Just wondering for us rank amateurs whether there are some top tips out there from the more experienced.

Most of the stuff I do (did) is in churches and schools, but some examples I canthink of from amateur/mobile rigs:

• A constant sound is better than an improving sound - resist the temptation to fiddle and try and improve things during a song.
  
• If (when) the singers complain about the monitor mix, go up there and hear what they hear. It may be something else needs to be turned down rather than the sngers turned up. Just using headphones FOH may not pick this up.
  
• Walk around the auditorium as the desk, even if it's in the middle of FOH, may not be representative of the whole room.

Are there more technical tips out there?

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Andrew

*** do this while you are setting up, and no one is in your venue!!! ***

I always whack the faders at +10,
Then tweak the gain till feedback is just starting.
Knock the gain back enough to theres no feedback. (only a little)
Then put the channel back to 0, this means if you need to get more level you can, and you know that you wont get feedback

Some desks have this built into there PFL function I think.


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P.I.G.L.E.T - where is polly?

Edited by Giant with Laser Eyes (03/10/04 06:48 PM)

Not many tips round here ...

My experience is that alot of vocalists dont know how to express what it is that they need, so they say they need more or put up with it and tell someone else that its crap... going on stage and hearing what they hear is a good idea (during sound check!).

If you havent been given a sound check you can't be expected to get it right on stage, you've got to look after FOH.

I put only vocals in the vox mons unless its a massive stage.

I bought some amp stands for keys and guitars, and point the cabs at the players heads, that generaly keeps their level below 10 and it doesn't need to be as loud through FOH so more headroom for vox.

The larger/est sound companies have FOH in mono, that way all the audience will hear similar levels from across the stage.

The above is before 9am so take it with a pinch of salt...

Try to get to the Venue, and/or set-up the PA early - this allows you time to voice the PA and Wedges. Voicing is saying things like 'One, Two', or in my case, 'Quite The Thing'. After a bit of practice, you get to know the sound of nasty hotspots in systems (Use an SM58, they work, and are everywhere a known quantity).

Check for uneven bass-responses. A tip for helping this is to turn down one of the bass-bins, so it just fills in the bass near it's stack.

When voicing wedges from the FOH desk, turn them towards you: It's much easier, this way!

Try to set the stage up for the band: Vocal and instrument mics in the right places, and make sure they can go loud, by 'ringing-out' the PA and monitors. Saves a lot of time, and deafened musos. Of course, on lots of occasions, there is no time for all of the above.

When the band arrive, offer them tea/coffee, if possible.

Be polite, and look interested. Always a good start. You may lose it later, with some people - try not to show it. Only Chefs are allowed to throw tantrums! Mind you, I have - just three, but not any more. If you do get too stressed, pop out for ten minutes.

Make sure there is coverage near the stage - A lot of engineers face the stacks straight down the room. This means: A) Crap coverage near the stage, B) Terrible slap-back for the band, and C) nasty reflections off the side-walls.

Test the sound all over - and make sure it's not too boomy at the rear.

Listen to the stage sound when the band are playing, if you are doing monitors as well.

If the band are having problems hearing themselves, turn down the backline/drums(!!!) and/or pull down the PA 3 to 5 dB's.

Have an SM 57 Beta A ready for weak vocalists. If you get just one mic . . .

Keep well clear of ludicrously large bands with loads of miked instruments, like Sax, Tabla, Congas, 5 vocalists . . . If you do badly, it's depressing and embarrassing - and if you do well, you get to do lots of them, and it's always bad for the heart!

Try to improve the sound, but carefully.

If there is a Very Annoying Manager, or Very Annoying Band, do the best you can. Be polite, stick to the letter of the contract . . . and refuse to do the band again. Probably best not to tell the band, but tell the venue or the promoter.

If you do loads of PA hires, join the MU, if you're not already a member. It helps in getting paid in some dodgy places.

Last but not least, a comprehensive toolkit.

Guy

Quote Guy Johnson:

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...

Last but not least, a comprehensive toolkit.

---

Hey Guy - lots of good tips.

Amen to the toolkit. I have a toolbox that I carry that has basic tools, a couple of spare DI boxes, a cable tester and lots of "odd" leads to convert various plug types such as XLR to TRS or split signals etc. It's saved my bacon on no end of occasions. The latest I remember was when someone announced they needed to plug a video projector through the PA 10 minuts after the event started. By crawling around carefully, I managed it without most of the congregation (for t'was a church event) noticing.

