Opinions on idea for helping with vocal clarity

[tolstoy]

So, again I've been running sound for a local country band. Most shows are outdoors for little town festivals and street dances. The band owns the board, FOH speakers which consist of a pair of the newest Peavey SP2's and four SP118's, they own the amps are a PV2600 for the tops and a PV3800 for the subs. For outdoors the rig does pretty good, but I think a second set of tops would help a lot. Problem is I don't think the band is going to run out and buy a second set of the SP2's. I have a set of SP5's that I could contribute, but I don't want to throw a set of completly different speakers into the overall mix due to the differences in EQing the two different boxes.

 

I thought about using the SP2's setup as the outside pair and the SP5's setup as the inside pair in a left and right stack. Only I would run the current Stereo Setup with the SP2's handeling the majority of the reinforcement out of the left side of the board with most of the instruments panned hard left, and run the SP5's with only the vocals out of the right side. This would allow me to individually EQ the SP2's with the left side of my dual 31band and eq the SP5's with the other channel. Kind of a Left/center/right configuration only Mono/Center.

 

Any Problems anybody can see with doing this? Any Benifits? Discuss........

 

Tolstoy

[monkeyland]

there's no reason why that rig won't do it. I run one similar except with just two subs. If it's vocal clarity that you need then the first place to turn is your EQ. Cut the mud and boost the good stuff. Also look at the rest of the mix for things that may be masking the vocal. I find that guitars and Keyboard can interfere a lot. A slight EQ cut to those instruments that corresponds with the strong frequencies of the vocals can help.

 

Don't worry about adding the extra speakers and instead focus on refining your mix.

[Dogoth]

If it's a volume issue,then maybe you need more PA (as you've pointed out) but if it's just a clairity issue, monkeyland might be on the right track. If it doesn't destroy their tone, try EQing out some of the mids from the most predominant instruments (as monkeyland said "those instruments that may be masking the vocals") and possibly adding those same freqs on the vocal channel (give each part it's own sonic space).

 

It is my thought that a lot of speakers these days are predisposed to sizzle & thump and having a smooth midrange is often overlooked. Unfortunatly 2 way speakers must be crossed over somewhere in the middle of the vocal range. Getting the band of frequencies to sound right around that crossover point is a tricky thing indeed (there's usualy either a hole, a bump or some kind of phase junk going on there).

 

Just my .02

[OneEng]

What kind of microphones are you using? What kind of monitoring?

 

Start your mix with the vocals all by themselves and see how much you can get out of them before you get any feedback. Back off from there and then clean up the vocals as best you can with the channel eq. "Clarity" is usually found in the mid highs and highs so boost these a bit.

 

Bring up the guitars and keys, but make sure they don't bury the vocals.... in fact, make sure they are behind the vocals.

 

You can pretty much do what you like with the drums and bass (except the cymbals and snare which can compete for the vocal frequencies as well).

 

If you believe you have a FOH problem (ie too much bottom, not enough top), turn the bass bins down at the amp a bit.

 

Where is your cross-over set?

[tolstoy]

I really do think they could use another set of tops. Subs are crossed over at 100hz. The mix sounds really pretty good, I just feel like I'm pushing it to the top of it's performance at every gig. I rarely boost anything on the EQ.....probably around 3k on the vocals, around 4k on the kick, and I usually cut around 1.5k on the electric guitar until it's solo time, then I bring it up to flat.........this seems to sit the guitar right in the mix durring rhythum parts while letting them stand front and center durring leads. I just seem to run out of gas just before I'm really happy.....and at that point all I'm really left wanting is a bit more vocal to really get it over the top of everything else. At the gig on Sunday I will probably just get what I can out of the vocal and drop everything else around it.........the problem is that we're always tring to fill a pretty good sized area with sound. I just thought this might be a easy way for me to squeeze a bit more performance out of the rig that's available. At least something to experiment with.

 

Tolstoy

[Unalaska]

You could just use both tops (1ea per side) daisy chained and see what happens. I'd do this before attempting some kind of weird panning thing. Don't overthink the problem.

[banddad]

It's unclear to me if you need more volume overall, the vocals louder in the mix, or everything is loud enough and it's just the tonality (clarity) of the vocals in question. If the vocals aren't clear because you can't get them louder than the instruments, then either turn down the instruments in the mix (how the backline/stage volume?) or add more PA. It sounds like it may not be a clarity problem, but more a problem of not enough PA - in which case more tops could help.

[tolstoy]

It is a volume problem. My thing was that I don't own the PA and I doubt their going to spring for more tops. I do have some SP5's that I could add, but I'm aware of the problems of using mismatched tops as far as setting the Main EQ to make two different design boxes sound good.

 

My idea was really just a means of integrating the other tops while avoiding combative EQ settings on the mains by isolating the two different pairs to their own side of a dual 31-band eq and side of an amplifier. Also, have a pair of speakers whose only job was reproducing the vocal couldn't heart with clarity.....not having a clarity problem per say....just thought this might be a cool way of deploying the equipment.

 

Tolstoy

[Remedy]

I agree with unalaska, but just try your idea anyway,,

[JohnnyGraphic]

On the channel strip, I like to slightly boost the highs and a smidgen of the mid-highs and cut the lows. This helps the the vocal channel stay out of the low/low-mid section of the frequencies. Just to my ears, this seems to help boost just the vocals without boosting other frequencies that will interfere with other instruments. It also helps to boost what our ears 'hear' in the vocal range of intelligibility.

