who's in charge of sound

[DoctorGParticipant]

Gilly,

I understand your frustration, and you seem to be able to understand that musicians have their personal preferences, which can sometimes run counter to the operator’s preferences. You seem to be asking about who should be in control, and you say “my opinion is that who is operating sound is the guy who gets to adjust FoH levels and EQ.”

If you have already made up your mind on this, why did you ask for advice in the first place?

I like what Chris said. This isn’t about control, it’s about results, from both a technical and a personal standpoint. As the FOH operator you ARE the person in control of that sound, and it is OK to ask the performers to respect that. All I’m suggesting is that you also respect their opinions and converse with them in a way that shows that.

I, too, am upset when a play director or musician tries to adjust my mixer settings, but if the system sounds OK after that, what’s to complain about? If you feel the sound is afterwards not OK, especially if you find yourself on the edge of feedback, then make any corrections needed, as has been suggested previously, and you should not have to apologize for it.

[gillyParticipant]

Thanks guys. It’s helped to hear different views,even if different to my own. It is kinda frustrating when someone changes ur mix, but if it makes them happy then i guess i should facilitate this (even if it hurts) unless it causes technical issues such as feedback etc. I do take on board what everyone has said. Cheers.
There was another thing though re the kick drum sound,i tried to get more punch from this using suggested EQ settings i read articles about like boosting at around 80-100 hz,cutting out the cardboard type low mids at around 400 hz and boosting at around 5-7 khz. But i wasn’t fully happy with it. Their guy tried adjustting this too but again no real noticeable punch. There is a lot of reflective surfaces in this old church building with no soft furnishings so the acoustic sound from the drums tends to be as loud as when amplified, i.e. if i mute the desk the kit volume doesnt seem to drop much at all. Would adding compression help get more punch (not sure what attack and release times to use to achieve this) or am i fighting a losing battle here because of the acoustics in the room. I have put a drum screen around the kit but it doesn’t seem to have much effect if any – there isn’t a roof to the screen just 5 side panels around 6 foot high??

[AndreasModerator]

Where’s the mic located?

[gillyParticipant]

Its just sticking inside
the front port of kick Andreas

[AndreasModerator]

Did you check if the mic produces a usable signal at all (record kick and listen)? I often struggled to get a nice and precise kick from a single mic at that location (too much oomph and drone) and prefer to use a mic on the back pointing to the center of the bass batter. Of course the signal is totally different, you’ll get much more “kick” and less “oomph”, but in a reverbant room, where you already have the oompf directly, this may help.
But I know there are better qualified people around here to give advice… 😉

[gillyParticipant]

Yes i am getting signal, it’s just not that punchy.
I will try putting another mic at the back Andreas.
I know peopke also put condenser mic on
cushion on inside but i havent any condensers

[AndreasModerator]

Boundary mics, to be precise. A regular condenser probably doesn’t work well in that high pressure area.

[Chris93Participant]

Is there enough punch in the system by itself when you play back recorded music?

Chris

[Oracle/SteveParticipant]

So Gilly…how did it go? Survive the show without catastrophe? Inquiring minds want to know!

[Dick ReesParticipant]

You’re not likely to get “punch” with the mic so far from the beater. You just get a bunch of air rushing out the port.

Get the mic right in there 3″-4″ from the beater and a bit off to one side. I use a boom on the shortest Atlas round-based stand to do this. This will let you get some real thump. I favor the EV n/d868 for all my kick needs.

The other thing you can do is to set up your comp/gate combo to emphasize the attack, but that’s another issue.

[gillyParticipant]

Thanks guys it went really well yesterday esp the evening concert. I was very pleased with how it sounded. I had it up nice and loud and i got some positive comments from the pastor and others with how good it sounded which was nice. I did actually tweak things back to my preference during the show. In fact for the last two songs i experimented my A/Bing the lead vocals EQ and i honestly thought it sounded fuller with flat EQ, which is usually the way i set up the SM58 mics in our services. The drum kit sounded really well and having it miked added a little extra weight to the already loud acoustic sound from them. I took your advice Andreas for the evening concert and added a mic on the beater side of the kick and it enhanced the click sound of the beater.
The only thing that went wrong which left me quite dissappointed was that the multitrack recording i made with the USB stick didn’t come out at all and i am certain i pressed the Play button after arming as i saw the eclipsed time increasing after pressing play. I tested it again tonite after work and it worked fine,go figure !!. Really annoying. ..

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