Voice only Tops

[Tomm Williams]

Ok, finished a two night event on Sunday and everything went very well. Got to work with some very good talent with international touring and recording credentials. The organizer wants to talk about working for him again for a corporate Xmas party at a large venue (VERY large company). Now the issue, he has a pretty extensive background in music but not SR. He is asking about me deploying a vocals-only speaker section along with a standard set-up for the band. He believes this might produce the results he's after for his shows. He knows a little about this subject (not much) but is a strong personality who "wants what he wants" I'm not against doing it but having never done it before, wondering if it's really any more difficult than just a good aux mix?

[agedhorse]

It appears that he knows enough to be dangerous.

 

Yes, it's possible. Will it deliver the desired results? Probably not what he is hoping for or expecting.

 

What did he not like with the sound this weekend? Were there problems? Is this just a power/ego trip? Once you know this, you can get a pretty good idea where it's all going?

[sibyrnes]

I have heard of people using a dual system - one for instruments and one for vocals. Seems like alot of extra effort just to compensate for some deficiency in the system. Of course if that's what he wants and is willing to pay for it, sounds like a great idea to me!

[cappttenron]

I remember reading about that big sound production company (Rat) I think using that dual system for the Red Hot Chili Peppers because they really want the vocals to cut through. Seems good in concept.

[Tomm Williams]

It appears that he knows enough to be dangerous.

 

Yes, it's possible. Will it deliver the desired results? Probably not what he is hoping for or expecting.

 

What did he not like with the sound this weekend? Were there problems? Is this just a power/ego trip? Once you know this, you can get a pretty good idea where it's all going?

 

 

Well............ that's a good question. The problems that I saw (and they were pretty well under control) was that the room was extremely reverberant and he liked his monitor VERY loud. He was on wireless mic and moved around a great deal rather than standing in front of the wedge. (part of the act, understandable) As a result, there was a bit of a monitor war going on that I finally got mostly under control but his was still quite loud. No I'm not investing in IEM's.

 

I know he wasn't entirely happy with his monitor but by not standing in front of it.............?

I can't state that his desire for this might not simply be to take the next show to a different level without any real issue with the past show. Like I said, he's not a newbie at this and I'd like to provide it since he seems fairly set on it. I just don't want to take a step backwards.

 

Perhaps if there is no significant difference in sound yet he likes the setup from a "Visual" aspect it's a win ?

[Pro Sound Guy]

This is something that has been done many a time all the way back into the 60's

 

If he is willing to pay you for this extra work then go for it.

 

 

 

 

[agedhorse]

IMO, generally and especially these days, there is nothing to be gained and plenty to complicate the matter. With loud stage monitors, you will have bleed between the two PA's so you maybe improve one thing but make something else worse.

 

It has been done, but if it was so darn great then how come it's not done more often? It was done in olden days because the PA's just were not adequate and the pattern control of summing between cabinets was really awful. These days we don't have the same challenges and especially with (real) line arrays it's not a problem.

 

The Dead used something along these lines but abandoned it rather quickly because of the complexity, the cost and the fact that ultimately technology evolved so that there were better ways. If it was all that folks "remembered it to be" then why are they not still using the concept? Why are there so few users (Dave Rat has a history of making statements by coloring outside the line... nothing worng with it but it doesn't universally translate to other applications or situations either. He's also talented enough AND has enough resources to make things work)

[Drummer44]

 

No I'm not investing in IEM's.

 

I know he wasn't entirely happy with his monitor but by not standing in front of it.............?

 

 

 

Maybe bubba would invest in his own IEMs if given an understanding of what they might solve for him?

 

-D44

[WRGKMC]

Its not just the gear. Someone mentioned bleed over in mics. This would undoubtedly cause phase issues between the two systems. If for example, the notes from a guitar hitting the guitar mic and the vocal mic, are in phase, the guitar may have certain notes on the neck that have high resonance and be overly loud. If they are out of phase, there may be dead notes where the instrument disappears. If you add to that the singer moving, you'll have the phase between the two systems constantly changing. It could wind up being a nightmare for the guy mixing. Unless you have extra power amps and cabs, you take a big hit on power too.

