Trouble micing/mixing a church band

joshofalltrades

I was gonna start my own thread but spotted this one, hope you don't mind if I ask a related question in your thread.

I've been doing just about everything music related at my church for almost 3 years. The church isn't ready to spring for a sound professional and I can't be the one mixing since I'm the leader of the church band.

Anyway, the mix we have sounds decent, but some people say it sometimes sounds "smeared" or "muddy". I was looking through Musician's Friend and spotted the 822i Sonic Maximizer by BBE. Does anybody have experience with one of these? It looks like it might be just what we need.

Pheezer

BBE makes wicked good gear. But it won't fix your sound problem, which seems more likely a problem with room noise and uneven mixing.

Churches are hard to mix for. I assume you've got a drum kit. Don't run any of it through the PA except for your kick. Amp up the rest of the band to match the kit. The problems usually begin when you start turning things up, then turning up other things to match, especially in a large room with highly reflective walls. You should be able to sort it out by doing a live check before anyone else arrives.

joshofalltrades

Pheezer wrote: »

BBE makes wicked good gear. But it won't fix your sound problem, which seems more likely a problem with room noise and uneven mixing.

Churches are hard to mix for. I assume you've got a drum kit. Don't run any of it through the PA except for your kick. Amp up the rest of the band to match the kit. The problems usually begin when you start turning things up, then turning up other things to match, especially in a large room with highly reflective walls. You should be able to sort it out by doing a live check before anyone else arrives.

The problem is that we have a lag between our setup and the mains, so the drums have to be mic'd up or the congregation will hear the drums sound like they're rushing. I don't know what causes a slight delay other than long cords but there's nothing I can do about that, really.

But you're right, room noise is definitely a problem, and I'm basically at the mercy of whoever is mixing. We're trying to isolate everything as much as possible; we have a shield on the drums.

Pheezer

Yeah this is reeeeeally a separate topic. So I'm gonna split this off soon.

The cable run isn't likely going to be the problem. What kind of gear is being used to mix/amp? Is there signal processing involved? That can add latency. I don't know what else would.

The solution is to do the minimum amount of amplification, pick one thing to use as reference and amp everything relative to it only. Set the volume on said reference point to be reasonable given the reverb from the room. Once you've done your soundcheck, don't let anyone touch the board. You can't really buy anything that will automate the process or fix this for you.

Kivutar

Hum.
Without knowing what console you're running off of or any of the other details of your equipment, can you afford to hire a professional just to come in for your sound check, mix it properly, and save the show/not let anyone fuck with the mix?

Improvolone

You might be able to find a college student majoring in sound design (theatre program) who will come in for cheap cheap cheap.

Pheezer wrote: »

Yeah this is reeeeeally a separate topic. So I'm gonna split this off soon.

The cable run isn't likely going to be the problem. What kind of gear is being used to mix/amp? Is there signal processing involved? That can add latency. I don't know what else would.

The solution is to do the minimum amount of amplification, pick one thing to use as reference and amp everything relative to it only. Set the volume on said reference point to be reasonable given the reverb from the room. Once you've done your soundcheck, don't let anyone touch the board. You can't really buy anything that will automate the process or fix this for you.

Cover it with a box if you have to.

Pheezer

Mic positions will change. A drum mic moving from 2" from the skin to 1" from the skin will result in such a massive increase in pickup that it could easily overload the mic or at the least, increase the volume of that drum to far beyond the levels of the others. Assuming their mics aren't moved. This could happen based on the drum mic shifting from a 45 degree angle to the skin to being pointed straight down at the skin, as happens inevitably over time. Assuming the mics aren't removed, the drums put into storage and the mics re-connected, which basically ensures that the previous mix job will be completely irrelevant to the current situation.

And that's just drums. I hope you have a tape measure and you mark the precise distance from the guitar amp that the mic sits, and its exact height, and replicate this each time. Even then there's angle to be considered.

Mic positioning is brutally important. It's also very hard to replicate. You need to mix each time. This means you either need to get good at mic checks and mixing, or find someone who's willing to learn. On the upshot, you can make close to a couple hundred bucks a night for four hours of actual work (which is spent hanging out in a club listening to live music) doing this sort of work at local bars, so it's a useful skill to learn and one that you might not have too much trouble finding someone to spend some time perfecting for free, if you really can't get the band to arrive early enough to do it before anything begins.

