It’s not … working. Everyone’s had this problem in all of its flavors. We turned again to our panel of performers, producers and sound engineers to share their solutions.

The band is too loud and the sound is harsh and thin. Can EQ or other processors be used to produce better overall sound?

ALEX DEL ZOPPO:
“That’s what comes to my mind, but only after the band itself does some of the work. They need a sound professional to see that their sound is less irritating and more desirable (within the parameters of their particular genre), does not distract from the vocals, and remain uniform in whatever venue they may find themselves performing in.

Without that input, if they are totally relying on the house sound people to cure their problem, EQ can improve the situation, but the right choice of mics (for each instrument and/or voice) also goes a long way toward achieving a great sound. A tight, balanced group sound should be the goal for any act, and always one which supports the vocals.”

KAREN KANE:
“The first thing I would do in this situation is to try and negotiate with the band to play at a slightly lower volume. This isn’t always successful but after you explain that it’ll sound much better if you (the engineer) control the volume. A harsh and thin PA can always be helped by the stereo graphic EQ that should be on the stereo buss. “

What are the options? Adding bass and mids? Cutting highs?

ALEX DEL ZOPPO:
“Generally, if it’s the abrasive upper range, yes. A band can sound harsh in many ways.”

KAREN KANE:
“Cut out harsh frequencies. Try to avoid adding too much in the low end, cutting frequencies is best.”

PARIS LAHR:
“Twist knobs all you like, play with the processors ‘til your fingers bleed. If the band is just too loud, it’s fighting a forest fire with a garden hose. The real tool in this situation is a radio call to the stage.

An engineer working for the band needs to be in a position, that when the techs walk out there to turn the amps down, and point at you, the artist accepts the situation without question. Not any easy place to be, it takes the confidence of the artist, and one has to earn that trust.

Now, if you are just the house sound dude mixing a local band the solution is the same, turn the backline down, but the path to it is different.

Battle it preemptively.
When they are loading in the four Marshall full stacks, maybe go have a very friendly conversation with them about stage levels. Make a few suggestions, like turning the cabinets as far off stage as they are comfortable with, ask them to start a little quiet and “build” volume as the monitor mix comes together.

During line check, politely ask them to “bump down” a few db if they can.

In the end, if the band listens, they win, because the overall show will be better. If they don’t listen, and it sounds awful, they only have themselves to blame. All one can do is keep cutting FOH channels until you can hear the vocals.

Start by pulling the loudest thing coming off the stage (probably the guitars) out of the PA, and keep doing that until you can hear the vocals. My order goes something like this:

Overheads –> Background –> vocals –> guitars –> Bass –> hi hat –> Track

They all don’t come completely out, but pull them back until the lead vocals can be heard, and start rebuilding. That will help, but in the end there are not going to be any significant gains in sound “quality”, the vocal will just appear louder.

The band’s drummer is also a singer and uses a SM58® for vocals, but the mic picks up too much of the drum kit and stage noise. What’s the solution here?

ALEX DEL ZOPPO:
“While those are the standard tough-guy mics that can take repeated blows from stray drumsticks, a more directional mic or perhaps one with a tighter (super) cardioid pattern should help a lot. Using a lavaliere, or head-mount mic, often eliminates much of the unwanted surrounding noise as well as stays well clear of those occasional wayward sticks. But drums are tricky, due to their insistent percussive nature, their sounds can carry for great distances like gunshots. Having any mic placed in a direction that is pointed away from the drums typically helps. Having too many cymbals surrounding the kit emphasizes this problem. Not playing those particular offending cymbals during the drummer’s vocals would be an arrangement solution.”

KAREN KANE:
“Try to talk the drummer into wearing a headset mic. If that doesn’t work, use the bass roll-off switch on the drummer’s channel. This helps with a lot of low-end bleed from the stage. Also, maybe add a little bit of 2-3K so that the vocal intelligibility is better and you can keep it at a lower volume.”

PARIS LAHR:
“Ah, the age old question, singing drummers. There is no simple answer. Drummers are picky fellows, and by the time they reach the point of needing a sound engineer, they are pretty set in their ways, so changing the position they sing from may not be an option.

The biggest complaint with singing drummers, is that most do not hit the same when they sing. Usually they play softer when they are singing, though some have learned to overcompensate over the years and actually play harder when they sing.

Either way, it is going to affect the gain structure at both consoles, both on the drum channels and the vocal channel, as well as the gates.

Really, to find the proper solution, you must watch the drummer to observe his style. A headset might be the answer, but obviously the drummer has to be OK with it. Most don’t like it, and the pickup pattern on a headset usually causes more problems then they solve.

Some simple starter questions:

• How often do they sing?
• How loud do they sing?
• How prominent in the mix does the vocal need to be?
• How far away from the mic are they?
• Where do they prefer to place the mic?
• Do they push the mic away when they don’t use it, or does it always stay in the same place?
• Are they on ears? Or wedges?

Based on the answers to these questions, and many others, choose the correct mic for the job.

Lots of drummers like the mic just to their left, coming in from below. Unfortunately, this causes the drummer to twist his body and lean into the mic when he sings. This is bad for his back and it causes him to hit the drums softer, because he in only using his arms instead of his shoulders.

If the drummer is OK with it, bring the stand in from behind if there is room on the riser. Extend the stand to near the limit, then bring the boom in from over his head. Put a very short gooseneck on the end of the boom and use a mic like a Beta 56. The mic cable doesn’t stick out, risking the drummer accidentally hitting it with his stick. The closer you can get the mic to his mouth while he is in the normal sitting position, the better.

