#performer | MidiMike

Posts Tagged ‘#performer’

Quiet Nights – Reflect and Create

Posted: May 22, 2015 in MUSIC, My Tunes
Tags: #12string, #acoustic, #audio, #band, #cdbaby, #create, #creative, #daughter, #demo, #dreams, #family, #guitar, #inspiration, #inspire, #itunes, #journey, #life, #love, #lucky, #lyrics, #Midi, #midimike, #motivation, #music, #musician, #observation, #performance, #performer, #personal, #poetry, #recording, #recordingstudio, #retro, #singer, #song, #songwriter, #sound, #Soundengineer, #soundman, #stage, #story, #studio, #truth, #vocalist, #vocals, #writer

Much of my early years I had tons of energy. Like most people my age, I got up early and stayed up through the evening. Unlike most, I got a bit extreme with this and as I started working I seemed to be able to handle the after hour and evening shifts quite well. Staying awake for 24 to 48 hours at a time was almost normal. I obviously was not! As most of the household was quiet and recharging their internal batteries, I would pull out my 12 string guitar. In the very late and dark hours, I would reflect on the day(s) past and go over experiences I or friends had. The fullness of the 12 strings (when I could afford to replace the old strings with new ones…) for me is just an amazingly soothing and inspiring environment. The guitar noodling started to reflect a mood and the experiences would turn into words, phrases or thoughts that I would repeat and refine until they started to gel into lyrics.

I would use this method over and over. Alone at night, lights out and everyone quiet or sleeping. Even now, decades later, this is still my favorite time to reflect and create. If you can, find your own time and environment that you can settle into quickly. If you cannot find the time – MAKE it. It does not have to be hours at a time. Rarely do we write a masterpiece or complete a painting or poem in an hour or so. The important thing is to set aside time – even little bits – and noodle, sketch, sing, or even think. Build your stage for creativity and perform there as often as you can. The masterpieces will create themselves…

Quiet Nights – An original tune I wrote based on this idea.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/dark-energy/id962943592

Rule #1: Always Play with Musicians that are Better Than you!

Posted: May 20, 2015 in Opinions and Observations
Tags: #audio, #band, #bass, #creative, #dreams, #drummer, #drums, #guitar, #inspiration, #journey, #keyboard, #life, #Liveband, #love, #lucky, #lyrics, #microphone, #Midi, #midimike, #motivation, #music, #musician, #observation, #performance, #performer, #personal, #piano, #recording, #recordingstudio, #runningsound, #singer, #song, #songwriter, #sound, #Soundengineer, #soundman, #speakers, #stage, #story, #studio, #studioengineer, #truth, #vocalist, #vocals

I have been very fortunate over the years in a number of ways. As I look back on my history and the events I have been involved in, this rule became obvious to me. I have always performed or created music with people that are much better than I am. I did not do this by design, it just seemed to happen over and over. One of my favorite bands I have been involved with for many years is Euphoria. Think of all the adjectives you know to describe excellence and you can use them all for the members of the band. They invited me to run sound for them and that is how I got the nerve to be a sound guy. As they played out and I ran sound and helped with musical toys as a music store manager, we became great friends and shared a real passion for great music. When the keyboard player decided to work on other projects, they found out I played keyboards and asked me if I wanted to take his place. I cannot tell you how much courage it took to say yes. I had never really played out before and we were into progressive rock and really complicated songs – many you heard clips from the studio demo posted earlier.

I knew I was not ready for prime time, but I got my keyboard gear together – practiced on my own every spare minute I had and forced myself to show up for practice. I had big shoes to fill. To their credit each of the band members were extremely patient! The knew it would take me some time to get to their level. Some songs on our set list were replaced with songs that had less emphasis on the keyboard until I could get my chops up to speed. Some we had to drop altogether. But they all worked with me and did not make me feel like I was slowing them down or not up to par. Had it not been for their great attitude and flexibility, I may have thrown in the towel and called it quits before it got started.

