Tone rant of the day...

pipelineaudio said:
If you are truly being objective and listening to the band itself as a whole and not just one part or another there are some things that help.

The sound quality the audience hears is inversely proportional to the stage volume for a large number of reasons.

Any guitar leaking into the vocal mic will constantly be being phased and filtered by everything the singer does, even when not singing.

Any guitar leaking into the drum mics will be the same, but luckily usually a much lower part of those particular mics' signal.

Any bass guitar leaking into the guitar mic is going to have to be filtered out either from the bass guitar's FOH sound or the guitar's FOH sound, that issue is a textbook comb filter

Anyone who thinks they can stick a single mic in front of a cabinet with bass guitar leaking into it, cymbals leaking into it, the stand or mount vibrating all over the place, and variably being reflected into by people walking past (even the "null point of) the mic and beat a studio full of mics in a perfect room are fooling themselves. You might get something OK, but from what the audience hears, you are never going to beat an IR with that mic. I realize that that can be an impossible pill to swallow psychologically so I always have a mic on the cab as well for the performer's peace of mind and once in a blue moon it makes an acceptable sound and I'd rather have a happy performer playing well than a grumpy one that technically could sound better but plays crappy when upset.
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Which to me is amazing how talented soundmen were 20 years ago and ages before that. Long before IR's, quiet stages etc... They dealt with all of this stuff and made it work.

What's crazy is the best live concerts I have ever heard to this day, aren't now or even in recent years but Journey in 1980, it was freaking pristine. Kiss on the Creatures tour, massive sounding. Van Halen during Diver Down and 1984, incredible. Whitesnake opening for Quiet Riot with Sykes on guitar, it was incredible. Those are just a few. I cannot pinpoint a recent show I've seen that sounded incredible.

Oh well, I'm an old man yelling at clouds.
 
jabps said:
It's a lost art man. Most modern soundman can't deal with a mic'ed up amp moving some air. They want quiet stages and IR's to be able to function. Huge beef of mine and one of the reasons I'm sorta glad my live playing days are over with.

I have friends that tour constantly and every single one is using IR's, except one which is Tony Higbee that tours with Tom Keifer. Some have even moved to Cortex and Kempers etc... And not because they want to either but because as one friend said, the soundmen almost go into meltdown when they have to pull out a mic.
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You should have heard me going off on a “sound guy”one time at an outdoor “Bikefest” my band was the opening act at. My drummer had a massive kit. Double bass, 2 floor Tom’s, 2 snares, rotos, lots of cymbals. I had 13 mics on his kit. Sound guy wouldn’t do it. Dude, many times I close mic’ed that kit indoors and it always sounded great.

I can only imagine what’s going on now with digital mixers, IEMs, ampless stages. Has to suck.
 
jabps said:
Which to me is amazing how talented soundmen were 20 years ago and ages before that. Long before IR's, quiet stages etc... They dealt with all of this stuff and made it work.

What's crazy is the best live concerts I have ever heard to this day, aren't now or even in recent years but Journey in 1980, it was freaking pristine. Kiss on the Creatures tour, massive sounding. Van Halen during Diver Down and 1984, incredible. Whitesnake opening for Quiet Riot with Sykes on guitar, it was incredible. Those are just a few. I cannot pinpoint a recent show I've seen that sounded incredible.

Oh well, I'm an old man yelling at clouds.
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Deftones at The Pageant in STL a few years back. Local H at a shit hole bar down off Hampton about 12 years ago. After that show I went and spent $2600 on a pair of killer subs the next day.
 
Floyd Eye said:
You should have heard me going off on a “sound guy”one time at an outdoor “Bikefest” my band was the opening act at. My drummer had a massive kit. Double bass, 2 floor Tom’s, 2 snares, rotos, lots of cymbals. I had 13 mics on his kit. Sound guy wouldn’t do it. Dude, many times I close mic’ed that kit indoors and it always sounded great.

I can only imagine what’s going on now with digital mixers, IEMs, ampless stages. Has to suck.
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Boggles my mind. Literally before IR's you had guys dumping speakers into cases but before that - all live, everything had to be dealt with and those guys did it. And most of the time it sounded freaking incredible. I literally cannot pinpoint a concert that sounded like ass back in the day except maybe Metallica when they first played in the round.

