Become an amatuer sound eng!?

[Josh 2]

Hello to all,

 

First post. My apologies in advance if I am not allowed here. I looked at the intro/poll thread to say hello, but I then felt like a bit of an imposter as everyone seems to be qualified in some related field… sorry I'm not!

 

If it is okay for me to post questions, can I outline a brief scenario and ask for some real basic advice please.

 

First off by way of explanation, I'm a hobby musician, not in any way a sound tech/eng type. For home use (dedicated room and my personal instruments), I have a Samson TXM20 mixer going into (unknown model, but small!) Pioneer monitor speakers, a Behringer K1800FX PA/Keyboard amp, none of which is really relevant except… a friend, who plays with a local 5 piece band (small clubs/pubs etc) has asked me if I would like to help with their sound set-up. The reasoning is they are rarely happy with their live sound and feel that I get a better sound (accepted it would be a different story outside of my "room") with my mixer than they do with their gear.

 

I must admit, I'm quiet chuffed to be asked and would like the opportunity to get involved/learn, but first question is… would I be getting in over my head and/or messing with something best left to pro's (which the band doesn't have anyway)?. I also wonder if my Samson deck is good enough!?... I would use the bands existing speakers.

 

Would you guy's think this is something for a beginner to get involved with, or should I run a mile (perhaps the band will run a mile!)… if yes can I ask for some further advice.

 

Thanks for reading and again Hello to all.

Josh

[StevieR]

Hi Josh, and welcome to the Blue Room.

 

Not to worry, everyone is welcome here - amateur and pros alike. This is what makes it such a good information sharing experience.

 

If you're interested in advancing your knowledge of sound then I would say, yes, get involved with the other band as the more you do the more knowledge you will gain.

 

You will probably have a good few things to learn about live sound as opposed to what you know from inside your room. Have a good read throught the Blue Room Wiki - lots of useful information there. A lot of common questions are also answered in the various posts so use the search function first but please post up a new topic with anything you cannot find or don't understand. We all love to help here.

 

Finally, your mixer look fine for the job. The only thing I would ask initially is are you planning to use the internal power amps to drive the bands loudspeakers or do the band have an amplifier already? If the former, then please make sure that the amplifier is suitably matched to the loudspeakers as badly matched amps/speakers can result in damage to the loudspeaker.

 

Hope this helps to start with and good luck with your new 'sound engineering' role.

 

Steve

[Josh 2]

Hello Steve,

 

Thank you very much for all of that, the welcome, the encouragement and the info.

 

I have been looking around the forum topics and searching for a couple of days, as you say some really good info to be found. I do have to admit though, much of it goes off into things (terminology) that I'm not overly familiar with yet... my own failing!

 

The 'band' have asked me purely based on the sound I get for my own needs. They seem to like the mix I get and their biggest problem seems to be getting a decent monitor mix. The question of using the mixers in-built amps or the bands existing (EV1200 I think) amp would be one of my first quandries. The band have the idea (right or wrong for such a small concern!) that someone sitting out FOH with the mixer would better than them having their existing Spirit M12 setup on stage. From what I have read so far (I might have got this wrong)... using the TXM20 out FOH would mean long speaker cable runs, which I 'think' isn't a good idea due to signal/power loss!?. So I'm really wondering about the amp question.

 

Thanks again,

Josh

[Just Some Bloke]

Welcome, Josh.

 

The band have the idea (right or wrong for such a small concern!) that someone sitting out FOH with the mixer would better than them having their existing Spirit M12 setup on stage.

 

Professional sound engineers would ALWAYS mix the FOH sound from where the audience are, so the engineer knows exactly what they are hearing. Trying to mix from onstage means constantly nippping back and forth to hear the mix. The usefulness of being FOH would outweigh many other worries.

 

From what I have read so far (I might have got this wrong)... using the TXM20 out FOH would mean long speaker cable runs, which I 'think' isn't a good idea due to signal/power loss!?.

Long speaker runs will eventually lead to power loss, but if your band are playing mainly in pubs, clubs and village halls then this shouldn't be an issue at that sort of length. In bigger venues it's always best to get the amps on stage, but in smaller venues you shouldn't notice much difference.

[StevieR]

Another thing to remember is that the FOH mix and the monitor mix are usually very different. As such, the monitor mix is normally set-up on a pre-fade Auxilliay send on the desk and a separate amplifier is used to drive the monitors with this mix (not required if you have powered monitors of course).

 

One of the common problems with monitors if feedback - mainly as they are pointing back towards the microphones. The difficulty lies in getting the level from the monitors loud enough without causing feedback. The normal technique here is to use a graphic equaliser to remove the frequencies that are causing the biggest problems and in turn increase the 'gain before feedback' in the system.

 

Steve

[Josh 2]

Thank you Just Some Bloke and again Steve,

 

Understood that the FOH/audience area is the best place to hear/do the mix and would definately do that where possible, but wondering in a small venue would all be lost if the desk was in the audience area but off to the side for example rather than central, I'm just picturing the kind of venues in my mind.