The only better piece of advice in this area I think is just as important is to always play with great people! Band life can be hard work, physically challenging and demanding and at the same time can be disastrous

Live Sound Reinforcement Series Chapter 15 – And the other 20%

Posted: May 18, 2015 in Live Sound Reinforcement Series, music technology
Tags: # mixer, #atari, #audio, #band, #bass, #digital, #drummer, #drums, #FX, #guitar, #keyboard, #Liveband, #livesoundreinforement, #microphone, #Midi, #midimike, #mixingboard, #monitors, #music, #musician, #performance, #performer, #piano, #recording, #recordingstudio, #reverb, #runningsound, #signal, #singer, #sound, #Soundengineer, #soundman, #speakers, #stage, #studio, #studioengineer, #synthesizer, #tech, #vocalist, #vocals, #Yamaha

I am famous for doing things the easy way and if I can, as cheap as possible. Now that does not mean forget quality and versatility. It means I won’t spend money on gadgets that I don’t need. I try to run as clean a mix as possible, and making sure everyone gets heard. If they are up there ‘playin it‘, I want the audience to hear it. In reality, it doesn’t take a lot of gadgets to accomplish those two major things; make it sound good and loud enough for the venue, and put all instruments/vocals/strings/spoons or tambourines, I don’t care what it is…. in the mix. As a band member, hiring sound guys and their rigs, a number of times after sound check and a few songs of the first set, my microphone was turned down so low, no one could hear me even in-between songs. I could not get the sound man’s attention, or anyone else’s for that matter because no one could hear me (and as a keyboard player I was usually in the back corner of the stage in the shadows Ha!). So eventually I just adjusted the microphone stand down toward the floor in front of me. It is easy to hit the wrong button or turn the wrong knob; happens all the time.

Remember that the sound guy cannot hear what is really happening up on stage. Sometimes you THINK you can. But you as the sound engineer should be the first person to know what is going wrong when it does. Keep an eye on all performers – they will look to you first. As a performer and studio guy, I could tell when the guitar player broke a string, or if the drum head split and when or if the drummer had too much to drink on his birthday gig. Things will go wrong but a lot of the time it is the sound guy. You make an adjustment and grab the wrong knob. They all look alike in the dark part of the venue or room. The consequences can be anything from a non-event to a full blown crisis, depending on which knob you grab. Obviously for the extreme crisis, you will know right away what happened and will probably be able to correct quickly.

It is the slow creepy ones that will get you. Two songs later something changes on stage and chaos begins.

I suggested we set up the mixing board so the FX Returns are plugged into open channels so you can control their volume with the faders rather than the FX Return knobs. I always turn the effects down in-between songs. (you also get EQ and other benefits) This makes it SOOO much easier to see in the dark clubs. I also use the sub-groups to assign drums, vocals, and other groups of mics their own fader that feeds directly to the Main Out or house out. If there is a problem with one group, you can quickly test by adjusting that sub-group fader and see if problem goes away. If not, return it to where it was and go to the next sub-group. This way you do not have to go through fader after fader searching for a bad signal or feedback loop. Once you narrow down the offending group, you will have a much better idea what the source is!

I would say most live performances the sound board is mixed to a Mono output. In smaller rooms or clubs, I loved running in stereo. I mixed for keyboard progressive bands a lot and the stereo keyboards and samplers consumed the rooms when mixed right. Not in volume——– The vocals (sometimes three sometimes five in the band) panned as well. Overkill in a way, but not much work and easy to arrange with equipment versatility. Most boards have stereo FX that can add lot to the imaging. But again, that is not the norm. So you can either set board up in stereo and have the Main Output plugged into the MONO OUT to your system, or you can mix to mono and use one Main fader or the other. That’s about it. We have covered the entire mixing board, in its basic format. Headphone outs, Tape or other inputs, on-board effects, Solo or Audition functions as well as digital features make new sections.

Oceans of Oil Lyrics

Posted: May 15, 2015 in MUSIC, My Tunes
Tags: #atari, #audio, #cdbaby, #creative, #demo, #digital, #family, #guitar, #itunes, #keyboard, #life, #lyrics, #Midi, #midimike, #mother earth, #motivation, #music, #musician, #nature, #observation, #performance, #performer, #personal, #piano, #poetry, #recording, #recordingstudio, #retro, #reverb, #singer, #song, #songwriter, #sound, #story, #studioengineer, #vocalist, #vocals

“Oceans of Oil” (@) MSK 1989

You go through life,

And I don’t complain.