Try and get the mic placed with an upward tilt, so that the snare and hi hat are on the backside of the pickup pattern. Try flipping the phase on the vocal, or possibly on the snare to see if it helps.

No matter how well it’s placed, it is still an open mic within a couple feet of the snare. There will be snare and cymbal bleed through it. The louder the drummer sings, and the less the mic has to be gained, the better it will sound.

If the drummer doesn’t sing very often, it may be possible to use a switched mic. This way it can be turned off when not in use. But if the drummer isn’t religious about turning it on and off, it will just get left on or he might forget to turn it on — and then blame the engineer.

A footswitch is sometimes better for a drummer, something like a hotshot, output switcher. Put the pedal on the floor just to the left of the hi-hat, and the drummer can stomp it on and off at their discretion. Of course, if the drummer sings really quietly, every time that mic opens, the whole drum mix will change. It won’t work for every drummer.

If the drummer is not a main vocal, just background vocal, and speaks in between songs, give him a switched mic. Have him turn it on and off when he wants to talk to the band/audience, and put the background vocals on the track. It will clean up the mix, the monitors, free the drummer from having to sing, and make everyone’s lives easier.”

Not everyone has the luxury of using personal monitoring systems, so what are some tips on making a wedge sound good?

ALEX DEL ZOPPO:
“With the better systems, each musician/singer can have a personal mix pumped to them in those wedges. As a musician/singer, it will be your job to ask the sound people in each venue to give you only what you want in your wedge. Say you ask for a mix consisting of 70% your vocal and 30% your guitar – that would allow you to hear the rest of the band on stage, but always hear yourself better. This is important to remain in tune vocally during loud passages. If you are part of an act that is necessarily more spread out on stage, you might want a personal wedge mix that is 50% voice, 25% guitar, and 25% the rest of the band. “

PARIS LAHR:
“It takes a little time, a good ear, and some knowledge of microphones. Once everything is set up, and close to being in place, pink noise all the mixes individually. Make sure everything is working, and they all sound the same.

Given an infinite amount of time, and access to the digital processors, one could go into each mix and do all the EQ cuts in the digital realm, as well as adjust the crossover points and slopes to better suit the mic being used. But with most shows, there isn’t enough time to do this. You have to trust that the sound provider has it all wired correctly and has the correct crossover settings loaded.

Consistency is key. If all the monitors are different, or have a mix of different drivers that are not all in phase, it’s going to be a rough night.

Once everything is working, walk out and EQ the most important mix, with the mic s/he will be using. I prefer to do this by myself, time permitting, so that I can visually see all the cuts I have made as I’m doing them. This gives me a visual cue into harmonic problems. If there seems to be a problem at, let’s say, 315, 800, and 2k, more likely it’s a harmonic, either the 400-800-1.6, or 315-630-1.25.

Try pulling a few db of the harmonics and put the other frequencies back flat. Move the wedges or rotate them slightly to stop feedback, instead of reaching for the graph first. Sometime moving a pair of wedges 6” further apart will reduce your comb filtering problems and stop the feedback — no EQ required.

Once the main mix is loud and stable, copy that EQ to all the other mixes. At this point, it’s useful to have another engineer “drive” the desk, allowing you to wander around the stage and get things done faster.

Now, mute the center mix and EQ the sidefills with the main mic. When the sidefills are stable, unmute the center mix and re-level and re-EQ the mic in both the main mix and the fills until it’s all stable. Try throwing one sidefill, or the center mix, out of phase. Sometimes that can make a huge difference.

Walk around the stage adding the main vocal to each mix, listening to each, to make sure it sounds the same and is not feeding back. Once it’s stable in each mix, walk down to main position again, and really yell. At this point, you should be able to hear any frequencies that are “building” on stage. Usually it’s in the low-mid area, 400 Hz for example. Pull a db or two of 400 from each mix to see if it goes away. You don’t want to pull too much on the graphs or you’ll lose all of your gain.

If the problem frequencies are specific to that mic, dump a little low-mid, centered around 400 from the vocal mic channel strip. Again, be sparing.

Now go to each of the other vocal mics, and bring them up in their respective mixes, tweak EQ as needed, but it should be close.

Once it’s all stable and sounds good (this could take two minutes or two hours depending on the situation), start line-checking everything else, starting with the drums, and add them around the stage sparingly as you go.

If you already know what the band wants, mix it in. If you’re guessing, start with the basics, (kick-snare-hat in the sidefills and drum fill, vocals a little everywhere, but loudest in their own mix) and wait for the band to tell you what they want. If all the mixes are stable, you should be able to turn anything on, in any mix, with at least 60% volume, without fear of feedback.

A monitor engineer’s job is never really done. Keep jumping around each mix with the cue system (it is critical to have a matching cue system). Always listen and compare levels. Sometimes turning down X, is just as effective as turning up Y, in any given mix. Just because the artist is yelling for input Y, doesn’t mean that turning it up is going to help them.

If Y is the main vocal, and the artists are yelling they can’t hear themselves, it could be that they keyboard just jumped in level by 15 db while you weren’t paying attention. The solution to ‘I can’t hear my vocal’ is actually more compression on the keyboard channel, not turning up the vocal. The only way to know this is to constantly monitor the inputs and outputs. Good engineers catch these problems as they happen, and solve them before the band has a chance to complain.”

What about problems like comb filtering and phase cancellation? How can these issues be avoided?

ALEX DEL ZOPPO:
“In-ear monitors solve that problem. But some artists will not use them. They want to see a row of speakers out in front of them and as much sidefill as you can fit in the room. In the end, comb filtering and phase cancellation cannot be completely avoided, only minimized.