Hi, yes - millions of various adaptors - everything to everything else; ie XLR to jacks (ts and trs), XLR pin 2 & 3 reverse, splitters and sex-changers, various phono - phono, phono/jack & mini-jack all very useful.

G

I forgot the most important one - wear earplugs when it's loud - you want to continue to hear, don't you? Just think of how many deaf engineers there are.

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PA stuff on FB

its the little things that make your job easier/save your arse/make the band remember you for the right reasons. there's a lot of little things. a few that come to mind are:

Look after your mics and DI boxes, get a box with padded gaps. this will also show you if all are back after the show.

make all your own mic and stage leads. learn to solder well and buy good flexible cable, use Neuitrik XLRs and Jacks. You'll build up a collection of quality, reliable cables at a relatively inexpensive price. Then, look after the buggers, coil them without any twist and fix them with lx tape or velcro wraps, not knots. They'll be more reliable, last much longer (some of mine are nearly ten years old and have probably done nearly a thousand gigs) and they'll be easy to uncoil at the next gig where you might be in a screaming hurry. CABLES ARE THE WEAK LINK IN A PA SETUP, PROTECT THEM, LOOK AFTER THEM.

invest in some canford 4-way, 8 way... jacketed multicore and make some stage tails, 5,10, 20m long whatever, tidies up those long cross stage runs and makes setup quicker. A dedicated 12way stage core (with box and short set of XLRs is best) for the drums and nearby stuff will make your stage cabling sooo much tidier and safer. might cost you a couple of hundred quid to make a good one, but you'll never regret it.

always carry a box of adapters (jack-phono esp) and adapter leads (jack-XLR, both genders and bal and unbal; XLR gender changers; XLR Y-splits; 1m XLR patches; 1m jack patches; jack and XLR insert leads; a Z-lead)

Other items in a get the band out of poo kit: Gaffa, lx (ins) tape, IEC "kettle" leads, jack speaker lead for guitar stacks, spare RCD plug for stage backline supply, box of plectrums (i pick them up off stage at the end of gigs an put them in a tin -saves a dozen guitarists a year), guitar leads, guitar strap, guitar strings (why are guitarists so crap?), any leftover drumsticks too, a drum key, smattering of 20mm fuses, 13A mains fuses, 13amp plugs... .

my most common thank-you is for "a great stage sound" take a bit of care with it if you can, get good compression drivers with horns in all your wedges and get good crossovers fitted, fire them with at least 500W per channel amps for rock and roll (you need headroom for monitors!), use 1/3 octave graphics (even the behringer £100 quid jobbies will do wonders) get on stage during soundcheck and listen at each performers position (not just to sort problems out -this impresses band members) even if you are mixing mons from FOH, try to run at least 4 mixes (for four musos or more) it makes your job easier, than less mixes, at satisfying everybody. Learn about mic polar responses and think about mic to wedge positioning.

above all, be polite and honest, listen, try to help. many problems are due to communication. admit if you've cocked up. mutual respect and a sense of humour will help as much as technical solutions at a difficult gig.

keep a towel next to your console. always.

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planet nine
lincoln, uk.

Quote Nathan:

---

admit if you've cocked up

---

YES!!!! Admit you have cocked up and learn from your mistakes. There is NOTHING worse than working with someone who tries to blame others for their mistakes!

i keep all my leads in a ziplock bag each, it keeps them tidy, dry and fresh!

Sometimes when i get in a cocky 'im brilliant' lead singer and they keep asking for more of themself in the monitors but i cant send them anymore (cos i already checked at which point the monitors will feedback before they came in), sometimes its better to look down at the desk and pretend to turn them up than have them complain about how crap the pa is. 8 times out of 10 you will get them saying "just a little more...perfect"

neil

As we have just done today.. setup your monitor desk next to catering..

if things are getting out of hand in monitor world, (everybody is asking to get everything turned up in the wedges to stupid volumes), I've found if you stop the soundcheck for a few minutes, ie turn off the wedges, under the pretence of having to check something/take a leak etc, when you turn the mixes back on, have them a lower volume. The performers ears will have reset and miraclously they can now hear everything at a lower volume in the wedges. This approach has gotten me out of the 'everything louder than everything else' problem more times than I would care to admit.

