Sound Design Live

Build Your Career As A Sound Engineer

Console Prep: Simplicity is Key (FREE lesson from Guerrilla Mixing on Digital Consoles)

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Learn more about Guerrilla Mixing on Digital Consoles.

Quick notes:

  • Start with system output setup, so you can later focus on input
  • Only setup inputs that you need + 1 (minimal with spare lead vocal)
  • Use shortest signal path from input to output (if building from scratch) – get the signal to the listener
  • Make sure you have all the channels you need (consider recording, intro, playback, communication, pink noise, DCA setup, etc)
  • 1:1 patch is usually simplest and most logical (avoid complexity!)
  • Convenient patch is sometimes dictated by the console (only even and odd channels can be linked for stereo, fader bank layout)
  • Have DCAs ready for controlling more channels

How an improperly connected motor cable arced up the chain and almost ended in disaster

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In this episode of Sound Design Live I talk with the touring FOH sound engineer for Godsmack, Erik Rogers. We discuss how he dealt with various SPL limits while on tour, console setup, and why safety is never a compromise.

I ask:

  • What’s one of the biggest things you’ve learned while working with Godsmack?
  • Tell us about the biggest or maybe most painful mistake you’ve made on the job and how you recovered.
  • From FB
    • Sam: Ask him what kind of issues does he face on the road besides the difference in venues.
    • Andreas: His Routing in his Desk (Input- Groups – Matrix etc)
    • Chris: Always interested in rock vocal chains, and mixing them with an up front guitar sound. It can be difficult to separate them at times. Tips or tricks?
    • Alfons: Does he use gates on all vocals & drums? Does he use peak or RMS compression?
    • Rob: What beard cream is best?
    • David: Compression: heavy or light? Pre or post EQ? What console are you on, what are you doing with bus compression?
    • Mark: Can I train under him ?
    • Jonathan: What tricks does he use to get that epic kick sound?

Safety is never a compromise.

Erik Rogers

Notes

  1. All music in this episode by Godsmack.
  2. Hardware: isemcon 7150, calibrator, never portico 2, shure 91, audix d6, kelly shoe,
  3. workbag: iSEMcon emx7150, calibrator, focusrite scarlet preamp, flashlight, incense, headphones
  4. Books: The Art of Happiness by His Holiness the Dalai Lama
  5. Podcasts: How I built this, Joe Rogan, Serial Killers
  6. Quotes
    1. I don’t have the same direction I did when I was 20.
    2. Sometimes you need to get hit in the face with a brick in order to focus.
    3. I guess that’s the difference between me and a monitor guy; my customer service has a barricade in between us.
    4. You’re an American and you look at 100dB and you’re like, that’s fuck’n crazy.
    5. I calibrate one microphone every day for SPL measurement and then my roaming microphone for system tuning is not calibrated.
    6. Safety is never a compromise.
    7. Anybody who’s motivated to succeed can as long as you don’t give up, and can take a shit load of criticism.

This secret weapon will make a Profile sound like no other Profile you’ve heard before

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In this episode of Sound Design Live I talk with touring FOH mixer and system tech Sean Quackenbush about how he got the job on the Brandi Carlile tour, his input and output setup, system tuning process, and secret weapon to make the Avid Venue Profile sound like no other profile you’ve heard before.

phot by Phil Garfinkel

75% of touring is not so much the skill you have, it’s can you get along with these people that you’re going to be in a bubble with.

Sean Quackenbush

Notes

  1. All music in this podcast by Rudolf Smetana.
  2. Roadie Free Radio
  3. Brandi Carlile
  4. Software: Smaart
  5. Hardware: Galileo 408, Venue Profile, Telefunken M60, SIM3, Audix TM1, Telefunken M80, Sennheiser 914, Audio Technica 8300, Radial PZDI, Neve 511, Neuman 105, Sennheiser 935, Shure 901 and 902, Sonic Farm Creamliner 3
  6. Sean’s system tuning checklist
    1. Measure left main solo. EQ to match target curve.
    2. Measure left sub solo. Observe phase relationship.
    3. Measure right main solo. EQ.
    4. Measure front-fill solo. Time align to Main.
    5. Listen at front rows to set front-fill level.
    6. Measure combined systems.
  7. Quotes
    1. 75% of touring is not so much the skill you have, it’s can you get along with these people that you’re going to be in a bubble with.
    2. I came from a company where they handed you a 58 and a DN360 and you just talked into it and just carved it up. That’s how you EQed a PA.
    3. Once everything is phase aligned you’re like, Oh wow, all of that EQ I used to put into the 58 at a graduation is gone. You put on a high pass filter, turn the mic up, and it sounds better than if you had spent 3 hours trying to make it sound like that.

FOH Mixing: EQ it till it sounds good

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In this episode of Sound Design Live, I speak with FOH mixer Scott Adamson who has toured with some of my favorite bands including Passion Pit, Haim, Matt Kim, St. Vincent, and Sleater-Kinney. I ask:

  • How do I become the next Scott Adamson and pursue a career touring as a FOH concert sound mixer? What would be your first steps if you had to start all over again?
  • What are some of the biggest mistakes you see people making who are new to FOH mixing?
  • What’s one thing that you wish everyone understood better that would make show set up so much easier?
  • What’s in your work bag?

sound-design-live-FOH-mixing-eq-it-till-it-sounds-good-scott-adamson-headshot2If it doesn’t sound good, EQ it till it does.

Notes

  1. All music in this episode by Daniel Mintseris.
  2. Scott’s free courses: The Top 5 Live Sound Tips for Stage, How to Use a Mixer – the Master Control for Live Sound
  3. The biggest mistakes by people who are new to FOH mixing:
    1. Volume: There’s a big difference between making it sound big, and it being loud.
    2. EQ, especially on outputs (tuning a PA). Tip: Look at your system EQ in the high-mids.
    3. Pushing the outputs of the console super super hot.
  4. Quotes
    1. A lot of sound engineers want to share their information with people that are interested.
    2. The hardest thing to do was to stick with it.
    3. More than anything, what I feel has helped me is to just focus on being nice to people.
    4. If you are on top of your patching, everything goes fine from there.
    5. You always have to use your ear and do what sounds good and not what looks good on the screen.
    6. EQ it till it sounds good.

sound-design-live-FOH-mixing-eq-it-till-it-sounds-good-scott-adamson-concert