Vocals in the mix

[Izolde-Asia]

Hey. I need some advice on vocals in the mix. I was mixing a really great band the other night (Hello Kelly) in a VERY small room. I was doing a favor for a much larger "sound guy" by stepping in as johnny on the boards. He had brought his mixer (Mackie 24-4 of sorts) 15xlr, 3 x 58's, 3 x 57's, 1 x b52, 2 x DI. I brought my rack with 4 chan of comp. and 4 chan of EQ as well as a box of assorted mics and do dads. Hmm, I'm trying to cut to the chase but the preface seems to be taking forever to get through.

 

Anyways, the long and short of it, the vocals just disappeared. They were present in the mix, you could hear them, but just not loud enough. Even with the fader fully cranked. Once the song picked up, the vocals were gone. It's the only time I've ever had to ride faders like a wicked roller coaster.

 

I tried bringing out some presence on the Vocals, to no avail. I tried bringing up the fullness, nothing. The vocals just could not get out in front. And when the faders were cranked, I was riding the on the edge of feedback.

 

What am I doing wrong. What should I be doing different.

[Art Flood]

Were the vocals too soft or the backing just too loud?

[jwlussow]

How loud was the stage? Small rooms can be much more difficult to handle, especially if the stage is too loud.

[Izolde-Asia]

 

How loud was the stage? Small rooms can be much more difficult to handle, especially if the stage is too loud.

 

 

Stage was loud. Correction, drums were loud. The drummer is great, but he really puts a ton of velocity into his drumming. I bet he goes through skins once every show or so. Cymbals are no exception. They were def. drowning out the vocals. Guitars and bass were great levels on stage, and great in the mix.

 

But as much as I would like to say the drums were the problem, I've had problems before getting the vocals out in front. There must be some essential rule of thumb, or some basic rule of live sound I have missed.

[RoadRanger]

Did you have anything else up in the PA besides the vocals?

[jwlussow]

 

Backing too loud. Vocals were great. This guy can sing. Stage was loud. Correction, drums were loud. The drummer is great, but he really puts a ton of velocity into his drumming. I bet he goes through skins once every show or so. Cymbals are no exception. They were def. drowning out the vocals. Guitars and bass were great levels on stage, and great in the mix. But as much as I would like to say the drums were the problem, I've had problems before getting the vocals out in front. There must be some essential rule of thumb, or some basic rule of live sound I have missed.

 

 

A loud drummer that fills the room without reinforcement is always a problem. What is the sound system?

[sharnrock]

Did you have a compressor on the vocals? If you have the threshold set too low you're really fighting yourself when you crank the fader.

[Art Flood]

 

Did you have a compressor on the vocals? If you have the threshold set too low you're really fighting yourself when you crank the fader.

 

 

+1

[jlb]

Nothing you really can do if the drummer has no sense of dynamics. To me a good drummer is someone who plays for the song/band not for themselves/lead instrument. A loud bashing drummer can destroy any hope of achieving a decent mix, especially in a small venue.

[gonzobassman]

Sounds like maybe the backline was just to loud for you to bring the system up to in that room.

[Phil Clark]

A drum shield would help. Because with a loud drummer and no shield, there is no way to keep the drums from being fed through the vocal mics. So if the vocalist is not louder than the drums on stage, you will never get the vocals loud enough in the mix.

[agedhorse]

Sounds to me like overcompressing the vocals along with plenty of bleed into the vocal mics causing any attempt to bring up the vocals to also bring up the band bleed. Not an uncommon scenario.

 

How are you getting all those channels into a Mackie 24.4? You show 24 balanced imputs but the 24.4 only has 20.

[Tomm Williams]

 

Did you have a compressor on the vocals? If you have the threshold set too low you're really fighting yourself when you crank the fader.

 

 

+1 Used improperly, a comp can kill vocals

[Izolde-Asia]

For some reason some of my replies get shipped off to an admin to spell check before they are posted... Silly.

 

There was no compression on the vocal chan. Just on the mains, and at that it was a slight compression, just enough to keep any crazy peaks in line.

 

Granted the drums were bleeding into the mics. So it does make complete sense that the vocals were hidden under the cymbals.

 

 

How are you getting all those channels into a Mackie 24.4? You show 24 balanced imputs but the 24.4 only has 20.

 

 

I'm not sure the model of the board. It was a Mackie, it had 24 chan, and 4 chan matrix. I do believe the board I was working with had 20 mono XLR inputs, and a stereo chan or 2. But I was only using 7 chan. Voc x 3, Guitar x 2, bass x 1, and kick. NO matrix, and nothing routed to an fx unit, except the kick, which had a comp at the insert.

 

All the EQ's were in the signal chain from the AUX to powered mons, and in between main and amp

[Izolde-Asia]

 

+1 Used improperly, a comp can kill vocals

 

 

^^^^^^

This is good input. Well, everything I have read has been great input.

