House of Pain...

This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 23/04/2012 14:16:40

Hello,

I mixed FOH Saturday night for a band, Southern Whiskey Rebellion, whose guitarists were wielding their axes plugged into Randall G3's on stacks and a bass cab taller than I am.
When I went to rig the guitars, one of the musicians basically told me not to bother LOL

It was a simple setup but a hard mix. I mic'd the drums with 3 mics, no overheads, two vocals and two channels for playing samples and thats it.

I had no control of the guitars, and I could have done nothing even if they were rigged into FOH, all I could do is keep up with the drums, loopstation and vocals and prevent feedback.

I have a SL 16.4.2 for the mixer. The club's FOH PA is a modest one, Behringer EL 4000 amps pushing B2520 and B1520s.

Sams Club is a small bar, and it was primal it was hard core rock and its was LOUD, which is a word that can barely describe the waves of sound pressure that make people reel as they literally blew us away. It is Monday morning and my ears sare still in recovery.

Now comes my question and request for guidance.
Compared to the awesome sound of the band, the sound loops sounded "tinny" or "thin" and raising the volume only succeeded in making it piercing and very uncomfortable.

This is the first time I mixed for a band that had a loop station.

If you were to setup your StudioLive to run a loop, how would you set a channel for that?

Any tips and information will be greatly appreciated and looked into.

Thanks!!

Hey Rick,

I can relate to the SPL. Happens all the time. Not my favorite type of work but if they can work with you to provide a balance and know how to do so then it can be a really good night.

As far as the other thing. What kind of output was available for the device and what was the device?

Hey Mono!
Great to hear from you again, you were the one who welcomed me to the Darkside and cookies so many months ago!
Well here is where I am!
I can't hear too well this morning but I got this great big smile on my face LOL

Actually I ran sound for 6 bands that day for Hodgefest- Throwdown in Crowtown event. Whoo hooo!

Ok, I will see if I can find out what loop station they were using. At the time I was so busy I didn't get a chance to get a good look at it.
It was a pad, about 1 foot square and less than two inches deep. It had maybe a dozen red glowing buttons in a rectangle pattern on top about 3/4" square each.

Thanks for the reply, Ill get back with info

We will be here. Most likely they either had bad loops in it or there was something wrong with the level matching. but without knowing what it was I really can't say for sure.

When I run what I call "tracks", I use no eq on it since generally they are premixed.

The club's FOH PA is a modest one, Behringer EL 4000 amps pushing B2520 and B1520s.

Ya, I'll say...especially in the light of what you said about the guitar rigs...Oui Vei

My 2 (€) cents says it´s pure clipping of those samples they used. Even clipping already on their own equipment.

As You needed to crank up volume to compensate those monsterous cabinets the soup was already boiling to stove.

You can keep the change

I often find when bands send me tracks they can be very harsh and piercing when pumped through the PA. Often times I have a solid cut somewhere in the 3K-8K range so I can bring up the volume without making it piercing.

Ya they are usually all over the place also, It's almost always a pain in my tucus.. The pro's usually have them professionally developed and they are a joy to work with, most, not so much, but I would think a sample player like the one listed would be fine to work with...

I start wawing my mental hatchet every time band brings any kind of "box" to be connected to PA. Which I´m not aware of.

Once TV-group came badly late + even worse hangover (whole crew!) and they´ve forgotten crucial cables + mixer.
I didn´t allow them to connect their system to mine. Instead made them CD for tv.

Never got paid.

It might just be a case of the PA not being able to keep up. The samples might have been a bit bass heavy, and the speakers would have a harder time trying to output that without a sub.

Like others have said, you get a couple of full stacks roaring along with an impressive bass rig, and good luck trying to keep up.

Been there, done that, and hated it, but what can you do!

The best bad example I can remember is from a long time ago - early 80's. Triumph live in a 500 seat bar. The bass rig was as big a one side of the PA, and Rik Emmett was using a mass of guitar cabs. Crank the vocal and drums to the max and hope for the best!