Today, I'm writing to the musicians. One way to take control over your music is by maximizing your sound check. I've outlined how you can maximize this process so your monitor mixes are tighter, your house mixes are tighter, and your confidence is higher. The sound check process ... Read More
Starting in Church Audio: Strategies for Serious Beginners
Today, you’ve got it easy. I started learning audio in the early days of the internet with dial-up connections into services like AOL and Compuserve. There wasn’t a central hub, like Behind the Mixer, where you could go to learn everything. Today, it’s so much easier to learn the art of church ... Read More
The Four Causes for Bad Sound And Why It’s Not Always Your Fault
"It sounded bad." "I didn't like it." "It normally sounds a lot better." Have you ever heard someone describe live music using those words? There is a 75% change it's not your fault! Working in live sound, I've managed to unintentionally teach my wife how to listen to music. She'll comment on ... Read More
How To Mix Multiple Guitars
I received an email with these questions, "How should you EQ guitars (or other instruments) when you have more than one of them on stage? How do you make them distinctive?" Let's look at this common issue and what you can do. The question is in reference to acoustic guitars so with that in ... Read More
How to Overcome the Top Five Pitfalls of Small Room Mic’ing
In a grand hall, a huge coliseum, and even a huge sanctuary, the more likely our mentality is "let's do this the right way." Running sound in large venues drives us towards excellence. Now what is your mentality in a very small room? If you're not careful, you'll find yourself slipping into five ... Read More
How One Star and One Engineer Define a Proper Working Relationship
How do you talk to the guitarist? How do you talk with all the musicians? Are you overbearing? Firm? Indecisive? A "yes" man/woman? The way you talk with the band defines your relationship and effects everyone's rate of success. It wasn't until watching a music documentary last night that I ... Read More
How to Win Over the Three Typical Problem Musicians
One of the hardest parts of our job is mixing sub-optimal sounds. The frustrating part is when it’s the fault of a musician and you and I don’t have the authority to say anything. Don’t misunderstand me...I’m not saying I demand professional level musicianship from the band. I’m saying there are ... Read More
Mix Tolerance – Musicians, Song Arrangement, and When to Keep Your Finger Off the Fader
Let's be honest, musicians only play the music but we're the ones who form it into something great. Their music pales in comparison to what we create. We are mixing gods! I so hope you were offended by that. I didn’t mean it. The problem is some techs buy into that belief. The result is they ... Read More