 

I have another show on the 15th, I will take all this into consideration, and will be using my own rig. I will pay special attention to the vocals, and see if keeping the a fore mentioned in mind helps sort out my vocal issue.

 

Thanks a bunch

[agedhorse]

 

There was no compression on the vocal chan. Just on the mains, and at that it was a slight compression, just enough to keep any crazy peaks in line.

 

 

Essentially the dominant vocal keyed the compressor and ducked the rest of the mix, making any bleed issues even worse. I assume it was the vocals that were causing the compression? If it was the bass or kick causing it, bad deal all around. The vocal levels will hunt up and down all night with the bass or kick.

[Izolde-Asia]

You are so right. Yes. Absolutely. I'm an idiot. The over bearing drums in the vocal mics were keying the comp bringing the rest of the mix down keeping those damned drums overbearing in the mix. That would explain why EQing didn't save the day. If I'd only (famous last words) jigged the threshold, or just bypassed the compression all together.

 

Every time I think I am beginning to understand compression I run into an issue like this which puts me back to square one.

[Izolde-Asia]

That sounds almost sarcastic when I read it back. It is sincere.

[agedhorse]

I read it as sincere.

 

There are a lot of potential gottchas there, the more you learn the more you realize you don't know. Happens at all levels.

[Tomm Williams]

There is a lot to be learned about this art that doesn't include the use of processors. I suggest excluding their use from your mix until you get more familiar with what they do. Comps are not a must use device. They can be helpful or harmful depending on the operator.

[DBR]

I ran across this same exact issue the other night. The only difference was, no compressor in the rack, whatsoever. I turned down the drums and the vocals were still in the background. Loud drums through the mics makes a lot of sense. Thank you for this thread.

[minn12]

One trick that might help get the vocals louder in the mix is to 'double-buss' them. Assuming your system has enough headroom/gain to get loud enough over the stage wash, you could try assigning the vocals to both a subgroup and the L/R faders. You just bring up the vocal channel faders AND the vocal subgroup fader. I sometimes use this technique in situations like yours, and if you have enough PA, it usual helps a lot. If you are already doing this, then unless the band is willing to work with you and lower drums/stage volume, it may be a losing battle. Let us know how the next gig goes. Good luck!

[twostone]

I ran across this same exact issue the other night. The only difference was, no compressor in the rack, whatsoever. I turned down the drums and the vocals were still in the background. Loud drums through the mics makes a lot of sense. Thank you for this thread.

 

Loudness instruments always wins esp on a small stage where the drums are really close to the vocal mics, and there's not much you can do with a hard playing drummer other then a drum shield which some drummers take offence to and don't like being behind a plexiglass cage been there.All you can do is ask polity to tell the drummer to play a little more relaxed and not to throw his body weight into playing and use the wrist is what all great drummers told me about how to play drums since I like messing around with drums myself. Anyway IIRC I think you can side chain the comp with a EQ and have the comp duck the cymbal wash out of the vocal mics. I never did this personally but Age or other seasoned SE's could tell you how to use the side chaining method is correct or not. Personally I only comp slap and pop bass and kick drum to keep those instruments from jumping out of the mix if the drummer has a heavy foot same with the slap and pop bass which tends to wanna jump out of the mix.. Only time I camp the vocals is for screaming vocals.

 

I would leave comp out of the main mix if your worried about pks then you need to add more headroom on the amp or you just don't have enough of rig for the gig which is usually happens a lot. I do a old converted warehouse into bar gig and my PA is no where near enough to fill that huge building. But it does work in my advantage the old geezer crowd can stay in the back and not be bombarded my the stage wash and FOH mix while the younger crowd hang by the stage which is plenty loud for them. The bar is far enough back that the bar staff can hear the drink orders and the owner loves that.

[agedhorse]

One trick that might help get the vocals louder in the mix is to 'double-buss' them. Assuming your system has enough headroom/gain to get loud enough over the stage wash, you could try assigning the vocals to both a subgroup and the L/R faders. You just bring up the vocal channel faders AND the vocal subgroup fader. I sometimes use this technique in situations like yours, and if you have enough PA, it usual helps a lot. If you are already doing this, then unless the band is willing to work with you and lower drums/stage volume, it may be a losing battle. Let us know how the next gig goes. Good luck!

 

How is this going to help when the vocal mics are picking up the drums. "Double-bussing" (an old, less than useful kludge trick) will do absolutely nothing because it can not alter the ratio of direct sound (vocals) to the bleed (drums) through the vocal mics.

 

Good try though

[agedhorse]

 

Anyway IIRC I think you can side chain the comp with a EQ and have the comp duck the cymbal wash out of the vocal mics. I never did this personally but Age or other seasoned SE's could tell you how to use the side chaining method is correct or not.

 

 

Not going to work. Another good try however.

 

Things that have a chance of working are improved acoustic treatment behind drums and ceiling to deduce the first reflections off of these surfaces from entering the vocal mics, using mics that do not have extended or boosted HF response, and reducing the volume of the drummer and back line amps.