 

Speaker cable length is obviously something I'm becoming confused about. When I did some searching I noticed people doing calculations (that I didn't understand) and got the impression that fairly short runs could lose me 25% or more of the amps output at the speakers. This had me thinking I might be better off abandoning the mixers on-board amps in favour of running line-level signals back to the stage/amp.

 

I haven't yet got a Stage Box/Multicore (is that the term?), bearing in mind the size of this operation (I'm never going to expand into grand things), would a meager 15mtr Stage Box get me far enough away and would I be okay to run speaker cables back that far?

 

Steve, I've never used it for this type of application, but the Samson desk does have 2 on-board amps with 2 independant 9 band equalisers for FOH and monitor mixes. However, it's only rated at 500W into 4Ohms per side, will this kind of eq'ing work for monitors and is only having 500W left for FOH too little?. I suppose I could use both sides of the mixer amps for FOH and run line-level back to the existing amp to drive monitors, but it seems to be getting a little complicated.

 

Thanks for sticking with my questions, I really hope I'm not sounding too dozzy.

 

Josh.

[Psychedelic Theatre]

Josh, I was once in a similar situation to you, in fact it was one of the things that got me into technical theatre. I mixed for a band, and then got asked to run their light rig at the same time. Now I purely run their lighting whilst a friend of mine who is much more knowledgable about the sound runs that.

 

What we generally do is, have a multicore as you said, and have all the mics etc go into that. The signal from them runs down the multicore and we plug the tails into the desk as usual. We then use two of the returns on the multicore to send the unamplified signal back to the stage, we use a 25m multicore on most gigs and don't have a problem with signal loss. Onstage we have an amp which amplifies the signal and then goes out to the two speakers. We use the other two returns on the multicore for the monitors, which then go to another amp and out to the monitors.

 

If you go with using the two onboard amps for monitor and FOH sound, you're going to have mono mixes for both. If you get another amp which is suitable for the speakers you'll be using FOH you can do something similar to what I described above. This means that you can effectively have two monitor mixes with some creative panning, if the desk allows that.

 

Depending on the size of the venue, 500W could be enough, but to be honest with that you're not going to have much control over the volume of the guitar amps, as guitarists are annoying and generally try and crank up their amp as much as possible. This means that the amp sound will be greater than the P.A sound, so it'll just be a case of you attempting to get the vocals through the guitar.

 

 

Hope that helps, I think I've got most of that right!

 

Tim

[Josh 2]

Thank you Tim, understood.

 

One question, have I got it right that by going your route I would not be using the mixer amps at all?

 

Josh

[mac.calder]

Thank you Just Some Bloke and again Steve,

 

Understood that the FOH/audience area is the best place to hear/do the mix and would definately do that where possible, but wondering in a small venue would all be lost if the desk was in the audience area but off to the side for example rather than central, I'm just picturing the kind of venues in my mind.

 

Having worked in the corporate world (where you sacrifice quality of sound for being transparent to the audience - which means being quite off axis to the center of the croud) - It is possible - you just have to spend a bit of time during the sound check running around the room just to give yourself some reference info on how what you hear in your position sounds like out there (and more specifically, how your monitor headphones sound compared to your ideal mix position)

 

Speaker cable length is obviously something I'm becoming confused about. When I did some searching I noticed people doing calculations (that I didn't understand) and got the impression that fairly short runs could lose me 25% or more of the amps output at the speakers. This had me thinking I might be better off abandoning the mixers on-board amps in favour of running line-level signals back to the stage/amp.

 

10-15m runs (about the average in a pub), I have found signal loss to be negligable. That said, if you can, do use the amp@stage.

 

I haven't yet got a Stage Box/Multicore (is that the term?), bearing in mind the size of this operation (I'm never going to expand into grand things), would a meager 15mtr Stage Box get me far enough away and would I be okay to run speaker cables back that far?

 

I would argue that it is not the length of the multicore that is the big issue. It is the number of sends/returns that you really need to think about. How many monitor mixes will you need? How many channels on stage etc. Take a look at the venues you will be working in, and pace out what you think you will need - remembering that you need to cable so that it is not a trip risk (ie round the walls) and not straight down the center.

 

Steve, I've never used it for this type of application, but the Samson desk does have 2 on-board amps with 2 independant 9 band equalisers for FOH and monitor mixes. However, it's only rated at 500W into 4Ohms per side, will this kind of eq'ing work for monitors and is only having 500W left for FOH too little?. I suppose I could use both sides of the mixer amps for FOH and run line-level back to the existing amp to drive monitors, but it seems to be getting a little complicated.

 

9 band EQ is probably a bit too coarse. You can get a decent quality dual channel 31band EQ for minimal outlay these days.

 

If the desk has two internal amps, are they Main Left and Right out?

