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Post by keymod on Jul 4, 2015 5:17:40 GMT -6
Last night. State-of-the-art, multi-million dollar "religious" center ( it hurts me to see so much money spent on presentation rather than the actual meal, but that's a topic taboo amongst friends visiting an audio forum ) Did I say multi-million? This place is amazing, what a beautiful facility. Main hall holds about a thousand seats, not a bad one in the house. Hung line arrays, huge projection screen, theater lighting. Any act would love to perform here. I didn't get to see what was in the sound booth. I won't mention the Artist's name, doesn't matter. Was looking forward to seeing him in person after hearing so much about him from the friend who got the tickets. World travelling, much-adored personality who has reached a great level of success. The show was sponsored by a national Christian radio conglomerate. From the very first note, I knew it was going to be painful. 120db? I should have brought my ear protection but, in a "church"?? The main vocal was intelligible, but very distorted. At least I could make out the lyrics. I watched the bass player, lead guitarist and keyboard player appear to be singing BGV, but I couldn't hear any. I was basically lip reading their vocals. The drummer appeared to be playing. I could see his arms flailing about, in time to what seemed to be the beat. All I heard from him was the high-pitched wash from the cymbals and the constant, chest destroying thump of the triggered kick. Now, there's nothing wrong with a triggered kick except when it is the same exact trigger at the same exact volume throughout the entire evening, regardless of the dynamics required by the particular song being played. I suppose if this were a rave club, it would have fit right in. Why was the bass player there? I could see his fingers moving along the frets, but heard nothing all night that might have resembled a discernible note. The low-end for the evening was nothing more than a constant drone, as if a 40hz feedback that wouldn't go away. I felt bad for him - he looked like he knew what he was doing and was having fun doing it. The keyboard player must have been there for looks as well, since the only time I actually heard any keyboard parts was for the approximately two minutes where he was playing a solo piano part as an intro to a piece. After that, absolutely nothing although, like the bass player, he appeared to be moving his fingers amongst the various stacked keyboards and having a good time doing it. I could actually hear the lead guitarist, though very faintly. Might have been more my perception however, since he was the one most in my line of sight. So, I'm not trying to dis these guys. In this day and age where the only way for a musician to make money is supposed to be from playing live, they deserved a better presentation. IMHO, live sound technology hasn't helped to improve live sound. Concerts and live shows should sound perfect with the tech available. This isn't a one-off for me, either. All of the shows I've been to in the last ten years have gotten progressively worse sounding over time. Makes me want to not even bother going. Jesse, what are your thoughts? Anyone else feel this way if/when you go to a live show? |
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Post by mobeach on Jul 4, 2015 6:12:07 GMT -6
MercyMe played in my 1,000 seat church back in May and everything about the sound was phenomenal. They had a really nice Midas digital console.
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Post by keymod on Jul 4, 2015 6:26:43 GMT -6
I'm pretty sure this guy is in the same league as Mercy Me. I would imagine they weren't relying on the house sound person, but rather bring along their own. And surely they must have had time for a decent sound check. Even if using in-house personnel, I would expect technology to be able to overcome lack of experience at this point in time.
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Post by mobeach on Jul 4, 2015 7:22:25 GMT -6
I'm pretty sure this guy is in the same league as Mercy Me. I would imagine they weren't relying on the house sound person, but rather bring along their own. And surely they must have had time for a decent sound check. Even if using in-house personnel, I would expect technology to be able to overcome lack of experience at this point in time. They brought their own guy and put their Midas though our speaker clusters/subs that hang from the ceiling left and right of the stage. Our console is a A&H GLD-112 which would have worked fine but they wanted to use their own scene presets in their Midas. |
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Post by Deleted on Jul 4, 2015 18:05:43 GMT -6
Not everyone is made to be a good FoH engineer. Unfortunately not even in the top league.
It might have gotten worse nowadays.
I have heard concerts where everything was compressed to death, half of the band were virtually mixed away, low end a pure mess or hipassed away, completely wrong panning, mids so muddy you can't understand a single word of the lyrics, actually i heard concerts where literally everything what could have gone wrong went wrong.
Often enough the mixing engineer seems to give up after the second song, excusing himself by claiming it's a shitty console or bad acoustics, if he is the band's engineer.