 

Which is going to sound louder or at least bigger. 2 cabs for vocals running say 1000W or 4 cabs running 2000w. Four Cabs will sound louder and bigger because you have more speaker surface pushing the air. You may have less intermodulation with only one vocal dominating the speaker then you would with a fully miced band. Bass can especially mangle a vocal on an underpowered system, but its the sound mans job to take care of that for the audience. The guy on stage doesn't hear those details and cant make those kinds of judgments effectively.

 

My advice is tell him to play in his own sand box and you'll play in yours. Part of the bands ego feeds off of having a support team that knows what they are doing. If you haven't got that respect, there's something else going on that needs correction. If the audience responds well, everyone is doing their jobs right because you all go home being paid.

[Craig Vecchione]

I can't help thinking that two mediocre systems won't add up to better overall sound than one good system. By splitting the system into vocal & instrument systems, you're essentially doubling the budget for a large part of the rig.

 

 

[dboomer]

I guess it would depend on what part of the system was lacking. Where I see the opportunity for a benefit is that by separating vocals out of the main system any compression in playback through the system would leave the vocals untouched. Normally they would get squished. I think you could achieve the same benefit by sub grouping vocals and instruments separately. Then apply some dynamic control on the instrument subgroup.

[Scodiddly]

Rat Sound was indeed doing this, and Dave Rat was blogging about it 2-3 years ago. I'm not sure if they're still doing it, though. But separate vocal/band systems are standand in professional Broadway productions.

[Pro Sound Guy]

I can say this from experience is that just a simple panning of instruments far to the left and right is a good thing in the sense that you do not have everything piled up on top of each other on a dual mono/mono mix. I am just saying I really believe there is benefits to having an isolated vocal from the rest of the system. There is an issue to panning far right and left but I have found

this to be very SWEET on large systems with full coverage. Lets go back...The Beatles had far right and left panning. VERY effective.

[Pro Sound Guy]

Let me add to my last post. Each side of the system is a seperate sound system. If you can put some intrutments in one side or the other this is indeed very effective AS long as you have a center channel

or a way to cover both sides. This last weekend I used two EAW JF260s as center fill on a big stage

and 90 degree EAW boxes on each side. (50ft) Freeken Sweet as Family Guy would put it.

 

[dennis a]

By splitting the system into vocal & instrument systems, you're essentially doubling the budget for a large part of the rig.

 

Providing sound systems is a business.....I'm not seeing a down side to increasing the budget if the client requests it.

[agedhorse]

Lets go back...The Beatles had far right and left panning. VERY effective.

 

BUT, this was not live audio, it was recorded and it ONLY worked well for playback when you were in the center. That hard pan style fell out of favor very quickly even in the recording world because it created problems with the overall mix of instruments to those listening off axis.

[Craig Vecchione]

 

Providing sound systems is a business.....I'm not seeing a down side to increasing the budget if the client requests it.

 

When the client isn't happy because the results didn't meet expectations (even when he was specifying how to do it), there's a down-side.

[Pro Sound Guy]

Agreed Aged. Extreme right and left panning is not good for those sitting on the far left or right with live audio.

[cappttenron]

If someone wants anchovies on their ice cream and willing to pay for it I say do what they want as long as you can recover your costs and make a profit. Like most here I believe the benefit must be minor if any or more people would be doing it. Lots of good points brought up here but I think in the end the performer wants a dedicated PA (read more me) for his vocals right or wrong. Now I would only do this if either I had the extra gear or would be doing enough work with the group to justify my investment. Also I found that an interesting point about broadway shows didn't know that.

[Tomm Williams]

Well this was a bit of a multi-faceted issue. As I stated, his wedge was very loud, to the point that members of the band off-axis of the wedge couldn't stand it. But he was writing the check and wanted more wedge. I talked with him prior to the first show about this and the problems it was creating, he tried a lower volume and it just didn't work for him. The rest of the band had very good dynamics and must have had a meeting amongst themselves and decided to play a bit more softly as the stage volume during the shows was quite a bit different.

