EQing, and working with sound guys.

[Jrussblues]

I run my on board preamp almost flat, my rack preamp almost flat and the best soundguy I work with runs his board almost flat. Mtd super 5> Demeter hpb-1 > foh.
The sound guy I speak of is actually my guitarist and he is good enough that he is actually taking venues we play from professional sound companies. We talk a lot about sound guy woes and it's extra painful for him when we get a bad sound guy at a venue. He said the 2 biggest problems with sound guys are this.
1. They have a preset idea of how they should set every band and how every instrument should sound vs. listening to every band and treating thier mix to match who they are.
2. They can't separate instruments in the mix in a way that they can support one another or solo.
The biggest problems with musicians
1. Stage volume is wayyy too loud. He won't tell you to turn down either. He will just not run you in the mains unless he can tell u are fairly green.
2. Most musicians don't realize that garbage in is garbage out. Guitarists that can't set thier gains and eq well, singers that can't use mic dynamics, bass players running into 100 watt tube head into a fridge at a 200 person venue are all asking for disaster. Musicians need to take time to understand how sound actually works.

 

[Wiremessiah]

Depends on the sound guy. If he is good and knows what he is doing, he probably knows more than you, because being a sound guy myself, who mixes and plays multiple instruments, I know that trying to mix from the perspective of one instrument is impossible to do well. So if you know he is good, listen to him, and if he isn't, you are SOL. All you can do is get it how you like it and hope there is a decent mix.

I'd try to learn as much as you can about audio, and try to do some mixes with canned tracks or whatever. But there are so may variables at play that often you just have to pick a path and stick with it, work within it. Because whatever mix you get, there is still a huge amount of variability in your playing technique that can affect the mix. And that variability will also affect how the other guys play and how the sound guy mixes, so you basically have a moving target.

Monitors with a duplicate of the main mix can help you get a good idea of how you should be playing. Some guys like to hear themselves more in the monitor, but that's a bad idea IMO. As a musician you have to be mixing yourself and the rest of the band constantly, which is next to impossible without a good monitor mix. Unless you just smash everything, which can work for some types of music.

 

[MDBass]

Hey y'all, This is something I've been working through for a while.


How in the world do you figure out "How much is too much Bass"
I run through a b7k ultra and a tech21 VT deluxe, so I have a lot of control over my tone. I have my midrange and treble carved out how I like, but how do I figure out how much is too much on the bass knob? On both of those preamps, its mostly affecting the low rumble, 100hz frequency. I've had a sound guy complain that "your tone is too trebly" so I turn down treble a bit and continue playing. Peek at the sound board later, Low pass filter at 400. How do you all EQ yourselves from the pedalboard/amp?

A. A "sound guy" low passing anything at 400Hz has no idea what they're doing. Might as well have a trained chimp at the board.

B. Record your sound and see how well it actually works in a mix; adjusting your EQ for the FOH based on what you're hearing from your amp isn't a great idea if the FOH is only taking a DI and you aren't suing something like an OmniCabSim or a full range cab like Greenboy, LDS, etc.

 

[micguy]

Working with the sound guy is the key. If he's good, cooperation will get you great results. If he isn't, you're probably gonna sound sucky no matter what tou do, but cooperating can still get you points with club owners and other folks involved, and maybe avoid a fight. If you sound crappy, but the club owner knows his sound guy sucks, if you're at least easy to work with, it's a positive for you, and you might get called back as a result.

And yes, you can low pass at 400Hz - most any digital board you can do that. There's also a possible logical reason to do that - if your rig is already loud enough in the audience, he might just need to add some low end oomph from the PA. If it's a small club and a loud band, I could see that being the case. It's not typically what you do, but in some cases, I could see that being the right thing to do.

 

[scuzzy]

I give them the signal straight off my pedal board, pre-eq from my amp. It's his/her job to make it sound good from there. I can only worry about myself that point.

I have learned that the best sound guys prefer a very open tone with everything there that they can manipulate to their liking. The less skilled want it pre-mixed before it arrives to them. They can always cut frequencies. But if the frequency never gets to them, adding it is difficult.

 

[DanAdams]

send the sound guy a flat signal.
No one listening through stage monitors knows how the FOH should be EQ'ed.
I would go on to say that you should leave your pedal board at home if you want people to hear your notes... but that's blasphemy on TB.
also, Low pass @400hz is crazy talk.

 

[two fingers]

You aren't in the house, so there is no way for you to EQ for the house. Send the FOH engineer a signal pre-EQ and life gets much better rapidly. If you have a rig on stage you can do whatever you like as long as it isn't done at too high a volume.