Good things die

The rest stays the same.

Politics and money

Garbage is king.

The Liberty Bell

Doesn’t even ring.

Oceans of Oil, tinsel stars

Clouds are dark – the air is sick.

Swarms of people like killer bees

Mother Earth is on her knees.

You believe what you feel is right

And now you are going to make a fight.

You have no idea what we’re going through

If it’s your choice, nothing else will do.

Oceans of Oil, tinsel stars

Clouds are dark – the air is thick.

Swirling with pain and lost emotion

Mother Earth may soon need that abortion.

You believe that what you feel is right.

Clouds are dark.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/retrograde/id962542260

Oceans of Oil – Mother Earth is on Her Knees

Posted: May 15, 2015 in MUSIC, My Tunes
Tags: #American, #atari, #audio, #band, #cdbaby, #creative, #demo, #digital, #environmental, #family, #guitar, #itunes, #keyboard, #life, #love, #lyrics, #Midi, #midimike, #mother earth, #music, #musician, #nature, #observation, #performance, #performer, #personal, #piano, #poetry, #recording, #recordingstudio, #retro, #singer, #songwriter, #sound, #Soundengineer, #soundman, #stage, #story, #studio, #studioengineer, #truth, #vocalist, #vocals

As someone who truly loves the outdoors and nature (for a city guy!) I sometimes think there is no end to the way we have devastated the natural resources we were blessed with. Environmental tragedy after another, corporate greed and individual apathy seem to be everywhere at once. This is a disturbing and dark look (from my perspective) at what we are doing to our planet.

The music is rich with textures and soundscapes. One of the tricks I used was on the sound of the ‘toms’ as they repeat, the tuning changes and gets lower and lower. This is a simple MIDI trick. there are ways of doing this that can take a bit of time and planning, but what I did was very simple. As in the past, I use the keyboard to trigger the drum sounds when recording drum tracks. I recorded the simple beat with the tom sound. Then when I played it back, I started recording on the same track and used the keyboard ‘pitch bend’ stick to slowly lower the pitch as it played. That took about two seconds and once that was done during playback the drum toms would sound like they were being de-tuned in real time. Depending on how quickly the stick was moved, you could change the rate of pitch change.

My wife sings the melody and I add some vocal phrases and back up. To get her vocals to punch through the mix even though her vocals are smooth, I took a direct out (really it was an insert cable and we will get into that later) and fed her vocals into one channel of a stereo compressor/limiter to compress or ‘squash’ the levels, then I took the out put and ran it into the other (stereo side) side and used the limiter function. This allowed me to get a good signal by lowering the hot portions of the vocal track, and then pump it up to the point that the limiter would stop extreme levels from getting past a threshold point I set. I got a very clean vocal signal and smoothed out the peaks and valleys of the volume levels, allowing me to turn up the over all volume in the mix without distortion.

Live Sound Reinforcement Series Chapter 14 – Down the Signal Path Again

Posted: May 13, 2015 in Live Sound Reinforcement Series, music technology, technology
Tags: # mixer, #atari, #audio, #band, #bass, #digital, #drummer, #drums, #guitar, #Liveband, #livesoundreinforement, #microphone, #Midi, #midimike, #mixingboard, #monitors, #music, #musician, #performance, #performer, #piano, #recording, #recordingstudio, #reverb, #runningsound, #signal, #sound, #Soundengineer, #soundman, #speakers, #stage, #studio, #studioengineer, #synthesizer, #tech, #vocalist, #vocals, #Yamaha

As we continue down the signal path, we get to a new section. This is separated from the EQ section and generally uses a different color coding for the associated knobs. The next group is the Aux Sends. Each send represents an output jack that will go to external audio sources. One example would be the stage monitor mix(s). If you have two monitors on each end of the stage serving performers, you can use Aux Send 1 going to the left monitor and use Aux Send 2 going to the right monitor. If performer 1 wants to hear themselves and a little bit of performer 2 in the same monitor, simply send a lot of performer 1’s channel to Aux Send 1 and a little of the performer 2 to the Aux Send 1. If performer 2 does not want to hear performer 1 in their respective monitor, simply turn up performer 2’s channel Aux Send 2 up a bunch and do not turn up Aux Send 2 on the channel for performer 1. That was probably harder to say correctly than actually doing it.

