System Setup

[SLM-285]

I am sacrificing a fair amount of dignity asking this but...

 

I'll fill you in. At school we have once a year a talent concert in aid of charity, and chances are that I'll be head of tech this year. The normal setup is like this, how ever many mics (SM58s usually) are needed for vocalists are run through the desk and main house speakers (no monitors) and the guitarists run their sound through their amps, which thanks to the stage crew are turned so high that we cannot compete at all.

 

If I am head of tech this year (fingers crossed) I want people to remember it as a properly done show, with good sound and good lights.

 

I would like to know how can I get the guitars (and basses etc.) to run through their amps and through the desk, so that we have control of the output but they can "doodle" with their sound a bit.

 

I appreciate that in doing that, we'll probably have to hire in some Monitor speakers (is this true?)

 

Thanks guys

 

SLM285

[Dmills]

Slap guitarist repeatedly (or better, explain to lead singer why they cannot be heard and watch them slap the guitarist), but I suspect you are looking for a technical fix....

 

Guitar cabs back stage (in another room), long speaker leads, mic, GOOD wedge in front of guitarist.... This way the guitar head stays on stage (often on top of a dummy 4*12 or whatever) so the guitarist can fiddle with his tone, but the actual volume is under your control.It is not that uncommon.

Failing that, point the guitar cabs across the stage rather then out front, mic to taste. Not as good, but it makes less demands on your monitoring setup.

 

Both of these assume that your main PA is up to the job (and not a small pair of self powered boxes) , and that the monitoring arrangements are up to snuff.

 

Regards, Dan.

[Dj Dunc]

The best thing to do with this is to just mic up the guitar cabinets. (I use SM57's on guitar cabs, though 58's will work usually) For Bass, many amps have a "DI Out" Which will usually be a jack or XLR connector.

 

These you will run into the Front of House desk, which will give you control of the levels out front, PROVIDING that the musos can turn down their amps, and not keep turning them up.

 

The guitarists should ideally just have them loud enough for themselves to hear, which will give you a good amount of dynamic range in the main PA, however if they are still too loud then you may be straying into the land of In Ear Monitors (wireless or otherwise) where the musos can have it louder, without the volume to compete with.

 

I hope that was informative enough for you. Other members will probably be able to give you a more detailed answer, however thats the basics IMHO.

 

cheers

 

Dunc

[nick7076]

As Dmills says you are going to have to get the guitarists to turn down. If you have no monitor wedges or budget to hire in, then putting cabs off stage isnt a solution.

 

Once you have a stage sound level you can work with you may not need to mic or DI anything as you can mix a vocal level on the PA to the stage sound. This would be the simplest solution. If you are Lead/head tech then you should have the authority to say turn it down or get off!

 

Now if you want to go the route of mic'ing then I'd sugest a SM57 or similar for each cab.

I dont sugest DI-ing electric guitar as this will usually bypass any effects in the amp and wont reproduce the sound of the cab itself.

If there are electric bass then you may be lucky and have a DI out on the amp head. If not you would be best routing the bass through a DI box before the amp head. Using the through out to the amp and the balanced out to the desk.

If you cant DI the bass then you will have to Mic.

This will give you control of relative levels but allow the artists to control tone/overdrive/amp effects ect local on stage.

 

Also by still having some level from the cabs on stage and with carefull positionaing you wont need any monitors.

 

If you give us an equipment list and any budget maybe we can come up with a more detailed solution.

 

 

Nick

 

edit - beaten to the answers

[SLM-285]

OK thanks guys...

 

so basically mic up the amps... I might have got the wrong idea there, correct me if so.

 

and plonk a couple of wedges on stage to cope with it.

 

would it be possible to just run the guitars through DIs? or do you loose something with that? or put the amps through DIs (does that depend on individual amps?)

 

I do not pretend to be an expert on sound (but I probably know more than the senior sound engineer, you see the problem with that arrangement) :huh:

 

The problem we have with this concert every year, is that we put it all up and the stage crew and musos put the amps up massively, and we explain to them over and over again that we have a 100dB limit on the building and the speakers can't cope with the load.and every year, one of the judges always says, "Sack your sound engineer, I couldn't hear any of that"

 

Thanks again guys...

 

These are stupid questions but I do need to know

[revbobuk]

One of the problems is that by turning down their amps, the guitarists may feel they are losing tone. Which is why small amps are a good idea - if they have a 15W amp instead of a 100W Marshall, then they can crank it up to get a good tone, but still not overwhelm FOH. If they can't (won't) do that, then you will have to run their amps offstage, and give them a decent monitor wedge.