--------------------
"Your ideas are bigger than your budget..."

That's brilliant. I'll give it a go, next time. Nice!

G

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PA stuff on FB

Genius

sound guys 1, musicians 0

Quote:

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The larger/est sound companies have FOH in mono

---

I once said this on this very forum and got ripped to shreds. I was only talking about subs (which have almost no sterio image). I guess some people just like to argue!

My tips would be:
to insist that everyone put their amps on crates so that it points at their own heads. (Musicians need to hear themselves most.) It keeps the stage level down so you can mix FOH without the backline interfering.

Nothing sounds worse that a distorting FOH amp. Better quiet than crap.

Oh yeah ...... and little red lights usually mean turn it down. Big red lights mean turn it the hell down!

Don't Panic!

Further to the sticking amps on crates thang, I once persuaded a guitarist with TWO Fender Twins pointing straight at his trouser legs to turn them round and angle them back on their little chrome leg thingies till they were pointing one at each ear - he turned down but also reckoned it was the best he had ever heard himself!
Deaf bastard! Still, it helped the FOH mix no end.....

Oh and how come you can put accents on where they should be, Grimaudiere? Clavier francais? Is there a magic button in Windows that lets you swap easily between keymaps? I know NOTHING about Windoze...

I'm the in house at LSE ( Holborn London ) among other things , there are some good tips here . Here's some more tips for engineers walking into a venue with an in-house engineer ..

1 . Listen to him , it's his rig and he's used it a thousand more time's then you have ...

2. Don't walk in like some prick did the other week , and reset ( flatten ) all the 31bar graphs ( all 8 in my case ) ... These have been set up over time with care to remove the feedback frequencies ,by the way the band's all sounded crap that night coz of his stupidity ...Thanx fool !!!!

3. Don't think that your better than the in house guy , he has the job cos he's good , and not coz he just happened to be in the right place at the right time ... + he has the ability ( if he want's ) to make your life hell without you even knowing it's him ... Bad attitudes No No No !!! , leave em outside please ...

4. Work with him not against him !!! , it's only a job , not an ego battle people !!

5. if your having a problem , tell him , we love problem solving , it's our job ...
We won't think any less of you ...

6. If you have lots of band's on in one night , try to share a bit of backline it's so much easier , sounds better , and it will run a lot smoother ... try changing over six sets of drums in four hour's , get the picture ...

7. Don't walk in , hand the in-house guy a list of channels and walk away , his blood will boil , he's getting paid , your getting paid , do some fricken work yourself !!!! , I personally hate this ...

8. just coz you've brought your own drum or instrument mics you don't HAVE to use them , vocal mics fair enough but all other's " leave it out mate !!! " , two set of drum mics need two sets of XLR's and twice the channel's unless you hot swap , which is a knightmare on a dark stage ...

9. Watch how he sets up the desk , it's done like that for a reason ... Even if it's unortodox , sometime's I put vocal's on the first four channel's ( you rarely get more than four vocal's ) ,as I have no idea what the band line up's are till they turn up ( sometimes late ) , this lets me add channel's without leaving the vocals in the middle of say two guitar's a sax and a keyboard ( confusing ) !!

10. Your not God , don't strut around like you are !!!

11. Don't get too pissed , it show's believe me I know ...

And that's about the size of that ...

Have fun , and love your job , your lucky !!

Good points, but I'd take some issue with the EQ point:

1) Often it's not the proper house ones you are left with, it's what's left after a gig . . . sometimes OK, sometimes not. Assuming it's the proper house set-up . . . after hearing the system & monitors, I may well want to alter something.

2) The house and mon eq's should all be easily re-set, as a good starting- point. A good way is a sealed eq, with a flat user eq next in the chain.

G

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PA stuff on FB

>A good way is a sealed eq, with a flat user eq next in the chain.

Great Idea, and I have found its a good idea to take it a step further, if you are doing a tour make sure you have your own EQ for this purpose that you can flatline at every venue and work from there.

And yea listen to the InHouse Engineer, most of the time they know more about that system than you do, and can give good advice as to what has or has not worked in that space.

Now as a question, over here in the US most of what I do is live theater in small to mid-sized venues. As a result there is almost never a shared ground(I have found one in this entire tour I am currently on thus far;) between FOH and Backstage for sound to use to help prevent groundloops. I am curious what people have done to get around this other than lifting the ground on any equipment mains backstage(I detest doing this, have had to on occasion but still hate it) or lifting the ground on every channel sent to the FOH(Unfortunatly money limits this or time does, or the fact its not my equipment(Rental) to screw with and wire it in). So I am curious as to other solutions that people use.

