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Mixing from on-stage


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Hi folks,

Need some help.

The band I play in has finally agreed to bringing the volume down and have in fact decided to get rid of guitar amplifiers all together. While this is great news there is a downside.

The downside is that it is now more complex and difficult to mix from on stage - in fact we really need a sound guy but its just not economic for us. So I am faced with the prospect of playing guitar and mixing from on stage. I really need my monitor mix to have more of my guitar and vocals in it than in FOH. This makes balancing the whole band a lot harder.

So I hoping to hear how people are doing this and in particular how they are monitoring the FOH balance from on stage. One thought I had was to feed my monitor from the headphone send and take advantage of the solo buttons to regularly check on the level of other instruments and vocals. (BTW I am using a Studiolive 16.0.2 mixer)

Any tips and advice appreciated.

Cheers

Fluddman

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Quote Originally Posted by Art Flood View Post
I really need my monitor mix to have more of my guitar and vocals in it than in FOH. This makes balancing the whole band a lot harder.

So I hoping to hear how people are doing this and in particular how they are monitoring the FOH balance from on stage.
I mixed on-stage for years while playing bass. I found that eliminating a/the monitor for myself, resulting in me mostly hearing the room, worked... for me... although admittedly it took some training. Occasionally (once or twice a set) I'd walk out on the dancefloor aways for a reality check... less often as my hearing got more trained.
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I imagine there are plenty of different ways to mix from stage but my method has always been as Mark suggests.

Whether I'm the lead singer or just one of the peanut gallery, I try to forego a monitor and place myself near the FOH, left or right. I guess another method would be to have an identical monitor as your FOH and run the same mix - although you stated that was undesirable.

Getting out front is key, especially in new rooms.

Just wondering... if there is so little money that you can't "afford" a sound tech, is there any chance that the band might just bite the bullet and see if you can find a guy who will do it for briefcase rates? I mean if you're working for close to nothing, maybe making "yet even closer to nothing" might be more fun if the sound is good.

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We've mixed for ages.

The secret:

Restraint, and volume pedals.

Get a decent drum mix. Mic the guitars. Have everyone play something at the same time. 12 bar blues maybe. Then set your lead volume. Back it off with the volume pedal for rhythm. Same thing with the other person.

Once you get a pretty good mix, don't be tempted to turn anything up. If you need more you, bring it up in the monitor mix.

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Thanks for ideas - keep em coming.

Note that the big change is that we have ditched guitar amps - so I am having to run to individual monitor mixers. Prior to this I could always hear the guitar well direct from my amp.

I am finding it really hard to get the guitar levels mixed - seems like going direct to the board makes finding the sweet spot more difficult.

The lower stage volume is a god-send though. Really enjoying that.

Cheers

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With a low enough volume level, you can run the FOH speakers in the backline. (Did that for a year with a band that was gigging 5 nights a week steady. So don't tell me it can't be done.) Most bands can't get down that low. Having your own custom mix helps, but you have to keep track on how it needs to sound to you for the band to sound right to the audience. It's sort of a weird thinking. I've monitored the FOH mix. That works but I don't like it much. (We rarely mix everything in. Usually only vocals, Sax, Kick, and keyboards only to the monitors.) I always have headphones attached to the mixer, but they're usually only used for the setup.

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Quote Originally Posted by WynnD View Post
With a low enough volume level, you can run the FOH speakers in the backline. (Did that for a year with a band that was gigging 5 nights a week steady. So don't tell me it can't be done.) Most bands can't get down that low. Having your own custom mix helps, but you have to keep track on how it needs to sound to you for the band to sound right to the audience. It's sort of a weird thinking. I've monitored the FOH mix. That works but I don't like it much. (We rarely mix everything in. Usually only vocals, Sax, Kick, and keyboards only to the monitors.) I always have headphones attached to the mixer, but they're usually only used for the setup.

Thanks Wynn - good idea. That could be the solution.

Cheers
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Quote Originally Posted by W. M. Hellinger

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I mixed on-stage for years while playing bass. I found that eliminating a/the monitor for myself, resulting in me mostly hearing the room, worked... for me... although admittedly it took some training. Occasionally (once or twice a set) I'd walk out on the dancefloor aways for a reality check... less often as my hearing got more trained.

 

My experience has been very similar to yours. I played bass and mixed for my band in the 80's. We would usually play two weeks or longer in the some hotel and then move on to the next one. I could get the sound dialed in pretty good after two weeks, but I found that having a monitor with a FOH mix really helped.
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In my band -we use an electronic drum set - so EVERYTHING is just run through the PA - no stage amps - no acoustic drums to deal with - just whatever comes through the PA. Actually - we just send the same mix that is going to "the house" to our monitors - so "what we hear" is "what they hear". The monitor speakers are the same exact speakers as the FOH house speakers (but without subs). This makes it "pretty easy" to "know" what "they" are hearing - although not exactly of course - and it is always better to have a sound guy out in the audience - if you have a good one.

