A few nights ago, I attended the gig of a friend of mine who plays guitar. He’s a great player and a pretty cool guy. 

Sound-wise, there was a lot of stage wash that helped make the room sound muddy, and the house mix wasn’t doing much to help bring some presence and clarity to the whole picture.

I took a peek at the console and was glad to see the main fader at unity, though the submix faders were at -10 dB and the meter was bouncing midway into the yellow. 

The sound quality wasn’t bad so much; the mix just needed some improvement. But it was an opinion kept to myself since I learned long ago that people don’t appreciate a sanctimonious jerk butting in.

In my previous articles, I’ve been working an underlying theme of maximizing what you get out of what you have. My point being, we often suffer from less than the best audio quality not because we don’t have the best gear, but because we don’t believe we can do better with what we do have.

In the course of this discussion, I’ve taken a poke at some sacred cows and have purposely challenged some points of view. My experience in working with audio over almost three decades has shown me that few shows are ruined by the wrong crossover slope, the wrong loudspeaker, the wrong console or the wrong microphone; rather, shows are ruined because we fail to have faith in our own ability to get the best out of whatever happens to be at our disposal.

Throw open the amp attenuators, turn the gains down on the console, run all the faders up to unity and raise the gains until you have the foundation of a good mix at the desired SPL! Simple and very effective. I’ve yet to be in a situation where this failed to yield better results when asked for my opinion on why the sound wasn’t sounding so good.

Five years ago, I had the pleasure of mixing a few times for the Aaron Richner Band. The first show I did with them was a CD release party at a local all-ages club.

I got a call about an hour before the band hit the stage, and on the other end of the phone was Aaron’s bass player (a friend of mine) who called in a favor by asking me to come down and mix for them. They were the second band that night and had no confidence in the mix engineer (who was also the system tech) after hearing the first band. We sealed the deal with food, a T-shirt and a CD.

When I arrived 20 minutes later, the first band was still on stage, and it was immediately apparent why they called me. In addition to poor gain structure on the console, there were improperly set gates on kick and snare that were doing nothing more than cutting off the attacks. 

Yet my first reaction was compassion for the engineer, because I’d been in similar situations in the past where I had absolutely no comprehension of the fact that whatever I was trying to do was actually doing more harm than good. We can often get fixated on one idea and completely fail to hear the damage we’re leaving in our wake.

When it was time for my guys to go on, there was only enough time for a quick and dirty setup. I pulled down the gains, opened up the faders and ditched the gates, and then hit the stage and in two minutes had the mics in “good enough” (but not “perfect”) position. Did I sweat it? No, it wasn’t that important.

After a few checks to bring the gains up and get a monitor mix going, the band hit the ground running. It was a great show, but certainly not on my account - all I did was make sure the sound system didn’t get in the way and the band did the rest.

As sound techs and engineers, there’s one thing that we can never get enough of: feedback. That’s right, feedback. I’m referring to those of us who have been fortunate enough to apprentice under a great engineer and receive plenty of feedback on how to do things better.

But for every person who benefits from such a relationship, there are many, many more of us who don’t. 

What are we to do?

Fortunately, there’s a tool available to most of us that’s great for providing feedback that can lead to self-improvement. I’m talking about recording the live mix for later evaluation. 

Often, those who try it quickly abandon the idea because they immediately don’t like what they hear, and it’s easier to blame the recording by saying it doesn’t sound like it does in the room rather than accept the fact that what they’re hearing live is tainted by what they think.

I record my live mix at every opportunity so that I can listen to it later for insight about myself and what I thought I was hearing during the gig.  So far, I’ve come away from this process with two major revelations.

First, it’s critical to not over-think things. I believe this to be the bane of most technically oriented people. There comes a point where the specifications become more of a distraction, rather than helping.

Second, I’ve learned a new skill. Being able to evaluate a mix that’s not working and determine what needs to be cut in level is a greater expertise than boosting levels for certain mix elements that can’t be heard.

Should you expect to hear a ready-to-release recorded mix? Of course not. But you should be able to hear the foundation, pad, rhythm, lead and fill all more or less in their correct relationships.

My recording process varies. If it’s a standing gig, I’ll use whatever is at hand - cassette, DAT and CD-R recorders. My preference now is digital, and I’ve used a (HHB) PortaDAT. When that gave up the ghost, I picked up an Edirol R-09 and take it with me to gigs.

Here’s a recording of the opening number from the next gig I did with the Aaron Richner Band.

For this occasion, I had a little more time to prepare, and took my Apogee PSX-100 and Alesis HD24 just to record this two-track mix. The console was a 32-channel Mackie SR and I patched the converter to a pair of the main out jacks.

Is this a perfect mix? No. But we need to keep things in perspective. As much as we may work to minimize the effect of the environment on our perception, I don’t think it could ever be completely eliminated.

But a good live mix will have all the elements in place, and these should be there to be heard on the recording.

Great sound can be relatively easy to achieve. The solution is in removing the ideas that we think up that get in the way of it.

Author’s note: My thanks to Aaron Richner for permission to use his original song “Know You’re Close”. Click here to check out Aaron’s Myspace page.

Since his start 29 years ago on a Shure Vocalmaster system, James Cadwallader remains in love with live sound. Based in the western U.S., he’s held a wide range of professional audio positions, performing mixing, recording, and technician duties.

More articles on PSW by James Cadwallader:
How And Why Unity Mixing Can Make All The Difference In The World
Yes, Virginia, System Gain Structure Matters - Here’s Why
No Slave to Gear: Maximizing What You Get Out Of What You Have