Oh one other tip, take a moment to observe people and know who can and cant coil cable. I have lost more time disentangling badly or just not coiled cable that in-house crews had one bad person on their crew that didnt know how to do it. Take a moment to either teach these people how to do so, or make sure they arent striking your cable at the end of the night.

Seablade

A lot of great tips here - thanks guys!

I do a lot of live sound for small venues, and 'student' & 'indie' club nights - some of the techinques for getting a good sound can differ from the norm, used in larger theatres and the like.

A club I regularly engineer in has a ridiculously small stage, which can make seperation/feedback avoidance tricky. Here's some thoughts:

Know your mics' characteristics & polar patterns. Make sure their null points are pointing at the monitor wedges, for max. feedback rejection.

Sounds rudimentary? How often do you see an SM58 on a boom, with the mic horizontal in front of the singer's mouth? An SM58 is cardioid and has its null at 180 degrees - if horizontal, the null cant possibly be facing the monitor! A horizontal mic will work better with a Beta 57 or Beta 58 - these are hypercardioid, and have nulls at 120 & 240 degrees, or threrabouts.

Educate the singers - I have a chat with them beforehand & tell them "Keep the tail (cable) of the mic pointing towards the monitor - it's less likely to feed back, and I can give you loads more monitoring level". Normally, they appreciate this and trust you a whole lot more.

Mixing desk: Start with the LPF (sub filter) switched in on all channels. Only switch it out again if the instrument actually needs reinforcement down below 100Hz. This leads to a cleaner sound overall, and conserves some amp power...

Use compressors on channels to prevent level overshoots; avoid using makeup gain, as this only increases the chances of feedback.

Cut, rather than boost with EQ. I normally start with cutting a bit of the lowest band, to compensate excessive proximity effect. Following that, a sweep through the lower-mid band to kill any resonances or boxiness... increases clarity no end.

Avoid using loads of reverb. It generally doesn't help, and it can be suprising how good a 'dry' (or dry-ish) mix can sound, especially in a small venue.

That's all for now - hard to add much as so many good tips have been given already.

Mike

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www.ehsound.co.uk - Live Sound Hire & Services

Yep I like the idea of the sealed eq thing , I'm gonna do that on our next budget revue !!!

Thanks ...

>Mixing desk: Start with the LPF (sub filter) switched in on all channels. Only switch it out again if the instrument actually needs reinforcement down below 100Hz. This leads to a cleaner sound overall, and conserves some amp power...

Err I admit to having several drinks already, but wouldnt that be a high pass filter you are referring to?

>Use compressors on channels to prevent level overshoots; avoid using makeup gain, as this only increases the chances of feedback.

Actually I do use makeup gain, especially on certain instruments depending on the style of music. Rock music for instance at times I will.

Also on a related note, for both people coming into venues and for venue's, make sure you put a limiter on your installed system. And if you are coming into a venue, make sure you know if there is or not, and if there isnt, make sure you dont blow out their system. I have already come across two venues thus far without a SE on site that dont have limiters on their system that have had their systems blown out by various groups.

>Cut, rather than boost with EQ. I normally start with cutting a bit of the lowest band, to compensate excessive proximity effect. Following that, a sweep through the lower-mid band to kill any resonances or boxiness... increases clarity no end.

Heh I still gotta get used to doing this, but it is very useful. Though on another related question, do most of you EQ during Soundcheck while you are setting your gain or do you wait till afterwards?

Seablade

Quote:

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>Mixing desk: Start with the LPF (sub filter) switched in on all channels. Only switch it out again if the instrument actually needs reinforcement down below 100Hz. This leads to a cleaner sound overall, and conserves some amp power...

Err I admit to having several drinks already, but wouldnt that be a high pass filter you are referring to?

---

Erm... yup. Well spotted!

After reading another thread where the exact opposite of this type of confusion happened, I should have spotted this myself!!

To clarify, High-Pass-Filters (Lo-Cut) was what I meant!!

Cheers,

Mike.

