One of the most appealing parts of my transition to New Life Church last summer was inheriting a blank canvas of sorts when it comes to values and execution.  The talent here, both on and off the stage, is first class.  However, we’d never spent any time defining our “sound” and some strategies to be more consistent in arriving at it.  So a few months ago I committed these ideas to paper and we’ve been living inside of them ever since.  The inspiration for this discussion on the blog came from a common question I heard at Gurus a few weeks ago regarding getting a group of volunteer engineers to think alike and begin to move the same direction in crafting a mix.

Last time we discussed overall team mission and values.  I think this has to be defined first before going any further. Transitioning to more specific mix values, here’s what we’ve been living with…first some general concepts…

Accurate Tones:  We value getting it right on stage.  Great input makes great output, so it ALWAYS must start on stage.  This includes drum tuning, keys patch selection, mic placement on guitar amps, etc.

Classic:  There is a timeless quality to some records and overall music approaches that have stood the test of time.  Classic, good tones that don’t stray too far one direction or the other, trying to avoid super dated verbs/choruses/delays.  It is our goal to make timeless mixes that translate well both inside and outside our rooms.

Dynamic:  A worship set should be a journey.  Again, starting on stage and then translating through the engineer, it’s important that we take our audience on the most incredible journey.

Active:  Mixes should be active, always looking for the most interesting thing and highlighting it.  Many engineers have a tendency to be level managers and always mix a measure behind – one measure behind on pushing the solo, one measure behind on the transition, and on and on.

Now to specifics of our “sound”…

Drums/Bass and Vocals are both foundational.  Of course in worship music there is nothing more important than the lyric.  However, there’s a fine line we balance here between the vocal sitting just right in the mix or being too far out front (what I call a “churchy” mix).  Drum sounds that are dynamic, engaging, natural, and just sound great are the foundation the rest of the mix is built on.

Electric Driven.  The reality of the most common style of music we play is that it is electric guitar driven.  The hook of most songs is somehow connected to electrics, so it is important to mix like they are important to us.  This is one of those other ways to avoid a “churchy” mix…keep them out front.  As an extreme generalization, the only times the electric shouldn’t be driving the mix is when he’s not playing.  Ha!  Seriously, when the band drops out its important to find something else to fill the space such as acoustic or piano, but most of the stuff we do is driven by electric.

Keys and Acoustics provide texture and interest.  A mix that is 100% drums/bass/electric can certainly become boring, so keys and acoustics provide the flavor to add musical interest.  Mix them that way.  It is RARE that the acoustic should be further out front than the electric if both are playing.  Sometimes keys or acoustics share focus with electric, such as in the intro hook to “Greatness of our God”.

Lead Vocal relationship to BGV, Male to Female vocals.  We have a lot of people on stage on a given weekend.  A lot.  There is a coolness and hipness to this that just works at New Life Church.  I was really skeptical of it coming in but it’s really engaging in the room and works really well for us.  However, there are few songs we do that should be mixed as a huge group vocal.  There are several, but most have a clear lead vocal/BGV thing going on and its important to honor that in order to maintain relevance musically.  The same goes for the relationship of male to female singers.  More often not there are 2:1 more women on stage than men, but there’s no faster way to make a mix “churchy” than too much female vocal sitting on top of the whole thing.  We accomplish this a couple ways – first in the arrangement and making use of lower harmonies so the ladies will naturally sit in the middle of the mix rather than on top, second through actively managing the level relationship in the group and keeping lead vocal out front with the BGV group tucked nicely behind it.

I’d welcome discussion about this topic either here in the comments or via Twitter.

One of the most surprising revelations I received during Gurus from so many people I talked to was how few teams have clearly defined mission and values, as well as value statements to define the target for mixing success.  I thought it might be cool to outline our team’s mission and values with some thoughts…

The mission of our audio team is to create moments for people to engage with God.  We try to do this with excellence since I believe that excellence honors God and reflects His perfect character, and through Christ-driven ideals.  Our serving should come out of the overflow of our personal relationship with Jesus.  Our team values include many areas I’ve written about over the years…

• The Table is Set:  it is extremely important for us to be prepared for the artists’ arrival with everything tested and ready to go so the people on stage can focus on creating music and moments with as little distraction from us as possible.
• Accountable:  doing what we say we will do, not making problems mysterious, taking accountability when we make a mistake and learning from it so it doesn’t happen again
• It’s All in the Details:  audio is a game of a million itty bitty steps.  There is no single smoking gun that will equal a great mix.  It’s all in the incremental tiny moves that equal audio amazingness.
• Change Happens:  it is so important to stay flexible and prepared to adjust to requested changes.  Most times strong preparation makes it possible to adjust to change more easily.
• Are You Being Served? It is our privilege to serve the musicians, vocalists, pastors, and ultimately our church in engaging with God.  Everything we say and do should come from the perspective of doing whatever possible to facilitate an unforgettable experience for the people on stage.  The result will most often translate directly to the people in the seats.
• Push the Envelope:  It is important to keep looking for ways to improve what we do and never become satisfied with the status quo.  There is always a way to be better in our craft.  Mixing is a skill and requires constant refinement.
• Rest in the Call:  it is the call of God on our lives that allows us to be successful mixing audio.  Mixing can be especially stressful and a high pressure position.  It’s important to keep perspective regardless of how good or bad things go that we are honoring God by serving Him with our talents and resting in that call.

I started out putting this whole thing in one post but it’s too much, so I’m splitting into two.  Next time we’ll dive into specific mix values.  If you haven’t defined your mission or values – both in general or directly related to the mix – I challenge you to do so.  I think you will find the exercise beneficial for your team.  Only time will tell how impactful these thoughts really become to our team.  But ever since committing to them, I make it a practice to use them in conversation or in coaching, all the while looking to make them part of who we are.

Until next time…

Gurus of Tech was an awesome experience last week in Chicago.  It was really great to visit with so many old friends, as well as meet face to face many new ones from Twitter and this blog.  The content was as great as you would expect…especially Scott Ragsdale’s interview with Robert Scovill.  I’m planning to unpack a few of statements from his interview over the next few weeks because there’s so much wisdom here, especially in the world of church production.  If you haven’t seen it yet, regardless of if you’re an audio guy or not, go here, watch, and take notes.  His is session #4.

http://www.willowproduction.org/gurus-chicago-2011/

The magic to me of Gurus is the organic-ness of it all.  In a world where there is seemingly at least one conference or trade show a month, Gurus still maintains an innocence just by the whole premise behind it – technical artists gathering together to teach each other, be inspired, and share community.  I’m definitely a convert and will be doing everything I can to take a group from New Life to the gathering this summer in Louisville.