Being a sound guy sometimes myself, I would usually agree with you. But if OP is using effects that won't work. Sure, he and the sound guy need to work together on a solution, but even us sound guys don't get to say "no pedals". Pedals are part of his sound. Pedals and EQ are two entirely separate issues. Keep the Pedals. Work with me on the EQ and I'll make you sound great out front.

I'm guessing there is either some sort of misunderstanding or this sound guy has so.easy strange methods. Chopping off at 400 seems....odd.

 

[fokof]

I can see 4 reasons why there is a HPF @ 400hz:

- It's a small room and the stage is Waaaayyyyyy too loud.
I work in a small theater (300-600 capacity) when there is a bass amp too loud on stage , the sound at FOH is only mud and undefined , I would have to push the level of the PA way too loud to "pass over it' , the only way to deal with this situation is to HPF the bass and try to make it "clearer" with a HPF on the PA.
Still , 400 is a bit high me thinks , I usually go 100-300

- Or like someone else said : a "poor man's" multi band comp.
Split the signal to compress Lows and highs differently.

- Or An FX send channel

- Or a monitor send channel
(400 is still high for that too but that would also be a possibility)

 

[Geri O]

You´re right, they do. Many others, however, have the lowest LPF cutoff higher (around 1kHz).

The question remains: Why would anyone in their right mind LPF anything at 400Hz?

Well, to just answer the question, a lot of sounds guys will hi-pass the hi-hat at 200Hz and up to 400 and higher, although I don't go any higher than 400.

I've seen the drum overheads hipassed that high as well, but as I try to make the overheads part of the entire kit, I try to not hi pass the overheads higher than 150 or so, depending on what I'm getting from them.

And I'm pretty sure I've never, ever hi-passed the bass guitar channel.

 

[Geri O]

Because they'd rather the bass player be a sine wave

 

[unbrokenchain]

Rarely does bass need a boost. Usually it's cut. Too much 100Hz can be boomy. Too much 200~400Hz makes things muddy.
PA guys like to hi-pass around 60Hz.
Mids are your friend, 500~800Hz is where you cut through.

The rest is up to the room and the PA guys' skill.

This! I work as a sound guy at a venue in Asheville, and at least in a brewery with concrete floors, the one thing I wish every single bass player who comes through would do is cut their low end. From what I can tell, the lowest frequencies are the hardest to hear when you're close to the amp, but carry the farthest. Having the cab raised off the floor helps, but I'm of the opinion that the sound waves are simply too large to develop and be heard clearly at that close distance. We have a giant subwoofer under the stage but I almost never use it except for kick drum because the bass player's cab is almost always too boomy as it is. I generally boost the mids and highs on the dry signal and just let a little low end through, otherwise it sounds sort of like that car next to you at a stoplight earlier with the subs rattling the trunk... I've learned a lot as a bass player from working as a sound guy, and this is a big one.

I can't speak for everyone, but if you play where I work, the best thing to do is to have your amp at as low a volume as you can tolerate onstage, and specify in detail how to tailor your monitor mix to your liking in terms of EQ and volume. That way, the main mix will be the same as your monitor. It's nice as a bass player to have direct control over your own "monitor" (your cab), but it's much much easier on the soundguy if you can get the sound you want through the monitors.
My $.02

 

[Pbassmanca]

I run my on board preamp almost flat, my rack preamp almost flat and the best soundguy I work with runs his board almost flat. Mtd super 5> Demeter hpb-1 > foh.
The sound guy I speak of is actually my guitarist and he is good enough that he is actually taking venues we play from professional sound companies. We talk a lot about sound guy woes and it's extra painful for him when we get a bad sound guy at a venue. He said the 2 biggest problems with sound guys are this.
1. They have a preset idea of how they should set every band and how every instrument should sound vs. listening to every band and treating thier mix to match who they are.
2. They can't separate instruments in the mix in a way that they can support one another or solo.
The biggest problems with musicians
1. Stage volume is wayyy too loud. He won't tell you to turn down either. He will just not run you in the mains unless he can tell u are fairly green.
2. Most musicians don't realize that garbage in is garbage out. Guitarists that can't set thier gains and eq well, singers that can't use mic dynamics, bass players running into 100 watt tube head into a fridge at a 200 person venue are all asking for disaster. Musicians need to take time to understand how sound actually works.

We had a sub sound guy for our Friday show who unfortunately , despite his best efforts could not get it together. Monitor mixes were either blasting keyboard or effectively non-existent, and no one in our 9 piece band could hear half of what was going on. Plus the kick drum was eq'd extremely loud and boomy to the point of being ridiculous. There was feedback in the mains ALL NIGHT. Usually the club owner (who is an audio engineer ) , mixes the band and it is a delightful experience everytime, but he was away doing God knows what. It was so bad that I jokingly said to our sub-sax player, a kid fresh out of college who could really blow , "Hey it was nice to meet you , I couldn't hear a thing you played, but it really looked like you knew what you were doing...." Sound guy was a nice kid though , so I thanked him for his work : It was busy all night , and everybody made money so all's well that ends well I guess.

