The #1 Thing to GET RIGHT as a Sound Technician
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- Опубліковано 10 чер 2024
- As a Sound Technician there re so many things to think about and so many details to attend to before, during and after a session. Outside of connecting equipment properly, the most important thing to get right in your process is setting proper Gain. Each input needs to be normalized to a consistent input gain and then your soundboard or DAW will respond positively for you.
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Man, as a fledgling small room tech myself, I can't say how accurate this is. I can't imagine how this works in a place of worship but your explanation of what I refer to as "garbage in, garbage out" verifies an awful lot of problems I first faced.
I still encounter issues with players and stage volumes, but getting past the myth of each individual strip volume requiring a unity setting (or 0) setting is absolutely the first habit to break. great explanation.
I'm just venturing into the digital world and I look forward to watching many more of your videos especially regarding chain and routing.
Instantly a new fan.
Thanks for the encouragement. As a professional musician, I love playing live music, but as an engineer it is so challenging to to the inconsistency of many musicians. It provides a lot of educational opportunities for the sound tech and the ability to work with the musicians to help them understand the impact they have on your job as a sound tech.
Very well said. The first thing I had to do when I installed the M32 at our church was crank the amps down. The original installer of the system (as you said in the video) had the amps set almost to the max.
Yep, I was just at a church on Thursday morning for a "quick fix" and we discussed how their amps being all the way up was causing more harm than good. I'll be going back to re-tune their PA so everything can work well together.
Yeah, I had to do the same thing. They were maxed out. I cut it to about half and I have less noise and plenty of headroom.
Great explanation! Answered some questions I’ve had for a while
Thanks for the encouragement and feedback.
Very insightful. Thank you very much. Please can you demonstrate this using X32.?
Thanks for the encouragement. I’ll see if I can grab a video of me doing a sound check next time I’m mixing.
Thanks Dave! Question: how do you handle singers who are much louder during performance than they were during sound check? Likewise acoustic guitar rhythm players? On our X32 I set the gain during sound check and then have to dial down during unexpected performance crescendos. Thumbs up hit. Peace.
Yeah, this is a great point. Ideally, you'll get to know your musicians and their tendencies. I have many folks I can set at my goal level (-10) during soundcheck, but others I do set lower around -15 knowing that they will get louder as they warm up and as people get into the seats. For my group it is tough to come in at 7:30a to a soundcheck and give me "everything you've got" for 20 seconds so I can set gain. Because of that I tend to get it close during a basic soundcheck and then have them do a song as a group and continue to adjust the gain through that period. After that is complete I will come through the talkback mic and open them up to setting their IEMs. I've done a bit of education over the years to inform everyone of the process and the benefits when done well. I hope that helps.
I wish you could do a video for ALL the praise Team. With the basic, like this. And what WE need from them. And just make sure I am getting it right. You are talking ALL gains ?? vocal AND instruments ?? I have a keyboard and guitar that have a volume issue. I get them set, and the next thing I know they're all over the place .
That’s a great thought. I always address the entire worship team when I do on-it’s training, but I’ve never thought to make a video of that discussion. In terms of my process it is this…
1) Set gain for every input. This requires me to get a strong signal from every instrument and I coach the players to not change their volume levels once they are set.
2) Have band play most of a song to warm up and try to lock-in gain and adjust EQ and Comp as needed
3) IEMs can now be set and I am now working on my house mix at this point.
4) Note I am usually multitrack recording rehearsal as well.
5) After rehearsal, I send part of a song back through the PA so the band can be encouraged by what they hear and then I mute the mains and solo the stream mix in my headphones to make any tweaks to that mix.
Something else to remember about keyboards is this. Most keyboards have touch sensitivity. So just like drums or microphones, the person playing can be different or the same person can hit softer or harder. This can drastically change the input from the keyboards even with the volume set at the same point.
When I am playing keyboards and not running the sound, I have to remember on my board to turn off the touch sensitivity so the sound stays balanced no matter how hard or soft I am playing.
For guitars it will depend on the type of input, is it electric or acoustic. Acoustics can change dramatically as well if using an internal mic/preamp set up. These normally run on batteries and the level can change just from battery level or the musician adjusting the output level on the guitar.
when live and I need a dramatic change, I first use the slide and then use pfl to see the input level and adjust gain and fader simultaneously to keep a audible balance and bring the gain to where it needs to be.
I hope this helps along with Allams response.
My church recently bought EV ZLX speakers. There is a line in knob and a db knob. Which should I be adjusting to fine tune my speakers levels?
Typically on those speakers I am setting the line in volume to the 0 mark and then using the screen volume (dB) knob to adjust to the desired dB level of the room. Make sure you get the gain and board settings done properly before moving to tuning the PA speakers in the room.
What i have issues with are microphone gains. I feel like some vocal mics i need to Crank the gain high to the 3 o'clock or past that to get to -18db and that causes feed back.
Other mics i feel like they run too hot where i have to turn the gain knob down towards 9 o'clock to get to the -18db. This isn't normal is it?
Short answer... yes. There are a few different factors to consider. Each mic is designed with slightly different components inside and this can cause different brands and models to respond differently. Also, similar mics (ie: SM58) can be slightly different as well, but not usually as drastic as you were mentioning. If you have the same mics and these very different settings it then becomes the source (person to person). Each singer is different from day to day, hour to hour. Last thing I will say is if you are running wireless mics, they typically all have volume settings that can increase or decrease the signal going into the console. If you have different brands/models of wireless mics you can end up with very different settings.
@@AllamHouse thank you kind sir. Thank you for always being so helpful.
Why do you run your Master at -5 dB? Also, how do you set the level of your PA?
I hope to work on a video of how I tune a PA, my normal venue is a setup/teardown situation and only available on Sundays. In terms of the master volume, I prefer to have a little extra room to push things if I need to and not go above unity. The console (X32) works really well in the -10 to +3 range and I just always set my room levels at -5. Outside of that, there is no specific scientific details to that choice.
@@AllamHouse to piggy back the board in our auditorium master level only goes to 0 db. So similar to you, I set my house levels based on -6 db on the mains to have headroom when I need it. so far so good