One of my favorite quotes goes something like this: “Let’s take some of these things over which we have no control, and do something about them.”
I only wish I knew who originally said this, because that person is my hero.
This article is my attempt at accomplishing this goal, because I tend to think of bad sound as something that I often have no control over but nevertheless I want to fix because it is a crime against the audience.
Sure, there are times when the gear is at fault but let’s be honest – it is more often not the fault of the operators. That’s right; it’s you and me screwing up the sound. So here’s my list of reasons for bad sound and how these problems might be overcome.
10. Promoters, event coordinators, pastors, principals, or other kinds of dweebs in charge of some event that just don’t know what real is, what it costs, or even how to ask for it.
They have done so much with so little for so long, that they don’t have any clue how bad it really is. They hire a DJ with loudspeakers on a stick when they need to cover an event with a PA, including background music, speeches, dancing, etc., for 450 people.
They low-ball all the local vendors and squeeze them for every dime. Unfortunately, some of these dirtbags actually DO know what it would take to do it right and they just don’t care. I’m sure you’ve been involved with events like this. I certainly have.
The solutions are tricky. But first, the only professional way to deal with one of these situations, once it is too late to turn back, is of course to do everything in the world possible to make it as good as it can be.
The down side of that is that the event will likely succeed as a result of your efforts and the problem is perpetuated (and of course if it fails, you are likely to be blamed).
My first suggestion is to flat out turn down any work that you know will be like this, and politely explain that your and your company’s goal is to always provide professional sound at hired events, and that for such little money, you simply can’t provide the proper tools and people to get good results.
Yes – there are companies and individuals that will whore themselves out for the bottom dollar. Just don’t be one of them if you can help it.
Failing that (and we have all failed that – often because we don’t realize what kind of a gig it will be until it’s too late), the next step is to very politely explain to the powers that be, after the gig is over, that a lot of problems could have been avoided, and better sound could have been had (meaning more, and happier, customers) if they had budgeted enough money and listened to the right experts about how it should have been done.
They may or may not take any interest. But at least you know to avoid this particular job in the future, and you can warn your friendly and like-minded competitors about it.
9. Bad acoustics. Yes – we all know that there are venues where good sound simply can’t be had. Here in Albuquerque, there is the Tingley Coliseum. Many bands avoid our city and one of the reasons is this crappy venue. It really is that bad, but it can be tamed – at least to a certain extent.
One of the better-sounding shows I’ve ever seen happened to be in Tingley: Sarah McLachlan. I talked to Gary Stokes, her FOH guy, about it, and he admitted that the place wasn’t ideal. But he started running down the list of things he’d considered towards making the best of it.
He did say, “If this was Barbra Streisand, we’d have a huge budget and I would have hung heavy drapes to block off the back third…” in other words, he knew what it would have taken to make it even better, but not within practical means for him at the time. Maybe someday Gary will get to mix Barbra in there, and see if the drapes would really help!
For one thing, really bad rooms do NOT benefit from blasting the audience with more power than needed. If anything, go light. Cut down the PA and think extra carefully about how to avoid the walls, ceiling, etc. and ONLY have sound reaching the people and nowhere else.
Think of ways to cut down on stage volume – the move to personal monitors has certainly helped our efforts in this regard. It’s simply not good enough to say “the room sucks” and just do business as usual.
8. Inadequate gear. Sometimes, this can be a result of the forces in number 10 above, but often, things can be done to help the problem. If you are somehow in the position of trying to make good sound and keep making good sound when the loudspeakers just won’t cover the room, be sure to think about getting extra boxes somehow or re-positioning the boxes you have in order to get the best results possible.
I remember one situation where the venue was a hall with three balconies. The local guy pointed out that with the loudspeakers he had, he usually could not reach the top balcony, so he positioned his loudspeakers to cover the floor and the first two balconies with good sound. This is a reasonable compromise.
We augmented what he had with some additional mid-high boxes pointed at the third balcony, and we ended up with a reasonable success.
You may not be so lucky. But like in number 10 above, be sure to stay professional.
But, also inform the powers that be as to the nature of the problem. They may not listen, or care, but you have done the right thing.
We’ve all spent countless hours fixing cables, snakes, loudspeaker connectors, consoles, amps and racks just to get through the gig. That’s what makes us who we are. It’s ALWAYS our job to do our best, no matter how crappy the situation.
7. Loud stage. Fortunately, this problem has diminished over the last decade or so with the proliferation of personal monitor systems. What a godsend!
But plenty of tours, events and shows still use wedges due to artist demand, budget, or lack of understanding of personal monitor systems and how to make them work. So, when you get your wedges, drums, guitar amps and anything else on the stage into all the microphones, your mix will suffer.
I would strongly suggest that you get familiar with the nuances of running personal monitor systems if you haven’t done so already.
Then look for other ways to cut down on stage volume. Is the guitar player pointing his cabinet at the back of his knees? Is the drummer using a shield? Are there other ways you might be able to mic the stage to cut down on picking up the wash?
Working on each one of these elements will gradually clean up the mix and give you more control over how you want to shape the sound.
6. Time of arrival. Most of the PA systems I’ve ever seen do not account for this effect. And, frankly, worrying about it does not make sense in every instance.