I was especially honored to be able to join a panel with some great friends this time around to talk about the art of mixing.  If you were not able to make it and would like to download “bootleg” audio from our session, my friend Dave has it posted on his blog.  You can find it here… http://goingto11.com/?p=1032

I mentioned this on Twitter a few weeks ago but figured it was worth a full blog post. A little while back I happened on a weekly video podcast led by Dave Pensado called Pensado’s Place that has quickly proven it should be required viewing for anyone serious about mixing. If you don’t recognize the name, I promise you that you know Dave’s work. Dave has mixed hits for bands like The Black Eyed Peas to Justin Timberlake, Elton John, Jamiroquai, and Christina Aguilera. In 2002, Dave received a Grammy for his work on the hit single “Lady Marmalade,” featuring Christina Aguilera, Lil’ Kim, Mýa, and Pink. Do I have your attention yet?

Every week Dave and his manager Herb Trawick host a roughly 45 minute program that is full of techniques, q & a, and interviews with well known current mix engineers. The content is really well done and it’s really important to me that we support Dave in this since it is highly unusual to find someone as successful as Dave creating this kind of resource.

One of my favorite episodes was #4 when he interviewed Tony Maserati. I’m linking to it here to get you hooked and then go check out Dave’s site to catch up on the rest of the back episodes already in the can.

If you follow me on Twitter, you probably noticed quite a bit of chatter a few weeks ago regarding a post Mike Sessler wrote back around Christmas about mixing FOH with in-ears that has generated quite a bit of buzz.  It was recently republished on ProSoundWeb and in Live Sound magazine.  You can find the original post here, along with a later response here.  Dave Stagl wrote a great response to the topic here.  I took it pretty squarely on the chin by some people for challenging such a popular post so I thought it might be a good idea to try to more clearly outline the why behind my objection with more than 140 characters per post.  I’m going to try not to re-tread the things already written by others so make sure you catch up with the original posts if you haven’t already.  This actually piggybacks well on an overall topic that’s been on my heart for a long time but I’ve not had the specific inspiration to outline fully until now.

I agree completely with what others have said that the most important thing is that the people signing Mike’s checks are happy with the results he is getting from a challenging PA deployment and mix position.  I also fully understand that you need to do what you need to do when you’re mixing in a challenging room, and I’ve certainly had my fair share of those kinds of situations.  What actually set off the whole epic Twitter conversation was a tweet I saw posted to Mike that said this:

SOUND GUY #1: I was a doubter but I just mixed all practice with IEMs and it sounds really good! I just got a new method.

ME:  Boo!  I don’t get disconnecting from the live room.  It’s called live mixing for a reason! #justbecauseitsonablogdoesntmakeitgood

In the conversations that followed, here are a few examples of other responses I heard:

SOUND GUY #2: I could find the specific balance between instruments faster in my ears

ME: I would argue spend the energy learning to find that balance in the room rather than IEMs

SOUND GUY #2: Why? What is the argument for taking the harder path?  I’m not opposed to hard work if it has significant benefits

ME: Because your job is to mix for what the audience is hearing.  They aren’t listening to IEMs with ambience mics.

Another snipet went like this:

ME: How do you compensate for what’s happening in the room?  Great mixes, especially in worship, are emotional & responsive.

SOUND GUY #3: Same way a worship leader using ears does. Pay attention, watch and feel what’s going on around you. Respond to the moment.

SOUND GUY #4: Well hopefully the worship leader has audience in his ears and not solely depending on his eyes to gauge reaction

SOUND GUY #3: Which is the same reason we put the audience mics in our IEM reference mix.

I believe strongly that this conversation reflects a path some are heading down that is the antithesis of sound technique for mixing great music in churches.  I’m going to probably go a bit more spiritual here then I normally do on this site, but after mixing more than several thousand services professionally, I’m really passionate about this from first-hand experience.  Mixing worship is a beautiful dance that happens with every note between the musician on stage, the engineer creating the mix, the audience who is participating, and the Holy Spirit who is hopefully moving throughout the room.  A weakness or mis-step in any one of these areas will hinder the overall experience.  Try having an engaging worship experience without the Holy Spirit being present and tell me how that turns out.  Expect amazing worship with a disconnected audience and while the musicians may enjoy themselves, the overall room will suffer.  Really great music played by great musicians with a really responsive, great mix takes the experience for the audience to an entirely different level.  I believe all music and the emotions stirred within us as we engage come directly from God, so really this dance applies to any great music experience.  Stand in a stadium as U2 plays “Where The Streets Have No Name” and tell me that God isn’t behind the feelings you’re experiencing.  No Way!  Experience Fleetwood Mac playing “Don’t Stop Thinkin About Tomorrow” with the USC Marching Band and tell me that isn’t a spiritual experience.  No way!

When you put IEMs in your ears or headphones on your head while you mix, you are altering that balance between those four pillars in a fundamental way.  It is impossible for you to react to what is happening in the room the same when you are disconnected artificially from what’s happening in the space.  Yes you can put ambience mics into your reference mix and technically you are hearing the “audience” while you mix, but in no way is this the same thing.  You’re removing the intangible, inexplainable spirit from mixing and trying to replace it with a “technical” solution that while on paper is giving you the same technical experience, IT IS NOT THE SAME!  You might as well be outside of the room and mixing from a video monitor of the room.  There is no end to this slippery slope.

The only compromising solution I’ve ever experienced that will improve the mix location while still keeping you somewhat connected to the room is nearfield monitors at FOH, delayed back to the PA so they are time-aligned.  This is still a huge compromise because it is very different having speakers within several feet of your ears vs. the rest of the audience who is 30-100 feet away from drivers, but at least in this scenario you are still connected to what is actually happening in the room.  If something goes left while you’re mixing, the likelihood of you catching it is much higher.  Personally I love having monitors at FOH vs headphones.  I have mixed that way for three years and I could never go back.  I don’t even keep a set of headphones at FOH when I’m mixing – if I need to solo something up, it goes in the monitors so it places in front of the PA soundstage for me.

