The intangibles…

Since coming to Kensington, I’ve struggled to teach engineers who have never mixed professionally outside of the church market what it is like to develop your chops to the point where the day/rehearsal/event is not about you. So much about success at FOH involves mastering how to get what you need while always being the first one ready to go and not making people wait for you, whether that’s the band, the TD, etc. I thought this article from ProSoundWeb really captures the intangible “it” factor you must master to thrive working for an established artist. At this point in my career, I realize that so many of these instincts come naturally and it is valuable to step back and really focus on those intangible skills that help you keep the gig.

MONITORS FOR A SINGER…
Welcome to doing sound for a singer. There are many kinds of professional entertainers, songwriters and celebrities, but now you’re working for that breed of performing artist who sings quite well and requires a refined approach in order to do their best on stage.

THE MICROPHONE
If she was just starting out, microphone selection is something you could explore, but having used one particular microphone for her entire career, it’s simply a comfortable pair of shoes, its balance and weight feel familiar, much less its frequency response. The vocal microphone must be used with pad and high-pass engaged, as the proximity effect is too much, and she’ll blow up the capsule on the big notes.

If her microphone doesn’t seem that loud when you speak into it, that’s because she produces a lot of level that most performers can’t put out. Please store the actual show microphone safely away until she arrives on stage. When you need to talk into her channel, use another microphone so that you’re not blowing germs into hers. And I probably don’t need to tell you that there’s no smoking anywhere near the stage while she’s in the venue.

EQ
We’ve always used an XL-42 mic-pre and EQ for the “money channel.” There are a couple of peaks in this microphone’s response up high that we cut with narrow parametric filters so we don’t kill the “sparkle” with a shelf. Originally we tried just using a graphic EQ, but most problems don’t fall right on ISO centers, so parametric EQ is really helpful. We started using a VariCurve, but switched to a Compact OmniDrive Plus, using the extra inputs and outputs for equalizing a reverb send, the band’s vocal send and stereo side-fill inserts. When forced to go back to simply using graphic EQ, I’m reminded of how clumsy most are for monitors.

I have a long menu of EQ filters that help, each for a specific characteristic of voice, microphone or room, but you can try some basics by inserting a graphic EQ into the vocal channel. A model with minimal filter interaction and a high-pass that sweeps to 250 Hz helps the most. First, sweep that high-pass up all the way – it seems radical, but you’re hearing lots of lows from the mains already. Now take 160 Hz and sink it. It’s an evil frequency that simply must be killed, and in combination with the high-pass, you’re almost there. Another frequency that gets in the way of female vocals is 315 Hz, as it’s heard clearly in the head and in the mains. Sink it halfway. Now with 400 and 500 Hz you must be careful, as this is where the natural singing voice turns into falsetto. It’s made more difficult because it’s really 450 Hz, as well as by the fact that some of these frequencies actually come out of the sides of both the other monitors and the mains. If you take too much of this out of the singer’s mix, it still hits her from all the other speakers which also have her voice in them, but aren’t pointed at her. Oh, and sink the crossover frequency in each mix.

You must split the vocal microphone into two channels: one for her, a second for band wedges. She can adjust the EQ on her voice in the band’s mixes as well, but it won’t be the same as what she wants on her voice in speakers pointed at her. The other half of a stereo graph should offer enough flexibility when combined with channel EQ. Programmable EQ helps, as room modes change nightly per venue, while voice and microphone fixes remain somewhat steady. That’s enough EQ for now. You already owe me lunch.

WIRELESS, NOT
Much as guitarists hate wireless companding, my singer doesn’t like the response of wireless microphones. Because she takes it off the stand, the microphone must be taped to the cable so it can’t accidentally come unplugged. It’s a condenser, so it makes a loud sound if this happens. A roll of PVC electrical tape is handy for this daily, and seemingly insignificant, chore. Insignificant, that is, until it comes unplugged in front of a full house at a sensitive moment in the show. Or on live television.