 

Now that issue was different than his post-show desire to do something different for his vox at FOH. Since he really didn't know what he sounded like out front, it is a little interesting that he brought this up. From my perspective, I thought he sounded fine. The quality of the sound did the performance justice and I think that's all that matters. I believe where he's going with this is attempting to go to another level without condemning the sound as is.

 

I informed him that I have other speakers but they were not designed for the room we were in. They might however be well suited to his next performance depending on where it's held. He still is curious with the Vox-only concept but could probably be persuaded away from it if he liked the other set up. I also informed him I have a fairly large inventory of mics, we can always try something different that might be what he's trying to achieve.

 

This situation seems to be a fine example of someone with a great deal of performance experience and a little bit of SR knowledge. Enough to know what he wants but not how to make it happen and the challenges involved. I guess that's why we get paid the big bucks !!!

[dbMontana]

OK, I'll newbie up and ask what must be obvious to everyone else here: Irrespective of increased complexity, economics, performer ego, or customer/client relations, what even in theory (ie physics) would the benefit derive from with separating the vocals from the instruments in this way? Specifically:

 

Why (even in theory) use a completely separate PA? Wouldn't using a single mixer and sending vocal channels exclusively to one AUX and instruments exclusively to another (or main) be just as effective?

 

Or more fundamentally, why (even in theory) would having all the vocals in one cab and all the instruments in another be beneficial? I mean you're still going to have just as much stage bleed into the vocal mics as otherwise. Does the benefit come from spatially separating the sound sources/cabs? Wouldn't that cause phase/comb filtering issues? Or is a single speaker able to more accurately reproduce a vocal if that same speaker doesn't have to also handle instruments?

 

I know, basic questions. Just confirming my status to the left.

[dboomer]

So first let me say that there certainly is a possibility for increased performance by splitting the system. But since you are basically duplicating the same frequency range you can probably get the same benefits without the need for the extra sound system. In my mind that's doing it the hard way.

 

Assuming you didn't need to focus the sound to different areas ... the main benefit as I said above would be the reduction of interaction between the vocals and everything else. So assuming the system was set up correctly that would be a small decrease in distortion to the vocals as well as possible increased dynamic range in the sense that the dynamic range would not be modulated by the instruments. So worst case (or best depending on how you think) if the instruments compress and even distort the system the vocals would (generally) remain untouched. Like I said above you could gain almost all of this by simply subgrouping, assuming you have some headroom in your system. So I see this as a clumsy way of getting additional headroom.

 

There are a lots of parallels between this and an Aux Fed Sub system. You basically have the same principle but in the case of Aux subs you have very different frequency ranges. I am a big proponent of Aux Fed Sub systems as a general rule for rock type shows.

[WRGKMC]

I can say this from experience is that just a simple panning of instruments far to the left and right is a good thing in the sense that you do not have everything piled up on top of each other on a dual mono/mono mix. I am just saying I really believe there is benefits to having an isolated vocal from the rest of the system. There is an issue to panning far right and left but I have found

this to be very SWEET on large systems with full coverage. Lets go back...The Beatles had far right and left panning. VERY effective.

 

First, the Beatles didn't do those mixes, it was the audio engineers who did many after the fact and were stuck with hard left and right mixes due to the highly limited recording technology of the time. Mixers didn't have pan knobs till much later, they had switches that flipped the tracks to one side or another.

 

In any case, the topic is about using independent cabs and power amps for the vocals only. with your suggestion you'd have to pan all the instruments to one side and the vocals to the other side. You'd have to rewire the cabs over and under so when you pan, it either goes to the top set on both sides or bottom set on both sides.

 

You're cutting the overall power and cabs for vocals in half. Vocals usually need every ounce of power to be out in front of a band in most cases because there are amps on stage as well. In most situations the instruments going through the PA complements what's being heard from the stage unless, its a really big venue running several thousand watts and has the space to crank things without feedback.