Are there some people using IEM’s on tour with good results?  Sure.  There are guys doing close under-micing of every cymbal in a drum kit too but that doesn’t mean that is the best approach to a natural and dynamic drum mix.  There are lots of things being done in live audio all over the world that someone has good luck with but doesn’t deserve to be replicated widely.  I promise you that you will not find one of the greats – Robert Scovill, Joe O’Herlihy, Dave Skaff, John Cooper, Dave Kob, and countless others – mixing for long stretches of time with something covering their ears.  Those are the guys that I aspire to mix like, and if you’re serious about this art, you should too.  Just like great stage artists of our time, these engineers’ work speaks for itself.

“The difference between greatness and mediocrity is not measured by the quality of the tools but by the quality of the approach.” – Robert Scovill, 2008 I believe @ Willow Creek Arts Conference

Here’s my point. It’s way too easy nowadays with all of the tools at our disposal to make mixing an intellectual, artificial, explainable task. We snapshot and program everything, we virtual soundcheck from a static performance for hours and hours, we use racks of plug-ins and outboard processing that would have never been available even 5 years ago, all in search of elusive greatness.  It’s human nature to take something that is unexplainable and try to make it explainable and repeatable.  I read many blog posts, magazine articles, and podcasts from experts with the best intentions every month, but the result way too often tries to make the inexplainable explainable.  Playing and mixing music is not an intellectual and repeatable task.  It’s mysterious…what works one day doesn’t necessarily the next.  The band doesn’t play the same every time.  The mix doesn’t develop the same every time from your snapshots.  Mixing is every bit a skill and an art that no matter how long you work to perfect, you cannot wrangle fully.  There’s always something new to learn, something new to adapt to. That’s what I love about what I do.

I challenge you with everything I have to embrace the tension of this beautiful dance.  It is not comfortable and it is not easy, but that’s part of the fun.  If your mix position is awful, I would argue there is NOTHING more important to address in your technical budget.  The reality is that people will tolerate poor lighting and poor video because neither are invasive to their person, but bad audio will keep a visitor from coming back to your church or a fan from buying another ticket to your show.  Can we fix every PA problem?  Certainly not – budgets often don’t allow it.  I mixed on an aged EAW KF650 rig for three years, 5 services a week, so I know well the frustration of knowing what the mix could be if it were only coming through a better transmission system.  If you have to come up with a creative solution to get you by until you can fix the real problem as Mike has done, by all means do whatever it takes to get the best audio you can get.

But I will disagree with you you every time if we’re considering mixing IEMs a superior technique outside of these compromised scenarios.  Master the art of mixing.  Only snapshot the bare minimum of what you can’t physically mix by hand.  If the band isn’t going to play it the same every time, why should you mix it the same each time through programming, plug-ins, and snapshots?  Plug-ins are an incredible tool, but run away from anything that takes you too far into the analytical brain and away from listening, mixing, and experiencing like a fan.

“Mix like a pro but listen like a fan. Always try to gain more of the listener’s perspective and turn off the analytical brain” – Scovill from the same conference.  This quote has always stuck with me.

Thank you for considering my perspectives and sticking with me through such a long post.  This actually sets up well the conversation we’re going to have next week at Gurus of Tech in Chicago on Mixing – It’s an Art, not a Plug-In.  I’d welcome dialog about this topic either here on the blog, via Twitter, or offline.

We interrupt this series on #DECADE for a quick blip on Gurus of Tech in Chicago.  If you’ve never heard of it before, Gurus is what I would consider, for lack of a better term, a grass roots organization of church production artists from all over the country who gather a few times a year regionally for education, networking, and encouragement.  In the past, events have happened twice a year – once around NAB and once in the summer in Kentucky.  The team at Willow Creek so graciously stepped up this year to host an event in Chicago that is happening next week.  Due to the close proximity to DECADE that just wrapped up two weeks ago, plus my wedding anniversary all falling within the timeframe of Gurus, I had decided a few weeks ago to pass this time around.

Thanks to some gentle last minute prodding from friends and my amazing wife’s full blessing, plans have changed and I’m looking forward to attending my first Guru event.  On top of that, apparently there was a cancellation on the speaking team and so I was asked to join a panel with my good friends Dave Stagl and Scott Ragsdale to discuss “Mixing – it’s an art, not a plug-in”.  As a fan of great mixing, I’m really looking forward to hearing the other guys’ opinions on the questions we’re going to be asked as its a topic I think we’re all really passionate about.  It should be a fun time on Monday night.

If you were planning to just catch Guru’s the next time around as I was, I strongly encourage you to reconsider.  I just heard this morning that now over 500 have registered for the event so I’m sure this is going to be well worth your time, even just from a networking and relationship standpoint.  I, for one, am really looking forward to finally putting names and faces together with some longtime readers and Twitter friends.

If you’re going to be at Gurus, please make sure and come introduce yourself.  See you there!

I’m going to wrap up this initial tips and tricks of the M7CL with my favorite uses of the effects processor in the onboard rack.

For VOX verb, the Rev-X Plate does it for me 99% of the time.  Between the reverb time, pre-delay, and hi/lo pass filters, it is easy and fast to create subtle yet effective verbs.

For VOX delay, my favorite preset on any Yamaha desk I’ve ever mixed on is Delay LCR.  This one is insanely powerful because you can quickly create any combination of straight ahead 1/4 or 1/8 delays to intricate left/right/center ping pongs.  Again, the built in hi and lo pass filters make it simple to adjust the sound of the delay so it can be subtle and musical.

For a Kit verb, again either the Rev-X Plate or the Rev-X Hall with one of the stock presets sounds great to my ear.

We also use one more instance of Rev-X Hall for a generic instrument verb that can be put over piano, violin, or acoustics as appropriate.