 

Johnny

[TimmyP]

Cut the mud.

 

Turn it up.

 

Cut the sizzle.

 

Repeat as needed.

[Kevin T]

Google Aux feed subs

[agedhorse]

 

Google Aux feed subs

 

 

Unlikely the problem, I suspect it's way simpler and more basic than that.

[Scottn]

Had a gig with 9 different bands inside a medium sized hall. I just stuck a sonic maximizer insert on the vocals and it adds instant bite. It doesn't sound good with everyone and it also depends on your taste, but it did the job for me.

 

It's probably nothing an EQ can't do. If you just cut the lows and find that sweet spot, just boost that.

[karlw]

 

there's no reason why that rig won't do it. I run one similar except with just two subs. If it's vocal clarity that you need then the first place to turn is your EQ. Cut the mud and boost the good stuff. Also look at the rest of the mix for things that may be masking the vocal. I find that guitars and Keyboard can interfere a lot. A slight EQ cut to those instruments that corresponds with the strong frequencies of the vocals can help. Don't worry about adding the extra speakers and instead focus on refining your mix.

 

 

I don't disagree except that instead of starting with the EQ, I'd start with the singer/s. Do they have a decent sound with clarity acoustically? I.e. do they have good voices? Next is/are the microphone/s. Finding the right microphones for the vocalists gets you a lot of the way there. But it's not just about pure sound quality, it's also about rejection. Then it's about the vocalists working the microphones properly - with the right distance to get the best compromise between rejection and proximity effect. From there on, everything monkeyland says is right on.

[tolstoy]

Again, I think there's a bit of a missunderstanding here. The actuall sound of the vocal is fine. The problem is that the band has been doing mostly outdoor festivals and while the PA is OK, I think the addition of another pair of tops would help tremendously cover the larger outdoor gigs they've been doing. As is, I feel like the PA is running at peak performance the whole show....which leaves little room to really get the vocal completly over the top like I would like it to be for the large areas they are playing. At some point, the band may choose to buy another set of SP2's, but they've got other things to pick up first. I have a set of SP5's that I can contribute, and I thought that the different speaker cabs might require radically different EQ settings to sound good.......which would make simply daisy chaining an SP5 to an SP2 on either side a problem. I thought that deploying the sp5's as a quasi Left/center/right configuration would be an effective way of getting some more performance out of the overall rig with adding the fewest components. If you all think it'd be as easy as simply daisy chainging the SP5's to the SP2's so be it.......just thought this might be interesting.

 

Tolstoy

[BlackBelt]

aww, I'd just go ahead and throw those other peavey speakers into the pile and see how they sound. The worse thing that could happen is that it didn't sound that good...in which case you can always unplug them.

I'm with the other guys though...I'm thinking proper eq'ing of the instruments and working with the individual channels is the place to start.

[tolstoy]

Again, to clarify.

 

The current system is really just too small. Originally the intended use for the subs and tops were for parties in some guys norton building. Probably a little overkill, but this is the kind of guy that if he's going to have a sound system for backyard parties he's going to go above and beyond. As it turned out the finall purpose for the system was to be used with this kid's country band. The guy bought a snake and a mixwiz and stopped there. Now the guy that bought all this stuff is not directly involved with the band. The band is really centered around the kid singer and his step dad as a kind of manager. The band was used to just using whatever was available provided to them, or hiring a sound company to run the bigger shows. Well, suddenly the guy buys all this gear, which is really just part of a sound system and plops it all in the laps of the band. They asked me to run it for them, but to do so I have to supply the monitor system, the microphones, cableing, and a rack of processing that I rent from some guys here in town.

 

The band is really very good. And the system sounds pretty good too. The problem is that they're playing some pretty big outdoor shows, and the current system just can't quite keep up. Last week they played an outdoor show in a bandshell for a July 4th festival. I was probably about 75ft from the stage and there were people sitting around about another 100ft behind me. Probably upwards of 500-750 total.

 

I really think adding another set of tops will help with overall coverage. In the end, had I known what the final intended use for the system was going to be, I would have sold them some different equipment. And over time, they might upgrade some stuff.....they're already talking about buying all the stuff that they're missing so I don't have to rent the stuff anymore.

 

One thing I've noticed the last couple of times I've run this rig.........I think there may be something wrong with either the crossover or even the top amp. The top amp seems to hit the limiters waaaaay too easily. Everything up stream is running at 0db on their respective meters and master fader, and EQ input gains are set also at 0db, but the top amp goes to limit very quickly.............can't quite run the system to it's full performance because of this. Any ideas of causes? Again, I suspect the crossover because it's in the rack that I've been renting and it has been intermittant on the left side. If I shut off the amps and blow a bunch of signal through the crossover it comes back to life, but I still think something is going on.

 

Tolstoy

[Dogoth]

I've run systems with different boxes covering different areas many times. Often this is prefered as you need different pattern control for different zones. As long as they are all decent sounding to begin with and their patterns don't overlap too much it should work fine. Sometimes having a seperate EQ for the different zones helps (sometimes you don't need it). This is where a matrix comes in handy (to distribute the mix to different areas and maintain level control from FOH.