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On larger stages a side wash or other mirror of the FOH somewhere can help you check things without going out into the crowd. It can work on smaller stages too, but does add to the gak in the back line and may cause others to want to turn up and you end up putting more bass guitar on stage which can muddy stuff up. It's kind of trial and error.

We use e-drums so have complete control over volume. I bit more challenging with acoustic drums as the noise floor is raised. The good news though is you likely don't need drum fills, or really any other drum monitoring unless it's a huge stage.

A mixer with a meter bridge is the biggest improvement to consistency and fixing problems with specific key and guitar patches later. Being able to "See" the sound has been invaluable. As long as the EQ is set I can literally hear no FOH at all and know it still sounds good. I also know which songs need a slider bump here and there. It's pretty much second nature now.

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What he said.

 

Quote Originally Posted by Rbts

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In my band -we use an electronic drum set - so EVERYTHING is just run through the PA - no stage amps - no acoustic drums to deal with - just whatever comes through the PA. Actually - we just send the same mix that is going to "the house" to our monitors - so "what we hear" is "what they hear". The monitor speakers are the same exact speakers as the FOH house speakers (but without subs). This makes it "pretty easy" to "know" what "they" are hearing - although not exactly of course - and it is always better to have a sound guy out in the audience - if you have a good one.

 

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Quote Originally Posted by DBR

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I have heard bands do what Wynn suggested the only thing was, the musicians didn't know how to turn their instruments down for the vocals to be projected out to the audience. Very sad, indeed.

 

It is sad when musicians won't do what's good for the band. In that group I used an 825 Leslie on the floor for the organ. The sound comes out of the bottom on that one. You can do so much more in a low volume club setting that you can with extra volume. People would come into the club and stay until we were done. (You always end up with a full house that way.)
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I mixed from the stage while playing bass and singing lead vocals for many, many years!

A couple of things that helped: My guys were absolutely consistent and did not play the volume-swell war - we would get a rhythm level set, and I knew that my guitar players both had lead boosts that were 'just right'.

I knew the rig - I knew everything about how it was set up (I was a professional sound guy for years) and knew how to really 'trouble-shoot' and not just make quick changes that might temporarily fix an issue - Mixing the monitors with a less-is-more approach really helps, if you cannot hear one thing clearly, bring down the rest of the things instead of cranking it up

The rig was never changed - it was only ever used for our 4-person setup, so that meant that once I dialed in input levels, even the monitor mixes needed very little tweaking each night. This was a God-send when we did multiple one-nighters in a row!

I used IEM's. I knew what my mix sounded like in comparison to the FOH and if anything seemed odd, I would hear it (one time the guitar player knocked over the mic that was on his amp - he didn't notice because he didn't have his guitar in his wedge, I heard it drop out and looked around and quickly got it back in place... Plus, I could run out and give a listen to the FOH, pop my ears in and jam until I had to get back up and sing - bar patrons freakin' love it when you sit down at the bar and play the song - totally a Schtick that works!

When I worked for a city park and recs dept, I would have to mix (on a nice sized rig) from behind the stack.... That helped train me to do 'comparative mixing' where you listen to the FOH sound and then go back to your mix position and make mental notes of the differences so that you can properly 'hear' what's going on from behind the stack. Not my preferred way to go, but I mixed a ton of really good shows that way!

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I don't have much to offer over what the other guys said. No guitar amps and IEMs for us. (Except the bassist who refused to use IEMs. That is the same bassist who is no longer with us.) We program the patches on my wife's keyboards to be appropriate for the song. I do the same for my guitar processor. An expression pedal gives me all the volume boost I need.

The thing that helped us the most was putting a camcorder on the opposite side of the room to "listen" to us. The next day, when we are just laying in bed, we play back the video and make notes of what patches need to be tweaked.

Now, I'm comfortable enough with setting the levels on the first couple songs, then the IEMs go in for the rest of the night. We have always had great comments on how clean our sound is.

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I play bass and mix from stage my own personal band but also own a line 6 wireless rig so I can hop off stage go out into the FOH zone and listen to the FOH mix.
but we mic amps and acoustic drums but experienced enough to know to keep our stage wash down low so we're not chasing people off.

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Quote Originally Posted by Art Flood View Post
Thanks for the great input everyone! I am looking forward to trying these great ideas out.

THanks
You could always use Capture with raw recorded tracks of everybody for a virtual live band mix to get you a reference base mix which can give some what an idea of what your amp sims, drums, and vocal mics will sound like in the room with your PA and EQ it to taste using the remote ipad. You still need to have line check and balance the mix out but at least you got some what a starting point in case the amp sims is to bright in the room or need some more mid on the bass and etc...
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Ah, I didn't catch you're using an SL board. As I mentioned earlier, the meter bridge is extremely important. Once you know "what a good mix looks like" you'll be much more confident. Building off the post above, record the entirety of your first few shows and try not to mess with the input gains on the board as you'll lose the reference of the instrument volume because you're printing the input levels to the recording. This will give you the low down of how balanced your instruments are and if they stay that way. You'll find some patches don't cut through as well and some are just flat out louder than others.