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www.ehsound.co.uk - Live Sound Hire & Services

Bill has some good points but I do get the impression that some of his problems might be down to his attitude. Most student union systems seem to be run by people with little experience outside their own venue. They might have a perfectly workable way of doing things but if they're doing it in a completely different way to the rest of the industry then a visiting engineer isn't going to be impressed. I've often met student engineers who think that they know everything when they don't - which makes for a very difficult night. Bill, if you are finding that you are constantly battling with visiting engineers then maybe you need to have a good think about what you are doing differently. Maybe you need to spend time as an assistant on a large tour or something.

Your comment about channel assignments is one thing I would take issue with. I just wouldn't be happy if the engineer insisted on a strange channel layout. There is an industry convention for this and there is absolutely no reason to change unless you know that certain instruments will be missing. This convention extends not only to most of the live sound business but also to the recording business.

I'm also very suspicious of graphic eq's - especially if there are any boost settings or more than a few dB's of cut on any channel. If I saw a graphic eq setting that didn't look sensible then I'd be tempted to flatten it too. Monitor graphic eq settings won't be constant either because they totally depend on the stage layout and the distances between mics and monitors.

Cheers.

James.

--------------------
JRP Music - Audio Mastering and Restoration.
http://www.jrpmusic.net

Edited by James Perrett (17/05/05 10:19 AM)

Here's a tech tip:

When you're setting up, walk round the stage with a 58 (or whatever you're using on vocals) on a long lead and wave it near each wedge and spot the feedback frequency, notch out a bit on a graphic (nice to have a monitor mix for each wedge but not always possible), up the gain and repeat. Eventually you'll aim to have the monitors as loud as the environment they're in will let them get away with. It's much faster if there's two of you, one with the mic and one at the knobs. It's also much faster if you learn to spot the frequencies as soon as you hear them.

And a 'dealing with it' tip:

There's a list of people who need to be made happy by your job today.

The top of the list:

The person who will pay you at the end of the night (whoever that is)
The venue owner
The band(s)
Their manager(s)
The non-sound engineering staff in the venue
The audience

And the bottom of the list:

You.

>Your comment about channel assignments is one thing I would take issue with. I just wouldn't be happy if the engineer insisted on a strange channel layout. There is an industry convention for this and there is absolutely no reason to change unless you know that certain instruments will be missing. This convention extends not only to most of the live sound business but also to the recording business.

I am a little curious on this, I have never been aware of a standard in the industry myself, but as I have said I usually am doing live theater so maybe I just havent run across it yet. Typically there isnt much variation in our setups, vocals, then band or playback, and usually the exact layout depends on the engineer running the show. The only times I have ever had to worry about the layout in a house was when they had their own permananatly installed system for recording shows, or for cry room monitors and such, and usually that only affects a couple of outputs and inputs, nothing to major in our work due to the lack of monitor sends we need on stage usually with a canned setsup, and if we were touring with a large orchestra then typically we will use our own board anyways so it is a moot point, at most we would then just drop a line(Or multiple depending on the venue) into theirs, set up their board once and walk away, running everything from ours.

So really I am curious what you consider the industry standard channel layout for you all.

>I'm also very suspicious of graphic eq's - especially if there are any boost settings or more than a few dB's of cut on any channel. If I saw a graphic eq setting that didn't look sensible then I'd be tempted to flatten it too. Monitor graphic eq settings won't be constant either because they totally depend on the stage layout and the distances between mics and monitors.

Heh depends on who sets up the graphic EQ. Some people I know for instance max everytyhing out and then cut from the max. Still should be within a certain range of everything else though. Usually I dont have to boost or cut much, till I got on the tour I am currently on(Small children's show tour) and found that their system I have to severly cut the midrange and severly boost the low end to get a decent sound. Of course I didnt spec out their system they are renting either;)

Seablade

Industry standard channel list?
Well, this is what I regularly see:

Kick
Snare Top
Snare Bottom
Hi-Hat
Tom 1
Tom 2
Tom 3
Tom 4
O/H Stage Right
O/H Stage Left
SPARE
Bass Guitars(s)
SPARE
Electric/Acoustic Guitar(s)
SPARE
Other Stuff (keys, horns, etc.)
SPARE
Vocals

With regard to the visiting/house engineer thing. The house engineer should provide whatever the the visiting engineer wants. The house engineer should only intervene or impose their views when the visiting engineer is clipping amps or physically damaging anything.