One thing I’m trying to wade my way through is that Kensington really taught me to go much lighter on my effects then I ever used to before KCC.  I’ve encountered most engineers here at NLC.tv who lean back towards that wetter (and, in my opinion, more dated) sound.  The reality is that unless we’re talking about a worship ballad, most music being released nowadays is far drier than it was even just a few years ago.  So the challenge is to find ways to give vocals and instruments spice in the mix in a timeless fashion without letting it go so far that the mix loses definition or takes a 1-way trip back to the 80′s.  More on this later because I’m sure I’m opening a can of worms here…

Since I’ve been on a Dave Rat kick as of late, I ran across this really informative video on Youtube a few weeks ago from Dave that explains a bussing and compression strategy he uses for mixing.  I’d read about this, maybe on his blog, a few years ago.  This is more concise and easier to follow than those articles.  Definitely worth the watch…

Continuing the video blog Mondays format of the past few weeks, here’s another cool gem of Manny Marroquin outlining mix thoughts from John Mayer’s tune “I Don’t Trust Myself”. There’s good insight here.

I’ve recently been through two music history-type books that are worth the read. There is so much to learn studying the work of engineers who have achieved greatness in our industry.

IN THE STUDIO WITH MICHAEL JACKSON by Bruce Swedien

No one was closer to Michael Jackson at the height of his creative powers than Bruce Swedien, the five-time Grammy winner who, with Jackson and producer Quincy Jones, formed the trio responsible for the sound of Jackson’s records – records that topped the charts and shook the world. Friend, co-creator, and colleague, Bruce Swedien was a seasoned recording engineer-plucked from a job at legendary Universal Audio in Chicago – when he began working with Michael Jackson and Quincy Jones on the soundtrack to The Wiz, and he was the master technician who gave the records their sound as the trio progressed to Jackson’s greatest triumphs, Off the Wall and the iconic, history-making Thriller, which revolutionized music and video and fixed Jackson in culture as the King of Pop. In the Studio with Michael Jackson is the chronicle of those times, when everything was about the music, the magic, and the amazing talent of a man who changed the face of pop music – and culture – forever. In his laid-back style, Bruce Swedien offers anecdotes about being part of Quincy Jones’ extended “family” and reveals the technical details of creating Michael Jackson’s biggest-selling albums, as well as Bad, Dangerous, and HIStory. Including over 100 photos, In the Studio with Michael Jackson provides an insider’s look that will thrill anyone interested in the nuts and bolts of hit making and the history of some of America’s most influential music.

HOW DOES IT SOUND NOW? LEGENDARY ENGINEERS & VINTAGE GEAR by Gary Gottlieb

Chet Atkins was playing his guitar when a woman approached him. She said, “That guitar sounds beautiful.” Chet immediately quit playing. Staring her in the eyes, he asked, “How does it sound now?” The quality of the sound in Chet’s case clearly rested with the player, not the instrument, and the quality of our product ultimately lies with us as engineers and producers, not with the gear we use. How Does It Sound Now? Legendary Engineers and Vintage Gear contains insightful interviews with 31 of the most famous audio engineers of all time on how they utilized (and in some cases invented) classic analog recording hardware to make some of the highest quality recordings of all time. Each interview provides a walkthrough of audio and music history as you learn how some of your favorite recordings came to be made. But the interviews don’t only reveal what gear was used and why. Throughout the discussions, each interviewee brings up how creating quality recordings was and always will be the ultimate goal of the engineer. And of course, a big reason why each of these legendary engineers was so successful was that their standards for quality were so high. The interviews are loaded with advice and insight on how recording is an art form and how one might go about becoming a master.

If you follow my Twitter or Facebook accounts, you’ll remember lots of posts this past summer & fall about studio time.  After a year or so away from the studio, I took a project this past summer to engineer & mix a worship project for the church I was last involved with before going to Kensington.  I’ve been good friends with Chris Lindsey, who produced the project & sang lead vocals, for almost 10 years now but we’d never done something like this together.  It was a lot of fun.

Because of my heritage in the Church of Christ, I have lots of experience with acappella vocals.  I’ve always found this background served me well as an engineer.  If you can mix/blend 4 or 5 part contemporary vocal stuff, it seems like mixing a band is often times MUCH simpler.  My background made a big difference in mixing bands with money vocals like Avalon or Huey Lewis.

Below are some samples of what we did.  Everything you’ll hear, including the percussion, is all vocal.  Each song is comprised of 6-10 bed vocals – all doubled.  Add lead vocal, bass, and percussion and all told, most tunes come in with anywhere from 24-40 tracks.  I work exclusively in ProTools and this was my first project to do completely in new Version 8.  I have about 90 hours in the project – 35 tracking and 55 editing, tuning, & mixing.  My friend Michael Forehand, a great engineer himself, mastered everything for me and I’m very pleased with the finished result.  Check it out and if you’re interested in more about Chris or picking this up for yourself, head over to his website at chrislindseymusic.com

Let God Arise

Oh The Deep Deep Love

Mighty To Save

]]> http://www.cordernotes.com/blog/blog/we-believe/feed 0 http://www.cordernotes.com/blog/blog/ambience-mic-thoughts http://www.cordernotes.com/blog/blog/ambience-mic-thoughts#comments Fri, 02 Oct 2009 13:00:11 +0000 timcorder http://www.cordernotes.com/blog/?p=1594 Posted in blogIEMMic TechniqueMixingTechniques

I ran across some cool conversations happening on the Sound on Sound forum a few weeks ago in reference to unity mixing.  If you’ve missed the various things I’ve written about the topic, there are links on the homepage of this blog to the articles.

I’ve also seen another forum where one poster blasted me and called me a moron for approaching this topic.  It has been fun to see how literally some people take this whole thing and think I’m somehow saying you should literally mix your show from the gain knobs or advocate poor gain structure in your console or the rest of the system.  QUITE the opposite.  I run my console really hot because we all think the Digidesign mic pre sounds better when its hit pretty hard and the desk as a whole sounds great when you get up and go with it.  I think some are missing the point of my suggested unity mixing completely, so let’s dive into this just a bit to hopefully clear it up.

The whole point of this discussion is to make the inputs well mixed while setting gain, rather than just blindly going channel by channel and setting each to maximum individual gain.  It doesn’t have to be perfect but just get things in the neighborhood so you don’t have to run some faders -30 or -40 dB below others.  This makes mixing monitors from the same desk (which we do at every Kensington campus) MUCH easier.  In this configuration, the inputs are well mixed, so that the sends to the monitor mixes and FOH faders are (more or less) at the same place across the board, making adjustments for the band a lot easier.  If I know the band well, I can often dial in their monitor mixes from the FOH board ahead of soundcheck and nail it with few, if any, changes needed.  We’re still running the inputs as a whole as hot as they should be through the desk so let’s not get into the whole topic of maximizing digital bits in the desk and the like.