1 - minimize the number of discrete guitar patches. You probably really need no more than 4-5 (our guy uses 3 main ones and then a couple artsy fartsy ones for some special effects in a specific song). Each of these should have 2 volumes (rhythm and lead) so you still are dealing with 8-10 patches per instrument)

2 - Continue fine tuning the volumes of these. Depending on how often you play, this could take a couple of months before you're happy with it. Start at your first sound check, or even at a practice, by running through the board and looking at the meter bridge. Use your ears too though because, again, a buttery toned patch won't cut through like a piercing lead.

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Thanks Twostone and Abzurd.

Recording is a good idea and too easy with the Presonus. Most of our gigs are small and I really only use a kick mic on the drums is it worth adding a couple of more drum mics for the sake of getting a good recording?

Cheers

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Thanks Twostone and Abzurd.

 

Recording is a good idea and too easy with the Presonus. Most of our gigs are small and I really only use a kick mic on the drums is it worth adding a couple of more drum mics for the sake of getting a good recording?

 

Cheers

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Thanks Twostone and Abzurd.


Recording is a good idea and too easy with the Presonus. Most of our gigs are small and I really only use a kick mic on the drums is it worth adding a couple of more drum mics for the sake of getting a good recording?


Cheers

 

 

If you have the channels available sure it is. You don't have to run them through the FOH, but they'll still record. You may catch some magic. At the very least the recordings are serviceable for practicing mixing after a show, as a learning tool on what songs need work, and volume levels. It can also help you experiment with mic placement and channel strip settings for larger shows where you do want to mic the entire kit. You don't have to worry about anything but the gain for the show and can do all the eqing, compression, gating and effects afterwards then save it in the mixer for when you need it.

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Hi folks,


Need some help.


The band I play in has finally agreed to bringing the volume down and have in fact decided to get rid of guitar amplifiers all together. While this is great news there is a downside.


The downside is that it is now more complex and difficult to mix from on stage - in fact we really need a sound guy but its just not economic for us. So I am faced with the prospect of playing guitar and mixing from on stage. I really need my monitor mix to have more of my guitar and vocals in it than in FOH. This makes balancing the whole band a lot harder.


So I hoping to hear how people are doing this and in particular how they are monitoring the FOH balance from on stage. One thought I had was to feed my monitor from the headphone send and take advantage of the solo buttons to regularly check on the level of other instruments and vocals. (BTW I am using a Studiolive 16.0.2 mixer)


Any tips and advice appreciated.


Cheers


Fluddman

Get your guitar amps back and forget the guitar monitor thing in clubs. Learn how to play together. Think about it. You have to have the monitor as hot as a guitar amp to hear yourself over the drums. Simply learn to play with dynamics and bring it down as a band. Putting the FOH on the backline in a club is a bad idea and not a very good recommendation at all. I honestly do not understand some of the crazy recommendations from this guy. Get your guitar amps back and put the sound on FOH in proper position and that is out in front of the band.

Get a long guitar cable like 25ft and set the mix and go out front and play with the band and listen and make adjustments accordingly. You cant get decent gain out of a sound system placed behind the microphones...

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Get your guitar amps back and forget the guitar monitor thing in clubs. Learn how to play together. Think about it. You have to have the monitor as hot as a guitar amp to hear yourself over the drums. Simply learn to play with dynamics and bring it down as a band. Putting the FOH on the backline in a club is a bad idea and not a very good recommendation at all. I honestly do not understand some of the crazy recommendations from this guy. Get your guitar amps back and put the sound on FOH in proper position and that is out in front of the band.

Get a long guitar cable like 25ft and set the mix and go out front and play with the band and listen and make adjustments accordingly. You cant get decent gain out of a sound system placed behind the microphones...

 

 

I think what they really need is a e-kit which would give them total control of the drum volume so they don't need a real hot monitor mix to hear themselves.

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Thanks guys for some good discussion.

 

Two things are driving this. Firstly, we have a couple of gigs coming up next year in the USA and it looks like we'll be going without amps for these so we are trying to get used to it beforehand. Second, we have a volume problem with guitar and this eventually flows on to everybody ending in a very loud mess. I really prefer to use an amp, but this about getting the band to sound better not me.

 

Pro Sound Guy - I understand your concerns about a having the FOH behind you and the risk of feedback - I gave it a try at rehearsal and it worked ok at low volumes. I panned the guitars to either side and got a nice balance and our drummer (he is not a problem) is good at matching his sound with the other instruments. Probably wont set up this way at gigs but not bad for quieter rehearsal.

 

I also understand that the best solution would be to use amps and simply turn them down but this is just not working for us - at least I now have control over the volume and balance. And while my guitar doesn't sound quite as good, the band (especially vocals) is sounding better and hopefully we now won't blow the audience away.

 

Its early days and the first sans-amps gig is still a month away - so lots of time for fine tuning. To my surprise some of my guitar sounds are pretty nice - particularly if I use the DI out of a Rebel 30 Head (but unfortunately wont be taking that overseas).

 

Cheers

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