And there are the other ones, the guys that get wet eyes of happiness when they are presented a half-decent live console without scratching pots and dead channels, those guys that dial in the band in the first song, that go out in the room, listen, go back to the console and make it sound good, no matter what gear they are given. Those guys that never miss the things that were communicated with the band and monitor the concert closely from the first note to the final "Thank you and good night."
Might be these get more rare these days...
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Post by Deleted on Jul 4, 2015 18:22:45 GMT -6
Once i heard the story of a band's FoH "engineer", who explained to the engineer of the house, that the faders of the PA's graphic room equalizers should always look like they form "a perfect sinus curve". WTF. I knew a band's "engineer", who wasn't able to EQ his home hifi with the tone stack without making it sounding shitty.... LOL. I am not shocked by anything i hear or read about live engineers anymore... So, it was a funny read for me, keymod. Thanks, for this. ;-) Although, it is quite sad topic somehow... |
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Post by b1 on Jul 4, 2015 19:17:35 GMT -6
I won't mention the Artist's name, doesn't matter. Was looking forward to seeing him in person after hearing so much about him from the friend who got the tickets. World travelling, much-adored personality who has reached a great level of success. The show was sponsored by a national Christian radio conglomerate.
The drummer appeared to be playing. I could see his arms flailing about, in time to what seemed to be the beat. All I heard from him was the high-pitched wash from the cymbals and the constant, chest destroying thump of the triggered kick.
I suppose if this were a rave club, it would have fit right in. Sorry, but I can't help playing Sherlock on this. I 'll venture a guess that the artists initials are 'TM". |
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Post by keymod on Jul 5, 2015 5:24:55 GMT -6
No, not TM.
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Post by b1 on Jul 5, 2015 7:55:28 GMT -6
Ah, Ok... Maybe "HN"... Whoever it was, I'm thinking the deal fell through on the sound engineer and the artist didn't have confidence in the local FOH peeps. Maybe they were mixing at the last minute with an iPad and it seems like the IEMs were used as reference for a rough guesstimation on the house speakers; since the description describes the band didn't notice anything lacking in their personal mixes. That would be a major bummer for an international act.
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ericn
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Post by ericn on Jul 5, 2015 12:38:50 GMT -6
FOH is part shrink part engineer and part art. People think it's easy with all the frills of modern gear, for many it's the opposite. Way to easy to throw a comp and forget.
I Also dislike the fact that on a digital board I have to call something up, on a XL4 I can grab a knob before there is a problem by instinct, by the time I have that ch or six up on a digital there's a problem!
A lot of guys seam to put to much faith in their scenes, works great if everything is coming off a Hard drive, but then why mix it live ?
Live is all about riding the movement!
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Post by LesC on Jul 5, 2015 13:09:47 GMT -6
In 1990 I went to see Joe Satriani in Massey Hall in Toronto. Massey Hall is a beautiful old concert hall with great acoustics, it used to be the home of the Toronto Symphony. I've seen great concerts there, for a Johnny Winter concert I had front row seats on Johnny's side of the stage, it was amazing. I believe he introduced Edgar in that concert during one of his encores.
Anyway, beautiful hall, beautiful acoustics, I played there a few times myself. For the entire concert, I could not hear Joe Satriani's guitar except where he played solo for a few minutes. The keyboard drowned everything else out, and when it wasn't playing, the bass drowned everything else out. Could barely hear the drums, and no guitar at all. It was so disappointing.
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Post by mobeach on Jul 5, 2015 13:37:26 GMT -6
In 1990 I went to see Joe Satriani in Massey Hall in Toronto. Massey Hall is a beautiful old concert hall with great acoustics, it used to be the home of the Toronto Symphony. I've seen great concerts there, for a Johnny Winter concert I had front row seats on Johnny's side of the stage, it was amazing. I believe he introduced Edgar in that concert during one of his encores. Anyway, beautiful hall, beautiful acoustics, I played there a few times myself. For the entire concert, I could not hear Joe Satriani's guitar except where he played solo for a few minutes. The keyboard drowned everything else out, and when it wasn't playing, the bass drowned everything else out. Could barely hear the drums, and no guitar at all. It was so disappointing. It had to have been the FOH engineer, I've seen Satriani a couple times at the Boston Orpheum which is also a very old Opera House type venue, he sounded very good and I heard every note. |
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