Have you ever watched a sound engineer behind the board? Flailing arms like an orchestral conductor and eyes like a mad scientist. Honestly, it is an awesome sight to see. However, not all of us are able to pay the big bucks to have a professional engineer record, edit and mix our tracks. A large...
Live sound. The dream. The thrill. The drama. The agony. The rush. It’s all there. And when a great mix comes together at the last minute and the crowd goes wild… It’s hard to want to be anywhere else. Amazing. It’s where I got started with audio and I always look back fondly at the...
Are you interested in learning sound system tuning, but don’t have the time or resources to attend an in-person seminar? Nathan Lively is here to help. You may remember him from some recent posts: 6 Soundcheck Tips on How to Get the Band to Play at the Right Level and How to Get Good Data...
Impossible. Unheard of. Won’t happen. This has always been my assumption: Musicians are always going to play differently during the band soundcheck in an empty room than they will with their adrenaline pumping in a full-house. For this reason, I have always just tried to complete band soundchecks as quickly as possible, knowing that many...
As the sound tech connected the third cable into the Sm58, I knew this show would suck. The glaring stage lights blinded us from seeing the audience in front of us, but we knew the house was full. We stood on stage for what felt like an eternity. The sound-tech would run back and forth...
Audio analyzers are dumb. They just deliver data. Our job is to interpret that data from Smaart or SATlive or SIM3 (well, if you’re reading this…you probably don’t own a $10,000 SIM3). But we can’t do that if the data is bad. Here is a collection of my best tips on getting good data with...
Last Saturday I came out of “live sound retirement” as a favor to my wife. She’s the director of the TENWEST Festival and we threw a big local music showcase downtown to celebrate arts, entrepreneurship, and technology. So naturally, we shut down one of the busiest intersection in downtown Tucson for a concert with four great local...
Get the Soundcheck Checklist and Learn: Step by step instructions to run a successful soundcheck even if you're doing it for the very first time. How to soundcheck specific instruments and make the vocalist sound (and feel) great! How to build your mix during soundcheck so you can sit back and enjoy the show.The easy...
There are a lot of things you can do to get great sound (and save your sanity) when mixing a live gig. And there are several things you shouldn’t do unless you really like the sound of garbage in your loudspeakers and feeling stressed out. I don’t know about you, but I prefer the “keep...
As you know, we spend a lot of time here at Audio Issues discussing recording techniques, tricks, and tools to help you get great sound in the studio. But a lot of those fundamentals can be applied to live sound as well. And more importantly, many of things you need to learn to get great...