Live Mics - Automated Mixing

[champbones]

We are a 4 piece boyband doing the circuit. We don't have a sound or lighting guy as it is just not cost effective. I am reasonably good at the sound side of things but having to be constantly on stage makes it difficult to mess around with the mics live. The lights are programmed but I was wandering if there was some kind of way I could change the mic levels for each song so the lead is the loudest mic and the other 3 singing harmonies are slightly quieter, without spending thousands on an automated desk. Any help is appreciated, cheers.

[mackerr]

We are a 4 piece boyband doing the circuit. We don't have a sound or lighting guy as it is just not cost effective. I am reasonably good at the sound side of things but having to be constantly on stage makes it difficult to mess around with the mics live. The lights are programmed but I was wandering if there was some kind of way I could change the mic levels for each song so the lead is the loudest mic and the other 3 singing harmonies are slightly quieter, without spending thousands on an automated desk. Any help is appreciated, cheers.

 

Tell the lead singer to sing a little louder, and the BU singers to sing a little quieter. It should be part of your craft.

 

Mac

[champbones]

Thats not really the main issue, it is having 4 microphones constantly moving around (choreography) the stage at the same level trying to avoid feedback. I can only do so much eq'ing before at some point in the night, we are not loud enough because I can't push the sound up anymore without getting feedback issues. If I sound check and knock a bit off 3 mics and leave 1 high I can get more volume than with the 4 right up. Hope that makes sense.

[Bobbsy]

Well, it's not the same as a proper mix but most digital mixers and a few better-quality analogue mixers will let you store preset scenes on the desk which can be called up as required. Depending on the size of mixer you need, something like an O1V96 might do or you might have to go to something like an LS9.

 

Your presets could be a simple as just having 4, one for each singer being lead with the rest being faded down slightly--or go whole hog and have a different preset (or more) for each song with changes to EQ and effects being flown in.

 

Triggering the presets can be done in various ways, including sending a MIDI cue to the mixer or by having something like a PC, tablet PC or even a Blackberry onstage to remote control the mixer. Details of the best method for you will depend on budget and mixer selection.

 

...none of which will be as good as having somebody mixing by ear rather than presets though.

 

Bob

[paulears]

You could do it by midi control from a sequencer, not really the usual way to do it of courses, and many difficulties with processing delay - and also expense for the kit.

 

Really the best thing to do would be to budget for somebody to mix - in the end lots cheaper, mpre reliable and of course NOT preset.

 

If your people cannot do it with mic technique - which really is the common way. You only have to look at the black motown acts like the Platters, the Drifters, the Temptations, the Four Tops - all have hidden lead lines and lead singers suddenly singing BV for a line or two - and they do it by mic control. Sure, they have a FOH person nowadays to do the fine balance - but they didn't have this originally - all done via technique and having mic to mouth distance done artistically.

 

If the singers cannot do this, can you guarantee they always sing at the same volume each show? I doubt it. A mechanical solution will sadly probably not work very well, no matter how much you throw money at it. At the very least, your looking to spend a grand for a pretty poor solution really!

[Bobbsy]

As I read the OP's posts, his big concern is fighting feedback, not the quality of controlling their mix. Giving him the benefit of the doubt that they can blend their voices nicely on stage, using presets to dip the levels on "backing" mics might help--but no argument that a real, live sound mixer would do better still.

 

Coming at it from a different direction though, rather than trying to automate or remote control the mixer, maybe they should also look at other methods of feedback control, including things like the positioning and aiming of their speakers (both FOH and monitor), changing mics to ones that are more feedback resistant or even (heaven forbid) turning things down a bit.

 

Bob

[Alec]

Sounds like automated desks are unlikely to be a great solution, and will cost you dear to get to that point.

 

Like Bobbsy said, improving the mics or speakers, or even their positioning could well work wonders on this. Cheap gear often gives you feedback nightmares - out of interest, what are you using? Do you get this problem in all venues, or do you notice it more in some rather than others.

