Concerned About Where Live Sound Is Headed

[bherman]

I fear some of you are missing my point. Which is that I am beginning to suspect that there is a dynamic including both the newer board / speaker topologies AND the mix references / preferences of younger sound techs, such that we are hearing precisely what they think we should hear. In other words, the mix is intentionally what it is.

I confess that my reference (currently in two cover bands) is to study the reference (usually studio) recordings; and to do my very best to render performances which are both faithful to the recording and add a few signature things in the correct places to keep things tasteful and make it our own. Still, understanding the mix dynamics and where various instruments / vocals are in the hierarchy is essential study material, IMO.

What I am increasingly hearing is sound techs who seem to be tossing the reference recordings in the garbage and intentionally striving to create a more "modern" renditions, based on whatever their biases happen to be. I do NOT think this is inexperienced techs with too much board in front of them. I believe what I am hearing are conscious decisions; and, that's my concern.

Further, I don't believe I'm some kind of hobbyist warrior with a keyboard. At least I don't think I am. I'm still a performing musician, and just remarking on progressions of the way things are being done. But, if it makes some of you feel bigger to make me little, have at it.

I agree with you. My local experience bears it out. I went to see a friend play in a local band this past summer, all great players, sound being run by the "best", biggest sound company in our region. The first song (based on sound check mixes) sounded pretty good. By the time the sound crew got finished "adjusting the mix", it sounded awful. Bass drum overpowering everything, bass (an Eminence EUB) sounded like mud, on and on. I ended up leaving because it sounded so terrible.

 

[DJ Bebop]

The proliferation of subs

 

[Humbled]

I think all wannabe sound engineers should be made to mix polka bands for at least 2 or 3 years before they are allowed to move on to other genres. Gear should be limited to 57 and 58 mics, a 16 channel analog board with 3 band fixed eq on the strips, a 150W power amp and a couple of 2 way boxes.

When they learn to produce a good mix under these conditions, only then would they be allowed to advance to mixing country music as the next step in the process.

+1. The education of coming up through Bogen/Vocalmaster/Altec/Peavey is very difficult to replicate any other way, especially when it comes to knowing what to do when things are going wrong.

 

[StyleOverShow]

@bucephylus What I am increasingly hearing is sound techs who seem to be tossing the reference recordings in the garbage and intentionally striving to create a more "modern" renditions...

well said. And the MP3 compression schemes, over wireless ear buds.. all BS!

 

[BassGuyFL]

Umm NO!!
As I stated above, you can't polish a turd.
If I'm getting a garbage load of mush from the source, not amount of FOH tech is going to be able to clean it up and make it sit in the mix like a CD.
The folks on stage have to have some idea of what they are doing.

Exactly. Garbage in, garbage out. The best compliment I got from a soundguy is wow man all I had to do is push up the fader your rig sounds great.

 

[Wallower]

I have been frustrated for far too long by kick-heavy live mixes that bury bass... and amazed by how many musicians, non-musicians, and even pro sound engineers alike seem to gravitate to these mixes. It certainly does fill up sound and make things exciting, but at the cost of obliterating definition in the bass. My guess is bassists are particularly sensitive to this because we're the ones who get buried most. And the kicker is, in volume wars to compensate/compete with a heavy drum mix, the accumulation of low frequency mud can make it seem like bass, not drums, is the problem. Even with pro gear and masterful EQing, I'm a strong proponent of simply turning down kick to where it is present but not booming.

 

[DWBass]

A bad pilot can easily crash a plane.

I went to a 3 band show about 7 years ago. Grace Potter, Little Feat —- sounded ok but not great—- huge line array system.
Then the head liner's turn (Warren Haynes). The only change to the FOH system was a state of the art, digital board and I assume Warren's engineer.
The sound was absolutely perfect.
About 10x better than the previous acts.
It can be done with the correct knowledge and ears.

Similar experience. Well known music festival in my area. 3 bands on this night. Jill Scott (R&B), Kem (R&B) and Kenny G (instrumental). Kem on first. Loud and no balance of the instruments. Everything on 10 it seemed. Next.....Jill Scott. Not sure what was happening but all I heard was a wall of sound. Just loud noise. Folks were walking out on her. It was really bad. Last up, Kenny G. Must have had his own engineer because his sound was CD perfect. Every instrument had definition and balance. No booming kick drum. No undefined bass (Vail Johnson). Just frikkin' perfect!!

Now if I can only get my BL to bring up the BGV's in FOH. Sounds great in monitors but every frikkin' video..........literally nothing. And we're singing our asses off. Feels like I'm wasting my time singing. But that's a whole 'nutha thread!

 

[FunkHead]

All I can say is that it's all very frustrating. My drummer mics his kit at rehearsal. Now he wants to add subs.

I hate Subs!

It's hard to hear everything. Vocals, Guitar solos, Bass fills etc... are just muffled. I am having to push my volume and dig in harder and harder. It's not fun for me at that point.