You can use Auxiliary Sends to route a signal from any channel to external effects boxes like Digital Delays, Reverbs, and even recording devices in a pinch. You can use it to trigger light boards that have an Audio Input mode.

These Auxiliary Sends can sometimes be switched from Pre to Post. Some are fixed either way. This can also get confusing but if the channel Aux Send is in Pre mode it means Pre-Fader. The volume faders on each channel will affect the level of the signal that is sent to the House or the Main Out of the mixer and when selected, to the headphone out. It is a good idea to solo instruments in the headphones to pick or change microphone locations and isolate room noise and other performers. If the Aux is set to Pre-Fader, it means that the Aux Send levels will be determined before the channel fader has any effect. Turn the channel volume fader all the way down and you will still have plenty of signal going to the Aux Send. If the Aux Send is in Post Fader mode, the amount of signal sent to the Aux Send for that channel will be directly affected by the level of the channel volume fader. Fader off = no Aux Send level. The number of sends will vary widely. In this case, more is better!

At this point the example starts a new section. This will affect the Main Out section. This is where we can set the stereo Pan position, Mute or un-Mute the channel, and Solo the instrument for gain staging and troubleshooting during a performance. When running in stereo, general rule is very low frequencies get panned to center. After that, adjust to performance and venue. Sometimes the stage sound is very loud, and listeners close to the stage will only be able to hear that performer. Sometimes the shape of the stage or design of venue will require creative solutions using stereo panning.

This strip includes a pair of colored LED’s for signal strength and Peak warning level indicators. Occasional red for short periods of time are OK, but better to avoid as long as you have a strong signal otherwise. After we have set the various knobs correctly and have good signal strength, we can use the channel volume fader to set the level of that channel in the House mix. Channel Mutes can have different affects. Some boards Muting a channel will stop that audio source from all outs, and some might allow Aux Send 1 & 2 for monitors. See manuals for lots of details I cannot cover in these articles.

Other examples below with different lay-outs;

But here is the good news; we have just learned 75% of the face of the mixing board. Each channel duplicates what we just went over. All those knobs are now grouped logically, easily identified explained and we understand what each one is for. Here on in it is repetition for gain staging and sound check. Use Pad and 1st Gain Stage to adjust signal strength, add or subtract frequencies using the channel EQ, set amount of Aux Send to monitors and effects and set the stereo field positions as we watch level indicators and set channel volume fader. Repeat. Finished!

Next we can go over the benefits of Group Sends and the other 20%

The Personal Touch does “The Pleasure Tax” – Rare Release

Posted: May 11, 2015 in MUSIC, My Tunes
Tags: # mixer, #12string, #atari, #audio, #band, #bass, #cdbaby, #creative, #demo, #digital, #dreams, #drummer, #drums, #guitar, #itunes, #keyboard, #life, #Liveband, #love, #lyrics, #microphone, #motivation, #music, #musician, #performance, #performer, #personal, #poetry, #recording, #retro, #singer, #song, #songwriter, #sound, #Soundengineer, #soundman, #speakers, #stage, #story, #studio, #studioengineer, #touch, #vocalist, #vocals

Recently I was asked in comments (The Observer) if a song I posted was recorded at home or in a studio. I replied but thought I might expand on that a bit and also introduce another version of “The Pleasure Tax”. As my brother and I got older we kept writing poems that were now almost always designed to be lyrics. We got better. Instead of playing the bongos, I played the toy organ I mentioned and everything else from there. Here is where I get to also blame my parents again. For Christmas we all got cool toys, but many of mine seemed to be music makers; recorders, tiny piano ‘tinkley’ toys, little ukuleles and eventually guitars with plastic strings and a drum set that was made for a three year old, but you get the point. So we got better and we played instruments and my brother started playing guitar as well. We had more toys to create music so when we wanted to record them (I was probably fourteen or fifteen by the time recording was a possibility) we wanted to add the various instruments and record them all together.

