Great interview Nick! I "engineered" sound for my church for several years. It was very interesting to listen to him describe his process and relate it back to my experience
I always enjoy hearing how different engineers create space in their mixes. When he is discussing minor delay on the input channel is he talking about delaying the source as it comes in or using a delay efx?
Hey Joe. Good question! You can do either. If you do it on the input channel you will need to mult the channel so that you can pan them out and delay one side, we're talking a very small amount, sometimes 1ms is enough...or you can apply a stereo delay, pan our, and just delay one side. The outcome is essentially the same. It will give you the change in the perceived location of the sound source with more depth than just turning the pan knob. There's a bunch of video's on this available and I reference that stuff all the time as from my POV the craft of audio engineering is an ongoing process. There's always something to learn, and to experiment with. Delay is also handy when dealing with Phase alignment when you have multiple inputs coming from the same sound source. You used to have to either pick, A or B. Flip the phase or don't but now you can use small amounts of delay on the input channel to align things like the microphones on the kick drum (Delay the inside mic to align with the out, it's rare that it's exactly 180 degrees out) or, delaying the bass DI to align with the microphone on the cabinet because believe it or not, that inch or two between the speaker and the mic DO make a big difference so, I put like 0.4ms on the Di, give or take. Alternately you could move the microphone until things are more in harmony with one other but in my experience, with a live band and loud amplifiers and limited time, using delay to "move" things in relation to one another is the most sensible way of getting things as close to right as possible. Don't forget, it's always a good idea to sum to mono to check and make sure things are in phase. I do this every day with guitar cabinets that are double mic'd and I can tell if a microphone has been bumped by someone, or if a speaker is failing by flipping the phase of one mic and summing them up. If they don't cancel out at unity there's something amiss and I've often had "I told ya so" moments with backline guys who have said "Sounds fine to me" and then, 3 gigs later the speaker dies..lol. Hope this helps and happy mixing!
@michaelmahar4066 thank you so much for taking the time to respond directly! I will give these techniques a try with some virtual playback so I can focus on what's happening and not upset the group ha ha. I am assuming when you say pan out the channels after duplicating them, you mean a hard pan left right (since we are talking a mono mix (I guess it would be a similar concept in a stereo mix as well) and want equal source present in the mix just one instance slightly delayed)? Last follow up, on the "sum to mono" about phase and time alignment, I understand thr concept you described but could you elaborate how you do this mechanically on the console it self? I.e. are you summing to a mono group? Thank you again!
Been waiting for this one...🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉
He shits out some great sound! Halestorm always puts on a kickass, no bs show. I’ve seen them twice and would absolutely go again!
Haha. Thanks Dougie! Sometimes it does actually come out that end....lol. Rock on!
Schleigho! Love you MF
Great interview Nick! I "engineered" sound for my church for several years. It was very interesting to listen to him describe his process and relate it back to my experience
I always enjoy hearing how different engineers create space in their mixes. When he is discussing minor delay on the input channel is he talking about delaying the source as it comes in or using a delay efx?
Hey Joe. Good question! You can do either. If you do it on the input channel you will need to mult the channel so that you can pan them out and delay one side, we're talking a very small amount, sometimes 1ms is enough...or you can apply a stereo delay, pan our, and just delay one side. The outcome is essentially the same. It will give you the change in the perceived location of the sound source with more depth than just turning the pan knob. There's a bunch of video's on this available and I reference that stuff all the time as from my POV the craft of audio engineering is an ongoing process. There's always something to learn, and to experiment with.
Delay is also handy when dealing with Phase alignment when you have multiple inputs coming from the same sound source. You used to have to either pick, A or B. Flip the phase or don't but now you can use small amounts of delay on the input channel to align things like the microphones on the kick drum (Delay the inside mic to align with the out, it's rare that it's exactly 180 degrees out) or, delaying the bass DI to align with the microphone on the cabinet because believe it or not, that inch or two between the speaker and the mic DO make a big difference so, I put like 0.4ms on the Di, give or take. Alternately you could move the microphone until things are more in harmony with one other but in my experience, with a live band and loud amplifiers and limited time, using delay to "move" things in relation to one another is the most sensible way of getting things as close to right as possible. Don't forget, it's always a good idea to sum to mono to check and make sure things are in phase. I do this every day with guitar cabinets that are double mic'd and I can tell if a microphone has been bumped by someone, or if a speaker is failing by flipping the phase of one mic and summing them up. If they don't cancel out at unity there's something amiss and I've often had "I told ya so" moments with backline guys who have said "Sounds fine to me" and then, 3 gigs later the speaker dies..lol. Hope this helps and happy mixing!
@michaelmahar4066 thank you so much for taking the time to respond directly! I will give these techniques a try with some virtual playback so I can focus on what's happening and not upset the group ha ha. I am assuming when you say pan out the channels after duplicating them, you mean a hard pan left right (since we are talking a mono mix (I guess it would be a similar concept in a stereo mix as well) and want equal source present in the mix just one instance slightly delayed)? Last follow up, on the "sum to mono" about phase and time alignment, I understand thr concept you described but could you elaborate how you do this mechanically on the console it self? I.e. are you summing to a mono group? Thank you again!
First!
Let have some engineers who mix Hamilton, les mis or phantom. 🤟 Different approaches to mixing 👍