If the artist demands 10 wedges downstage, plus flown sidefills plus stacked sidefills plus ego wedges, there is going to be comb filtering somewhere. Anywhere two different speakers are pointed at the same space, from different locations, there will be comb filtering.

It starts with having the right equipment. Being able to specify monitor wedges with different horn patterns is a good start. If you have to have a whole bunch of monitor wedges close to one another, all with the same signal, using wedges with a very narrow horn pattern is probably best.

If the monitors need to cover a larger area, a wider horn pattern is better.

Try to overlap the horn patterns as little as possible, without creating “gaps” between them. You have to listen and compromise.

Build a full front of house style mix in the sidefills, vocal on top. Put the main vocal in all the wedges, as loud as you can get it. Then put a little kick drum in all the wedges, so it can just barely be heard when the singer is singing. Put anything “special” (maybe a piano or acoustic guitar) that the singer needs to hear in the wedges as well.

Then throw the artist on stage and roll.

In a small venue, is it really necessary to mic the guitar and bass amps?

ALEX DEL ZOPPO:
“Generally, I’d say yes, as this will spread the sound, allowing it to reach every portion of the room. Actually, it depends on just how small the space is, but mostly how many different instruments/vocals are involved. The more complex the situation, the more I’d be inclined to mic “everything”, perhaps with the exception of the bass amp, as bass usually has a way of filling the room, due to its omni-directional qualities.

Mics will allow the overall mix to be better. Having someone with a good ear at the mixing board also helps tremendously. They can achieve a great “room sound” as they can adjust the inequalities that the performers often cannot hear while playing.”

KAREN KANE:
“It ALWAYS depends on the room. You never know until you get there.”

PARIS LAHR:
“It depends. But if anyone wants to hear that guitar in the monitors, (like the drummer for instance), you will need to have a mic on it. Even if it doesn’t get turned up in the PA.

A fun trick in really small clubs is to mic the guitars, throw them out of phase, and then use the PA to cancel the guitars in the room. It’s not a perfect science, but sometimes throwing them out of phase with the stage and putting a radical EQ on them can cut a harsh guitar tone coming off the stage in a really small room.”

Is it possible to EQ a room?

ALEX DEL ZOPPO:
“Yes, all spaces have their own ‘sound personalities’. The main factor in this would be the room’s resonant frequencies, based on the distances between parallel walls, or the floor and ceiling.

Reflection and other factors combine to create what people refer to as a venue’s ‘sound’. People speak in terms of a room having a ‘warm sound”’ or something not so pleasing. These resonant frequencies tend to emphasize certain ranges, creating an imbalance in the overall audio range. So, if a large hall hasn’t damped its interior with bass traps, or by varying its hard and absorptive surfaces, the bass might sound twice as loud when playing in a small range (sometimes only two or three notes), and causing the room to reverberate just those notes for a longer time than all of the other notes being played. This can happen in the vocal ranges in medium sized rooms, too, making singers very uncomfortable.

A decent parametric EQ usually de-emphasizes those very specific frequencies, making all of the notes sound the same. There are kits for just this sort of thing.”

KAREN KANE:
“Using a pink noise generator, you can EQ your speakers for each room that you’re in.”

PARIS LAHR:
“What you’re really doing is EQing the PA in relation to the room.

Every engineer has his own method of EQing a room. Some spend hours running pink noise through the system, making minute adjustments to the house graph, eyes glued to SMAART. Some blast their garage band recordings through the rig for hours. I use a combination of all three to EQ a room, though sometimes I just don’t have enough time to do any of it, so I EQ as I go during line check and sound check.

Truly, the best way to EQ a room is to do it when the band is on stage. Given the convenience of having the same band, backline, mics, splitter, and consoles on a regular basis, especially if they are digital desk, sound check is how I ring the PA. I tend to run things pretty flat, so if the band fires up, and it doesn’t sound pretty close, right off the bat, it’s probably an issue with the PA.

Using all three methods, one is just looking for either a summing of frequencies, or a cancellation of frequencies across the room.

Every room is different, and depending on where the PA is hung in relation to the walls, there will be different reflections in different locations. Try and minimize these physical problems by getting the PA hung correctly and then make sure that all the cabinets are ‘time-aligned’ to one another.

It is possible to time-align 1 speaker, or an array of speakers, with another. However, the speakers are only ‘aligned’ over a percentage of the area they cover. The more speakers (or arrays) added to the system, the harder it is to get the sound waves to converge simultaneously and uniformly across the room. In fact, it is impossible.

Spending hours aligning the room with SMAART will time-align all the speakers to one spot in the room. With enough time, this process is repeated at different spots in the room and the average is worked out, giving the engineer the ‘correct’ delay time for each array. But it’s still an average and not an exact science. SMAART is a great tool, don’t get me wrong, but one can do the same thing with a tape measure, some basic geometry, and a good ear.”

NATHAN MILLER:
“Yes, it is possible to mix the room. Sometimes this is actually necessary in situations where the venue doesn’t have the system to support a full sounding mix. It is also important in these situations to have clear communication with the band as they will be helping (or hurting) your house mix.”

What can be done to lower the overall on-stage volume? IEMS are one solution, of course, but what else can we do?

ALEX DEL ZOPPO:
“Some decades ago, well before IEMs, we opened for the Beach Boys, and were in awe of their absolutely perfect sound. They were one of the first acts that we knew of who brought all of their own sound equipment, along with several sound people. Their trick: using fairly small amps on stage (all mic’d, of course) and matched vocal mics, all patched through the more-than-ample board.