Through the years, we met other musicians and became great friend – or as I seem to recall – we met great friends that were also musicians. Eventually there was a central core of serious song writers. Sometimes there would be around eight or ten core writing members. It would seem there was a competition going (and there always was!) to write the coolest or most clever or the most groovy song. And we would have friends that would stop by and jam once in a while or would write lyrics and were willing to turn them over to a group of people that would fit them , with force if necessary, with a musical arrangement, melody line and harmonies.

The rambling link to all this is when we often played a collection of each other’s songs, we more than likely played with different performers supporting a few core members. Those were exciting days! One time you would sing the song and the lead vocalist was not there. So you let an ‘orbiting member’ do the vocal melody and you sing the harmony part. Most of us played instruments and sang – especially if we wrote the song as you can guess – so if the lead vocalist also played guitar, we filled in as a ‘core member’. On one visit or jam session you performed and sang your song all by yourself to the group. In other visits you were surrounded by full instrumentation and a choir of vocalists! So here is an example of all that tied into a version of this song by a full band I toured with. You heard us play live to an audience in Texas when we played the original song “Our Bodies Move” posted earlier. We also played other original songs and snuck them into our sets. One of them was “The Pleasure Tax”. We called ourselves The Personal Touch. Ric and I were a duo and when we decided to add a female vocalist as recommended by a booking agency they decided to sign us up for out of state gigs. We got some studio time when signing up and we performed some original tunes and some cover stuff…. done The Personal Touch way. “TPT” by TPT!

So this is rare original song of mine that was recorded in an actual studio. We are a trio and there was a studio drummer. Everything else is The Personal Touch with a very new vocalist.

Pleasure Tax – Sell Us Water, Sell Us Air!

Posted: May 7, 2015 in MUSIC, My Tunes
Tags: #12string, #acoustic, #audio, #band, #cdbaby, #creative, #demo, #family, #guitar, #itunes, #life, #lyrics, #midimike, #music, #musician, #observation, #performance, #performer, #personal, #poetry, #recording, #singer, #song, #songwriter, #sound, #story, #truth, #vocalist, #vocals

Having written songs with my older brother from the beginning, I often bounce ideas at him to see what comes back. I remember (and take all of this with a grain of salt as I am not the best at chronology or details!) going up to him and saying something like… “I have this idea for a song and not sure where it goes, but I keep thinking get out of here leave me alone take it away, and that they want to charge us for anything. Soon they will sell us air and water”. Below is the result. I called it The Pleasure Tax, and it is more relative today. And yes, they do sell us air and water now!

I am very picky about tuning and tones used. Putting new strings on your guitar was sometimes a luxury. When I finally did it is like turning on a light bulb in a dim room. Yes, you could see before but now you can even read! Music can be like that. Things are not inspiring or do not sound very good and you change the strings (or reed, drum head, pads) and BAM! You want to go out and play it hard!

The tax is still out there, so be careful when you want to relax.?

https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/dark-energy/id962943592

Music by Michael S Kennedy Lyrics by Michael S and Charles D Kennedy

Intro:

Take it away………… The Pleasure Tax 4x

Verse 1

Take it out, or take it home.

Take it back, it hasn’t grown

Take it away or leave it alone.

Say what you want, or hang up the phone.

Chorus

Put new strings on your damn guitar.

Make it simple, but play it hard.

He says he likes it I don’t know why.

We don’t understand but we’ll give it a try.

Verse 2

Hit the road or face the facts.

There’s something that your system lacks.