[Unfathomable]

We had exactly the same situation at the school I have just left. we got around it by putting our best sound tech on stage during the gig, but having him do the sound check, therefore a mediocre sound tech can operate the board to a pre eq-ed setting and make minor adjustments while the sound tech sorts the amps. The other no money option is having a stage tech who you can talk to, either on radio or with hand signals, who can alter amps.

 

Hope that helps at a no money level.

[SLM-285]

If you give us an equipment list and any budget maybe we can come up with a more detailed solution.

 

Well kit is as follows:

 

Allen and Heath GL2200 (excellent desk btw)

A pair of old C-audio amplifiers I think 400watt but no1 really knows

A pair of old generic loudspeakers (flown) (budgett and with so much dust, a name is indecipherable) 10 years old and have just broken down so we'll be replacing ASAP

A stock of 4 SM58s

1 rifle mic

and barely enough cabling to run with.

 

However I do have local contacts so I may be able to hire kit for reduced and/or free.

 

What I am now thinking is a Monitor for the Drummer, a small wedge monitor for the piano, Possibly a pair of monitors to cover the whole stage (or maybe a wedge at either side for each major instrumentalist) and 2 replacement FOH speakers just infront of the whole stage monitors or wedges (in line with the tabs ish)

 

A concurrent post has been automatically merged from this point on.

 

What I might do is hire a graphic EQ (hopefully at a reduced price) and set that to the building at the sound check and then leave it like that

 

A concurrent post has been automatically merged from this point on.

 

If it helps guys, in answering my question, then I'll say this, the theatre in question is large for a school.

 

It's a 350 (but if if we can get 400 then great) seat theatre. So too big to be covered by a 15 watt amp.

 

My problem is that as a noiseboy I like to have everything under my control, everything that even whispers will go through my desk first, so I want to have the very best quality available and for it to look good on stage.

 

My problem with mic-ing up the amps, is that I can guarantee that some incompetent fool will knock over the mic stand or something like that, or that people will still ignore the idea of the guitars on the desk and wack up the volume.

 

I'm serious, last year we did it, we hired some 50 watt amps and set the levels and were expecting 20 bands and we sent out a memo not to bring amps, well obviously people ignored it, and at 4 PM the day after the sound check and the day of the concert a transit van turned up at the elephant doors with a pair of massive amps, so big that we had to get a truck to move them (it took 4 of us to lift them to the truck cos the driver refused to take them away and made us sign the delivery note) and we found out who had brought them and he insisted that we use them instead, anyway, we kept pushing up the volume of the single mic to keep up wiht the amps which kept going up and up and up and at about 1830 (show started at 1930) we heard "thud" which was the sound of the inner pieces of the speaker disintergrating. I couldn't have yelled at that person anymore and was furious cos he just didn't seem to care at all, so we had to find a replcement set of speakers in half an hour and repatch them into our installation and redo some sound checks.

 

I could have killed him.

 

Not quite relevant but I do want to avoid a catastrophe like last year.

[Dmills]

Well kit is as follows:

Allen and Heath GL2200 (excellent desk btw)

A pair of old C-audio amplifiers I think 400watt but no1 really knows

A pair of old generic loudspeakers (flown) (budgett and with so much dust, a name is indecipherable) 10 years old and have just broken down so we'll be replacing ASAP

A stock of 4 SM58s

1 rifle mic

and barely enough cabling to run with.

 

In a 350 seater??! Oh dear!

Right, forget my advice above, forget miking the cabs, you just don't have the power!

Face the amps across the stage, with the speakers up at the guitarists ear level, not out into the house, and get a good stage manager to ensure thy turn down.

 

With a pair of budget boxes of unknown (but dubious) pedigree and maybe 800W all up, you are not going to be able to put the guitars through the PA in any useful way (and just on general principle, I hope the flying does not involve the handles or lag screws!), personally, I would find a couple of little 15W valve (important!) amps (which would actually be adequate for distorted guitar tones in that space) and insist that everyone uses them.

 

DI guitar sucks, and no guitarist (except possibly an electro acoustic player) will accept it (trust me on this), and bass DI is out unless you have rather more in the way of sub then that list implies.

