The quest for the perfect mix
People often ask me what I consider to be the best mix I have ever done. I always tell them the same thing. The next show that I will be mixing. At the end of every show I try to figure out what it was that made it good or not so good and how I can use the conclusions that I come to to make the next show even better.
The first thing to achieving a great sounding show is a well set up PA system, see the other articles, the second thing to do is go back to stage one and make sure that the system set up has been optimised. It is much easier to mix on a well designed and set up system. In some instances you might be stuck with the PA provided and not be able to do anything about it. Perhaps you are mixing for a support band and have been given instructions not to touch anything, or maybe there is not enough time to do more than a cursory system check.
If you a using someone else's system, either the main band's or the
venue's, if it has a house system installed, then before doing anything else
listen to the system. I know messing round with graphics comes under tuning the
system but if the system is sounding sweet, the vocalist can be heard clearly
throughout the venue and the PA is just ticking over with plenty in reserve,
there is not much point in adjusting anything and you can relax. After all the
person that adjusted it before you might just be a little more skilled than
yourself. If it isn't sounding so good and you have plenty of time to sort it
out then the set up articles should help. Do listen to the other bands' sound
checks. Wear ear plugs if you wish, but don't go to the bar, determine whether
the system is close to its limits glance over the other sound guy/gal's shoulder
and check out the gain and eq settings. Basically you are trying to figure out
what that mixer person is doing to achieve the sound they are getting and how
the system is reacting to what they are doing, whether it sounds good or not. If
there are problems with feedback now is a good time to discover its cause
whether it was fixed and what was done to fix it if so. The more you can learn
now the better you will be able to use the time of your own sound check .
With a slight change of tack I'll now outline my philosophy of mixing bands. The first stage is to listen to the row, sorry melodious sounds emanating from the stage. That is your starting point. It is made up of many different components, or instruments if you like, and you will have to know how to alter each individual component separately to get to the overall sound that you want. That last bit is important. You need to have the sound that you are trying to achieve firmly in you mind. If you don't, how do you know whether you should leave the settings alone or adjust them and what to adjust? I think having the sound that you are trying to achieve in you mind is an important enough concept to reiterate and is part of the feedback (not that sort) loop in making adjustments. Listen >make the adjustment >listen >decide if you are getting closer or further away from the sound that you want >re-adjust >listen >decide..... Think of it as a journey. You need to know where you are starting from and where you are going before you can set out. Finally you need to know how to get from A-B, that is getting from the sound you are hearing to the sound that you want. That is what all the knobs on the mixer do. If you haven't got a clue about them, read the manual. Learn what the different frequency ranges sound like. The more you learn and the more experience you get, the faster you will get from A-B. Some people find it easier to relate to pitch than frequency, and while the two are not technically the same it might be easier for you to think in terms of middle C rather than 250Hz. From there a doubling or halving of frequency moves you up or down an octave so 1000Hz is two octaves above middle c.
The actual skill involved in turning the knobs and adjusting the faders on a mixing desk is pretty low. For this reason lots of people think that mixing is easy. The difficult part is moving the right knob to the right position at the right time and the skill involved in doing this is high. Just as the average person would not expect to sit at a piano and play with any degree of competence, it would be wrong to expect to stand in front of a mixing desk and produce a virtuoso performance. To improve you need to practice and also think about what you are doing what effect your actions are having on the sound. If necessary take notes.
Whist I was a house engineer at a local music venue, I made notes on every
performance that I worked at, whether I was mixing or not. I printed myself a
form that enabled me to record every adjustable setting from the monitor eq,
through FOH eq to all the mixer settings. It also told me the name of band, and
their engineer if applicable, and a brief description about the sound quality. I
also had printouts from computer measurements that I had done of the system that
I used a reference point. By having all the information written down I was able
to make comparisons back
at home in my own time over a cup of tea. It also enabled me to have the system
set up for a band engineer exactly as it was the last time he/she was there.
Guess how many zeroed everything and started from scratch again? Remember my
comments about listening before changing anything.
I suppose that I had better briefly mention the band. Do not underestimate their importance in producing a good sound. When a band is playing very badly it is all to painfully obvious and as a mixing guy/gal you recognise that even with the latest state of art delay unit you will not correct the situation when one band member is two songs behind the rest of the band. Again, when another forgot to bring any keys with him let alone the ones that the tunes are being played in, you just shrug your shoulders and minimise the damage. If that is the worst case, then at some point the band will be playing sufficiently out of time to affect the sound, but not sufficient for the mistiming to sound as though the band are out. If you have a reasonable mix and can hear everything that is going on on stage yet it lacks a certain coherence and lifting the level of any single channel seems to make the sound spread out rather than lift out of the mix then I believe that it could be that the band are slightly out. Bad room acoustics and a poor PA can be contributory factors, but having worked in a club situation where the same band play in the same room with the same PA, the biggest variable is more than likely the human element. In these cases do your best but be aware that there might be nothing anyone but the band can do to improve the sound.
Assuming
that you have a great band, with a superb PA, in an ideal room, what next? Go
back four paragraphs and re-read it. If you know what sound you are after and
how to get there then just do it. Don't try and mix for anyone else. If the
bands manager says that the guitar needs turning up, politely ask him if he/she
would like to do the mixing. If any member of the audience makes a similar
comment, again politely tell them that the band are paying you because they like
how you mix. What I am saying is that you can only mix for yourself, aiming for
that image of aural perfection in your head. Mixing is not a democracy. There
are a couple of provisos though. Whilst being a musician is not a necessity when
mixing (you don't need to be able to play a french horn to be a good guitarist)
having a good background in various styles of music is a necessity unless you
are only going to be mixing for one band. In effect you need more than one image
in your head.
And finally I should point out that although I said that you can only mix for yourself, you should be aware that if what you consider to be a great mix doesn't compare with what the band members and audience consider to be a great mix (at least most of the time) then you won't be getting much work.
OK, I lied, this is the final bit. You will find on this site a number of audio tracks that have been recorded at various gigs. The quality of these could have been improved considerably except for one thing. The mix was adjusted to give the best sound at the gig. No consideration was given to the recording. It is my opinion that unless people have turned up to witness a recording then the live sound should not be compromised for the sake of a tape/disc. I know that many others would disagree, but this is not their page.