One of the best sounding clubs I've ever played is The Nick in Birmingham, we used to hit that spot regularly years ago. If you looked at the PA back then you'd go really, this thing has seen some work. But that place sounded freaking amazing because the soundman knew his shit. Was always a pleasure dealing with guys like that, we had some in Nashville that were masters like Frank Sass and Big Steve. Always knew if they were working as long as you got your stuff on/off in a timely fashion you were going to sound good.

Like my friend said who still tours, it's like they've completely forgotten that every artist and soundman did all of this before there was IR's, silent stages etc... Last time I saw his band and a name club here in Nashville, he walked me through their gear and the only thing mic'd was the drum kit, everything else IR's and in ears, stage volume was next to nothing. He asked me how it sounded out front, I said it sounded like shit. All I could hear was kick and low end and even the kick sounded bad lol.
 
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jabps said:
Which to me is amazing how talented soundmen were 20 years ago and ages before that. Long before IR's, quiet stages etc... They dealt with all of this stuff and made it work.

What's crazy is the best live concerts I have ever heard to this day, aren't now or even in recent years but Journey in 1980, it was freaking pristine. Kiss on the Creatures tour, massive sounding. Van Halen during Diver Down and 1984, incredible. Whitesnake opening for Quiet Riot with Sykes on guitar, it was incredible. Those are just a few. I cannot pinpoint a recent show I've seen that sounded incredible.

Oh well, I'm an old man yelling at clouds.
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Same here, the best live sounds ive ever heard were before the IR days
 
jabps said:
It's a lost art man. Most modern soundman can't deal with a mic'ed up amp moving some air. They want quiet stages and IR's to be able to function. Huge beef of mine and one of the reasons I'm sorta glad my live playing days are over with.
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Any moron can hang a mic and run. Its got nothing to do with the soundman. Customers, clubowners, governments, and especially bartenders are demanding lower levels.

Also, there's nothing "modern" about physics. At no time, past or present, could a soundman, with any possible level of skill change the facts regarding comb filtering and other phasing problems. If a signal is significantly present in any two channels, there's nothing you could really do to fix that, just do some small amounts of damage control
 
saxxamafone said:
I’ve also seen guitarist with their sick fat tone that sounds awesome alone… they spend all their time dialing in without the context of a band. Then they have a crap tone that doesn’t sit in a mix and then the sound guy has to try and fix that shit

Goes both ways
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99 percent of all local bands guitarists don’t get this . Tone live is built to cut through cymbals . Especially if they have a hard hitting drummer
 
Sigh.. you gotta just f--king fire the sound guy and let the chips fall where they may.
 
if you enjoy the technical aspects of live sound this guy’s YT channel is a goldmine of information



live sound mixing days are well behind me but glad i got to cut my teeth on analog boards and experience the digital revolution.
 
pipelineaudio said:
What in the Las Vegas Elvis Impersonator circuit is that?

Here's regular old Hawaiian music

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i’m on Oahu too!
do you have any venues where you regularly work? Blue Note, Hawaiian Brians, Blaisdell..?

i’ve been to many churches here and actually mixed at C4 in kahala for Imua on the Allen & Heath digi console and at Sunset Beach Christian on an ipad/X air. imo the best sounding system i’ve heard at a church here is at Pearlside.
 
mentoneman said:
i’m on Oahu too!
do you have any venues where you regularly work? Blue Note, Hawaiian Brians, Blaisdell..?
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I'm usually at Hawaiian Brians and the piles of pavillion and backyard gigs around the island. My cousin does the PA stuff for most of the four shows a day local acts like Penni Dean and that sort of thing, and I will often do those if he's short. I only go to the blaisdell for helping with recording shows. I own Kailua Music School in Kailua. Some of those churches have INSANE systems! We were hosting a light demo and all the big players were there and wondering why they weren't being shown the top end light rigs. The guy told them "those are for the churches, you guys have made your budgets very clear, and they don't fit". The demo they put on for the churches was WILD!!!
 