The sound that came out of the mix was exactly like their records. Nothing was missing, every tiny vocal inflection was heard, yet it still had an exciting live feel. This was probably conceived of necessity, given their complex vocal arrangements. Every other act in that era was bringing increasingly larger, more powerful amps, trying to quake those in the cheap seats, while they could have done a better job with a great P.A. No wonder rock musicians began to lose their hearing. Sorry, did you say something?”

PARIS LAHR:
“Educate. Teach band members how to lower their levels while maintaining their tone.

You can use isolation cabinets for extremely loud guitars. Reduce the number of open mics on stage. Every open mic is picking up a time-delayed mixture of what is washing around on stage. Every one of those is raising the noise floor of the mix.

The engineers, the musician, and the techs, should work together to reduce volume and improve tone. A good monitor engineer is the key to keeping things under control. If artists can’t hear themselves in the monitors, they turn up the volume and that’s bad for everyone. Making sure the monitors are right will go a long way to keeping the stage volume down.

NATHAN MILLER:
“Here are a few suggestions: turn guitar amps backwards, use remote guitar amps and drum shields (as much as I hate them) and consider heavier cymbals for the drummer.”

It’s two minutes until showtime, and there’s no output on one channel. Now what?

ALEX DEL ZOPPO:
“Assuming that all of the connections have been tested, and cords replaced as needed, and it has definitely been determined that the problem is the amp . . . give it a serious slap. Not a polite reprimand, but a good whack! Sometimes that Neanderthal gesture will do the trick.

If it seems to jolt it out of its sleep, it may be because the female connections (usually located at the rear of the power amp) may have oxidized or even rusted somewhat. This is common in rental equipment that spends much of its time in outdoor situations. Spraying each of these connections with contact cleaner might at least get you through the show. If not, it’s back to MONO for that gig!”

KAREN KANE:
“As fast as possible, change the channel and/or change the cable.”

Besides a credit card and a cell phone, what should every engineer have in an emergency kit?

ALEX DEL ZOPPO:
“I’d take several extra cables, and extra raw cable, numerous ¼” and XLR connectors and various adapters (male–to-female, etc.), electrician’s pliers, diagonals, a fast soldering gun, and a serious flashlight. These problems often seem to pop up after a set has already begun, and crawling around the rear of the stage looking for a connection problem in the shadows is no fun.”

KAREN KANE:
“Spare adapters of all kinds, flashlights and I like to carry around a couple of ‘Feedback Busters’ for acoustic guitars that still have issues in the monitors even though it’s a DI.”

PARIS LAHR:
“Not just a cell phone, a cell phone with a huge list of numbers in it. Numbers for people you can call in an emergency when you absolutely have to have something, or need someone, to make a show happen. No one can carry enough adapters to fix every situation, but knowing the right guy in town, who will have what you need, can save a show, or even a tour.”

NATHAN MILLER:
“I like to have at least two dynamic mics, two pencil condensers (because they’re easy to pack), one JDI Passive DI, gaffer’s tape and some Sharpies®.

So there you have it. A spectrum of solutions, a range of opinions – and a few tricks you can apply in your own live sound applications, whether you’re on a national tour or running sound for your teenager’s garage band. One thing everyone agreed on: it’s about experimentation, advance planning and trusting your ears.

He’s the man behind the console at venues ranging from intimate clubs to sports arenas, with an impressive resume that includes pro sound responsibilities for popular venues, major sound companies and globally touring artists.

It only made sense that we’d want to tap Paris Lahr for his advice on how to mic a wide spectrum of artists at a wide spectrum of performance spaces, how to stay cool in the wake of equipment malfunctions and what it takes to succeed in the music business.

We caught up with Paris as he was packing up for a six-week European tour with the All American Rejects.

In the House

In addition to your touring duties, which we’ll get to in a minute, you’ve done house sound for a number of venues. Assuming all things are equal, what are the critical differences between miking a small club and a thousand-plus seat theater like The Vic here in Chicago?

All things are never equal. But there are definitely several things I do differently, based solely on the size of the room.

First of all, smaller rooms usually have less equipment. So, there may not be enough channels available to put mics on everything you normally would. For example, it may be necessary to split the rack toms or the congas with one mic. Instead of putting two mics in the kick drum, put one. If the stage is exceptionally small and the band is using wedges instead of in-ears, drop the overhead mic.

Second, changing the mics is sometimes the best solution. A vocal condenser might sound amazing on the lead singer in the 1000+ seat venues, but it is almost useless inside a tent at that corporate gig. So putting an SM58® on the singer for the day could save you from spending hours EQing the room and the monitors. It may give you more gain before feedback.

Third, mic placement becomes very important in larger rooms. The bigger the rooms get, the less the audience is hearing the instruments from the stage and the more they are hearing them from the PA.

If the tom mics aren’t tight, there will be a rattle. If the guitar mics are not in the right place, they won’t sound right in the PA and it will be difficult to get the mix together.

Finally, be practical. That large diaphragm condenser with the gargantuan shock mount might sound great on the 4 x 12 cabinet, but if the local guitar players keep knocking it over because the counterweighted stand you need is in his way, that mic is not of much use to anyone. Sometimes an SM57® on a Z-bar (amp-mounted angled mic stand) is the most elegant solution. It will not only stay where you put it, but it will keep the gear from being knocked over and broken.

What other considerations are there? How much do you know about the band’s music before they arrive and how do you prepare for the subtle or not so subtle differences?

When mixing in the small clubs, there really is no time to prepare for mixing all of the bands that will come through. When the agent is booking between three and seven bands a night, six nights a week, how could anyone possibly listen to all of that music ahead of time? Who’d want to?

