How good is your live stream mix? What does it sound like on the audience end? How do you quantify that? Loudness metrics are helpful. I discovered YouLean meter like a lot of other sound engineers who have been doing more broadcast gigs during the pandemic. I monitor the live stream on a mobile device on ear buds to experience what the target audience might be hearing. I still found myself wishing I had another form of reference. For live in-person events I normally leave Smaart … [Read more...]
14 online courses on live sound mixing, RF, and system tuning
How do the 14 courses from Scott Adamson, Aleš Štefančič, Stephen Pavlik, and myself all fit together? We made a table to answer that for you. They are grouped by teacher. Each teacher tends to focus on a topic of mixing, RF, or system calibration. Here's a full-page view. Please comment on this post with any questions. … [Read more...]
6 Smart, Proven Methods To Control Feedback Onstage (Without EQ)
There is nothing worse than spending an entire event struggling with feedback demons. You may have been taught to fight feedback with a graphic EQ, but there is a better way. Actually, that's not true: there are six better ways. Use my guide to controlling feedback onstage and mix in fear no more. "The feedback frequency is determined by resonance frequencies in the microphone, amplifier, and loudspeaker, the acoustics of the room, the directional pick-up and emission patterns of the … [Read more...]
How To Become A Sound Engineer
The truth is, anyone can become a sound engineer. Getting your foot in the door feels like the easy part because if you show up at the right time you could get a job immediately with no prior experience. The hard part is sticking with it and moving up. Being a sound engineer is hard; lots of people want to mix the biggest festivals, but only a small number make it to that high level. You could say that those people are naturally better engineers than the rest of us, and maybe they are, but … [Read more...]
Create an Explosion of Reverb for Magical Song Transitions
UPDATE: This article appears in The Ultimate Guide to Creative Mixing on the Digico SD5. In this video, I describe how I used macros to create efficient shortcuts in my mix on the Digico SD5 as head of sound for the Out of This Word tour for Ringling Bros. Circus. In it, I show you how I created macros to save the session, control Qlab, dim the lights and screen brightness, open the chat window, easily satisfy producer notes, create an explosion of reverb, and unmute hidden channels. When I … [Read more...]