Another example… imagine trying to adjust a monitor send, pre-fader of course:

A) with a very hot input, therefore with the FOH fader pulled down a lot, and
B) with a low input setting, with the fader pushed nearly all the way up . . .

‘A’ will be very sensitive to tiny adjustments at 9 o’clock and
‘B’ will need large movements at 4 o’clock.

With a mess like this all over a big mix, the experience is not nice trying to keep the band happy with their wedges and that is what gets so many of our engineers in trouble!

Second, if you end up with a difference, for whatever reason, where one fader is sitting at -30 or -40 dB most of the time, you have a MUCH harder time mixing due to the same amount of travel for a 3dB difference at or near unity, now gives you a 10-20 db difference with every move (Or whatever it works out to on the board, but a LARGE difference).  This makes fine tuning a mix really difficult.

That’s it.  Does this help make the concept clearer at all?

We finally made it to the last and likely most important mix in the IEM series…lead vocal/worship leader.  In this particular example our lead vocal is also playing acoustic, so not surprisingly you’ll hear those two inputs most focused in the mix.

As with some of the other mixes we’ve discussed, our vocalists seem to largely prefer their voices dry…if they want to wetten things up, adding more of the extras channel does the trick.  This works well in our particular setup since the vocals are fed to the IEM system direct off of board channels – adding verb would increase the complexity of routing.

I strongly encourage everyone who wears ears to keep both sides in all the time.  My primary reasoning is that your brain does a cool thing when it receives similar input from both ears in summing that source 6 dB internally.  So, if you only wear one ear, you’re going to have to turn up your IEM mix approximately 6 dB in order for it to feel as loud as both ears in.  Obviously you have to be really careful with this because an untrained artist could easily cause themselves hearing damage night after night of crazy levels in their IEM.

I say all that to say, the mix an artist wants changes pretty dramatically depending on whether they are wearing one or two ears.  These mixes you’re going to listen to today are one ear in mixes, so you’ll find that the acoustic, vocal, and click are WAY more out front then in the other mixes we’ve analyzed since the artist is getting a lot of their sound ambiently through their other ear not wearing the IEM.

Our philosophy at Kensington regarding ears has been to do everything possible to gain band acceptance.  By doing that, the stage volume lowers significantly and vocals have a much easier time just hearing themselves through a wedge.  I’ve mentioned that we have 6 channels of wired ears and 1 wireless transmitter/receiver system.  Because of this wireless limitation, we haven’t pushed very many vocalists to jump to ears.  This isn’t necessarily a bad thing since vocalists often have a much harder time adjusting to performing through IEM systems then instrumentalists because it can effect their pitch center, how loudly they perceive their head voice, etc.  So we’ve had good success getting musicians on ears and, by doing that, getting enough sonic space on stage for the vocalists to be able to hear themselves comfortably through wedges and not have to deal with their transition yet.

I’ve heard from another large church that they have the policy that a new vocalist must sing BGV on ears for at least 6 months in order to get used to them before they would ever ask them to sing lead VOX.  I can certainly see the wisdom in that approach.

We’ll wrap this whole thing up next time with the live mixes of the 2 songs we’ve been using for test material so you can hear overall context.  See you then!

Continuing the IEM series, today we’re talking about the keys mix. We’re departing from the two tunes we’ve used for the rest of this series since there weren’t any keys in that band.

On a given week, we submix as many as three keys sources in mono to send to the IEMs. The first source is Ivory from our Slam Grand.  If the piano shell is not in the set, often times I will still run MIDI out of the primary keyboard into the Ivory system so that tone is available if we want a grand piano patch in the day.  The other two inputs are our house keys – a Yamaha Motif8 and a Korg Triton.  Every once in a while one of our artists might bring in their own boards but it doesn’t happen very often in a month.

I was concerned when we first installed our IEM system that the keys would need to be in stereo just like the drum kit in the ears mixes and that would present channel count issues with our desired allocation.  Thankfully, I don’t think anyone has ever commented on the keys being submixed to mono rather than stereo.  As a result, the only truly stereo submixes in the ears are the drum mix and the extras channels.  Everything else goes to the IEMs in mono and can be panned around in each individual mix as desired.

I’ve received a few questions via email for more information about the ambience mics specifically so I am preparing more info about that to tag onto the end of this series.

With that said, check this out…

Next time we’ll listen to the final IEM mix – lead vocal/worship leader.  Thanks for reading!

Continuing our series on IEM mixes, today we’re going to focus on the drummer’s mix.  If you’ve missed the other parts of this series, go back through the last few days posts to catch up.  Sorry for the data dumps in some of these posts but I’m just trying to make sure I cover things as thoroughly as possible.

When we first adapted the PQ system for our IEM mixes, I was concerned that a stereo drum mix that everyone shared might cause problems.  The reality couldn’t be further from that.  A stereo aux creates the submix for the drums and it is slaved to the channel pan so whatever panning is done for the house translates to the ears.  I actually leave the sends to this aux set to unity in my default console setup.  That way, as I soundcheck the drums, I can build my house mix with the faders near unity and it translates almost perfectly to the ears.  It is RARE to need to tweak the mix for the ears – I actually can’t tell you the last time I listened to it other than preparing for these posts.  It just works every time.

By now you should be sensing some trends.  The ears mixes are pretty dry and really simple.  If we had a separate monitor desk, I’m sure there are more things we could do to make the environment even better for the artists (things like manually riding audience levels, riding solos, adding effects if desired, etc) but this system works for our guys, as evidenced by the wide acceptance factor.

Song #1 is still “My Savior, My God”.  Check it out…

Song #2 adds the click and track.  Again the click takes almost singular focus in the mix since everyone is locking to it.  I can’t speak very much into what it takes to be successful with the whole click track thing from an artist perspective.  Kensington has been using click’s for so long that it was just something we do by the time I got here.

Again, if there are questions, let’s use the comments section to discuss.

Next time:  keys mixes.  We’ll have to use different songs then the ones we’ve been using so far since there wasn’t a keys player in this band.  It will be good to change it up a bit, as well!