Pheezer

Also the guy who started this line of questioning said I told him everything he needs to know, but I'm not really an expert, I just fiddle with this stuff in my spare time. So I feel an obligation to leave this open for anyone who feels they have better advice or useful information that I haven't provided.

garroad_ran

There's definitely not enough information being given here to properly assess your problem. It could be an EQ thing, it could be a mic placement thing, it could be a levels thing, it could be the room itself, it could be the instruments themselves, or the musicians. There's simply too many factors involved to make a decent guess.

If I was running sound at any venue and there was a noticeable lag between the musicians and the mains, then the first thing I would do is most likely tear down the whole system and get rid of the lag. I can't imagine what it must be like working like that.

Vortigern

Garroad makes a good point. No one can really offer you concrete advice without more detail. What's the signal path? How many channels? What type of mixer ar you using? Are you trying to record performances live into a DAW?

All the previous advice is good stuff. Mic positions can make or break you, the room itself will often be troublesome to some extent, but none of these things cause latency in the signal.

joshofalltrades

We're running 16 channels right now. The signal path is:

Instruments/Mics ->
Snake ->
Board ->
Feedback Destroyer ->
Amp ->
House Speakers/Monitors

The board is a large Allen and Heath mixer. I'm told it's very good, but it was purchased before I started. It has 16 channels, and we don't use all of them at the same time. Most of the time we're using 10 max, 3 of which are drum mics.

We are recording performances as well, Aux 6 on each channel goes to a nearby PC. The mixes on recordings are always very good. It is only live sound that is problematic.

Thanks for the responses. I'll give you additional info if you need it.

joshofalltrades

garroad_ran wrote: »

There's definitely not enough information being given here to properly assess your problem. It could be an EQ thing, it could be a mic placement thing, it could be a levels thing, it could be the room itself, it could be the instruments themselves, or the musicians. There's simply too many factors involved to make a decent guess.

If I was running sound at any venue and there was a noticeable lag between the musicians and the mains, then the first thing I would do is most likely tear down the whole system and get rid of the lag. I can't imagine what it must be like working like that.

I would do this as well, but we've tried just running into the board, into the amp and out through the mains and there's still lag, even if we switch boards/amps to ones we know don't lag. For a long time we just used my own personal speakers right next to the band, but they don't really drive far enough to fill the whole room and the church apparently doesn't want to use any equipment of mine that they don't have to.

Pheezer

And you're sure you're hearing lag, and not just heavy reverb? I've gigged at churches and those polished stone walls can toss back one loud fucking echo at you.

joshofalltrades

Pretty sure it's lag. The walls are drywall and while we get some reverb for sure, I've stood right next to the speakers and had the drummer hit his snare. A moment after he hit it, I heard it.

EggyToast

A method I've often read about for large, relatively open spaces like churches is actually to simplify -- use a single mic, in the center of the stage about equal distance from the performers, depending on their loudness. You could get by with two mics for a stereo image. The single mic lets you simplify the mix without dealing with delay or odd reverb. You also have significantly more gain before you run into feedback, which is a serious problem with these reverby spaces.

If that setup doesn't work, a mini-omni for the drums specifically will probably work better for your purposes compared to separate drum mics, simply due to feedback (unless you have very decent hypercardioid mics).

Either way, the best way to sort out problems is to simplify. If you have lag or odd feedback, cut down the signal until you can figure out what's going on.

Pheezer

What's the feedback destroyer? Is that doing active digital signal processing or is it just a compressor/limiter?

joshofalltrades

Pheezer wrote: »

What's the feedback destroyer? Is that doing active digital signal processing or is it just a compressor/limiter?

It sweeps frequencies and kills any that are feeding back. It won't do anything if all of the frequencies are feeding back, like say if I pointed a hot condenser mic right into the mains, but it lets us get a little more gain out of the vocal mics.

I guess I could try cutting it out. I am pretty sure it does active processing.

Pheezer

Try removing it from the loop.

Vortigern

Pheezer is on the money there. Other than your feedback gizmo I can't see anything in your path that can cause lag in the sound.

Also, for the record, baring mechanical problems with the board, Allen & Heath make top notch gear.