There is more than one way to skin a cat, to mic a snare drum, and to set levels. Thomas sent me an email which outlines his method for setting gain structure. He started by doing something very simple – he questioned his own methods.
"I almost always lay out my channels in standard order… Drums, Bass, Guitars, Keys, Brass, whatever else and then Vocals. I'd then sound check the band in that order as is common. However, the problem with this is that the vocal mics which often require the most gain, and also sit right at the front of the mix, are mixed in last.
I now sound check in reverse order, starting with the lead vocal and keeping this mic open all throughout the sound check.
I find that the vocal mics tend to pick up a lot of top end and high-mid nastiness from cymbals, snare drum and guitar amps, especially as I often like to EQ an HF boost into vocals. But if I leave the EQ’ed and sound-checked vocal mics open for the duration of the sound check, I can factor its contribution into how I EQ the other channels.
It may mean that by the time I get to the drums I need no overheads, bottom snare, or even hats in the mix, it may also mean I don't need any boost to get 'crunch' out of electric guitar or top-end 'snap' from the snare.
Using the 'old' method I'd hear everything in isolation and try to get it sounding the best and closest to how I wanted it to sound in the mix, but by the time all the mics were live and combined the sound was no longer what I was trying to achieve at all."
Every room is different, every stage is different, and every band setup is different. What works for Thomas might not work for you. But it might. Let his actions be a simple reminder that sometimes it's ok to throw out the old way and experiment with a new one.
Question: Have you ever experimented and found a better way to do something? What was it?
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I'm Chris Huff and I've been working behind a mixer for over twenty years. Since 2008, I've been helping other sound techs learn all about the art of church audio through behindthemixer.com.
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Awesome idea, great post! I have another trick that I stumbled upon recently. I’m a wedding guitar/ ukulele player and often set up a mic for the wedding officiant as a value added service (plenty of studio and live sound experience, why not use it). I prefer using a powerful condenser mic to capture the wedding couple and officiant, rather than the more commonly seen lapel mic which is great for the officiant but doesn’t pick up the couple well. I used to set the mic on a stand at chest height between the couple and officiant, which did a good job and wasn’t too obtrusive, it’s a big mic (cad e-200) but looks good and classy, at least to me. I would set the mic to figure 8 and set my speaker directly off to the side in the rejection path of the mic. Well, I just did a wedding where there was a table between the couple and officiant, and my usual setup wouldn’t work well with the ceremony. So I put the mic off to the side, just stage right of the couple and officiant, and set it at cardioid. Guess what. I could actually turn the gain up higher as the cardioid pattern rejected more feedback that the figure 8 pattern ever did, and the sound quality was just overall better and more natural. Of course this would only work with one speaker behind the mic, but that’s all I need for 95% of outdoor weddings, I’m not trying to sound like Yankee stadium.
Nick, smart thinking! And great to hear it’s working at outdoor weddings. I was at an outdoor wedding on a flat plain on a windy day – I felt bad for the sound guy.