Today’s IEM mix we’re going to evaluate is from our bass guitar player. Again, there’s very little processing on the mix. This one would probably benefit from listening on better speakers then those on a laptop. The experience is pretty different for me listening to these clips on my speakers vs. on some good IEMs so you’ll probably find the same thing.

Right now is a good time to stress the importance of good ear pieces in order to achieve wide acceptance.  When I started at Kensington, all that we owned were some Shure E1s and NO ONE was excited to put those things on for anything.  The first time we did a band with ears for a holiday, everyone but the bass player wore E1s and it was painful.  Now we use Shure products exclusively (I’ve written about this before – check the archives if you’re interested in why) and have a mix of SCL3, SCL4, and SCL5′s.  Since I consider us still in the early days of a transition campus-wide to IEM, only a small handful of our artists own their own ear pieces.  Most use our house sets.  We stock the replacement foam and change it for each set whenever a new artist is using them.

Focusing now on the mix, our artists get a stereo drum mix to their PQ mixer for their IEMs. Everyone gets the same drum mix and we find that works fine for us. The only exception is that the bass player also gets the kick channel individually in addition to the stereo mix since bass players always want more kick then the rest of the band. When you listen to the first clip from “My Savior, My God”, the first thing that jumps out is the placement of kick and bass in relation to everything else in the mix. There’s also quite a bit more of the extras channels in this mix then in the electric mix we listened to last time. One caveat though – due to the channel limitations of our system on this particular night, the bass player chose to have mono extras rather than the normal stereo. Personally the stereo part of ambience is really important to me but this particular artist isn’t reliant on ambience so its a simple trade off. I’m actually surprised in listening to his mix that he has this much extras present. Regardless…

The second clip, like last time, adds a click and track into the mix. What is interesting is that with this mix, the click is pretty buried. In fact, once the drums kick in I don’t think it is very present at all. Again you can get a better idea of the importance of the extras channel in the mix when you hear the crowd singing along.

Again, if there are questions, let’s use the comments section for this. I’m really not sure what else is helpful to share.

Next time: drums IEM mixes

Today we’re continuing the series on IEM mixes.  I’m in my fourth year mixing at Kensington and when I started here, every artist on stage used a wedge and those wedge mixes were created for better or for worse at FOH.  The job was daunting, to say the least.  Fast forward to today and all but three artists (40+) now use IEM solely when they play at our main Troy campus (the portable campuses have not begun transitioning to IEM yet but hopefully soon!).  All of these things I’m sharing in this series of posts are things we’ve learned along the way in order to gain such wide acceptance from artists.  This is by no means the only way to do it but it is OUR way.

The first IEM mix we’re going to evaluate is lead guitar. Most of our worship arrangements are electric driven so this is a pretty important place to start. Our mixes are generally very dry and we use the extras channels to add space when desired. I’ve worked with artists who like more processing in their ears but this setup seems to work for our artists since we don’t have a dedicated monitor engineer.  There isn’t any significant processing on the mixes you’re going to listen to – they are created with a stereo PQ channel on the Venue, the on-board limiter is engaged to protect the output on the top end, and that mix then feeds the wired IEM system.

I have two samples from tunes to listen to for the electric guitar artist. This first one is from “My Savior, My God”. The instrumentation is electric, acoustic, bass, drums, lead vocal, and BGV. It sounds a little cliche, but you’ll quickly see as we go through this series that each person’s mix probably starts with a “more me” philosophy. This makes sense when you remember that I strongly encourage all of our artists to wear both ears all the time and this results in lots of isolation from the outside world in what they’re hearing. The result is a big need to hear what the artist is doing individually, and then surround that with the other instruments to provide timing, pitch, and ensemble. The band is not playing to a click in this one so you’ll see where our artist placed the drums in relation to everything else. I think it is interesting how out front his guitar really is in his mix, yet you can clearly maintain the placement of the kit, vocal, and the worship leader’s acoustic.

DISCLAIMER – this obviously isn’t the only way to build an IEM mix but hopefully it is helpful to hear what a really good musician is listening to.

The second sample is a little different in the band is playing to a click & track. At the start of the tune, you’ll hear the count off and a really broken down intro. The electric is just doing atmosphere stuff at the beginning and really kicks in at 1:12. The interesting thing here is the difference in placement between the click and the drum kit in this one. As I listen to the mixes that most of our guys dial in, it seems when playing to a click, everyone really dials into that click and keeps it out front with the kit tucking in behind it. This might just be a preference thing but it works for our guys since everyone is so used to playing to a click. Obviously your mileage may vary.

If you have any questions based on what you’re hearing, feel free to use the comments on this post for discussion.

Next time: IEM mixes for bass

One of the biggest questions and challenges I hear about from other audio guys, especially in churches, has to do with IEM mixes – what should be in them, what do good ones sound like, how do you help your artists have successful mixes, etc. etc.

Today we’re going to start a little journey over the next 2 weeks to cover each major instrument – bass, electric, keys, drums, and vocals – and talk about what makes good mixes for each category.  I also have actual samples that I have recorded so you can hear what real guys dialed in and we’ll analyze each one.  I’ll be posting Mon-Wed-Fri this week and next to continue this little series.

To start things off, I want to refer you to a video blog I did a few months ago about our PQ system that might be helpful so you can see more about how our particular system functions for our artists, just for context.

Next, a tool that is REALLY critical to good IEM mixes is what we call our “extras channel”.  A common complaint you’ll hear from artists who are first transitioning to IEM is that it can feel really disconnecting and isolating.  All of a sudden, guys hear themselves in glaring detail – for good and for bad.  If the tone is aweful, it’s much easier to ignore it when its just coming from an amp at your feet or a wedge.  When it’s in your ear, there’s no escaping it.  The biggest trick to making the ears feel real and less isolating is effective use of ambience mics.  I’ve written about this before, but we have three sets of ambience mics that I use as the primary foundation of our “extras channel” – a set of shotguns on the side of the stage, a set of PCC mics on the 1/3 and 2/3 lines of our stage lip, and a set of small diaphragm condensors hanging over the crowd about half way back.  These mics are mixed on a stereo aux that is fed to the IEM.