That being said, now that we have digital delay available in the consoles, drive racks and other devices, there is no excuse for ignoring this effect. What I mean is that if you’ve got a loudspeaker on a stick on each side of the stage, pulpit, lectern or whatever, and you are not delaying the signal appropriately, the sound will appear to the audience to come from the loudspeakers and not the person talking or singing.
Get familiar with sound propagation speed (1,130 feet/second at room temp at sea level) and know that it equates to about 1 mS per foot of distance.
With that in mind, just think about how you might delay the signal just enough so that most people in the audience hear the person’s voice slightly before they hear the sound from the PA.
The illusion will be that the source of the sound is the person, not the PA. Look up the Haas effect.
5. Wireless mics not used properly. Mainly I see this as a combination of planning (or lack thereof) and believing that wireless mics work on voodoo, and thus, “There’s nothing that can be done.”
Frankly, there is almost always something that can be done. Wireless mics work on math and science, and should be treated as such. The laws of physics apply.
Sure, using really crappy wireless is like playing Chinese, er, Russian Roulette, but as soon as you get to the units costing $400 per channel or more, the problems stem mainly from antenna design and frequency choice.
Read the manuals for these systems and get the good information offered by the various reputable manufacturers. You can only gain from knowing more about wireless. Get familiar with frequency coordination software.
4. Hearing loss. I just read a post on a ProSoundWeb Forum describing the same thing I’ve heard many times – a mix that is just too damn bright because the operator has probably lost his or her hearing.
Please, please, PLEASE get your hearing tested on an annual basis, and don’t think it’s “not manly” to wear hearing protection when you mow the lawn and use the vacuum cleaner and when your system is being pinked out.
And frankly, if your hearing is significantly degraded, do the right thing and consider changing careers. Run a sound company. Do lights, be the system tech. But consider that if you continue to mix, you will continue to damage your hearing further but meanwhile, your mixes will continue to sound worse and worse.
3. Poor wiring, terminations and grounding. This is another one like gain structure that is far more common than it should be. There are times when a single whisker of shield wire can short out a hot connection or cause a ground loop.
You should have a regular maintenance schedule for all of your mic cables, and a procedure in place for checking and cleaning your multi-pin units as well. And if you’re not clear on grounding and ground loops, get clear on it!
I’ve received a number of calls over the years where by simply diagramming the system, I can point out where the ground loop is being created. You should be able to do this as well. Finally, impedance and level matching are important topics to understand as well.
You should know when a DI will be helpful and when it won’t. You should know why it’s a bad idea to connect a 300 ohm guitar pickup directly into a 1K ohm microphone input.
2. Poor gain structure. Yeah, you’ve probably heard this a thousand times before. Yet it’s still true. Here at Lectrosonics, we get calls about sound systems not working properly and at least seven out of 10 times it is a gain-structure related issue.
The main problem we see is not enough gain at the front end – think mic preamps – and then the gain made up somewhere else down the chain. The result is simply too much noise and not enough punch.
The second most common error I see is that the buses are being hit too hard because all the channels are hot and then being summed to a buss amp that can’t take +28 dBu. The resulting sound is squashed, small, and often irritating.
Unlike the old days of recording and hitting the analog tape really hard, it is not always such a good idea to be hitting your channels or your busses hard. Hit them hard enough to get the maximum signal to noise ratio, but not so hard that distortion is evident.
There are book chapters, seminars, training sessions, and manufacturers’ information on this subject. And there is also the advice of your peers.
But it is up to you to figure out how to set your gain structure properly for the best results, with the gear that you are using.
1. Lack of mixing skills. This can manifest itself in many different ways, but the most common I’ve encountered include: too loud, too bright, too much distortion, and no definition between elements of the mix.
Folks, there simply isn’t any good excuse for this stuff because when using good, well-set-up gear, these problems can all be avoided. I’ve been at concerts where two different acts played on the same PA.
Artist A sounded like crap, with muddy lows and no extension, mish-mash mids, too much high-mid, distorted highs, and no extension on the top. Instruments blended into each other. The drums were too loud, particularly the kick. The vocals were barely intelligible.
Then artist B took the stage, and it was like a revelation: clean, extended lows, beautiful definition between instruments, no low-mid gunk, beautifully clear vocals, and wonderful, extended highs.
What was the difference? Mainly, it was the operator. Sure, the different artists were part of the story but we’re talking about basically the same sources on stage – drums, bass, guitar, keyboard and vocals.
The real difference happened behind the console and one guy knew what he was doing while the other one did not, period.
What can you do to improve your “Mad Mixing Skilz”?
First, lose the ego and realize that you’ve got a lot to learn. Everyone mixes differently, but there are some common threads between great mixers. They know what kind of a sound they want, and they technically know how to get it.
They are self-critical and objective about what they are hearing. They know that hard and fast rules used to mic drums or to EQ guitars don’t often work in the real world. The way they really EQ is to understand how all the instruments and voices fit together, and they come up with a way to make that work by giving each sound its own space in the mix.
Great mix engineers remain open-minded and stay in the present moment so that they can actively listen to what’s happening in front of them. And then they take action.
They also know what the artist wants and what the audience expects.
All these things are skills that can be learned. What are you waiting for?
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