 

[RustyAxe]

I set up my amp to be what I want to hear on stage. I DI out to FOH, pre- EQ, and tell the sound man what I'm looking for in the mains, no bass in the monitors. It's classic country music. When I need to be sure that what I hear from the amp is what the audience hears I'll ask the sound man to mic the cab. It isn't hard to "read" the sound man, if he knows his stuff (or seems to) I usually defer to him. He likely knows the room a lot better than I would.

 

[RustyAxe]

Monitors with a duplicate of the main mix can help you get a good idea of how you should be playing. Some guys like to hear themselves more in the monitor, but that's a bad idea IMO. As a musician you have to be mixing yourself and the rest of the band constantly, which is next to impossible without a good monitor mix. Unless you just smash everything, which can work for some types of music.

O lord, I wish my bandmates understood this. I keep arguing that the relative levels of the vocals in the monitors should be the same as FOH ... when you're harmonizing it's useful to hear how your part is fitting with the others.

 

[kalle74]

Well, to just answer the question, a lot of sounds guys will hi-pass the hi-hat at 200Hz and up to 400 and higher, although I don't go any higher than 400.

I've seen the drum overheads hipassed that high as well, but as I try to make the overheads part of the entire kit, I try to not hi pass the overheads higher than 150 or so, depending on what I'm getting from them.

And I'm pretty sure I've never, ever hi-passed the bass guitar channel.

I'm a chronic hi-passer, and will probably hi-pass everything if I have access to a quality continuous HPF. I find it to help make room for everything. HPF @ 400Hz, though, I would probably leave to chimes or something really special. To me, even hi-hat has usable things below 400Hz, and I too use overheads for general sound of the kit (think of it as the glue that makes the kit sound as one).

 

[s0c9]

O lord, I wish my bandmates understood this. I keep arguing that the relative levels of the vocals in the monitors should be the same as FOH ... when you're harmonizing it's useful to hear how your part is fitting with the others.

That's the beauty of running self-mixed IEM's.. It's up to YOU what's in your mix, not the BL or FOH

 

[Wiremessiah]

That's the beauty of running self-mixed IEM's.. It's up to YOU what's in your mix, not the BL or FOH

That still wouldn't solve the problem we are talking about. Everyone wants to be louder, and they will always mix themselves louder, which ironically can make them even quieter in the main mix. And musicians, if they are not versed in mixing, are very bad at mixing, I have found the hard way, and realize after years of mixing and engineering school and playing other instruments and producing, how bad I was at it before (still bad at run on sentences though). The real key is to find a sound guy who knows what he is doing, there really is no substitute, even with musicians who are good at mixing.

 

[s0c9]

That still wouldn't solve the problem we are talking about. Everyone wants to be louder, and they will always mix themselves louder, which ironically can make them even quieter in the main mix. And musicians, if they are not versed in mixing, are very bad at mixing, I have found the hard way, and realize after years of mixing and engineering school and playing other instruments and producing, how bad I was at it before (still bad at run on sentences though). The real key is to find a sound guy who knows what he is doing, there really is no substitute, even with musicians who are good at mixing.

I think you misunderstood? If YOU run your own IEM mix, and have a system that lets you do so, then you DON'T HAVE the problems you are talking about..

 

[Wiremessiah]

I think you misunderstood? If YOU run your own IEM mix, and have a system that lets you do so, then you DON'T HAVE the problems you are talking about..

No, you are not getting what we are saying. It doesnt matter if the musician has control over the mix or not in the iems or wedges, if they have a monitor mix that is not representative of the mian mix, they cant know how to mix themselves in relation to the rest of the band while playing. Musicians usually get the mix they want whether its in self mixed iems or stage monitors. The problems we are talking about is that what they want is usually not optimal for the foh as a whole.

 

[s0c9]

No, you are not getting what we are saying. It doesnt matter if the musician has control over the mix or not in the iems or wedges, if they have a monitor mix that is not representative of the mian mix, they cant know how to mix themselves in relation to the rest of the band while playing. Musicians usually get the mix they want whether its in self mixed iems or stage monitors. The problems we are talking about is that what they want is usually not optimal for the foh as a whole.

Maybe I'm missing something, but what does the FOH (or main mix) have to do with what you want in your IEM's? They SHOULD be completely separate entities. Now, if you WANT a representative FOH mix going to your ears that's a different issue entirely, but I can't imagine why you would need it when you would have full control over all channels going to your IEM's/wedges - the SAME channels that are in the FOH mix?
If you're saying that you can't give yourself a decent IEM mix without using FOH as a guide..there are other issues at play here ?