The “extras channel” allows the artist to decide how isolated they want to feel when they’re wearing their IEMs.  It is really important that this mix be stereo so it will feel right.  A couple of our guys choose to have mono extras just because they want to use one of their PQ channels for something else, but for the majority of artists I don’t recommend letting them go mono.  Stereo is really important.

Along with the ambience mics, I also mix post fader sources for anything else the artist might need when they AREN’T playing so they can remain connected to what’s going on – speaker and greeter mics, video playback sources that might role while they’re waiting to play, and talkback from the stage manager so they can hear rehearsal requests and communicate back and forth.

Here’s a sample of what the “extras channel” sounds like when we isolate it all by itself during a worship tune.  It really doesn’t sound like much on its own, but the presence that this adds to the mix has done wonders for IEM acceptance at Kensington.  If you don’t have something like this in your ear mixes, you don’t know what you’re missing!

Next time:  electric guitar IEM mix

Today’s post is inspired by content I recently watched on Ownthemix.com (are you a member there yet??).  I’ve realized this is one of those areas where there’s lots of things I just do instinctively without really thinking about them in order to ensure smooth transitions between the elements I’m mixing of a service, band set, event, etc.  I’m going to try to outline some thoughts that I’m planning to share with my team the next time we’re together talking audio.

A primary responsibility of mixing audio well in a church is to do everything possible to eliminate distractions.  One of the best ways to do this is by having great transitions.  Transitions make a good audio guy into a great one.

• Don’t just mute and unmute inputs.  Always try to fade into and out of elements.  Make them smooth and seamless so they flow together.  If the mic starts feeding back, you can catch it before it gets out of control.  You don’t ever want to just turn on an input full volume – who knows if it will be louder then expected, crackle, or have feedback.
• Always turn on a communicator’s mic right on time.  Too early and you might catch a sideways conversation with someone in the front row or clearing the throat.  Too late and you miss the first few words.  It’s a simple thing, but earn the trust of your communicator by having his back.
• If the communicator is going to have the audience talk with each other for a moment and then they’re going to continue speaking, you should bring their mic back a bit (maybe 5-10 dB) while the speaker isn’t “on” so they can take a drink or speak to someone without disrupting the moment.  But keep your eyes closely on the communicator so you don’t miss when they are ready to proceed.  Again, have the speaker’s back so the mic is transparent to them.
• The worst thing you can do is to forget to turn the speaker’s mic off when they are off stage.  The music starts and you hear the speaker singing – this can be very embarrassing for said speaker.
• Slow, intentional fades are MUCH better then quick mutes and unmutes.

On our old KF650 rig, I used to have to practically live by my SMAART computer for the spectrograph and dB meter. In order to just get over all of the reflections of the sound in the room and get the best response out of the PA, you had to usually mix as loud as you could get away with – usually 90+ dB(A). A rock and roll song in the mid-80′s would have so much room interaction that it would be so hard to get clarity and definition.

I’ve decided one of the best indicators of the improvements in the room is that now when I mix, the only time I switch over the SMAART is when we’re recording a message for campuses and I need the teachers to be loud enough to a certain dB (usually averaging 70) so that the balance of their mics to the room ambience will be correct for the recording.

I read a tweet a few weeks ago from the OwnTheMix guys that suggested putting away the SPL meter when you mix and instead mix the music so it feels right in the room, whatever that means for your space.  I must say, having mixed both ways on both kinds of systems, mixing on a PA that is right for your room so you can enjoy mixing music is MUCH more fun then being a slave to the SPL meter!

That’s all for today!

We’re a few weeks into the OwnTheMix.com experiment for audio team training.  I thought it might be a good idea to provide some follow up since a few have asked offline about it.  To read more about the background of OTM for Kensington, check this out.

I continue to be very impressed by the content of OTM.  The video production is well done and the training materials are spot on for the church audio engineer.  I’m especially excited about new content that will be coming online in the next few weeks with more focus on Digidesign D-Show consoles/software and the essential ProTools training for working with click tracks and virtual soundcheck.

As solid as the micing, mixing, and interview videos are, I continue to believe the biggest value of this content will be for our team to go through it as a group.  While I may not agree with every specific suggested technique, I anticipate the discussion these topics will create among our team will be as valuable, if not more, than the video content itself.

Probably the biggest disappointment to me so far is the social networking side of the site.  It is not the most intuitive to search for other members or groups that would be interesting to follow.  There’s nothing the OTM guys can do about it, but the community side would also be more beneficial if more people actively participated in the forums and their personal profiles/groups.  Perhaps some contests for SWAG to encourage increased participation would be beneficial or something else like that.

There is no such thing as perfect in anything, and the same holds true when you talk about a training resource like OwnTheMix.  However, the content itself is so strong and unique that it overcomes any of the minor weaknesses regarding community participation.  I still wholeheartedly recommend this for teams of any size who are mixing in churches.  Thanks OTM guys for such a spot-on service!

Continuing the discussion from Friday, here is part 2 of a cool thread I ran across recently on one of the discussion forums about the unwritten rules for mixing monitors that they don’t teach you at Full Sail.  This is all the kinds of things I think many of us take for granted but will take a growing engineer up several levels by mastering.  Credit goes to everyone who contributed to the thread!