Good locals come back and you remember them. In the little clubs, it’s mostly just “damage control” every night. As the clubs get bigger, and the equipment gets better, the best way to deal with the differences between the different types of music is to have different EQ settings prepared. The advantage of today’s digital processing, is that it can be changed instantly.

What kind of gear does the house usually provide?

It depends, but the basics are usually here. Don’t expect many venues of any size to have 6 KSM44s lying around, but almost everybody has at least 4-6 SM57s, 4-6 SM58®s, some kind of tom mics and a kick mic. Anything else is a bonus.

At what point is a band likely to provide its own sound system, mics and other gear? Is that just for huge stadium shows?

Smart bands will start collecting this gear almost immediately.

Singers should have their own vocal mics; a guitar player should have a mic for his cabinet that compliments his sound. Start there – find mics that sound good, that you like and invest in them as a band.

As things get bigger and better, carrying sound gear becomes an option, but it is always dependent on budget.

Some bands really have to carry sound gear because of the type of music they play, or the number of people in the band. If there are fourteen band members and they do two-hour sound checks, carrying a monitor rig becomes a necessity.

Most clubs won’t have enough equipment to handle that size band and it takes a long time to get all of that equipment set up and tested from scratch everyday. There’s also the amount of time it takes to arrange rental of the extra equipment needed in each city.

Touring with a monitor rig can cut the load-in and setup time down by two hours each day. This can actually be more cost-effective depending on how much labor is required.

OK, here’s a related question since we talked earlier about ‘guest engineers’. How does the house engineer work with the band’s sound crew? Can you talk about that?

I learned to read people very quickly being a house engineer. By watching how guest engineers do things, paying attention to what questions they ask, I can tell who is going to have a “good night” and who is going to have a “bad night” even before sound check begins.

What’s the division of labor? Who does what?

That depends on the band. Generally the crew is responsible for what they brought. If the band’s crew is using all of the house sound equipment, they don’t touch much at all except the desks.

As house engineer, I set everything up and then tear it down. If the band brings their own equipment, it’s the house engineer’s job to assist them, run cables and set up the consoles.

How familiar is the band’s sound crew with the gear?

Experience is everything. Some touring engineers would come in and I’d learn cool tricks from them. Other guys came in and I’d have to teach them how to use the console.

How far in advance are you likely to get a contract rider detailing the band’s audio requirements?

You might not even get one. Sometimes the band will give you one when they load in and sometimes you wing it. When I was the house engineer, I’d start looking for advance sheets from the touring band about a week out.

My general rule as a touring engineer is to try and advance one month out, one week out and one day out.

What (house sound) mistakes have you seen?

All of them. The most obvious is not enough PA, the wrong PA, or the right PA hung/stacked in the wrong place.

What are the most common problems?

Equipment that doesn’t work. Clubs that operate 5-7 days a week don’t always have or make time for necessary repairs.

You’ve got to have spare parts. The house engineer in a club that does shows six days a week needs to have a selection of spare parts, a spare sub driver, a spare horn diaphragm, a spare amplifier or at least one spare amp channel.
With the Band

Now let’s look at the flip side. You’re on a 20-city tour that includes 5,000-seat venues along with a few small clubs. How do you make adjustments for venues that vary in size and acoustics?

Experience. You get to know “types”. Similar rooms have similar problems, so if you know what frequencies are bad in which rooms – and in which PAs – you’ll have a jump on EQing the room and you’ll speed up your day.

How much time do you allow for sound check?

As much as the band needs. Every band is different. I only dictate the scheduled day of show and cut the band off once we have reached a point where we might have to hold doors.

If the crew is good, and the band is comfortable, I can knock out a sound check in one song or less. If the band needs a little more “mental reassurance”, I might schedule two-hour sound checks.

What about the mechanics of touring – packing up and loading in?

Less is more.

Everything you carry costs money. Shipping costs money, backline rental costs money, time is money. The less gear on the truck, and the lighter it is, the less time it takes to load in and load out. The less it costs to ship cross-country. There can be fewer hands on the labor call and they can be there for less time.

No one learns this in school. What guidelines can you offer in terms of staff, timing and logistics?

Find a good crew, hire them away from the bands they work for and don’t let them go. Take them with you when your current tour ends, and the new bands tour starts.

Having good help is the best thing you can do for yourself. If I can trust the techs to pack everything we need to do a last minute fly date, I can be worrying about getting that gear shipped around the world and not whether the tambourine for the keyboard player made it into the work box.

Is there much “advance work” involved? Are you often working, at least by phone, a couple of cities ahead?

As far in advance as possible. I like to leave for tour having all the advance work done. My phone bills are ridiculous.

In the past, you toured with The Donnas. What kind of gear did you travel with?

They’re a great example. The Donnas traveled extremely light. This made some shows possible that otherwise would have been a nightmare. We flew with two guitars, two bass guitars, a snare drum, a kick pedal, a stick bag, and a two-space in-ear personal monitor rack.

With four in the band and four in the crew (including a drum tech, guitar tech, FOH engineer, and myself doing monitors and tour management), we could fly anywhere in the world with two pieces of luggage each. That included personal bags; we were still able to remain underweight and undersize on everything.

In each city, all we needed was a Marshall quarter-stack, an SVT bass rig and a four-piece piece drum kit. DONE! We were able to fly across the country and around the world without having to ship gear via cargo. This really helped the budget.

What have you learned (on tour) that might help one of our readers who is just starting out?

I will give the same piece of advice my first Tour Manager Drew Menard gave me: “Mellow gets you gigs.”