The very next time you go to relax,

You’ll go down from the Pleasure Tax

Getting to the Next Level

Posted: May 5, 2015 in Opinions and Observations
Tags: # mixer, #audio, #band, #dreams, #drums, #fan, #fans, #Irish, #itunes, #keyboard, #life, #Liveband, #lucky, #microphone, #Midi, #midimike, #mixingboard, #monitors, #motivation, #music, #musician, #performance, #performer, #personal, #piano, #runningsound, #singer, #sound, #Soundengineer, #soundman, #speakers, #stage, #story, #synthesizer

We all try to rationalize situations we are not sure of. We attempt to explain why things happen – or things that happen to us. We try to understand the world around us. When I worked at the instrument music store, I rationalized that I got the job because I was a previous customer and that I could program and understand the new digital MIDI keyboards hitting the market. Very quickly (months, I believe) I was given my own satellite store to manage. I opened three more chain stores in a few short years. In reality, I probably bought more in equipment than I got paid to work there! Almost kidding, but I understood a lot of the toys and had played with a bunch of them, but to get a room full of toys all day long and then get paid to learn all I could about them, well, I won’t get into religion here but that was heaven on Earth. I would have done it for free. And do you know how I rationalized being a SALES MAN? (I am pretty anti-establishment from way back………..) I tried to listen to where the customer was coming from and what they needed. From there I would teach them what I knew about gear that would help get them to the next level. Everyone needs to get to the next level. That is what I am doing today. It is what you are doing right now.

And sometimes we need to explain to ourselves why. Why do I need to buy that new toy? Why do they like me? Why does the sun always shine where I am? Why aren’t things working as I planned. Why don’t they understand me? What did I do right or wrong? This has bugged me all my life and I hope it does not get to you. Working in the music store(s) I sold gear to a lot of bands. Some people were regulars. Always something needed, some new gear. One of the bands told me that their sound man was on vacation and they needed someone to run sound for them. It SEEEEEEMED logical to ask me, I knew about the mixing boards and PA systems. But I had never run sound before ( truth in advertising alert – – – I did run sound for one other band prior to this but that is a funny story I wanted to share with you later. So I did it once before ….. technically …….) What would you do? These are good customers and by now good friends too. If I run sound and really suck, the friendship and the work relationships are out the window. I let them know I do not have a lot of experience but if they don’t have anyone else I would be glad to help. They decide to go with me for the vacation gigs. I run through the checklist a thousand times in my head. I set the stage and house equipment up methodically, I run through the gain staging like riding a bike, I get the monitors working and run CD audio through the mains to test them. Time to start. Big crowd. Lots of people and friends. As you can imagine I am rapidly cycling through excitement, concern, confusion, fear, panic, and jazzed up one after the other. The band starts playing and they are soooooo good I just relax. I think even I can make these guys sound good! I was lucky. From what I remember the event was fine.

Their sound man decided to move onto other things and when he came back from vacation I was asked to take his place. Again I had to rationalize; well, they only like me cause I can get them a deal at the store. Well, they like me because I can set up the equipment pretty fast. Well, it went over well because they are really tight and have great equipment. You have probably done that a bunch of times as well. It was hard for me to accept all the way down to the point of knowing that they noticed and appreciated the mix. Their fans did too but most importantly, so did the band wives! Never forget the power of the spouse! So now for the first time, I am involved with a real band. I am the regular sound guy. The Band understands the power of the PA, and they determine that the sound guy gets equal cut…… as if he is as important to the overall sound as the individual band members were. Amazing concept and it worked so well over the years. I could not rationalize my way out of deserving that one; we worked as a team and the band always sounded great.

All this from knowing how to program a digital keyboard.