I am sure it's not fun for the Bass player in the band mentioned in the OP either. The goal should be separation of all sounds. If you are in the audience and you want to zone in on the rhythm guitar, or the bass, or the vocals, it should be easy.

Dynamics = Separation. I have to, at least partially, blame the players. Hard hitting drummers! Bassy Guitarists! Distorted bass! All kinds of unnecessary noise!

It's amazing what a simple 3 piece band can accomplish. The more people on stage, the more need for "Dynamics". People need to stop crapping all over each other trying to hog the spotlight.

If everyone respected the other musicians on the stage then it would be easy. I think it's 90% the players faults. When we stop playing for the song the whole production will suffer.

Blame the sound guy if you must but I see it differently.

 

[brianrost]

the mix references / preferences of younger sound techs, such that we are hearing precisely what they think we should hear. In other words, the mix is intentionally what it is.

I agree 100%. Over many years as a stage manager at a major festival, I picked the brains of the sound crew for tips I could apply when doing sound for my own bands. The best piece of advice, I got EVER:

Listen to the act playing before you bring up anything in the mains. As you bring up the faders, try to keep the sound the same, just louder.

If the soundguy works regularly with an act, you would hope his mix is what the band wants. When the soundguy is whoever the promoter hired, you have no idea if they have a clue about what the music you are performing should sound like. When I'm playing DB, whether live or in a recording studio, 90% of the time it ends up sounding like a P-bass in the mix until I raise objections. When recording if the engineer wants to DI the pickup rather than mike the DB, I know I am in trouble . I've worked in bands with bagpipes, accordions, hammer dulcimers and medieval winds and strings. Not many soundguys have any idea what a bagpipe should sound like (other than it should be silent at all times ) or any idea how to properly mike up an unfamiliar instrument.

 

[DonBorelli]

Ok boomer



Nah...there are lots of great sounding live acts out there. I don't think anyone has the empirical evidence to claim otherwise.

I think things are getting better in general.
More knowledge, better gear, better understanding of acoustics...I could go on.

Of course, I can't prove anything either.

 

[mambo4]

I call it the "boom boom, deedle deedle" mix.

One of best concerts I ever saw was Peter Gabriel & Sting. Two of my bass heroes on stage in one show.
Tony Levin was barely articulate mud buried under the kick drum. I'm certain Tony knew what he was doing.

There is a definitely a "modern" mix aesthetic (almost 20 years old by now)
that comes from scooped mp3 compression, crappy "bass boost" speakers / headphones,
and cars that go boom , which has carried over into live sound guys.

I swear haven't heard a decent bass guitar recording since 1998 ( outside of Daptone records.)
It's all about PHAT bass and crispy highs : "boom boom, deedle deedle"
Mids are so last century, I guess.

 

[bucephylus]

Aside from this particular example and other similar gigs I've heard recently, my main concern is this: musicians in live ensemble performance are supposed to listen to the rest of the ensemble, be aware of the ensemble dynamics, interact with each other, and produce a MUSICALLY interesting and exciting live performance. Musicians have been doing this for centuries, going back well before amplification. Amplification doesn't somehow change that.

At least some of the driver behind this current trend has been the misbehavior of musicians ignoring their responsibilities to the ensemble, and instead pushing the "more me" role in the ensemble. The correct solution is to fire those musicians from the ensemble vs abdicating control to sound technicians, who are supposed to fix a problem that never should have existed in the first place.

Sound engineers, well trained or not, and amplification systems, good or bad, can not affect any of the musicality of the performance, other than by making it easier for the musicians to be musical.

A correct amplification system will be that one which most easily allows the musicians to deliver a stellar performance to their audience. I suspect we will eventually end up there. But, for the moment, we seem to be exploring ways to insert listening preferences between the musician and the audience, and condone by silence the evil uncle of "more me." That is a trend that needs to run its course.

 

[LBS-bass]

Similar experience. Well known music festival in my area. 3 bands. Jill Scott (R&B), Kem (R&B) and Kenny G (instrumental). Kem on first. Loud and no balance of the instruments. Everything on 10 it seemed. Next.....Jill Scott. Not sure what was happening but all I heard was a wall of sound. Just loud noise. Folks were walking out on her. It was really bad. Last up, Kenny G. Must of had his own engineer because his sound was CD perfect. Every instrument had definition and balance. No booming kick drum. No undefined bass (Vail Johnson). Just frikkin' perfect!!

Now if I can only get my BL to bring up the BGV's in FOH. Sounds great in monitors but every frikkin' video..........literally nothing. And we're singing our asses off. Feels like I'm wasting my time singing. But that's a whole 'nutha thread!

Touring bands at a certain level often travel with their own sound tech. This accounts for a lot of the differences you hear, but there's also usually just less attention paid to the details of running sound for an opening act. The main act will get a full sound check to dial everything in, whereas the opening act will just get level checks. Digital technology means that the main act's setting are saved to the board and recalled when they are ready to perform.

One thing I haven't seen touched on here is the issue I find most irritating, and that it that some engineers have been doing this for so long they are hard of hearing. So you get ear-splitting, shrill highs along with those boomy subs, because those guys just can't properly hear the high end anymore.