 

If so, you definantly don't want to use one for monitors and one for FOH. Monitors, as mentioned above, you put on an AUX. That said, if the band has been running monitors, surely they have more than one amp, or powered monitor wedges? I doubt they would use the FOH feed for monitors.

[Josh 2]

Hi mac.calder,

 

Thank you and all the other guy's for being so helpful and taking the time... v-much appreciated.

 

I'm taking everything on-board and what I don't mention again well... I've got everyone is saying (more or less).

 

Now I've got to be honest mac.calder, you mentioning "how many monitor mixes" was something I hadn't thought about... obviously I really am green!, but now you've said it I suppose that different players need to hear different things, I'm beginning to wonder if I'm out of my depth again. I'm going to need to think about this a bit deeper and also check out what my desk can do in conjunction with the bands existing gear.

 

As to the question of the Samson's internal amps, it has on the rear amp1 and amp2 'speaker' outputs and each are marked main L and main R with Aux L and Aux R. The manual shows a speaker connected to each of these outputs ie 4 in total.

 

For line-level (top of desk), it has Main out L&R, Main2 out L&R and Aux out L&R.

 

Sorry I don't know how to describe things more professionally/technically.

 

As for the bands existing set-up, I guess I'm sorry to say that I think they are indeed using one amp (apart from their individual instrument amps) and the nightmare seems to have been a case of using the indiv instr amps plus top top speakers turned in different positions as monitors. I also guess this sounds like a big botch, but in all honesty, it's only a local amateur band and the other big consideration is... none of them (now me included) knows a great deal about these things.

 

Thanks again,

Josh.

[Jivemaster]

Welcome, Keep looking round, on here there are all sorts of usefull posts.

 

Above all LISTEN, listen to your band, listen to recordings in general. With your band LOOK and LISTEN, see that everything you can see in there in the mix.

 

I have used 50m speaker leads sucessfully but it was 2.5mm (4 core) The only problem was coiling 50m of cable late at night!

[Josh 2]

Thanks Jivemaster, will do.

 

I get the feeling that coiling up cables and the end of an event is a bit of a thorn. Can invision 50m in the dark after the crowds have been walking, spilling beer or worst on it.

 

Thanks for the tips.

Josh

[StevieR]

Speaker cable length is obviously something I'm becoming confused about. When I did some searching I noticed people doing calculations (that I didn't understand) and got the impression that fairly short runs could lose me 25% or more of the amps output at the speakers. This had me thinking I might be better off abandoning the mixers on-board amps in favour of running line-level signals back to the stage/amp.

 

When it comes to speaker cable the general rule is to minimise losses where possible. This can be achieved by minimising the distance between the amps and speakers or using cables with a larger cross-sectional area - e.g. 4mm Sq. However, as most techs will tell you, there are always compromises and most of the time you will get away with it. A 15 to 20m speaker cable run shouldn't give you much trouble as long as you aren't using something like bell wire to connect them. Try and make sure your loudspeaker cable is at least 2.5mm sq. and things should be just fine.

 

I haven't yet got a Stage Box/Multicore (is that the term?), bearing in mind the size of this operation (I'm never going to expand into grand things), would a meager 15mtr Stage Box get me far enough away and would I be okay to run speaker cables back that far?

 

A multicore/stagebox (aka Snake) system is a great investment. What it does in reality is make setup and breakdown quicker, simpler and tidier. It is worth purchasing one with more inputs and returns than you already have and also one at a greater length. There are quite a few off-the-shelf systems available for a couple of hundred pounds but the quality of components can often be compromised so check things over carefully before purchasing. There are a number of threads on here discussing various manufacturer's options.

 

... the Samson desk does have 2 on-board amps with 2 independant 9 band equalisers for FOH and monitor mixes. However, it's only rated at 500W into 4Ohms per side, will this kind of eq'ing work for monitors and is only having 500W left for FOH too little?.

 

To expand of what mac.calder said re- EQ. The more bands a graphic EQ has, the finer the control you get. For example, if you used one of the frequency bands on your 9-band EQ to reduce a bit of feedback you would end up removing a lot more of the musical information from the signal than you would using a 31-band EQ.

 

Final thought - any cable over 30m, put it on a cable drum where possible.

 

Steve

[Psychedelic Theatre]

Sorry, I wasn't particularly clear!

 

When I am doing the sound for the band we don't have an onboard amp in the mixer, so we use two seperate amplifiers, one for FOH, and one for Monitors.

 

What you could do is use a seperate amp for FOH, and use the onboard for monitors. Someone more versed in the sound world may correct me here, but I don't think there's any problem sending an amplified signal down two of the returns, and unamplified down the other two.

 

 

Tim

[MarkPAman]

While you may get away with it it is not a good idea. The cables in the multicore will be too thin & you'll get losses, heat the cable and may get cross-talk.

 

Signed someone more versed in sound :D