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Do you use your "volume" knob?

#81
Major Softie said:
If he set your input levels nice and high, and especially if he's running a digital board, then it is total nightmare until he pulls that input level down.

There's a lot of digital boards out there these days. Max input is a brick wall. If you try to sneak your level past it, it instantly turns to complete crap. This is something that was a headache for a sound man in the old analog days, but now it's Epic Fail. If you teach a sound man not to trust you, you can bet he wont, and he will always keep your level so low that he's certain he has enough headroom for whatever you pull on him. Teach him to trust you, and then he can concentrate on simply trying to get your level to where it sounds best in the mix.

I seldom am running into a PA, but whether I am or not, I use a volume pedal and set it at absolute max in sound check and pull down from there for the set. If I played softer with my fingers it would give me more dynamic range just from my playing, but I don't, so I use the pedal. When I'm running a board, I ask everyone in sound check for the loudest thing they're going to give me, and if I discover they knowingly screw with me on that, they immediately become my last priority. No trying to "get even;" it's just that I can't help but give more of my attention to the musician's who deserve it.
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This is why digital mixers (as well as analog mixers) have this nifty little thing called a gain (or trim) knob, and they can even have this other neat little device called a "pad".

I have never in 4 years of doing sound had a signal that was so hot that it would clip even with the pad on and gain knob all the way down.
 
#82
KingRazor said:
This is why digital mixers (as well as analog mixers) have this nifty little thing called a gain (or trim) knob, and they can even have this other neat little device called a "pad".

I have never in 4 years of doing sound had a signal that was so hot that it would clip even with the pad on and gain knob all the way down.
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I can imagine a keyboard player doing soundcheck at 60%, using a piano patch the whole time. He (or she) is on wedges (while half the band, along with the singer and background vocalists, are on IEMS), and is near the loud drummer, so they need their keys HOT, which means I might need to dial up a bit more gain for them...

All is going well until keys player gooses the volume at the top of the show. Signal that was once bouncing around in the yellow is now peaking in everyones head, they're ripping their molds out and it's my fault...


I can imagine that...


edit: of course, it doesn't take long to reach up and pull the gain back, but by that time the damage is done.
 
#83
kedo said:
I can imagine a keyboard player doing soundcheck at 60%, using a piano patch the whole time. He (or she) is on wedges (while half the band, along with the singer and background vocalists, are on IEMS), and is near the loud drummer, so they need their keys HOT, which means I might need to dial up a bit more gain for them...

All is going well until keys player gooses the volume at the top of the show. Signal that was once bouncing around in the yellow is now peaking in everyones head, they're ripping their molds out and it's my fault...


I can imagine that...


edit: of course, it doesn't take long to reach up and pull the gain back, but by that time the damage is done.
Click to expand...

I actually experienced almost exactly what you said this weekend.

Did sound check and the gain level for the piano was good, peaking at just under -12dBFS. Then the set starts and she's changed to a different patch and this signal is up to about -3dBFS. Was freakin' loud. So I slammed the fader down and then turned down the gain. I don't know how that didn't hurt the keyboard player's ears but she kept on playing that way.

That's exactly why you shouldn't mess around with your volume settings. Try to keep your signal level roughly the same and let your fingers change the dynamics.
 
#86
kedo said:
All is going well until keys player gooses the volume at the top of the show. Signal that was once bouncing around in the yellow is now peaking in everyones head, they're ripping their molds out and it's my fault...


I can imagine
Click to expand...

I've seen exactly that scenario happen at a festival in upstate New York. Green keyboardist meets large PA and gooses the volume slider on one of his keyboards in the middle of the set's first song. Ouch!
 
#89
That's why I run a limiter on all sends, and mains. Been sandbagged too many times by ******* musicians, who don't understand when I tell them to give me their loudest signal they will play that night.

For those of you running digital mixers, don't go for unity gain when setting up. Aim for -12db to -6db. This is the same as setting 0dBu on an analog board, with +6~12db gain above 0dBu before clipping,(hitting the red!!!) You can't overdrive digital boards, as the processor runs out of numbers to calculate. Some higher priced ones claim you can, but their "unity" gain structure leaves 3 to 6 db for you to "clip" into.
 
#90
I think this is a difficult topic. It is important to have a balanced sound stage, but as a bassist, I usually play at "blend in" volume. But then I have the occational solo, where I need to cut through. I do this either with a boost pedal or by having the volume knob at 80% most of the time, having a little extra for solos or when sound in general go to a "crescendo".

But you'll always have to have a way to go back to reference level. I guess the best way is to prepare for this in sound check. If the sound man knows what you're going to do, it will not come as a surprise.
 
#91
Lilduke said:
That's why I run a limiter on all sends, and mains. Been sandbagged too many times by ******* musicians, who don't understand when I tell them to give me their loudest signal they will play that night.

For those of you running digital mixers, don't go for unity gain when setting up. Aim for -12db to -6db. This is the same as setting 0dBu on an analog board, with +6~12db gain above 0dBu before clipping,(hitting the red!!!) You can't overdrive digital boards, as the processor runs out of numbers to calculate. Some higher priced ones claim you can, but their "unity" gain structure leaves 3 to 6 db for you to "clip" into.
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Yep, I actually aim for -18dB. Since that's the "0dBu" level for the particular board I'm working with, but you're absolutely right.

Digital mixers have a low enough noise floor that you can run your inputs fairly "cold" and not worry about it much. Most digital boards don't have highly "colored" preamps, so there's not a lot of benefit to running them hot.
 
#94
remainthesame said:
I soundcheck with my bass at about 3/4 of the volume and then when we start to ply i slowly bring it up to full. after that, no i do not touch my volume knob.
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This is the recipe for a volume war and me bringing you down in the mains no matter how high you turn up. No wonder people hate soundguys.

You soundcheck at the same levrl, same effects, same everything you're going to play at....period.
 

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