About Paris Lahr

I’ve done everything from house sound to touring monitor engineer and drum tech. I started out as grunt tech for a small sound company in Peoria when I was still in college. I did lights for a year and then I started doing audio.

I moved back to Chicago to work a “real job” for a few years, but I quit in January 1998. I got a job as an engineer at The House of Blues early that summer and for the next eight years, I rotated around nearly every venue in Chicago. I worked as the main house engineer in some and as a sub in others, including The Bottom Lounge, Double Door, Elbo Room, Subterranean, The Vic Theater, and Park West.

Gigs: Production Manager, Stage Manager, Crew Chief, FOH Engineer, Monitor Engineer, System Engineer, Recording Engineer, Lighting Engineer, Rigger, Runner … you name it.

But whenever I could, I’d take tours.

On Tour with Paris

My first tour was as Monitor Engineer for Papa Vegas, opening for The Verve Pipe around 1999. A friend of mine from the HOB brought me out on that tour.

Since then, I’ve toured with: Bender, Kill Hannah, Rickie Lee Jones, Fountains of Wayne, The Donnas, Plain White T’s, Panic! at the Disco, the All American Rejects, and lots of others.

On the touring side, I’ve been a: tour manager, production manager, stage manager, FOH engineer, monitor engineer, and I’ve even teched drums in a pinch (even guitars once–and only once).

I’ve also worked for several sound companies: Big Audio, Diversified Audio Group, Sound of Authority, Clearwing Audio, and Sound Investments.

The most important skills required for this job: Patience, organization, people skills and a critical ear. Be able to do more than just one thing well. It’s great that you can mix, but can you tour-manage? Handle monitors? Arrange hospitality? Book hotels? Drive? Fix flat tires? Comfort a band member with a broken heart?

Sound Advice

Be calm, cool and collected until the end. If the band perceives that everything is great because you’re confident, they’ll believe everything is great and have a great show. (This despite the fact that there are four blown drivers in the PA and the monitor engineer has to whack the desk once in a while because mixes will cut out for no reason.)

Sometimes you just have to deal with a bad situation, and getting the band upset is only going to make your life harder.

My advice to newbies: Only about 10% of what I do is technical. 90% is political. You’ve got to have great people skills.

Of course, you have to know the technical side backward and forward, but if you can’t relate to other people, it’s going to be difficult.

Gear Check

Talkin’ Shure. Favorite Mics and Why

VP88

The perfect overhead mic, the perfect ambient audience mic, the perfect Leslie cabinet mic. Works great for choirs as well. Gives a perfect stereo image of the drum kit in the in-ears. Fewer phasing problems.

KSM9

My favorite new vocal mic. Great, crisp condenser sound, without the bleed problems of other vocal condensers.

KSM27

Less expensive than the KSM44. The last 4×12 guitar cabinet mic you will ever use. Also great on floor toms, congas and as a general percussion mic. (The KSM27 has been discontinued. Compare with new SM27.)

Let’s start with the most famous question that sound people are asked. “Do you really know what all those knobs do?”

If you can answer that question, you may also know every frequency and its equivalent musical notes. Maybe you know the exact crossover point of every driver in your system, and you might even have calculated the RT60 of the main sanctuary, youth room and gymnasium.

Or maybe not. Whether you’re the person who actually DOES know what every knob on the soundboard does, or you are just starting out, the real question is: “How does it sound?”

Starting Out

When I first began doing sound, I bought a great set of headphones. I thought to myself – if I’m going to be expected to make something sound good, I should probably know what I’m shooting for.

So I started listening (like crazy) to CDs. Not just bands or styles I liked, but anything and everything I could get my hands on. I listened to the lyrics, chords, melodies and harmonies, but also to how it all fit together. I concentrated on the space that each instrument was taking up.

I noticed that certain instruments seemed always to be sitting in a certain spot — not to where they were panned, but to the frequencies they occupied.

Instrument Frequency Response

How To Get There

When building a mix, we need to think of the song as a line. Each instrument makes up part of that line. If we have too many instruments or frequencies trying to take up the same space our line gets bumpy and the mix gets muddy.

Listen to each instrument and think of a space for it on the line. Keep other instruments away from it (EQ wise) and you will have an easier time hearing that instrument. You wouldn’t want to have a really bassy, heavy electric guitar because it would be taking up a lot of the space the bass guitar really needs. Try to keep each instrument in its place.

Think of each instrument as to what the fundamental piece of it is. For instance the fundamental of a kick drum will be low frequencies. That’s not to say you don’t need highs to make it cut, but there really isn’t much midrange going on with it. Try to carve out some of the midrange of the kick to make room for the low midrange of the bass guitar.

Another example is electric guitar. Many engineers mistakenly try to make the electric guitar huge to get a ‘larger than life’ sound, but if you really listen to a guitar on a CD and focus on what frequencies are really taking up space in the mix, you’ll be surprised at how small the range actually is.

I always tell new engineers never to be “done” with the mix. Listen for changes, and more importantly, listen to make sure that everything is in the mix and working together. Be attentive to the mix and what’s going on inside it. It doesn’t mean you have to constantly turn knobs. Focus less on the actual sound of the individual instrument and more on how it interacts with other instruments in that same range.

There are no “magic” numbers that work every time because all instruments are a little different. The equation gets more complicated when we use different mics or the instrumentalist changes patches on their keyboard, but trust me… none of that is really important. What is important is that you focus on getting a natural sound that blends nicely with the competitors for the same space.

Bridging The Gap

Here are some general guidelines to consider when you are trying to find your space.

