall sound. In smaller venues these won't be needed as your vocal microphones will be doing a good enough job of picking up the cymbals! After that I get the drummer to play single beats on the toms, and then to play the whole kit with fills and ride patterns.

I will then go on through the different instruments, leaving up the channels I have already worked on. It is always worth getting the musicians to play what they think are their quietest and loudest sounds, as this gives you an idea of the range of levels and sounds you will be dealing with. I will then get the band to do a song. At this point you want to be listening to the way things interact rather than how they sound on their own. Once you've finished soundchecking, remember to make a note of the settings on the mixer, including channel gains, polarity and pad controls.

Mick offers some advice on the early stages of building a mix: "Think about the way you want things to sound. Does the bass guitar fit with the kick drum sound? I think this particular melding together is the underpinning of the whole mix and is very important and difficult to get right. It can be as high as to Hz, depending on the hats, the mic and its position. If using a mic that suffers from a large proximity effect, such as a Shure SM57, I'm prepared to use quite extreme HPF frequency settings, maybe up around Hz.

Thinking about your mix, remember that you are just adding to the stage sound, not replacing it. The major difference between a studio mix and a live mix is that when you pull the faders down the sound doesn't go away, and in some cases doesn't even change that much at all! For this reason, it is important for the band to be balanced on stage, and I'm afraid that if somebody is far too loud they will unbalance a mix — but the same goes for somebody who is too quiet.

Not too far though, as that will work in reverse and start to affect your drum channels. Guitarists can sometimes have a distorted lead sound that is way louder than their usual tone and, if not spotted early, this can leap alarmingly out of the mix. I have also had occasions when the lead sound was actually at a lower level than the rhythm sound, and so needed nudging up a bit. In general though, it is always best to get the band to balance themselves on stage, rather than relying on you to do it all.

Mick: "In smaller environments, as any club engineer knows, the backline contributes a lot to the sound, so another trick that can sometimes help is to delay the entire PA back to the backline.

Not only does this corral multiple arrival times one from the guitar cab, one from the PA , but it can also make for a better sound, as now both cab and PA work in unison and ultimately in phase. Delaying the PA by 10ms will bring it back just over 10 feet in a virtual line with the drum kit. This will help overcome some phase problems and make the sound appear to come from the same source, tying it back to the stage.

When using a digital console with delay on each channel, try delaying the bass DI a little and see if it sounds better when summing with the cabinet sound. If possible, I will try to use polarity and time-alignment, along with filters, to do most of the work of shaping the sound.

I am a firm believer that the EQ controls should be the last place you turn to get a good sound. It is a common mistake in soundchecking to start to treat it like a concert.

It isn't. It is a chance to check everything in preparation for a concert. It is often tempting to try to put on a performance, particularly if people such as management or girlfriends are watching.

I still fall into this trap and find the volume creeping up as I massage my ego with the power at my control. This is counterproductive and often quite destructive. If you run soundchecks at a loud volume in an empty room, not only will you give yourself a false impression of what it will sound like, but it will swamp the sound on stage. Without the audience in to absorb the sound in the room, it will come surging back onto the stage, making it incredibly difficult for the performers to hear what they are doing.

This will begin a spiral of competition where the band members turn up to be able to hear themselves better, and so on. I much prefer to soundcheck at between 50 and 70 percent of show volume. This is loud enough for me to get a basic balance, and loud enough that the band can get a feel of what the show will be like for them, but not so loud that it will start taking over their stage levels.

Another point to note is that the stage sound is dependent on the FOH system. The sound from the PA will always spill on to the stage, especially at the low end, which is less directional than the mids and highs.

This will colour the sound on stage. I try not to turn the PA on and off, or to solo the FOH system, during the soundcheck, but instead use my headphones to listen to individual instruments. Pooch: "I always leave the PA on and do minimal soloing in place [destructive solo].

The artist wants to hear everything when soundchecking; if you keep turning off the PA it makes the artist uncomfortable.

Plus the monitor engineer is counting on FOH being there and filling up some of the low end for him or her. After a couple of songs I am usually happy. It is always worth asking at this point if there are likely to be any surprises that you may need to know about, such as everyone switching to ukeleles for the cover version. Strange, but it does happen! I always like to finish with the first song of the set. This gives me a chance to set everything for the top of the show. If the band need more time I will usually just leave the PA turned on but down a bit, and resist the urge to fiddle.

There is always a point when change stops being constructive and you start undoing the mix. I will usually use this time to listen to any effects units I may not know that well, or set up patches, monitoring on my headphones. Occasionally, if there is something I want to work on, such as a snare or guitar sound, I will wait until the main soundcheck is finished and work on it then.

This is much better than getting everybody to wait while you retune a drum or try a slightly different mic position.