 

For reference, last time I got conned into doing a school favour (similar gig (hey, I was drunk when I agreed)), I turned up with ~8KW of Nexo alpha E (107db/W@1M) and 8 Martin LE400 wedges, the guitars were still to bloody loud!

 

Regards, Dan.

[CharlieH]

I'm serious, last year we did it, we hired some 50 watt amps and set the levels and were expecting 20 bands and we sent out a memo not to bring amps, well obviously people ignored it, and at 4 PM the day after the sound check and the day of the concert a transit van turned up at the elephant doors with a pair of massive amps, so big that we had to get a truck to move them (it took 4 of us to lift them to the truck cos the driver refused to take them away and made us sign the delivery note) and we found out who had brought them and he insisted that we use them instead, anyway, we kept pushing up the volume of the single mic to keep up wiht the amps which kept going up and up and up and at about 1830 (show started at 1930) we heard "thud" which was the sound of the inner pieces of the speaker disintergrating. I couldn't have yelled at that person anymore and was furious cos he just didn't seem to care at all, so we had to find a replcement set of speakers in half an hour and repatch them into our installation and redo some sound checks.

I had the same kind of thing. We were doing a play at my school, and our musical director is a complete technophobe! Me, and 2 other sound technicians spent hours setting up a band mixing desk (separate to the FOH mixer, by the MDs request!). We went away to do other stuff, and cam back to find that every single fader, knob, dial, switch and whatever else was on there, on Max!!! When we asked him what happened, he said that he wasn't loud enough, and so we had to turn him up! When we checked, the fuse in the desk had blown, and the safety cut out on our amps (school policy) had also become active!!!!

 

The worst thing was, I couldn't shout at him or anything because he was my teacher!!! I just had to smile politely!

Charlie

[paulears]

I have to say that some of the advice here is simply wrong. You have told us the back line is too loud. Very common, not just in schools. Miking up the cabinet with a 57 is pretty usual, but if the problem is they are already too loud, then making them even louder is simply crazy.

 

For the moment, let's consider that for whatever reason they won't be turned down. The ONLY way to get balanced sound for somebody in the auditorium/audience area is to amplify the vocals to sit with the backline. This will mean a quality PA capable of running at that level without sounding nasty. As soon as you do this, another problem appears. The people playing will not be able to hear themselves. This means monitors. In ears would be much better, BUT few schools and colleges have these because sharing in-ears is rather nasty, and trying to use IEMs with students own rubbish earbuds really doesn't work.

 

If you do have a really good PA that can handle the entire band, then at this point, you can look at turning down the amps and giving the band monitors. This gets their level up where they are, direct from the monitors, rather than from a distant amp going full tilt. However, unless the monitors can provide a few different mixes, none will be happy, still wanting to be able to get near their own amp to control the amount of general rather than specific sound. Only if everything goes through the system can the FOH people make it sound similar to what you hear at a pro gig.

 

Problems.

 

These are specific school/college problems. Guitars and amps. If the players have quality kit, they'll nowadays be using a variety of stomp boxes or processors to get their 'sound' and the amp frankly has little to add. However, on the student front, we often have less than nice/perfect gear and the amp has to be on 11 to make that awful sound they seem to love. If you turn it down, odd things happen - the guitars reveal their inability to stay in tune, and player deficiencies become pretty obvious. If you turn these kind of people down, they sound truly horrible. Loud, they just sound loud. Sadly, from my observations, anyone with a really long guitar strap cares little about anyone else except themselves, and probably wouldn't notice that the audience had actually turned up!

 

Turnaround between bands is also a case of slapping the kit on the stage, checking it lights up and then they play.

 

If you are good at mixing, have a decent PA, and a good band you are on a winner. If any of these are compromised, you are in trouble. The good news is that inexperienced bands may not know any of this for themselves.

 

Good musicians care about their sound. Poor ones don't. Do not waste time trying to polish a turd. Nobody will appreciate it. For a typical school gig concentrate on working the mics to get the balance between back line and vocals right. Get good at adjusting eq on the fly, as they sing. Forget attempting to change their amp settings. The minute you walk back to the desk, they'll change them back again. In a real band, they'd take your advice, realising the enjoyment of the audience and the resulting re-booking is important. In school or college, the people mixing are those who aren't in the bands. Being head of tech means zilch. Do it because you enjoy it. You are already aware that nobody is going to listen to anything sensible you say. The band will NOT turn down. The drummer will remove any lumps of foam or gaffer you stick on the skins. These are not proper musicians. The ones who do care will have brought in their own instruments from home. Those who just pick up any guitar from the store room and play it or sit behind a kit and don't have their own tuning key are not worth wasting your time on. Acting students who haven't learnt their lines, music students who can't tune guitars and dancers with any awareness of what is going on around them are very typical - somebody has to get the bad grades to make the few good ones stand out.

