That's brilliant, no time to comment now, but the loud soundcheck sounds like the way to go - will print out your message and take to the gig! Beset Robin
On Sat, May 23, 2009 at 5:48 AM, MinnesotaMandolin <[email protected]>wrote: > > I'll take a stab here, my band also uses all pickups. This is a wordy > post, though. > > First off, I'm not sure if your issues were feedback or just a general > bad sound at high volume. Your post seems like it was of the general > bad sound variety. I'll offer a few tips. If you already know this > stuff I trust you'll forgive the repitition. > > * The Room. What type of space are you playing in? When it's empty, > does it have a lot of natural reverb or is it kinda dead? A reverby > room should sound real nice with some bodies in it and you can tell > from the stage. A dead room (or a dead stage) can be harder because > you can't hear the PA as clearly. > > *Control. Who's in control of the PA? If it's one of you guys, then > you can try different things. If it's somebody else, then hopefully > they're open to suggestions. If it is one of you guys, whichever one > it is needs to get a long cable so he can go out in front of the band > and listen while playing. That's important, because it lets you adjust > the overall sound of everybody and it keeps you in the mix so the rest > of the band plays "right" while you're offstage listening. I'm not the > main singer so it was easy for me to do (and also how I got the job of > band sound guy in the first place). If the band sound guy is a main > singer I don't have any good suggestions (take the mic onto the floor, > maybe?) > > *House vs. stage. Did your gig sound good to the crowd? If it just > sounded bad to you guys then you got the big issue dealt with. > Amplifying yourself onstage, with pickups, especially if you rehearse > acoustic, can be a confusing auditory experience. But if it didn't > sound good to anyone then you indeed have to "take action." A good > help here can be a musician buddy, somebody whose ears you trust. Buy > him a beer and ask him to keep you appraised of what's happening out > there. Most musicians hate to see their friends sounding bad and will > gladly offer suggestions. > > * Gain. Is everyone's "gain" adjusted appropriately? You want the gain > to be as high as it can get without clipping. Some PAs have a light > that will blink when the sound clips, others you just have to listen > for. If you're having trouble telling, turn the gain way up so you > know it's clipping--it should sound electric guitarish--then ease the > gain back until you know it isn't like that. You have to play your > intrument HARD when you do this check. I don't even play chords, I > just bang the open strings as hard as I can. My mandolin pickup (a > fishman M-200) is really "hot" and I generally have my gain at around > 10:00 (like on a clock) or 30%. My banjo player's pickup is about as > hot and his gain is a little higher, the guitarist and bassist are a > little lower and they're generally around 12 or 50%. > > * Instrument EQ. My experience is that a good plugged-in sound at a > high volume will sound good at a low, but the opposite is not > necessarily true. For example, my mando sounds really nice at volume > level 2 or so eq'd flat, but even at a volume of 4, that eq setting > sounds awful. For my mando I generally eq with 0% low end, 20% mid and > 50% high end. The banjo is about the same. The guitar is around 30% > low, 50%mid and 50% high and the bass is pretty flat with a bit of low > end rolled off. > > * Vocals EQ. In the rock'n'roll medium, vocals need to have the > midrange pushed to cut through the drums and distorted guitars. > Because of this, many vocal mics have the midrange already boosted and > sound tech advice is to boost the midrange on vocals. I don't think > this sounds right w/o drums or loud guitars. I've found in the string > band medium vocals sound pretty good with the mids and highs flat and > the low end rolled off a little bit. Because everyone's voice is > different, you do have tailor the eq settings. Especially at high > volumes, I find myself rolling back mids and pushing up trebles. > > * Overall EQ. I eq the house in a "notched smile," which, assuming you > have a graphic eq, has the shape of a smiley face with a little bit of > the high-mids notched down a little lower. Sort of like a smile with a > gap for a cigaratte or something. > > * Reverb. I don't like it and I don't use it. In my opinion you can't > hurt anything by cutting it and if you're having troubles, adding it > won't help. Having said that, I've heard some sound guys do some > really sweet, subtle things with reverb so use it if you like it. > > * Volume. Soundcheck LOUD. It's intimidating to do in an empty room > because it seems so awkward but it's what you gotta do. Following what > I said about EQ, if you soundcheck loud and then don't get the crowd, > you can turn down and it should sound pretty good. You've discovered > what happens if you do the opposite. When you check, remember the > crowd is going to "soak up" a lot of the "blare and bounce" of the > empty room, particularly high-end instruments like mandolin and banjo. > So have courage with your mandolin being LOUD--once there's some > bodies in there it won't seem loud, it will seem BIG. My experience > has been that really nice sounding gigs had soundchecks that didn't > sound "really nice." I hate to bring up experience, but you do learn > what to listen for in an empty, bouncey room so that it will sound > right when it's full of people. > > * Adjustments. If it seems like merely turning up the volume isn't > helping, I've done a couple different things. One is to turn up > everybodys' individual volumes a lot and turn down the master. I've > also done the opposite. It presents a different sonic picture. You can > also boost mid and treble to help instruments cut. If you have a > "presence" knob, that is an extremely useful tool. If your mando is > just blaring out of the speaking painfully, turn the presence down. If > it is audible but not clear, turn the presence up. It works for banjo > and guitar too, but not really for bass. Are you guys using monitors? > Try to avoid monitor wars, by which someone asks for more of > themselves, and now you can't hear you so you get more of you and > pretty soon everybody has turned up in the monitor and it sounds bad. > > * Good enough. Ideally your gig should sound great. But if it's not > sounding great, my advice is to get it "good enough" and then deal > with it for 15 minutes. After that, I've found that one's ears adjust > to the sound and what at song #3 was maddening is, by song #8, good > enough. > > Whew. That was long and probably too wordy. I hope this is helpful. > Feel free to follow up with any questions and I hope this is timely > enough to help you. > > Have a good show! > > erik > > > On May 22, 4:18 pm, Robin Gravina <[email protected]> wrote: > > I figure there are some experts out there so help please! We played last > > night in a great artsy bar in the country with a music loving, tatooed, > > hairy, middle aged audience and all went well, but we hit problems with > the > > sound - great sound check in the empty bar, but as people got in and > started > > talking, just turning the thing up did not do us any favours - any > > suggestions? Should we lower the bass, boost the treble? Take off any > > reverb? Frankly I have no idea, but the same thing is going to happen > > tomorrow unless we take action. As tomorrow is a bar frequented by > Spanish > > folk illuminati such as Kepa Junquera, I'd like to give a good > impression. > > > > We have our instruments through pickups, not microphones if that is > > important to know. Also I proudly want to boast that one person (an > English > > speaker) started singing along with a song of mine that had its world > > premiere that night. What a great feeling..yeeeeey! > > > > Thanks for any advice > > Robin > > > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Taterbugmando" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/taterbugmando?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
