Category: Equipment

In a previous post on in ear monitors, I described how efforts to remove wedges from stages have helped simplify the job of getting a good front-of-house (FOH) mix for the sound tech.  In this post I want to expand on the notion of reducing stage volume.

I am not a sound tech, but to me, I would think anything that can be done to simplify the FOH mix for the sound engineer would be a good thing.  Removing or minimizing the variable of stage volume therefore is helpful.  This is because stage volume can compete with the FOH mix and is usually out of the sound engineer’s control.

If it were up to me (and because of this), I would do everything possible to contain large sound sources on stage.  I would put all acoustic drums in sound isolating cages.  Yes I understand the cage may not be visibly appealing and may even be demeaning to the drummer, but to me the end (getting a good FOH mix) justifies the means (caging the drummer).  The cage also can affect the chemistry of the band on stage, but this can be handled with practice in my experience.

Also,  I would have all instrument amplifiers either off the stage or isolated.  It is not that I don’t appreciate the sonic imprint that a cranked tube amplifier can impart – far from it.  It is that I appreciate the interference that a cranked tube amplifier on stage can have on the FOH mix.  Especially when trying to mic a cello several feet away.

Think of it from the sound tech’s perspective for a second.  He is trying to mix for the room and is dealing with room resonances, hot spots, instruments that are occasionally clipping channels, mic’s that might be flakey and then it happens… a guitarist turns up his amp on stage louder than what is controllable for the sound tech.  While the amplifier might be mic’ed (and thus he can compensate somewhat with the mixing board), the sound engineer may have to turn down this channel to minimum.  There isn’t much the sound engineer can do at this point.  The sound tech and the guitarist are now fighting for control of the FOH mix and the guitarist may be oblivious to the situation.

One benefit of having an amplifier off stage away from the musician is the musician can’t reach over and change settings.  As a musician I know this may be seen like a limitation, but I look at it from a different perspective.  The time for making tweaks to a guitar tone, at least large changes, is NOT during a performance.  The responsibility for tweaking a guitar’s tone to counteract the sonic affect of the room is largely on the sound tech’s shoulders.  Plus the sound tech generally has much more control to handle this (depending on the equipment and skill levels involved).  This isn’t a hard and fast rule but I find it generally to be true.  Because of these reasons I prefer to see guitar amplifiers far away from the stage.  (I have developed a product to help with keeping amplifier’s off stage, the effects loop snake EL-SNAKE)

One exception to the rule of amplifiers on stage can be bass amps (primarily to help the bassist/drummer feel the low end).  I find this is only helpful when there are no subwoofers or if the sound system is underpowered.  However, as a bassist I still prefer relying on the sound tech’s ability to get a good mix and not use an amplifier on stage.  Having a bass amp blasting at my knees while wearing in ear monitors never convey’s much of my tone anyway.  If anything, I prefer to play close to the subwoofer as possible if I cannot feel the bass.  So I haven’t used a bass amplifier on stage in years.  (I use a combination tuner and mutable DI that I designed: the TDI)

I think if performers (myself included) are conscious of the effect stage volume has on the sound engineer’s job, we can go a long way in helping get a great FOH mix.

An obsession of mine throughout my playing music is with good sound quality (or tone).  I find this actually to be common with stringed instrument and keyboard musicians, although I don’t know why.

There are benefits to a performer being so focused on good sound quality, namely that the performer is striving to get the best sound to the listener as possible.  However, there is a downside when “tone chasing” is taken too far.  That downside is in wasting time tweaking minutia instead of practicing the instrument or even making good music.  I am definitely guilty of this.

My suggestion as well as my rule of thumb is that if I am spending more than one minute dialing in my sound I should stop and simply practice.  Part of the reason for this is I have spent many hours on each instrument I own tweaking the tone over a period of years.  If I can’t get it to sound good enough to the layman I should simply give up.  I feel I would be a much better musician had I spent 1/10th the time tweaking my tone and used that time instead to practice being better at playing (for example, working on playing along with a metronome, studying music theory, writing music, etc).

Then there is the topic of the dreaded disease known as “GAS” (gear acquisition syndrome).  How many times have you seen someone with a low end instrument blow away another musician with an uber high end, presentation quality instrument?  Jaco Pastorius, quite likely the greatest electric bassist in history, was known for using instruments that were beat up and looked far from pristine or “high end”.  Jimmy Page (Led Zepplin), Jack White (White Stripes), Kurt Cobain (Nirvana), Hound Dog Taylor (solo) where all known for using inexpensive gear at times with amazing results.

I am not implying quality gear doesn’t matter.  I would argue that it does indeed matter in many situations.  The key, I think, is to know when it matters and when it does not.  Also, I’m as guilty as the next person at admiring beautiful instruments and gear.  My solution to GAS is to admire expensive gear from afar and use it as a reminder to practice the instruments I currently own.  If I feel the new gear would allow me to get to the next musical level or solve a technical problem with my current gear, then I consider looking at the price tag.  If that isn’t enough to cure my GAS then I am likely to make a purchase.  Usually I find the gear I own (which admittedly is on the higher end of the spectrum after years of “trading up”) is more than sufficient for my needs.

Also, string players, don’t forget the effect of fresh strings (or new tubes for amps) can have if it is time to change them.

Now let me get back to practicing…

One advance in musical performance technology that I have welcomed as both an audience member and a performer is the advent of the in ear monitor (IEM).  For many years, on stage speaker (or “wedge”) monitors were used to give the performer “real time” feedback on what he was playing.  In all but the best cases I found the wedges to be a compromise in terms of volume and sound quality.  Especially as a bassist I was often frustrated with the low frequency response of the wedges when played at sufficient volumes I found in most venues.