 

With the quality of speakers today, you can run multiple frequencies without one frequency dominating the cones. If you use a three way system, bass guitar is already going to be channeled to the subs and very little will get to the mid and horn vocal drivers. That's the best way to do it in any case. Just ley the Crossover split the frequencies into bands that drive the most appropriate cabs. Then if you need more or less of something the EQ knobs on the channels will do what they are supposed to do with minimal phase issues. You need vocal highs, you turn the treble up and you get more from the horns, need more guitars, you turn up the 2~5K on the guitar EQ and it should drive guitars through the mid cabs, Need more kick, turn the bass up on the kick and it will come through the subs,

 

Its a combination of setting gains to safe levels and using EQ to give the instruments space the same as it is for recording. If you cant get a good transparent mix through a mono system, its going to suck even worse using a stereo system. If you start with a balanced EQ with all EQ settings in the center 12:00. you can then pump pink noise through the cabs. Use a DB meter and set your crossover outputs for your highs mids and lows.

That gets you to ground zero with very little guesswork or confusion from various room reflections.

 

At that point, your channel EQ's should have more then enough range to build a good mix where nothing is in the way. Vocal should sound great with the controls straight up. Bass and kick, your roll the highs off and give them different frequency boosts or cuts. If you give one a 100 hz boost give the other a 100hz notch so they aren't masking each other. If you have two guitars and a snare, give one guitar a 3K boost, the snare a 4K boost and the lead a 5K boost Guitars boost, then turn them all down 1/3 lower then the vocals. Then if there's a solo you can bring it up to match the vocals in volume when the singer stops singing then bring it down like its being ducked by the vocals. Cymbals can be higher frequencies then the vocals depending on the size and mic used. A ride may have some lows in the 200's mids in the 2K and highs in the 7~8K range.

 

Main thing is don't try and run more then one instrument using the same frequencies because all you'll be doing is masking one or the other in a war that cant be won. Two instrument cant occupy the same frequencies and be heard. This is another reason why separate systems would be a flop. Even if you have separate cabs, you still have to mix using separate frequency ranges. Just having different cabs isn't going to fix frequency masking. Like I said, Use crossovers, balance them out, then think of how you separate the parts using frequency response instead of stereo separation and your mixes will get much better. Then if you have to goose the crossovers a tad because the room is filled with soft flesh sucking up the highs, go for it. Just mark your settings so you can set them back again.

 

.

[agedhorse]

2 instruments, and in fact most instruments share the same frequency spectrum. The reason why some bands sound very good and others not so good is because some arrangements allow one instrument to support another by working off of the other variable (the gorrilla in the room) which is time. A good arranger considers both the notes (harmony and counterpoint) as well as WHEN each occurs.

 

Just about everything overlaps in frequency when you factor in the harmonics, and in bass/guitar there can be is as much second and third harmonics as fundamental.

[WRGKMC]

^^^ Not quite. Every instrument has a dominant sweet spot. Pickups have their own responses ranges, normally from 200~5K hz, and amps produce very different responses based on the tone stack cabs, speaker types. This definitely puts them into specific ranges that can be manipulated by a sound man to get a good mix. Mics are another item that all have their own frequency curves and can be selected to target specific frequencies whole rolling off unwanted frequencies and again a good sound man should know how to use the gear and mix instruments for the best results.

 

What you're talking about is putting parts together so the musical tones aren't being doubled by the same players. That's not the same thing as targeting the overall response of the instruments so they fit into a mix. Some of it comes into play of course, but a sound man isn't following the plays notes on an instrument making changes for every note being played.

 

Instrument will overlap in their ranges a bit, much like colors in a rainbow overlap and mix. The main thing is you don't want a guitar which is a midrange instrument masking a bass or kick part, or a snare masking the vocals because it has too much 6~7K You scoop that instruments response mic response in that area if its an issue so the vocal comes through and the snare surrounds it above and below those frequencies if needed but you cant have two instruments pushing the same frequencies through the same speakers and have it sound good. One is always going to dominate and the other gets blocked and have missing notes. If you do get them even then it just becomes a blur where neither can be heard right.