Live Sound Reinforcement Series Chapter 13 – Down the Signal Path

Posted: May 4, 2015 in Live Sound Reinforcement Series, music technology, technology
Tags: # mixer, #audio, #band, #digital, #Liveband, #livesoundreinforement, #microphone, #Midi, #midimike, #mixingboard, #monitors, #music, #musician, #performance, #performer, #recording, #recordingstudio, #runningsound, #signal, #sound, #Soundengineer, #soundman, #speakers, #stage, #studio, #studioengineer, #synthesizer, #tech, #vocalist, #Yamaha

Again, there are lots of guidelines about setting EQ. But don’t let this confuse you early on. Basically, this is a fancy way to change the tone of the signal. Knobs that are tied together in brackets work together. One determines the frequency range that will be affected and the other knob determines how much boost or cut will be applied to the selected frequency range. The first instinct is to turn everything up. Indeed this is quite natural but wrong. Test after test, many people will say one sound is better than the other even though the only real difference is the higher or louder volume level. If you think of boosting the frequency group with the EQ as if it were an amplifier turning the frequency group louder, this will help explain why we needed the extra head room when setting up the gain stage – you are making the signal louder when you add EQ boost. If everything is set and you boost a channel EQ, you can unintentionally overload the input level on the EX send for example, causing that signal to distort or clip when returning back to the mix.

In this configuration there is a hi frequency group cut/boost knob. Then there are hi-mid frequency knob tied to a cut/boost knob and below another pair in the Low-mid frequency range. Underneath that is the low end group cut/boost knob. In essence, select the amount of cut or boost on the frequency groups (Hi – Lo) to shape sound so it reflects the source signal.

For the paired knobs, select the frequency to be affected and using its pair cut or boost that particular frequency (as opposed to a larger group of frequencies for the Hi-LO knobs). Keeping in mind sometimes less is really more, rather than try to turn frequencies up or louder to make them sound better, try making them sound bad. Which frequencies interfere with the shape and tone of the instrument? Does a certain frequency make a nasty squawking sound when it is a bit louder? Try cutting that frequency a good amount. You might be able to turn the channel volume up after cutting signals and keep the level not necessarily louder over-all in the mix but in the correct group or place in the instrument/vocal mix. Listeners will be able to hear the instrument clearer and more distinctly if it closely resembles the real instrument’s group. So this gets pretty easy. Like a simple home stereo, turn the top know to clockwise to make the sound brighter by increasing the hi frequency group. Turn it counter-clockwise if it sounds harsh or brittle in the upper range. The paired knobs allow you to select specific frequencies within a group (Hi or Mid) and then cut or boost to shape the tone of the source and add flavor or reduce gremlins.

For microphones that will be used by vocalists, this is an area where you can make a lot of difference because the vocalist signal is also being sent to the on-stage monitors. Sometimes they are really loud. And when that happens, the monitor is blaring the vocalist’s signal right back into the microphone on stage. This in turn goes quickly to the monitor and straight at the microphone again. Soon this will turn into a squeal in the range that is strongest or loudest. This is the classic example of a ‘feed-back loop‘.

The knee-jerk reaction is to turn the channel volume down or turn the monitor sends down. The better way is to learn which frequency/frequency group is triggering the loop first. Use the paired EQ knobs to change the hi-mid or lo-mid frequency responsible for triggering the nasty loop. Successfully done, slowly turn the volume up a bit. Slowly increase volume (usually to the monitors, but will apply to the House Mains in some situations) until you start to hear a feed-back loop starting. Determine which frequency it is and turn it down in the mix. You want as much clear gain as you can to the performers. If you can only turn Monitor Send up to 5, let’s say or you get feedback, the performer might not be able to hear themselves over the amplified instruments and will be forced to scream louder and louder to get heard. If you pull down the offending frequencies you can turn the same signal to the Monitor Send to maybe 8 or so. Happy vocalist.

MidiMike

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MSK original Songs

Posts Tagged ‘#performer’

Quiet Nights – Reflect and Create

Rule #1: Always Play with Musicians that are Better Than you!

Live Sound Reinforcement Series Chapter 15 – And the other 20%

Oceans of Oil Lyrics

Oceans of Oil – Mother Earth is on Her Knees

Live Sound Reinforcement Series Chapter 14 – Down the Signal Path Again

The Personal Touch does “The Pleasure Tax” – Rare Release

Pleasure Tax – Sell Us Water, Sell Us Air!

Getting to the Next Level

Live Sound Reinforcement Series Chapter 13 – Down the Signal Path

Archives

Available on iTunes and CD Baby

Social Media

MSK original Songs

Posts Tagged ‘#performer’

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