having done both in-house and visiting jobs, I always try to contact the venue/band in advance (phone/email) to see what they have/want. Some places won't have the stuff you need, so bring it with you.
If a touring engineer lands with a spec in his hand, it cuts down the time til soundcheck as you can start wiring (you know your own stage the best) and he/she can be organising the backline/desk-outboard stuff.
I totally agree that the house eng shouldn't offer an opinion until asked, and should only step in if the system is being run dangerously. Common courtesy really. And that channel list is fairly much the norm.
I remember being told it was so that the channels you move the most, (vocals, guitars usually) are close to the master section of the desk and hopefully in the middle of the pa stacks.
And if you think something is wrong with the PA, let the house know. Having been fobbed off by an experienced in-house after telling him his PA was out of phase, he realised mid-gig and swopped the phase there and then. I was not best pleased to say the least, nor was the front few rows who suddenly had a tad more bass than they expected...

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"Your ideas are bigger than your budget..."

I don't have any top tech tips, I'm learning as I go, but a couple of organisational tips for what they are worth - don't believe anything you are told about the gig (assume the worst), and let the customer know you're going to need a break at some point.

I did an open mic thing a while ago that they told me would be "a couple of acoustic guitars on set for people to come and play". They also said they had mics and stands, just needed a small rig. Lucky I bought all my stuff, because the place was bare when I got there. Then over the course of 5 non-stop hours I had to set up on the fly:
- an African drumming band
- a cellist with special feedback-inducing transducer that he insisted on using
- some electric guitarists who turned up with PODs but no cables at all.
- a digeridoo player + bass/guitar/hand drums
- various fingerstyle singer/songwriters with very quiet acoustic guitars that needed mic'ing up (feedback )

Didn't want to leave my stuff unattended because it was all so unpredictable. Hardly had time to have a pee, and was absolutely starving and shagged out at the end.

Next time (if!) I want a committed running order with breaks scheduled in.....

Edited by dunch (18/05/05 07:14 AM)

Quote seablade:

---

Heh depends on who sets up the graphic EQ. Some people I know for instance max everytyhing out and then cut from the max. Still should be within a certain range of everything else though. Usually I dont have to boost or cut much, till I got on the tour I am currently on(Small children's show tour) and found that their system I have to severly cut the midrange and severly boost the low end to get a decent sound. Of course I didnt spec out their system they are renting either;)

Seablade

---

Some graphic equalisers only have cut settings - that makes sense to me because I rarely boost any bands. If someone had maxed out a normal graphic equaliser rather than a cut only equaliser then I'd know instantly that they hadn't a clue and would reset the graphic. You get all kinds of amplitude and phase anomalies with graphic eq's when the controls aren't in the zero position.

There's one venue around here that always has their graphic with everything on full cut. The real problem is that they've got their gain structure completely wrong. I always set it up properly when the band I work with is playing and, to me, that night sounds better than the other nights I go there.

As far as channel assignments go - Jim has got it spot on. For a gig or recording session with real drums that's the way to go.

Cheers.

James.

--------------------
JRP Music - Audio Mastering and Restoration.
http://www.jrpmusic.net

Edited by James Perrett (18/05/05 10:41 AM)

for Dunch...

sometimes you have to be a tad assertive. remember you have control of the desk, if you put a CD on and mute everything else then there WILL be a short break while you get a drink/ eat sandwiches/ have a pee.

people sometimes forget you aren't an automaton yet you need to be there for things to happen. (sound just "happens" doesn't it?)

I know what you mean about not wanting to leave your gear unattended tho. Five hours? -you part-timer! i dream of gigs that short!!

--------------------
planet nine
lincoln, uk.

>Some graphic equalisers only have cut settings - that makes sense to me because I rarely boost any bands. If someone had maxed out a normal graphic equaliser rather than a cut only equaliser then I'd know instantly that they hadn't a clue and would reset the graphic. You get all kinds of amplitude and phase anomalies with graphic eq's when the controls aren't in the zero position.

Now I am curious, why does this throw in phase problems? Amplitude I am guessing is just from the bandwidth of each filter not lining up perfectly with the one beside it and having them all resting anywhere but at zero will cause problems, but then why wouldnt this cause a problem with just a normal boost or cut of 3-6 dB over several bands? Am I just missing something completly obvious there?(By the way inc ase it isnt obvious I have never tried the max everything/cut method with good success myself, part of the reason why I am curious;)

Also going back to a discussion going on in this thread earlier, about the house engineer... Heh I just(Yesterday) ran a show in a venue, first thing that happened when I walked into the venue is the house engineer gave me an ultimatum of lifting the electrical mains ground on all my equipment or I couldnt use the venue sound system because of the ground loop hum he knew it would cause....