General Frequency Tips

Instrument Frequency Tips

Trust Your Ears

The most important question is “Does it sound natural?” Does it sound like the CDs you’ve been listening to? More specifically, does it sound like you were sitting in front of the real instrument? I keep this in mind throughout the performance.

I constantly glance down all the channels and think about each input. Kick, does the kick sound right? Bass, does the bass sound right? Guitar, does the guitar sound right? Piano, does the piano sound right? Vocals, do the vocals sound right? Then I think about it all again and ask if the guitar and vocal are walking over each other. Can I hear the piano? Is it because the guitar has too much midrange near the piano part’s midrange? Try taking a little low mids our of the guitar instead of turning up the piano. I think you get the picture.

It’s almost impossible to make the initial adjustments to instruments or vocals in the mix with the whole band playing. Instead I try to have a snapshot of what I think the instrument should sound like.

Learning to EQ confidently means you know where you are heading. That’s why I recommend listening to CDs with a good set of full range headphones. No cheap earbuds here… you need a pair that will allow you to hear the whole frequency spectrum, and preferably a sealed set, like good earphones or sealed headphones. You’ll be able to form a mental soundscape of that you can use when you are back behind the console.

Turn, Turn, Turn!

Here’s a bonafide “trick of the trade”. Turn some knobs. I mean actually get in there and turn the heck out of the EQ knobs and listen to what they do.

Here is a simple technique to use in sound check.

Grab the gain (Figure 1) on the mid EQ of an instrument crank it up a bunch…

Now grab the frequency (Figure 2) of the mid and sweep it up and down.

You will hear a spot where it makes that instrument or voice sound horrible. Once you find it, take the gain back to zero, listen for a second again, and then cut out about 6db of it. You will be amazed how much better that instrument sounds when you “get the junk out” as I call it. This is an amazing way to learn what frequencies sound like and the technique will eventually train your ear to hear the junk without boosting it first.

Becoming a master of EQ is like becoming a master painter. Sometimes you just have to throw some paint on a canvas and see how it works.

About John Mills

A frequent contributor to Shure Notes®, John is an 18-year veteran of the road. He was a frustrated Electrical Engineer who hated college. He left school to pursue a career on the road as a drummer, ended up as a sound engineer and after being blessed to work for many of the top Christian worship leaders, artists and tours, has landed at a job as an audio engineer for a design firm. He says, “I guess Mom was right, she always knew I’d finally got a real job.” Check out www.EliteMultimedia.com and www.TechTraining101.com for more about what John is up to.

Billy Ward: Touring and Recording Drummer’s Drummer

Multi-Pattern Mics and More
He’s worked with everyone from Yoko Ono, Robbie Robertson and Joan Osborne to jazz artists like Bill Evans Supergroup, Living Time Orchestra and Leni Stern while finding time to produce Big Time, an instructional DVD, his way cool Two Hands Clapping CD, and Inside Out, a compilation of his “Concepts” articles from Modern Drummer magazine.

According to one reviewer, “Billy Ward must munch on a steady diet of hipness pills. Everything he plays just sounds so cool.”

So, here it is. Ten minutes with the master.

Recording or Live Performance?
Recording, mostly

Gig
Drummer/producer

Years in the Business
30 lives

Where
New York City

Miking Application
Drums

What I Learned
There are many ways to skin a cat. Everybody has their secret ways to mic a drum kit, but in the end, there are no “across the board” rules because there are so many factors in achieving a successful drum sound on tape.

The room is the biggest factor, which is usually overlooked by inexperienced engineers. Then, of course, there’s the tuning of the drums and the drummer’s touch. Geoffrey Daking once pointed out to me in an article for Modern Drummer Magazine: “You can take six drummers in the same room with the same drums and mics and you will have six different drum sounds.”

Personally, I always encourage younger, budding engineers to get mics that have different patterns available (such as the KSM44 and KSM141 series mics). A figure-8 pattern (like in the KSM44) is tighter – like two hypercardioid patterns. If you are doing a multi-tom setup, placing the KSM44 for two toms is a great solution. Everybody knows that more mics are bad – they create a phase party! So that’s one solution for live or studio application.

For studio, when the room is sonically accurate or safe, omnis are so underrated! The KSM44s in omni are a wonderful snapshot of the drums.

As is the case with any drum miking, it’s best that the mics are at equal distance from the snare drum (and the bass drum too, if possible). The KSM series is understated – it’s non-hyped in the top end. Very mixable. The sounds sit within any setting because there is nothing false in the top end.

An experienced engineer will appreciate the choices that are available and the novice can learn from the huge differences in sound and EQ that come from a different pickup pattern.

Knowledge is truly power and the KSM series enables the user to have multiple patterns at a reasonable cost. Switchable patterns R U L E!

Shure Notes readers can keep up with Billy, check out his music, sharpen percussion skills with his book and DVDs and even – yes –join the BWSS (Billy Ward Stalking Society) by purchasing licensed gear that includes everything from coffee mugs to thong underwear at www.billyward.com

Raz-Man Jeff Rasmussen: Michael McDonald’s Main (FOH) Man

Jeffrey “Raz” Rasmussen ought to know a little something about mixing sound. He’s been at it for a good two decades now and has been the man behind the controls for about as diverse a group of artists as you can imagine: Rick James, LL Cool J, Oingo Boingo, Prince, Leann Rimes, Brian Setzer Orchestra, Tony Toni Tone and more recently, Michael McDonald. You get the idea. He’s a pro.

We asked Raz to weigh in with a problem and a solution.