She won’t use IEMs. We’ve tried them several times, and we’ve tried the best. When we last had background singers, we talked them into IEMs, using John Hardy pre-amps for the vocal microphones, giving Kate, Windy and Amy each their own reverb and individual stereo mixes with everything panned and tweaked, in hopes that they could convince her that it was the way to go. They said they’d never heard themselves better, but she still insisted she’d rather be deaf than sing with things stuck in her ears. She enjoys the intimacy that banter with her audience between songs creates, and that would be lost without the ability to quickly answer comments from any direction they originate.

Most musicians like goofing around and jamming. It’s why they became musicians in the first place. It’s OK for them to have a little fun, if you’ve allowed time for it. But when the singer arrives on stage for sound check, everything else must already have been checked, so there’s no reason to pay attention to anything but her and her microphone. Band and crew understand that it’s entirely her stage when she’s on it, and all else is attended to only when she’s done out of courtesy and respect.

COMPRESSION AND REVERB
Singers hate compression, but FOH engineers use it to create the studio sound that exemplifies pop music. Good singers learn to put up with it. Great singers learn how to cheat the compressor with microphone technique. Monitor engineers naturally eschew the use of compression on the vocals. When the singer hits a big note, the stage monitors faithfully reproduce it, while the voice in the mains gets knocked back by 3 to 10 dB by the FOH comp. The result is that the singer hears the sound jump out of the stage monitors on the big notes, while it collapses in the mains. When the microphone is pulled away on big notes, the singer avoids the compressor and the vocal collapses far less from her perspective. Younger singers have difficultly understanding this, older ones do it instinctively.

The reverb plays an important role in the monitors. We’ve always used an M5000, because of its dense early reflections (ER), as well as a four-way crossover. If you can, turn your reverb effect down so that only ER is heard. First EQ the reverb to sound natural. Next, pre-delay is the critical adjustment, and it needs to vary from 10 to 30 milliseconds, depending on the room. Like any special sauce, a little bit goes a long way – don’t overdo it. The four-way crossover allows the reverb to be tailored to complement the natural venue acoustics. Shortening the lower frequencies that already dominate the stage helps. Leaving the mid-highs the longest helps brighten the room for the singer.

COILING AND PAGING MICROPHONE CABLE
There are lots of microphone cable choices. When I inherited the gig, I found the sound company’s tech taping spare cables into the drum loom. After a week of constant failures with a mostly phantom-power input list, I bought the show a new set of 30 generic “quad” microphone cables for about the cost of a half-case of gaffe tape. Before sound check was even over the band was asking what had changed, and if I had a new console that day.

The case for carrying the main “show” cable for the lead vocal is clear on many levels. What has been lost, now that a generation has grown up with wireless microphones, isn’t just coiling a “figure-eight,” but also the ancient art of paging a vocalist’s microphone cable: one of those gigs handed down father-to-son a lifetime ago. Cable pagers of yester-year know that performers who travel with microphone in hand, tend to do so in a consistent direction, often clockwise. And this happens several times each song, so that by show’s end, there can be quite a twist in the microphone cable. This can be counteracted by simply taking microphone and cable before the show starts, and spinning it the other way a dozen or so times. This “buys” enough turns that by the encore, the cable is still relatively un-kinked.

WEDGE LAYOUT
There are many designs and approaches to wedge-based monitoring. I’ll skip the theory and just tell you what we spent 10 years finding out on tours and one-offs. Her stereo wedges need to be a dozen feet apart and facing each other so that the sound comes from each side, helping the reverb’s stereo effect. The back of the wedge must be propped up with a two-by-four, so the horn is on-axis at the down-stage center position. She travels to the sides of the stage so a second wedge, similarly angled, is needed about 12 feet past the first. This second pair can be a mono mix, as she’ll only hear one at a time except when she’s dead center. You can high-pass this mix more than the others, as lots of LF energy is coming off the mains at side-stage. A fourth mix that helps is the so-called upstage “butt-fill.”

The only thing that goes in her mix is her vocal and reverb. In extremely reverberant halls a very small amount of piano for pitch and maybe kick-drum for time will be needed, but only if she asks for it. By the way, she has as many signals as a Mets third-base coach. Never take your eyes off her on stage and you’ll start learning them right away. Good luck. She’s the best and deserves the best. Enjoy the show.

Mark Frink is Associate Editor for Live Sound International and has toured with Tony Bennett, Joni Mitchell and k. d. lang.