Update

Just a quick post today with an update on what’s going on in life…

I’m probably going to take a few weeks away from the blog while life is especially crazy. This past week, our music director, Danny Cox, released a new CD and we hosted a release concert in our main auditorium on Friday night.  It was a really special night as we also captured the show for potential DVD release.  The team on stage and behind the scenes knocked the entire night out of the park and it was such a great experience to be a part of.  Hopefully I can post some video down the road of some cool moments from the night.  Personally, as a fan of Danny’s music, I think it was one of the major highlights of my time at Kensington…let alone having the honor to mix it!

A week from Wednesday, I’m leaving on a very special music mission trip to South Africa that will take me to Johannesburg and Capetown mixing for a group of guys who were musical heros growing up.  Some of you may be familiar with the group Acappella – a contemporary all vocal christian group a.la. Rockapella or Take6 that has been singing in some form or another for over 25 years.  Growing up they were a huge influence on me and it was a great experience as I was building a professional portfolio to be able to work for the Aca Company back in 2002.  A reunion group of some of the old members has formed, called Acappella Classic, to do an extremely limited number of dates over the next few years internationally and I’ve been asked to mix their shows and road manage when I can get away from my regular gig at Kensington.  In addition to the tour in South Africa, there are plans for a central European tour next year, as well as an appearance in Nashville, TN next summer.

I’m really excited to embark on an adventure outside of the States for the first time.  The only bummer is that my wife isn’t able to join and it will be REALLY hard to be away from my family for 12 days (the longest we’ve ever been apart).  If you wouldn’t mind, I’d greatly appreciate prayers for safe travels and awesome ministry opportunities to be Jesus in a new place to new people.

Here’s a clip I found on Youtube of Acappella from back in the day…

I will return in a few weeks and we’ll be head deep into the marathon to Christmas.  Until then…

Getting your mic positioning in order…

Microphone positioning and technique is largely a matter or personal tastes – usually whatever “sounds right” probably is right.  Nevertheless it’s a good idea to remind ourselves of some of the basics for getting there.

Following are a few tips that you might consider following when micing musical instruments for sound reinforcement.

• Try first to get the instrument to sound good acoustically before miking it.
• Use a mic with a frequency response that is limited to the frequency range of the instrument.
• To determine a good starting mic position, try closing one ear with your finger. Listen to the sound source with the other ear and move around until you find a spot that sounds good – put the mic there.  Remember, this may not be practical (or healthy) for extremely close placement near loud sources.
• Remember that the closer a mic is to a sound source, the louder the source is compared to reverberation or ambient noise.
• Place the mic only as close as necessary, keeping in mind proximity effect.
• When possible, use as few microphones as possible due to the Potential Acoustic Gain rule which tells us (among other things) that the volume level of a system must be turned down for every mic added in order to prevent feedback.
• If the sound from your loudspeakers is distorted even though you did not exceed a normal mixer level, the mic signal may be overloading your mixer’s input.  To correct this situation, use an in-line attenuator or pad to reduce the signal level from the microphone, or just back it away from the source some.
• More than anything, experiment and listen!

(Thanks to Shure for the tips.)

VIDEOBLOG: The Making of Venue

It is no secret that I’m quite a fan of Digidesign’s Venue line of live audio consoles.  There are certainly other tools out there but Digi has proven to be an excellent fit with the kind of art we create at Kensington and the way I am most effective mixing.

Check out a really cool video from Digidesign on the Making of the Venue platform.  One of the best parts of partnering with Digi is the accessibility of the leadership team and this video is a great example.  I’m not aware of another console manufacturer with a more public and accessible team.

Total Production: U2

I ran across this feature article in downloadable form that is by far the most in depth information chronicling the U2 360 Tour.  New details about the concept and creation, as well as each of the major systems of the tour.  If you’re interested in mind-blowing production, this article is worth the read!

Download it here. (10 mb .pdf)

Ambience Mic Thoughts

I’ve had quite a few questions regarding ambience mic technique, what to use, etc.  We now use three sets of ambience/audience mics, each with a different purpose for capturing the room.  Inspired by some great discussion on the Digidesign User Forum, my implementation is…

Mics #1 are a set of Audio Technica 835 shotgun mics (purchased for this project) on the outside corners of our stage, mounted just under our side screens, pointed out into the room.  These are the primary audience pickup source because so much of the audience’s energy is directed towards the stage that these do a great job of capturing without adding too much PA to the mix.  They’re inexpensive and sound good for what I’m using them for.  You could certainly upgrade the make/model here to something more boutique but this serves our purposes well.

Mics #2 are a set of Crown PCCs placed on the lip of the stage at the 1/3 and 2/3 lines from left to right.  These combine with the shotguns to provide some presence and immediacy to the signal since another set of shotguns wouldn’t be acceptable aesthetically in these positions.

Mics #3 are a pair of Shure SM81s hung from the first catwalk, almost at the half way point of the room, also on the 1/3 and 2/3 lines to the stage.  These mics serve almost entirely the purpose of room ambience – making the mix sound like it is happening in the auditorium rather than happening in a dead studio.

The three sets of ambience mics serve dual purpose for us – ambience for IEM and ambience for the broadcast/record feed.  In the IEM world, we lean most heavily on the shotguns at the front of the room at the corners of the stage and supplement that with the PCCs on the front of the stage towards the center.  These mics are used mainly because they provide localization of what the artist is hearing in their ears.  For example, when someone to the artist’s right calls to the stage, we want everyone on stage to turn their head in that direction.  Likewise, if someone on the front row is singing their heart out, it’s cool for the artists to be able to sense that from those PCCs on the front of the stage.  That localization goes leaps and bounds towards breaking down the isolation.  Every artist is different with how much ambience is just right.

We may still look to add an additional set or two but I’m stuck because adding them will mean needing to deal with delay times between those mics and the rest currently in place.  Two of my current three sets are directly in line with the PA so there’s little issue there.  The delay induced by the third set certainly does some phase stuff to the mix but the added space it puts in the mix when the speaker is up is worth the compromise to me.  So we’ve dodged the bullet to this point and I’d like to avoid having to go there with more mics.  This is one of the only limitations of creating the broadcast mix inside the Venue rather than in an outboard mixer/processor.  There is no way to have the degree of time alignment control that would be needed in the broadcast feed without making other more significant sacrifices.

The shotguns are the most important piece of the puzzle for me because their pickup pattern is most effective at picking up the audience and rejecting PA and stage bleed.  The PCCs are next important to fill in the center stage imaging – think of the shotguns panned hard left and right and the PCCs panned at 9 o’clock and 3 o’clock or 10 and 2.  The hanging mics are almost halfway back in the room and that time delay adds depth to the ambience space. For IEMs, it can be distracting.  But for broadcast, it enhances the size of the room and makes it feel more real when you’re listening back.