Mixer gain, eq and fader setting advice

[kikabyte]

Hi,

 

I've been searching around the forums, and google looking for opinions on mixing a band from scratch.

 

My band have just upgraded our mixer and next time we rehearse I'm going to try and get levels / effects set ready for the gigs next month. Our band don’t have a dedicated sound engineer so once set, the mix is generally left the same for every gig, and minor tweaks are made during the soundcheck. Not the best I know, but for the money we play for, its difficult to attract anyone to dedicate themselves to every gig we do.

 

Ok, so reading through our mixer instructions (Yamaha MG206C), it suggests that all gain levels should be set so that when for instance the singer is at his loudest, the peak indicator should just flicker. But, I have read somewhere else, that by setting gain high, you are increasing the range that the mic will pick up, thus increasing chances of feedback. What do you guys do? Could you give me a run down of exactly how you set up a band once everythings plugged in and working.

 

The next question I have is about EQing. Now my ear is far from trained in picking out individual frequencies, BUT, again I have read somewhere that its best to try and give each vocal / instrument its own frequency range. Obviously the EQing facilities on the Yamaha mixer are far from extensive, but could you guys give me some advice on what frequency's to boost or cut in our mix. Our line up consists of 2 x lead vocals, 2 x backing vocals, 2 x guitars (SM57 mics in front of amps), 2 x acoustic guitars (DI), 1 x keyboard, and Bass drum mic.

 

Sorry if I have missed any information from my post, I will respond as quick as I can to questions etc.

 

Thanks in advance. :unsure:

[Solstace]

My usual method is:

 

Start by turning all gains and faders down, EQ's to zero.

Bring masters up to 0dB (or -5dB if I think I need to reduce system noise or to increase overall levels throughout the gig).

Bring any group faders to 0dB.

With the band playing, pick a mic channel

Bring channel fader up to 0dB

Turn its gain up as much as needed to be able to hear it.

 

When all the sources are working, I'll then EQ channels to make things fit or more natural.

 

If you're EQ'ing at the desk to kill feedback, then you're probably pushing your system too hard and will need to look at either the entire system or at least the choice of speaker, microphone and their positioning. Really sorry, but it's hard to give any advice on EQ'ing other than to learn for yourself how EQ changes the sound of individuals - best done by finding time/space to simply play and experiment. There are plenty of guides out there on the 'Net and in bookstores giving helpful hints as to what boosting/cutting at specific frequency ranges means for specific instruments - but in my experience nothing beats actually having tried and listened for myself!

[kikabyte]

Thank you, at least I know where to start now.

 

Yes I understand about the EQ'ing, I will do some heavy reading and I suppose its all about experience.

 

Anybody else have any input?

 

Ta

[thelxbloke]

Whereabouts are you based? Maybe someone may give some hands on training for bar money..

 

Regards

 

Steve

[Bobbsy]

I'm going to give a thumbs up to the method Solstace recommends except for the very last step.

 

Instead of turning up the gain trims until you can "just hear it", I'd be a bit more scientific. Assuming your mixer has Pre-Fade-Listen capability (the number your quote doesn't seem to be part of the MG series), I'd PFL the channel I was adjusting and bring up the level until the metering is reading a bit below zero level (i.e. just before it gets to the yellow section). Exactly where you set it has room for a bit of judgement...basically you have to leave enough head room on each individual channel so you still have adequate extra head room when you sum all the channels in the master section. However, doing it this way should give you sufficient headroom to protect against clipping...but maximise your S/N ratio.

 

Bob

[Solstace]

Thanks for that, Bob. Constructive criticism is always good! I like your thinking about leaving enough system headroom for all the channels to be summed together - something all too easily forgotten or overlooked.

 

Just to ask (and I'm sure this will benefit the OP as well as others - if not, feel free to move this to another thread):

 

Do you ever find yourself trusting your eyes more than your ears when using your more scientific method? How do you prevent that? I tried a similar method for a while (admittedly some time ago) and found I was not really using my ears enough.

