Live Sound Mixing Tips

The post following this is about mixing sound outdoors. I wrote the post and it looked good so I submitted it to Ezine Articles. I have just received word that the article was accepted for publication and can be found at:  Live Sound Mixing Outdoors The article promotes this blog and the main Mixing Live Sound site. If you have a website perhaps you could reprint the article.

Live Sound Mixing weather it be a small outdoor gig or a major concert has some advantages and disadvantages. The situation is different when you get to the great outdoors. While the reflections that you must deal with are less of a problem more of your sound may need to be reinforced to maintain a proper balance.

Some of the problems of live sound mixing inside are reflections and the standing waves created by the dimensions and shape of the rooms and the position of the stage in the room. This changes with an outdoor venue. There may be few or no reflections with an outdoor stage. If there are reflections there is usually a much longer delay before they return to the stage. Sometimes specific frequencies will reflect from some surface but other frequencies will not be reflected to the same extent.

There are likely to be cancellation and reinforced areas that are dependent on speaker location. These will be more predictable with outdoor sound. If you use a stack on either side of the stage including subs there will be strong low end in the center of the venue but there will also be cancellation points off center on each side, usually between the center-line and the stacks. From a position directly in front of either stack you may hear the actual balance of the mix.

Depending on the style of music and the volume desired a sound system may require more power and more speakers for an outdoor show. You may also need to mike some things that are not needed in a club venue. Outdoor stages are often bigger than the stages in clubs, so you will not have as much bleed into the vocal mikes and other live mikes on stage. If you have the proper equipment it is easier to mix outdoors because you are not fighting the sound problems inherit in a room.

You may need to have an input from each instrument as well as your vocal mikes. You may also find benefit when working out doors to put up overhead mikes on the drum kit. Cymbals may bleed into vocal mikes on a club stage but may be lost on an outdoor stage. Also miking each individual drum will give you more control if you have the mikes and channels available. Guitars and keyboards may need to be in the mix for balance and dispersion. Many guitar cabinets tend to be beamy and the sound can drop often dependent on frequency off axis.

The monitor system may also need to be stronger for a large outdoor stage. Musicians may need more things in their monitors for timing. More monitor mixes are also desirable for outdoor venues. Usually for events other than concerts four mixes will work well. A stage right, center stage, stage left, and drum mix will allow you to give the musicians what they need to hear in most cases.

I have heard many people say that they think outdoor gigs are hard. The real secret is to have enough PA for the gig and venue. I much prefer to mix outdoors, but I have the necessary level of equipment available for the jobs that I take. A live stereo recording of an outdoor gig with enough mikes and equipment can be very good.

A microphone has a property called proximity effect. The closer that the mike is to the sound source the more low and low mid frequencies are reproduced.

Proximity effect can be enhanced or reduced by the physical engineering of the microphone. Some are designed to minimize the proximity effect and some are designed to include more proximity effect. Many vocal mikes are designed with a fairly strong proximity effect while instrument mikes may be designed to minimize the proximity effect.

Proximity effect can give some added warmth to vocals. The singer needs to understand how to use the property of the microphone to the best advantage. If the singer backs off of the microphone the sound will be thin and as they get closer to the microphone the voice will fatten up. Mike technique is something that is important for a vocalist to learn.

Have you noticed the proximity effect in vocal mikes?

I am putting up this blog to post mixing tips for live sound technicians. I will try to post a tip at least once a week, so check in often or, better yet, subscribe to the RSS feed for the blog and see new posts in your rss aggregator.

I would like to see some comments on these posts. If you have something to add or if you think that the tip is not good, either way, leave a comment. Feel free to ask questions in the comment box as well. You can also make suggestions about posts that you would like to see.

For those of you with websites I have installed a couple of plug-ins to give commenting a greater value to you. I have the KeywordLuv plug-in installed with a do follow plug-in. If you leave a comment you will get a link back to your site. External links back to your site can help your site to improve its search page position. So get busy and write a comment!

I will also be pleased to offer a guest post to anyone who would like to make a post that is on subject. I will be happy to include a resource box with your guest post.

I have a bit more work to do on the blog and then I need to put the announcement and link up on the main site, so I will close this post for now. If you have questions or need to contact me email for this site is: wink@mixinglivesound.com