While I can understand the concern about the hum, and wanting to avoid a ground loop, I also understand that it is my show, and the sound of it is both my responsibility and my descision. Not even having heard to see if a ground loop would be a problem yet being told I had to endanger my equipment for that(Which wouldnt endanger his in any way without some REALLY bad wiring in his venue which shouldnt be run off of) is a bit much, so yes there are definitly limits that you should listen to a house engineer in my opinion. When I suggested letting me hear it before I did anything and see if it was a problem he refused and went to go get an 3 to 2 prong adapter for me. Similar story when I suggested isolating the grounds on the audio cables that would be connecting our equipment(All 2 of them). Funny thing is after I was done wiring my stuff, there wasnt a single problem from a ground loop, although his system was so cruddy that the hiss coming out of his speakers practicly overpowered any volume coming from the actors on stage if I wasnt blaring them through the cluster.

Ok my little related story/vent.

Seablade

Quote:

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Now I am curious, why does this throw in phase problems?

---

Filters alter the phase of a signal as much as they alter the amplitude. That's just life.

With regards to the ground loop issue. Lifting the ground on the mains connection is not the way to fix hum problems. Are you in the USA? I seem to hear many more horror stories from the other side of the pond.

I would refuse to work in a venue where any equipment was not properly grounded. To do so would most likely endanger the lives of any musicians on stage as well as my own.

>Filters alter the phase of a signal as much as they alter the amplitude. That's just life.

Probably getting more into the electrical theory than most people need to know here;) What causes them to affect the phase so much? Is it just a latency in the electronics?

>With regards to the ground loop issue. Lifting the ground on the mains connection is not the way to fix hum problems. Are you in the USA? I seem to hear many more horror stories from the other side of the pond.

I completly agree on the lifting the mains ground issue, and yep good guess on the location, in the US doing a tour.

I have lifted the mains ground on certain equipment at times, for example my wireless mic rack with a good surge supressor on it, but I do my best to avoid it, and have only done it once in the past, good grief dont know how long, several years. And that was because I didnt have any other choice to get rid of a hum that was loud enough to distrub the entire show. Still not happy about it though. Thankfully no musicians physically wired into any of the sound system in that case, so really if anyone gets fried it woulda been me at the board;)

Seablade

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Probably getting more into the electrical theory than most people need to know here;) What causes them to affect the phase so much? Is it just a latency in the electronics?

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Yes. A simple electronic filter will delay a signal passing through it. This delay will be depend on frequency and so it's easier to talk about phase changes rather than absolute time delays otherwise the numbers would just get silly.

Some sophisticated DSP units run digital filters which don't alter the phase of a signal. These may be found in processing units for large loudspeaker arrays but the results are not always desirable. Similarly, some digital filters can be used to alter the phase without altering the amplitude of a signal. These are know as "all-pass" filters.

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for Dunch...

sometimes you have to be a tad assertive. remember you have control of the desk, if you put a CD on and mute everything else then there WILL be a short break while you get a drink/ eat sandwiches/ have a pee.

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Yeah that's a good idea, in fact I did have a CD running for a while but I used the time to tidy up the stage in case someone fell over the gear and cables that the "artists" had thoughtfully left lying about, retrieve my broken mic stand , and move my monitors in an attempt to stop one particular tw*t standing on them

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people sometimes forget you aren't an automaton yet you need to be there for things to happen. (sound just "happens" doesn't it?)

I know what you mean about not wanting to leave your gear unattended tho. Five hours? -you part-timer! i dream of gigs that short!!

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yeah, well I know I'm a lightweight .. looking forward to my first 10-hour show

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yeah, well I know I'm a lightweight .. looking forward to my first 10-hour show

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How does starting at 10AM and finishing at 3AM the next day suit you? Or, how about starting at 7AM and finishing at 4.30AM (not strictly a live gig, but)?

big gigs = long hours

Not for much longer. If all the legislation goes through, you'll be monitored by crowds of Europeans making sure that you can't work more than 48 hours a week (with no opt-out clause) and nailing your head to a coffee table if you do!