 

Another simple option could simply be to have one mic set higher than the others, which is simply swapped around to be used by whoever's taking the lead for that song. I understand that this approach probably wouldn't work well if the lead swaps frequently during a song, but could well be viable if there's typically one lead per song. All of this, of course, assumes that each singer doesn't require wildly differing EQ & gain arrangements.

 

The main benefit of this solution? Cost = £0!

[Robin Pratt]

OK, if you still want to go with an electronic solution, after trying the other techniques above, how about this for a cheap and simple (if slightly of the wall) one....

 

Build a box (or get someone to do it for you) in the style of a guitar effect box, with simple foot switches to switch in and out a fixed (say 3dB) passive attenuator for each mic channel, or even a rotary switch, such that at any one time 3 of the mics are padded and the fourth is up full.

 

You could connect the box inline with your mics, but that could give you imedance matching problems and/or problems passing phantom power, so I would go with connecting it to your channel insert points on your desk.

 

The box can be on stage with you, and if you use stomp switches you can easily operate it during the show. This is hardly an elegant solution, but it is simple and only requires a few connectors, switches and resistors.

 

A slightly mad plan perhaps....

[dmoffat]

Simple solution, spend 20 minutes learning about good mic technique, which the lead singer uses, and all backing singers hold the mic 1ft away from them.

 

This along with backing singers singing quieter is the easiest and cheapest way of the desired effect.

 

Dave

[champbones]

Robin I'm actually loving you're slightly mad plan. I never even thought of using the inserts. Must be plenty of ways to have a foot switch that knocks off a few db, that is genius! Thanks for all the other posts, I would love to have a sound guy, as I said though its just an impossibility for all kinds of reasons, money, space in the van etc. I don't aim to be ridiculously loud, I prefer to get a great sound it is just a problem at some gigs, ie hotels where we get mobbed by women dancing pretty much on top of us and not being able to hear even our monitors due to crowd noise. Alec's idea is obviously favourable due to the non spending but unfortunately lead parts do change a little to often. We have 4 DB Tech Sub 15's and 2 RCF 722a's and 4 sennheiser ew's. We run our tracks off laptop and I was thinking maybe running through something like FL Studio from a 4 channel input soundcard. Whereby each mics level is automated as the track runs and could also automate various other things like reverb (cutting down reverb for backing vocals reducing feedback possibilities) do you think this would be too unreliable live?

[dbuckley]

Back in the day, there were a numbers of makers of VCA boxes, often 1u, with 8 VCAs, which plugged into the insert points of your mixer, and gave MIDI controlled level and mute.

 

All consigned to the annals of history now that we have digital mixers...

[Matt Riley]

Surely you just need to learn to ring out the system so that you can have all 4 mics with lots of gain, then the backing vocals can ease off or hold the mic further away. I don't know how you're positioning everything but tbh, with kit of that quality you shouldn't pushing feedback.

[Alec]

We have 4 DB Tech Sub 15's and 2 RCF 722a's and 4 sennheiser ew's.

 

Hmmm.... Do you actually have monitors, or are you simply setting up the PA in front of you and using that as a combined FOH/mons system? If that is the case, then it's going to be hard to avoid feedback city. Much better if you could get some proper monitors (why not another pair of Art cabs - even the excellent 710as?) behind the mics and in your faces.

[TomHoward]

We run our tracks off laptop and I was thinking maybe running through something like FL Studio from a 4 channel input soundcard. Whereby each mics level is automated as the track runs and could also automate various other things like reverb (cutting down reverb for backing vocals reducing feedback possibilities) do you think this would be too unreliable live?

I wouldn't recommend the process of running through a laptop and back to automate level. The quality will be reduced due to the AD and DA conversion, you may have latency issues, it's another point in the signal chain to distort, and your whole show is going to go down in your laptop falls over.