Floyd Eye said:
As a bass player and a soundguy I've had more problems with guitar players who think their bedroom tone works on a stage with a full band than anything else. Almost all of you have way too much bass dialed in, which usually makes your bass player turn up so he can hear himself. You have a bass player. Stay out of his lane. Shitty mic on whatever camera you were using or shitty SE are both possibilities in your case too. I'm not pointing fingers.
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Tough to tell when the OP didn’t post clips but IME you are spot on here. And with modeling it is even more prevalent. Resonance and bass controls on my amps never get above 10:00 live and most of the time they are lower. More KERRANG, less chugga chugga
 
pipelineaudio said:
I'm usually at Hawaiian Brians and the piles of pavillion and backyard gigs around the island. My cousin does the PA stuff for most of the four shows a day local acts like Penni Dean and that sort of thing, and I will often do those if he's short. I only go to the blaisdell for helping with recording shows. I own Kailua Music School in Kailua. Some of those churches have INSANE systems! We were hosting a light demo and all the big players were there and wondering why they weren't being shown the top end light rigs. The guy told them "those are for the churches, you guys have made your budgets very clear, and they don't fit". The demo they put on for the churches was WILD!!!
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right on!
yeah i was AV director at a “megachurch” in socal and was friends with my counterparts in the area. i’m going to the Rush tribute concert at Hawaiian Brians coming up

HB_WIDE_01(1).jpeg


will you be working that night?
 
pipelineaudio said:
Any moron can hang a mic and run. Its got nothing to do with the soundman. Customers, clubowners, governments, and especially bartenders are demanding lower levels.

Also, there's nothing "modern" about physics. At no time, past or present, could a soundman, with any possible level of skill change the facts regarding comb filtering and other phasing problems. If a signal is significantly present in any two channels, there's nothing you could really do to fix that, just do some small amounts of damage control
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Sound levels would depend on the venue and the circumstance. Some venues feature live music and being loud isn't the issue. The issue is how good does it sound. That's what I'm talking about here.

As for your second sentence, you're correct physics hasn't changed. So why has it become harder for modern soundmen to deal with all that stuff? A real amp with a mic on it is the same as it was 40 years ago as it is right now, guys dealt with bleed from the amp to drums to the bass into this mic or that mic etc... Point is they made it work and the one's that really knew their shit made it sound great.

So question to you, why can't they still do that? Why is an IR the preferred "mic" method? Why the need for completely quite stages? I'll answer, it's about control because it's easier to deal with but that doesn't always equate to how good it sounds out front. If it did then live music should sound better than it ever has but in my experience - it does not, it sounds worse. YMMV.
 
mentoneman said:
right on!
yeah i was AV director at a “megachurch” in socal and was friends with my counterparts in the area. i’m going to the Rush tribute concert at Hawaiian Brians coming up

View attachment 407712

will you be working that night?
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I will but I think I'm working in the other room that night. I think Natural Science is bringing their own guy. But Yeah I'll see you there if not before! Tomorrow night Clay Campania is doing his open blues jam there
 
jabps said:
Sound levels would depend on the venue and the circumstance. Some venues feature live music and being loud isn't the issue. The issue is how good does it sound. That's what I'm talking about here.

As for your second sentence, you're correct physics hasn't changed. So why has it become harder for modern soundmen to deal with all that stuff? A real amp with a mic on it is the same as it was 40 years ago as it is right now, guys dealt with bleed from the amp to drums to the bass into this mic or that mic etc... Point is they made it work and the one's that really knew their shit made it sound great.

So question to you, why can't they still do that? Why is an IR the preferred "mic" method? Why the need for completely quite stages? I'll answer, it's about control because it's easier to deal with but that doesn't always equate to how good it sounds out front. If it did then live music should sound better than it ever has but in my experience - it does not, it sounds worse. YMMV.
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Just to jump in here, quiet stages and IRs are only the standard for old people/boomer music and doing sound for metallica or similar sized acts.

If you're playing punk, metal, or rock, everyone still uses half stacks and you're lucky if you get a mic, even in a theater sized venue.

They are only the "standard" for county fairs full of people with tan pants playing La Grange.
 
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