Sound for bands

Bob Z

If you have experience of sound recording for film and other stuff how hard would it be to mixing for live bands?

PMI

Live is less controlled ie: no time to have tea while you change a mic lead before next take

Also your never dealing with a acoustically perfect room and stages are often put in last so, placement of PA's, eq'ing them and using delay lines etc.. are a day to day thing and a headache

Steam in and find out

madtheory

Are you thinking of changing career?

MilanPan!c

I would say this:

There's a real learning curve as mixing for a room full of people means mixing things to sound a bit odd...

More live sound engineers aren't great (IME - I did LSR for YEARS for the record) and most of them don't really seem to care a lot about their job... In their defense - It's not a great job on the bottom few rungs...

Bands in the studio seem to be more patients then bands on a stage.

My best experiences were when I worked with bands I knew (and knew their material) and most importantly, when I mixed the band to sound like a record (i.e. I didn't follow the bizarre turn up drums/bass to a million philosophy a lot of these guys seem to follow).

If it sounds good to you, while you're doing it, unless you're wildly unlucky, it'll sound good to a crowd.... and really in some respects it's easier as crowds are more forgiving then album listeners...

Give it a whack though, but maybe shadow someone once or twice... it's pretty damn different.

--

Just my two cent.

Savman

MilanPan!c wrote: »

More live sound engineers aren't great

Bizarre statement. IME the quality of Engineer tends to match the quality of the gig and/or the artist. The bottom feeder gigs simply aren't worth the hassle to any working pro, hence why the cluless guys get these gigs. They are the Engineering gigs nobody wants, no self respecting Soundman will touch them with a barge pole.

OP, whilst you can theoretically use your knowledge of sound mixing to move into live sound, there are a number of caveats you should be aware of. I'll skip to the biggie: Musicians. As a whole, we are irritating f*ckers to work with, so your success in a live environment is more dependent on people skills than aural.

If you are of a mental disposition where you feel you can live with this, then I'd say you've a good start.

"Here sound guy, Me Marshall's not making any sound"
"Is it turned on?"

Et cetera.

The working knowledge of EQ, compressors etc is all something you can do your homework on, just be prepared to have to do occasionally agree to do something you know to be "wrong" just to passify a fragile ego.

Moral of the story: when it's good, it's all good baby. When it's bad, it's terrible.

Best of luck

MilanPan!c

Savman wrote: »

Bizarre statement. IME the quality of Engineer tends to match the quality of the gig and/or the artist. The bottom feeder gigs simply aren't worth the hassle to any working pro, hence why the cluless guys get these gigs. They are the Engineering gigs nobody wants, no self respecting Soundman will touch them with a barge pole.

OP, whilst you can theoretically use your knowledge of sound mixing to move into live sound, there are a number of caveats you should be aware of. I'll skip to the biggie: Musicians. As a whole, we are irritating f*ckers to work with, so your success in a live environment is more dependent on people skills than aural.

If you are of a mental disposition where you feel you can live with this, then I'd say you've a good start.

"Here sound guy, Me Marshall's not making any sound"
"Is it turned on?"

Et cetera.

The working knowledge of EQ, compressors etc is all something you can do your homework on, just be prepared to have to do occasionally agree to do something you know to be "wrong" just to passify a fragile ego.

Moral of the story: when it's good, it's all good baby. When it's bad, it's terrible.

Best of luck

As you said, most bottom feeder gigs aren't done by pro and most gigs are bottom feeder gig... Ergo most live sound engineers have bottom feeders gigs, aren't pros and in my opinion are not great.

Echoplex

Recording for Film is very simple. It's a kinda guerrilla activity. It's all about capturing the sound, minimising the noise. Even more importantly you have to succeed all the time. Tom Cruise is unlikely to do another take because you overloaded.

Regarding live engineers. I don't think it is at all fair to say they are in general not very good. We could shine that light anywhere. Any singers as good as Sinatra these days? Is singing incompetence the norm?
IMHO studio music recording is very easy. Very easy to do adequately for the current market. Things can be controlled and adjusted. Like an easy chess game perhaps.
On the other hand Live mixing is like three dimensional chess. There are many many more factors at play. It is really really difficult to get even an adequate result (e.g. try to make vocals audible when the drummer is doing a ride on the crash cymbal)

madtheory

Agreed. I would've posted a similarly considered reply except that I suspect that the OP is not asking a genuinely serious question.

MilanPan!c

I wasn't trying to be mean... it was a brief reply because I sent from my phone.

I did sound in dozens of venues in a couple countries and was a house engineer in a couple places (none great for the record).

I saw some really amazing pros, no doubt, but, and this is my point here, consider how many pubs/tiny venues have house engineers that are barely able to set the gear... then factor in the slightly bigger venues that only care about adequate and cheap...

there's a huge number of people thta fit into that category.

I in no way at all mean to make it sound like pros and even dedicated part-timers are not wildly talented, they obviously can be and many many are.

My point is, looking at the number of people that do sound in any week, and the number of venues that are ONLY looking for a cheap solution, the majority of guys (that I have met and IMO) aren't great.

I would put myself in that category, btw.

Put ME in a place for a few months and I'm pretty damn good, but pay me 50 quid on a one off and I'll try my best, but how can I possibly be great? How can anyone, but the very best?

So, no offense, sorry if I did... I certainly am NOT refering to ANYONE here.

Hope that's clear.