1. This is mostly personal preference, but I like having my cue wedge on the ground just like the performers have it. Some people put them up high on cases, but I think I should be hearing it exactly like the performer does, so mine goes on the ground.
2. Keep your eyes open: sometimes you can ‘see’ where feedback comes from and fix it easier than trying to guess where it is coming from…
3. For festivals I sharpie and board tape “You’re sound guy’s name is __________________” on the monitors.
4. For tours I sharpie and board tape “You’re playing in ________________” on the monitors.
5. Get the band to work on the best stage balance they can before you add wedges, this can save a lot of grief and makes the job a whole lot easier. I know of at least one band (and have heard of others) who taken to moving back-line offstage (usually to the wings) to keep levels sensible.
6. Listen to what the artist asks for in their mix, then give them what they need. If you get a good working balance, with good musicians you shouldn’t have to push faders around much as they will be able to make adjustments themselves in their own dynamics. This has the added benefit of the artists being able to communicate better, musically, and should lead to a much better vibe on stage, hopefully leading to a great gig. They feel good, they are happy with the monitors because they were able to play well, you get the credit, win, win , win!
7. Amateur vocalist that have problems staying on the mic and pulling away, lowering their level in the monitors can help get them the on top of mic better in an effort to hear themselves. From time to time I’ll get vocalists that will back off the mic when the monitors are hot, then complain they can’t hear themselves. Then the vicious circle of upping the gain, hacking the EQ, them backing off the mic more may ensue. Dropping their level all the time may not help, but it often can when they are afraid hot monitors whilst on on top of the mic.
8. I also put “Mix # _____” on the tape, for the artist to see. It helps them in sound checks feel more involved and communication is good.
9. I think a lot of the discussion in this thread is saying “get the band on your side early into the game by serving them with a pro attitude.”  If there’s ever a situation where they’re just not happy in the check, I always go out on the deck and listen next to them, rather than just sit on my butt and use the listen wedge. This is usually a good thing to do for both tech shooting and gaining trust with the band. “Can do” is always the best approach.
10. When troubleshooting a problem such as no sound from a channel or mix, don’t turn it up before isolating the problem. When you do find the problem you could end up with horrible feedback until you can get to the trim or mix level.

I came across a cool thread recently on one of the discussion forums about the unwritten rules for mixing monitors that they don’t teach you at Full Sail (I added that last part!).  This is all the kinds of things I think many of us take for granted but will take a growing engineer up several levels by mastering.  Part 1 today, part 2 on Monday.  Credit goes to everyone who contributed to the thread!

1. Never put anything in someone’s wedge mix they didnt ask for.
2. Never change a mix after the third song, unless its a ballad or something rehearsed in soundcheck.
3. The best soundcheck adjustment can be moving a monitor slightly or changing the angle using a short 2×4.
4. Know what your wedges and IEM’s sound like. Know what wedges sound like solo, in pairs, and with and without the foh rig on.
5. Every stage is different but low end and especially low mids build up fast with 6 or 8 wedges all blasting away. Once you start adding a vocal to 2 or 3 different mixes you may have to start dialing back more low end than you did when you tuned one wedge with one vocal in it.
6. Be responsive. Sometimes on crowded stages this is hard to do when every musician seems to have wishes at once.
7. Don’t rely on your cue wedge all the time. Listen on stage whenever you can during soundcheck time so you can hear the actual mix, wegde and stagenoise combined on the musicians spot.
8. When the stage is loud and the singer wants more of his/her vocal in the wedge, and you’ve reached the point where this can’t be easily done, you can often subtract competing instruments/vocal from the mix and solve the problem.
9. Unless it is specified on a rider, number your mixes from downstage to upstage, and from stage right to stage left. This is consistent with how you would see it from FOH. It should also match the way vocals are typically laid out too. It doesn’t matter which side of the stage you are on, keep the mixes the same way. Usually the drum mix is the last mix in line.  A typical 4 piece band would be like this. Downstage right is mix 1. Center vocal is mix 2. Downstage left is mix 3. Drums are mix 4. You will find that this numbering scheme has become a de facto standard in the SR world and engineers and bands alike will appreciate the consistency.
10. Take care of your ears. The stage is a very, very loud place to be. Add in the fact that you have to listen to a cue wedge at pretty extreme volumes to get over the stage wash only makes it worse. I usually mix 2-3 songs off the wedge, then pop in my ear buds and use the headphone out on the console. This really helps you prevent ear fatigue, and it actually lets you here those tiny squeeks a little easier.

What are yours?  Add them in the comments section.

In the past few days I’ve come across a resource for church audio that I think everyone associated with house of worship markets should know about called OwnTheMix.com. I’ve never seen anything like this so please consider this a must investigate for your team!

From their website…OwnTheMix.com is a comprehensive audio training solution for the modern church. Created by Buckhead Church’s Audio Director, Dustin Whitt, and Music Director, Chris Green, you will learn secrets to creating irresistible worship environments. Whether novice or professional, there is plenty for everyone inside. Subscribers have an all-access pass to every video, and are connected to all of OwnTheMix.com’s users through a state-of-the-art social network that includes forums, blogs, and groups based on like interests or topics.  What makes this content unique is that there is an important balance between tech & music – they get the necessity of this unique partnership that is so critical to audio success in churches.

Training topics include basic EQ, compression, and gating for bass, electrics, keys, drums, & vocals, miking instruments, combat mixing, console gain structure, basic drum tuning for engineers, mixing musically, EQ and mic placement for speech, transitions, working with musicians, working with drummers, and much more.  There’s also training content that currently focuses on the Digidesign Venue platform, although videos are coming soon that will also train on Aviom & the Yamaha M7CL.  Finally there are several multi-part interviews with other members of the Northpoint audio team such as Dave Stagl and Chris Briley, and notable FOH engineers such as Jeff Sandstrom (Chris Tomlin).

A 1-year subscription starts at $200 for a single seat and the price per seat goes down as you add more users from your organization to the site.  The really cool thing is that if they were to put an accurate price tag on what is taught in this site, it wouldn’t be affordable for many churches.  The value is extremely high!  If you paid a contract soundguy $50 an hour to run your Sunday services just for one morning, you’ve paid for an entire year of training for a committed volunteer. The site really is one-of-a-kind and content is still being added weekly.

I’m proud to say Kensington Church has secured a license for our entire audio team and I will be leading our team through this content over the coming year.  It has been on my heart for months to find a way to focus on basic audio concepts and develop more of a culture of organized continuing education for the team but had yet to find a means that would be the right fit.

I showcased a new book I picked up this past winter called “Mixing Audio” on this blog that is the best resource I’ve ever read for the art of mixing music.  The problem is that a large percentage of our audio team are also campus tech directors or work full time jobs in other industries entirely, so I expected a tough sell to get everyone to read such a large, focused book and get together for discussions.

OwnTheMix is perfect for us because we can “assign” a handful of videos for guys to watch on their own time that are reasonably short for those with ADD attention spans (it seems most average 3-6 minutes) and pack lots of solid concepts in each one.  Then we’ll meet together every other week for an hour to unpack what we’re learning and discuss questions or applications.  I’m excited to see what God will do in our team over the coming months!

I can’t recommend this resource enough.  If you are involved in church audio in any way, RUN to this site and sign up for you and your team.  I’m certain you won’t be disappointed!