I have yet to meet a soundman who hasn’t welcomed the removal of wedges which tend to, at best,  complicate the FOH sound.  With on-stage wedge monitors, the musician and soundman often compete to allow the audience to get great sound and the musician to hear himself play.  Many benefits of IEMs are: control of stage volume, direct control of the performer’s mix by the performer, freeing up the soundman to focus on the FOH mix rather than monitor mix (although there is still significant setup work to get the channel assignments correct) and potentially less damage to performer’s hearing if used correctly.

IEMs are not without issues.  First, I have never been satisfied with how my bass sounds with IEMs.  Even using audiologist-fitted custom ear molds and expensive multi driver monitors, I have found my trusty Sony MDR 7506 over-ear headphones to sound much more accurate, especially in the midrange and low frequencies.  Unfortunately, most over-ear headphones like the MDR 7506 don’t block out enough external noise to make them useful for most live performance applications.  I have resigned myself to accept that sound quality of my mix as a performer is secondary to the performance and what the audience hears.  I rely on the soundman to get the best sound to FOH and use my personal monitor to give a “basic image” of what the audience hears.  My opinion may change if I use super high end IEMs.

One thing I found that helps in getting a satisfying bass playing experience is to be near the subwoofers (preferably standing on top them) so that I can mimic the experience of actually hearing the bass correctly.  This in conjunction with the midrange heavy IEM have given me satisfying results.

Many vocalists will remove one IEM during a performance to get a better feel for the audience reaction to the music.  The IEM can block out so much sound that the singers can feel disconnected from the audience.  There are other tricks to handle this involving ambient microphones and pulling the IEM out of the ears slightly.

If it is your first time using IEM, realize that there is a learning curve to getting comfortable with them.  It is a very different experience listening to your playing/singing with IEM than listening to the “natural room” sound.  This is partly psycho-acoustic and partly due to the effect of the room on the sound (reverberation, echo, damping, etc).  Also, most IEM have short cables which inhibit movement.

In summary, if you go in with the expectation that the experience of using IEM will be different (and possibly vastly so) from using over-ear headphones or wedges you may find the learning curve lessened.  Hopefully this will allow you to focus on making great music.

“Everyone to whom much was given, of him much will be required” Luke 12:48 ESV

I want to go over a topic that has increasingly become a problem as technology has dropped in price allowing less experienced musicians access to amazing gear that 25 years ago was only available to professionals.  However, let me back up to give some context.

As a performer, I am a minimalist when it comes to tone.  I come from the Carlos Santana school of “have one great tone and focus on playing” as opposed to having hundreds of drastically different tones available.  Part of this is out of necessity – I am so picky when it comes to getting the sound I want that I wouldn’t have time to practice if I changed tones every song.

This is not to say I don’t appreciate those who utilize many tone and/or effect settings when performing.  Focusing on electric guitar and keyboard synthesizer, there are many musicians I admire. Guitarists that I consider masters of getting a wide range of guitar tones are Tom Morello (Rage Against the Machine), Trevor Rabin (Yes),  the Edge (U2), Jimmy Page (Led Zeppelin), Jimi Hendrix (Solo), David Gilmour (Pink Floyd), Steve Vai (Solo), Billy Gibbons (ZZ Top), Steve Howe (Yes), Joe Satriani (Solo), Lincoln Brewster (Solo), and many others.

On the keyboard side of the spectrum, some of my favorites who do the tone shuffle well are Tony Banks (Genesis), Keith Emerson (ELP), Mark Kelly (Marillion), Derek Sherian (Dream Theater), Greg Hawkes (The Cars), Trent Reznor (Nine Inch Nails), Vince Clarke (Erasure), Billy Currie (Ultravox) are a small sample.

Some bassists who use effects well are Doug Wimbish (Living Colour), Chris Wolstenholme (Muse), Tim Commerford (Rage Against the Machine) as well as Juan Alderete (The Mars Volta). **

So what is the topic I want to highlight in this post?  Looking at the list of musicians listed above, there is one thing they do well that many novices often overlook.  This is the concept of matching patch volumes.  What I mean by this is keeping the relative volume of a tone setting/patch as similar as possible to each other.  There is no hard and fast rule, and perhaps the best way to handle this is to simply be aware of the volume when going between tone settings.

I have heard from several soundmen that changing tone settings is one of the most difficult issues they deal with in a live performance mix.  Think of it from the soundman’s perspective mixing a live band with an electric guitarist and a keyboardist for a moment.  While mixing the song in real time, the keyboard is using a Hammond B3 patch and then transitions to a piano patch for a few seconds of the song.  Let’s say the piano patch is lower in volume than the B3 patch.  What will the soundman do?  Assuming he can identify what happened in time, he will boost the piano part of the song.  What happens when the keyboard player goes back to the lower volume B3 patch?  You guessed it, suddenly the patch is too loud.  On top of that, let’s say the guitarist is going from a chorus drenched setting to a heavily distorted setting in the same song.  If the volume settings are very different (and it doesn’t take much to make them seem different in a mix), the soundman is scrambling to change things.

There are exceptions like when a lead guitar is about to go into a solo and may need a slight volume boost.  However, I still feel if as a performer you keep the relative volume of the solo part similar to the tone of the non solo part, the soundman can handle that easily.  If as a performer you are conscious of the volume settings between your tone patches and try to equalize them, you can make the soundman’s job much easier and the overall band mix better.  While the Bible verse quoted above is taken out of context, it applies to the concept of patch volume equalization: if you have the power of amazing equipment allowing you many different sounds, you have a responsibility to keep the relative volumes the same when using these many different sounds or risk harming the overall live mix.

** A great article on this is found here