Unit 29 Tasks 2-4
For tasks 2, 3 and 4, I was put into a group with classmates Cameron and Alex and it was our job to set up and manage a live sound venue for a performance in the college.
Planning
Before setting up we had a planning meeting wherein we discussed things like what instruments we needed to provide for, how to provide for them (eg. mics), and timings. The sheet on which we roughly outlined tech was unfortunately lost, but it was a simple enough setup to not be completely necessary and we did get by based on memory. Really we should have created an online document with something like Google Docs or Word Online, which would have been much more secure and also easy to modify on the go for everyone. I organised all the backing tracks we were provided with into one folder and ordered them according to the set list. The laptop this was on was connected to the Qu-24 mixing console, which everything else went through, by a mini jack-to-jack cable.
Setting Up
This step took the longest. Where there were many cables forming a tripping hazard, I taped them down using rubber strips as part of health and safety procedures. The audio environment wasn't the best-- for one, there was a glass wall directly behind the performers-- but we did our best to work through this by positioning speakers outward in front of microphones correctly and working with the effects and EQ settings on the mixer to fine-tune as best we could to the room's acoustic.
Then the first thing we did after all that was a sound test to check everything was working correctly. To test the microphones and avoid feedback, we asked performers to go the loudest they predicted they would during their performance, and manipulated gain according to this strategy to achieve a nice mix. Several effects and processors were implemented to achieve the right sound, including noise gates, compressors, and reverb settings. The compressor was used on the bongos as they are capable of low and high dynamics that are hard to appreciate naturally in a live setting. Meanwhile the gate was used on the vocals as we didn't want unwanted background noise (eg. cheering) to be picked up on the high-gain input.
To an extent, setting up was an ongoing process. For example, two singers came on and one point who were both very short, so the microphones had to be brought down to their level!
EQ
For every track I rolled off about 60Hz in order to avoid having anything be unclear. I recall that the guitar was reductively EQ'd to focus on the 80-2kHz section as the instrument tends to capitalise on these frequencies. Reductive EQ is more practical in a live setting than additive EQ.
Health and Safety
Aside from taping down cables, health and safety was maintained in other ways too. At one point a drink was left near the mixer and laptop by an audience member; this was promptly removed and given to its owner. The effects of liquid making contact with the electronics involved at the gig could have caused anything from mild tech problems to a fire. Spilt liquid is also a trip hazard. Measures like this were therefore essential. Meanwhile heavy equipment like the mixer were carried by two people two reduce strain and risk of it being dropped. We tried to distribute weight to our knees, not our backs, as otherwise this could lead to injury. Trolleys were utilised for the most cumbersome equipment including parts of the drum kit.
Monitor
Two fold-back monitors were used for the gig. One of them was placed very close to the drums, as it would be hardest for the drummer to hear them (since the instrument is so loud). The ideal distance between the other monitor and the vocalists ended up being about 3ft; this was close enough for them to hear the mix, but still far enough to prevent feedback. This took trial and error on my part to figure out throughout the gig; it would have been better practice to do more sound testing.
---
All in all, I think the gig went alright. The overall mix was good in that everything was very audible, though it is a shame about the poor-quality backing tracks; next time I would like us to have more of a hand in the selection of those so as to ensure quality. There's only so much that can be done on the engineering side of things. I feel I could have personally prepared better as well since there were some silly mistakes I made like initially putting the speaker cables in the wrong ports on the mixer.
At one point early on there seemed to be a lack of sound coming from the right... it turned out the right speaker had been plugged out! So that was quite a mishap. We also hadn't spent enough time learning the mixer and so didn't get to learn how to do things like create custom effects that might have been useful for, say, adapting to the specific audio environment we had.
Planning
Before setting up we had a planning meeting wherein we discussed things like what instruments we needed to provide for, how to provide for them (eg. mics), and timings. The sheet on which we roughly outlined tech was unfortunately lost, but it was a simple enough setup to not be completely necessary and we did get by based on memory. Really we should have created an online document with something like Google Docs or Word Online, which would have been much more secure and also easy to modify on the go for everyone. I organised all the backing tracks we were provided with into one folder and ordered them according to the set list. The laptop this was on was connected to the Qu-24 mixing console, which everything else went through, by a mini jack-to-jack cable.
Setting Up
This step took the longest. Where there were many cables forming a tripping hazard, I taped them down using rubber strips as part of health and safety procedures. The audio environment wasn't the best-- for one, there was a glass wall directly behind the performers-- but we did our best to work through this by positioning speakers outward in front of microphones correctly and working with the effects and EQ settings on the mixer to fine-tune as best we could to the room's acoustic.
Then the first thing we did after all that was a sound test to check everything was working correctly. To test the microphones and avoid feedback, we asked performers to go the loudest they predicted they would during their performance, and manipulated gain according to this strategy to achieve a nice mix. Several effects and processors were implemented to achieve the right sound, including noise gates, compressors, and reverb settings. The compressor was used on the bongos as they are capable of low and high dynamics that are hard to appreciate naturally in a live setting. Meanwhile the gate was used on the vocals as we didn't want unwanted background noise (eg. cheering) to be picked up on the high-gain input.
To an extent, setting up was an ongoing process. For example, two singers came on and one point who were both very short, so the microphones had to be brought down to their level!
EQ
For every track I rolled off about 60Hz in order to avoid having anything be unclear. I recall that the guitar was reductively EQ'd to focus on the 80-2kHz section as the instrument tends to capitalise on these frequencies. Reductive EQ is more practical in a live setting than additive EQ.
Health and Safety
Aside from taping down cables, health and safety was maintained in other ways too. At one point a drink was left near the mixer and laptop by an audience member; this was promptly removed and given to its owner. The effects of liquid making contact with the electronics involved at the gig could have caused anything from mild tech problems to a fire. Spilt liquid is also a trip hazard. Measures like this were therefore essential. Meanwhile heavy equipment like the mixer were carried by two people two reduce strain and risk of it being dropped. We tried to distribute weight to our knees, not our backs, as otherwise this could lead to injury. Trolleys were utilised for the most cumbersome equipment including parts of the drum kit.
Monitor
Two fold-back monitors were used for the gig. One of them was placed very close to the drums, as it would be hardest for the drummer to hear them (since the instrument is so loud). The ideal distance between the other monitor and the vocalists ended up being about 3ft; this was close enough for them to hear the mix, but still far enough to prevent feedback. This took trial and error on my part to figure out throughout the gig; it would have been better practice to do more sound testing.
---
All in all, I think the gig went alright. The overall mix was good in that everything was very audible, though it is a shame about the poor-quality backing tracks; next time I would like us to have more of a hand in the selection of those so as to ensure quality. There's only so much that can be done on the engineering side of things. I feel I could have personally prepared better as well since there were some silly mistakes I made like initially putting the speaker cables in the wrong ports on the mixer.
At one point early on there seemed to be a lack of sound coming from the right... it turned out the right speaker had been plugged out! So that was quite a mishap. We also hadn't spent enough time learning the mixer and so didn't get to learn how to do things like create custom effects that might have been useful for, say, adapting to the specific audio environment we had.
Comments
Post a Comment