Recording or Live Performance?
Live and Studio

Present Gig
Currently FOH engineer for Michael McDonald

Years in the Business
20

Lives In
Hollywood, CA

Challenge
Miking McDonald’s vocals was a problem since Michael’s wedges can reach up to 118db, which tends to really color the FOH sound.

Solution
Shure’s KSM9 has incredible rejection of background noise. The KSM9 really isolates Michael’s voice and allows me to get a natural tone. I tried a lot of different large diaphragm condenser mics. The KSM9 was the only one to offer this performance.

The Path That Took You There
Ryan Smith of Shure told me about the KSM9. He asked me to try it. I loved it right away.

He came to a rehearsal where both of us listened to McD’s voice soloed up in the headphones. Neither one of us could believe how much isolation the KSM9 was providing with such high monitor level. Not to mention that the tone was fabulous, too. Bravo, for the Mylar diaphragm! I also use KSM32s for overheads, but I place them equidistant from the drum kit and make sure that they are in the same phase plane. This eliminates any swishy, phase shifting sound when the cymbals are struck.

Drums

Snare: KSM27, SM57

Kick: SM91 (Editor’s Note: This product is discontinued. See Beta 91 or Beta 52 for other kick drum miking recommendations.)

Hi-hat: KSM137

Toms: Beta 98

Wood Block: Beta 98

Overheads: KSM32

Guitar: KSM27

Vocals: KSM9, SM58

Choir: KSM9, KSM32

Flute: KSM9, KSM32

Leslie
(Low): KSM27
(High): SM57

Shure Notes thanks Raz for stepping away from the mixing board long enough to participate in this issue.

Tree House: Dave Catching & Rancho de la Luna

Whether you call the genre acid rock, space rock or stoner rock, you are likely to know Dave Catching, a Memphis-born, former New Orleans resident, who, along with the late Fred Drake, founded Rancho de la Luna. An accomplished guitar-player with a long list of credentials, Dave has worked with Queens of the Stone Age, Mondo Generator, co-founded earthlings? and is presently touring with Eagles of Death Metal.

Our Shure Notes mission was to plug into some handy tips for creative miking. What began as that discussion quickly became an exploration of the elements sometimes required for musical creativity. It’s what some call the “Place Concept”. For Dave and a legion of other West Coast players, that place is Rancho de la Luna in Joshua Tree, California.

Recording or Live Performance?
I do both actually, and I do a lot of both.

Let’s talk about the studio, Rancho de la Luna.
It was founded by Fred Drake in 1993 (who died in 2002). He found the house and contacted me about starting the studio. A friend of ours was selling a bunch of studio equipment and we bought the gear from the guy. Within a week we had a board and a 24-track one-inch machine and a 16-track half-inch machine.

Then, Mark Howard who engineers for Daniel Lanois, stopped in a few days after our gear had been delivered to ask if it was cool to move his studio into the house for about six months. He didn’t expect to be recording here for more than two or three weeks – so we had the gear for sessions, or for our own stuff the rest of the time. Strangely enough, Daniel was Fred’s favorite producer so it worked out pretty well.

Rancho de la Luna, of course, is where The Desert Sessions are recorded.

Let’s talk about what makes this place so unique.
This is a little house in the middle of the desert. It’s not big and it’s not fancy. But it’s got a very good vibe. We don’t have state-of-the art equipment (except for microphones, of course) and it’s really kind of low-tech.

We do “The Desert Sessions” just about every year with an amazing group of musicians who have never met. It’s run by Josh Homme, a good friend of mine (from Queens of the Stone Age) and we all collaborate.

Since this issue is about creativity, let’s talk about the process or maybe, more appropriately, the magic there.
We have a ton of really strange instruments that we either get at swap meets or someone gives us. We collaborate in strange ways – maybe over dinner where someone has an idea and someone else adds something to it. We’ve been doing it once a year or maybe twice a year since 1997, but now that everyone’s been busy playing, we do it on a less regular schedule.

The place itself really influences the recordings. In the Desert Sessions, we’ve had everyone from Josh to PJ Harvey to the guys from Soundgarden. In L.A., people would be saying “you know, there’s a party” or “my girlfriend’s stopping by …” but out here, there’s none of that. People are more focused, the skies are wide open and you don’t sit in a windowless room all day. There are mountains outside and cactus to look at. Instead of being in the control room or the tracking room, you can sit by the fire pit and if you have an idea, we’ll run a mic out there where you can hear wood crackling in the background. We lay it down immediately. People get inspired by that.

Sounds like an experience that will free some and paralyze others.
If the equipment malfunctions, maybe it sounds different and cool. That encourages people to approach things differently. earthlings? was spawned partly by us having crappy gear. Our albums are kind of weird sounding because we discovered that ‘Hey. Maybe the keyboard’s broken, but it sounds really cool. Let’s throw it on tape.’ I thin k that might’ve had something to do with Josh doing Desert Sessions because he liked the way Fred and I worked. Nothing stopped us.

This is a great place to create and write. The best place I’ve ever been. There’s just something about the vibe and it’s reflected in what’s been recorded here.

We know you use unorthodox instruments and kind of sketchy gear to capture that musical moment. What about microphones, though?
We have lots of Shure microphones. It started with my next-door neighbor who does sound for Queens of the Stone Age, then with Eagles of Death Metal, then the studio.

The (SM)57 is the greatest microphone that’s even been manufactured and I mean that. Right now, it’s on a guitar amp, it’s on the snare on top and bottom, and it’s on the bass amp. I have lots of other microphones but it sound great on guitar and drums, always. And it’s sexy – Robert Plant holding a SM57 – it doesn’t get much sexier than that, does it?