Our guitarist owns the entire PA and we're constantly fighting over sound. I'm the only wireless player, so during sound check I like to run out front by the sound guy and listen to the mix and notice the same problems we have in practice, as well.
So, here's the problem - the mix is simply awful! The guitarist and sound guy don't seem to get it, and it's definitely a sore spot for me.
First, the drums are always too loud...usually the loudest part of the mix. The bass is often times the quietest, at least in terms of cutting power, if not overall volume. The keys stomp all over the bass, as our keyboardist is a "solo" type player, loving the low end, as if there was no bass player (and I'm a busy player), and since he's so loud, he trounces all over my tone. The rest of the band is generally adequately mixed.
More specifically, with my tone, is that the low end is excessively thick in the lows and the upper mids (a frequency I'm not terribly fond of to begin with) don't cut through, regardless of how I set my eq on both my preamp (an Avalon VT-737sp) AND on the board. On the Avalon, for the most recent show, I employed the high-pass filter so the lows wouldn't be so boomy, but found the volume wasn't there. To offset this, the sound guy cranked the treble on the bass channel on the board all the way up, so at least it was noticeable, but there was no fundamental in my playing - only attack. The lows were on the poor side of adequate, but compared to how they were before the high-pass filter was engaged, it was an improvement.
I've tried numerous eq settings on my Avalon, and as you might expect, it's got a tremendous eq...but for some reason it just doesn't quite cut the mustard once the full band is going. It's really odd! One such setting I've got is cranking the treble and mids (around 400 Hz and either 800 Hz or 2kHz) while cutting the lows. The recording of our last show had no bass, whatsoever!
And, while this may or may not be a factor, there's one other thing I want to mention...IMO the subs are too powerful and the mains are too small, so we don't get a good balance...I'm just wondering if that could, in fact, be a factor. I can tell you the crossover is set at about 94 Hz with a pretty steep slope, but anything we've tried higher than that as a crossover point gets distorted and muddy sounding. The 94 Hz was the highest we could go without adding muddy distortion. However, on tape (this same show was recorded), the only bass comes out as attack with no fundamental, much as I mentioned before. It seems that the subs produce low end that's simply not being recorded...don't know if that's normal or a sign of something going awry.
My headphone mix is perfect, and the bass sounds tremendous through my headphones, but absolutely lost through the mains. UGH!
Again, in this situation, I'm pretty limited, as far as influence goes, because the guitarist who owns the entire PA is also, at the end of the day, a guitarist, and mixes as if he's a guitarist.
I'm really curious as to how to get a better tone.
Any thoughts? Is the information I provided even good enough to KIND OF make sense?
So, here's the problem - the mix is simply awful! The guitarist and sound guy don't seem to get it, and it's definitely a sore spot for me.
First, the drums are always too loud...usually the loudest part of the mix. The bass is often times the quietest, at least in terms of cutting power, if not overall volume. The keys stomp all over the bass, as our keyboardist is a "solo" type player, loving the low end, as if there was no bass player (and I'm a busy player), and since he's so loud, he trounces all over my tone. The rest of the band is generally adequately mixed.
More specifically, with my tone, is that the low end is excessively thick in the lows and the upper mids (a frequency I'm not terribly fond of to begin with) don't cut through, regardless of how I set my eq on both my preamp (an Avalon VT-737sp) AND on the board. On the Avalon, for the most recent show, I employed the high-pass filter so the lows wouldn't be so boomy, but found the volume wasn't there. To offset this, the sound guy cranked the treble on the bass channel on the board all the way up, so at least it was noticeable, but there was no fundamental in my playing - only attack. The lows were on the poor side of adequate, but compared to how they were before the high-pass filter was engaged, it was an improvement.
I've tried numerous eq settings on my Avalon, and as you might expect, it's got a tremendous eq...but for some reason it just doesn't quite cut the mustard once the full band is going. It's really odd! One such setting I've got is cranking the treble and mids (around 400 Hz and either 800 Hz or 2kHz) while cutting the lows. The recording of our last show had no bass, whatsoever!
And, while this may or may not be a factor, there's one other thing I want to mention...IMO the subs are too powerful and the mains are too small, so we don't get a good balance...I'm just wondering if that could, in fact, be a factor. I can tell you the crossover is set at about 94 Hz with a pretty steep slope, but anything we've tried higher than that as a crossover point gets distorted and muddy sounding. The 94 Hz was the highest we could go without adding muddy distortion. However, on tape (this same show was recorded), the only bass comes out as attack with no fundamental, much as I mentioned before. It seems that the subs produce low end that's simply not being recorded...don't know if that's normal or a sign of something going awry.
My headphone mix is perfect, and the bass sounds tremendous through my headphones, but absolutely lost through the mains. UGH!
Again, in this situation, I'm pretty limited, as far as influence goes, because the guitarist who owns the entire PA is also, at the end of the day, a guitarist, and mixes as if he's a guitarist.
I'm really curious as to how to get a better tone.
Any thoughts? Is the information I provided even good enough to KIND OF make sense?