 

It's probably worth noting that I only ever mix these days on a system I know well. Since in that situation I already have a feel for headroom, Signal-to-noise and gain-before-feedback, I would tend to bring the whole band mix together when at the "setting levels" stage - meaning I'd tend to just go for it and assume I'll soon hear if things are getting too hot. I keep forgetting that I perhaps feel I can take educated guesses at things where newcomers simply cannot... Or perhaps I take too many of these guesses unnecessarily?

 

C :)

 

(Edited to correct smiley)

[Just Some Bloke]

Do you ever find yourself trusting your eyes more than your ears when using your more scientific method? How do you prevent that? I tried a similar method for a while (admittedly some time ago) and found I was not really using my ears enough.

 

You should use your eyes to set the gains, as that is purely scientific, and your ears to set the fader levels, as that is purely artistic.

 

It's as simple as that! :)

[Bobbsy]

Well, the original question was about setting up gain staging rather than the final mix, so at this stage I probably will use my eyes (i.e. the metering) more than my ears. However, you're quite right: once I have a workable gain structure set up, most of the job of mixing is done by ear.

 

Most of my mixing is in a theatre setting rather than rock-concert style, so I'm rather less likely to be trying to squeeze the last gnat's whisker of gain out of everything. Much more important for what I do is getting a balanced, natural sound and that's done by ear. I will keep an eye on channel and mix metering just to spot if it looks like I'm getting close to clipping but, with the SPLs I'm usually working this tends not to be a major issue.

 

Bob

 

Edit: JSB managed to sneak in just before me...oh well, at least we agreed!

[paulears]

I'd also add that sometimes when you've set the gain on each input using something similar to bobbsy's system you sometime have a batch of faders that 'look' odd - drums is a good example - when the balance sounds right, one fader is very high, and another very low. In this case, I often tweak the gains to allow a horizontal row around the 70-80% full scale mark (or whatever graphic or number system is on your desk - it gives more fader range, and if you are short of groups, does mean you can move them all at the same time, if needed.

[Chris Beesley]

If you fancy a few hours reading Soundcraft have a very handy guide which should help.

 

http://www.soundcraft.com/download.asp?fil...ng_brochure.pdf

[Bobbsy]

Just a note to agree with paulears, which is why I said I would use the meters "more" than my ears but not exclusively. Once I have the gains roughly setup I would also tweak as Paul describes. Getting all the faders closer to each other in position is useful but, even more so, it is a good idea to keep most of your mixing in the most linear part of the the scale. I'm not pedantic about mixing with every fader in a straight line (especially when using VCAs or DCAs) but keeping them roughly in the same range is helpful.

 

Bob

[kikabyte]

Thanks guys, you’ve been really helpful. I will give everything a shot on Sunday and see how I get on. It’s nice to know that it’s not a bad sign if the faders are positioned quite differently. But I will try and keep things fairly organised.

 

 

Whereabouts are you based? Maybe someone may give some hands on training for bar money..

 

Regards

 

Steve

 

My band gig around Leicestershire. It would be great to have some hands on input for our mix.....

 

Regards

Chris

[Shez]

My band gig around Leicestershire. It would be great to have some hands on input for our mix.....

 

Ah, my neck of the woods. If you post up your next couple of gigs (I'm sure the mods won't object in this instance(?)) I'll see if I can make it to one.

[Solstace]

Ah, yes - another recommendation here, too for the Soundcraft guide Chris mentioned.

 

Bobbsy - Okay, I do see where you're coming from and I think the only thing stopping me going there more often is probably my own laziness! Thanks for the tip!

 

Kilabyte - seems to me both from experience and conversation that faders ending up being in different positions is not always a Bad Thing™. I still think a better thing however is if you get to know why they're different and/or why each is where it is, if you see what I mean?

[kikabyte]

My band gig around Leicestershire. It would be great to have some hands on input for our mix.....

 

Ah, my neck of the woods. If you post up your next couple of gigs (I'm sure the mods won't object in this instance(?)) I'll see if I can make it to one.

 

 

Wow, that would be fantastic. We've got lots of holidays booked at the moment, but things should start picking up in march. Here is our website gig guide http://www.krisis-online.co.uk/gigs.htm , most of them have the venue address too. We also practise in a village called Markfield most sunday evenings, and all of our kit could be set up to have a play.