I'm older, and I have a touch of hearing loss in one ear, but my recent hearing test still shows that I'm ok in that department. But I know a lot of people in my age group who really don't belong anywhere near a mixing board.

 

[And I]

Room acoustics do play a factor, but I'd say in my experience as a performer and sometimes-FOH person--most of the time it's the engineer and/or the band that makes things sound bad. In most rooms, the FOH engineer is running everything at least 10db too loud. In larger rooms, maybe 20db too loud. In most smaller rooms the snare doesn't need to be mic'd, the drums are usually too loud. Also in small rooms, guitar amps don't need to be mic'd and most of the time the bass wouldn't need to be DI'd. This gets difficult when bands don't balance their volume on stage and so the sound person has to compensate and thus needs everything running through the board / mains and thus everything is way too loud. Most of the time when you hear bad sound, things are being eq'd and balanced poorly by the sound person... Sorry, it's not an easy job. But in my experience some folks are just bad at it...

 

[monkeyland]

The first song (based on sound check mixes) sounded pretty good. By the time the sound crew got finished "adjusting the mix", it sounded awful.

In a class that I took a few years back with a very well respected, some might say legendary, mix engineer it was said that "a mix is never finished, only abandoned". Of course the key to that is knowing when to stop mixing and just make sure that nothing catches on fire. The same could hold true with bass lines, song writing, and probably almost all of life. Don't over think it. I try to remind myself of this concept often but it can sometimes be difficult to get out of your own head.

 

[bucephylus]

Ok boomer



Nah...there are lots of great sounding live acts out there. I don't think anyone has the empirical evidence to claim otherwise.

I think things are getting better in general.
More knowledge, better gear, better understanding of acoustics...I could go on.

Of course, I can't prove anything either.

First, I meant no disrespect by my original reference to "younger." Awesome musicians come in every flavor of age, gender, skin pigment, and whatever. The more things change the more they remain the same. Still, youth does imprint its creative forces on social art forms. That is neither good nor bad, necessarily; it just is what it is. Yes, there does seem to me to be a trend going on in the live shows I've seen. I'm all for improvements, so long as we don't toss the baby with the bath water.

 

[buldog5151bass]

All I can say is that it's all very frustrating. My drummer mics his kit at rehearsal. Now he wants to add subs.

I hate Subs!

It's hard to hear everything. Vocals, Guitar solos, Bass fills etc... are just muffled. I am having to push my volume and dig in harder and harder. It's not fun for me at that point.

I am sure it's not fun for the Bass player in the band mentioned in the OP either. The goal should be separation of all sounds. If you are in the audience and you want to zone in on the rhythm guitar, or the bass, or the vocals, it should be easy.

Dynamics = Separation. I have to, at least partially, blame the players. Hard hitting drummers! Bassy Guitarists! Distorted bass! All kinds of unnecessary noise!

It's amazing what a simple 3 piece band can accomplish. The more people on stage, the more need for "Dynamics". People need to stop crapping all over each other trying to hog the spotlight.

If everyone respected the other musicians on the stage then it would be easy. I think it's 90% the players faults. When we stop playing for the song the whole production will suffer.

Blame the sound guy if you must but I see it differently.

Even my drummer, who is both a tech head and has set up a rehearsal/recording studio in his house, isn't that insane. May I ask why he/she wants to?

 

[BooDoggie]

Yeah I went to an outdoor event a while back with a band that I am friends with. They were using amps and floor wedges on stage. I was all over the stage during the show photographing the players and the crowd, and from on the stage it sounded fantastic.. I noticed however, that most of the crowd was clustered about 100 feet away from the stage or standing just in front of the stage between the speakers. The sound company had set up two older looking Peavey thin wedge cabinets with what looked like 2 horn loaded 10s sitting at about ear level on top of a single 18" sub on each side. The sound guy was running around all over the place with his ipad constantly making changes.

After I finished with my photo shoot I went to get some refreshments. When I walked in front of the speakers I had to plug my ears with my fingers because the sound coming out of those cabinets was painfully loud. It wasn't until I got about 100 yards away that it started to sound reasonably loud. I approached a few couples that were sitting in lawn chairs on the other side of an open field and asked what they thought about the sound. They said that they did not want to get any closer because the sound was so loud to them that they were afraid of damaging their hearing.

 

[FunkHead]

Even my drummer, who is both a tech head and has set up a rehearsal/recording studio in his house, isn't that insane. May I ask why he/she wants to?

I haven't really pressed him for a reason. I am starting to think he's losing his hearing....

 

[DJ Bebop]

First, I meant no disrespect by my original reference to "younger." Awesome musicians come in every flavor of age, gender, skin pigment, and whatever. The more things change the more they remain the same. Still, youth does imprint its creative forces on social art forms. That is neither good nor bad, necessarily; it just is what it is. Yes, there does seem to me to be a trend going on in the live shows I've seen. I'm all for improvements, so long as we don't toss the baby with the bath water.

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