 

It isn't anything you can do. If you have a superb venue, excellent equipment and cloth ears it won't work. If you have average kit in a workable room and good ears it will be a success.

 

 

Much of the advice here is technically accurate - but it assumes a level of authority and control that won't be present. I've done this kind of thing for years, and although best intentions were often present, each one was nothing like - in fact amazingly unlike - professional gigs in musical ability, style, presentation and sound - despite good kit!

[Bobbsy]

Hey, you sass that hoopy Paulears? There's a frood who really knows where his towel is.

 

(I hope at least some of you are Hitch Hiker's Guide fans, otherwise nobody will know what I'm on about.)

 

Otherwise, "+1" for what Paul said.

 

Bob

[Matt Riley]

DI guitar sucks, and no guitarist (except possibly an electro acoustic player) will accept it (trust me on this), and bass DI is out unless you have rather more in the way of sub then that list implies.

 

Not quite - while this isn't relevant to the scenario in question, I've been seeing a heck of a lot of A-designs Red-dis coming through on LX guitars from notable bands over the last few years. Also apparently, if you can decipher this code off dave rat's blog, then you may be surprised:

Curious about the mic list? And just to keep it interesting, this should be enough info for an audio human with some experience to decipher.

K K S SB S2 H R F O O 8 R CB B B G G G G V V

91 D6 I5 I5 MD 1244 1244 MD MD 1244 1244 palmer 1244 avalon avalon palmer palmer palmer palmer OM7 OM7

 

On a more constructive note, you could build a power attenuator for the cab clicky - see the marshall powerbrake schematic. Or you could make an isolation box for the cab.

 

The only other advice I can give is 'soft' advice. I work as the house sound guy for a little pub style venue, and if the guitarists crank it up, the system can cope but the whole venue becomes uncomfortably loud and it sets all the acoustic nastiness in the tin roofed shed off. So it's not a good idea. As a sound engineer, the biggest thing you can do to give yourself an easy life is adopt an attitude and demeanor that shows that you and the band have common ground in as much as you both want to get the best sounding performance. Show that you're not just some tone deaf technician, and that you understand that the amps produce better tone at higher volumes, but in this situation you're convinced that it won't provide the best overall result for the band. That way it stops being adversarial, and starts being a joint effort. You do need to get a 'bad cop' in as well. I'd suggest that the bad cop needs to be a teacher in this case. It sounds like you've realised that pretty much no-one in school actually listens to school age sound techs without you winning their respect first.

 

Oh, and finally, without fail, whatever happens, always stay visibly cooler than a cucumber when in these situations. In these environments there are enough unprofessional diva types on the other side of the mic that it doesn't help to become one yourself.

 

HTH,

 

Matt

[Wilflet]

In small venues I tend to try and get bands to put amps at the side of stage facing across.

The guitarist gets his tone and on stage level. You get reduced level out front (mic cab if too quiet)

and by having the cabs off to the side rather than behind you reduce bleed into the vocal mics (which if its a small stage and inexperianced vocalists your probably getting).

 

if knocking mic stands over is that much of a worry for you see if you can get some zed bars.

[ojc123]

Anyone with a really long guitar strap cares little about anyone else except themselves"

More words of wisdom from Mr Ears.This quote will join the other truisms stuck on the wall of our sound room.

 

The first advice is really the best. Get the guitarists to turn down. End of. If they don't want to play quiet then they have a simple choice. Play quietly or go play by yourself in your bedroom. How you achieve that is up to you.

I'm in charge so I don't have the problem. I used to insist they went through the DI until I was convinced they wouldn't just be loud. Now I just go and turn them down if they are too loud. Works for me but wouldn't work in your situation.

is an example of one of our concerts recorded on a cheap camcorder. If anything the guitar is a bit quiet but that's what they wanted. Whatever you think of the music at least you can hear the vocals. (Lights are poo.)

 

This was done with a 800W FoH and 400W monitoring. The guitarist was using a 100W Marshall valve head with a 4x12. I had a go with it and it went loud as a loud thing. The guitar was miked and was quiet onstage.

 

added The students put this on youtube so I suppose they're ok about you watching it.