basic live sound - idiots guide please......

[Ceepers]

Bear with me, im an experienced bedroom guitarist and have appeared in front of some pretty big mirrors over the years but.....

I'm playing in a little covers band and we are starting to get offered regular local pub gigs. Small rooms, no existing PA/ sound guy just turn up and play kind of deal.

We are a 5 piece so Drums, bass, two guitars, keys, main and a few backing vocals. We've initially just been using a basic pa mixer with a pair of speakers for the vocals and everything else just played through our respective amps. This has been ok but its difficult to set relative volume levels and it can be difficult to hear whats going on, especially as i am often stood next to the keyboard which seems to suffer from volume creep!

since we've actually been paid for a couple of things recently we've bought an ipad controllable mixer and a couple of monitor speakers.

what i'm after is some basic set up knowledge. The keys player also plays in a wedding band who send everything through DI into a mixer with modelled amps. He would like to set us up like this so all FOH volume is controlled through the mixer. His argument being that if we have the guitars running through amps then most of the volume is uncontrolled.

I am resistant to this, partly as i like the sound of my valve amp and partly as we dont have in - ear monitors or expensive pa speakers.

we set up with the mixer for the first time yesterday sending vocals and keys through the mixer along with a DI from the bass amp. The bassist kept some sound through his amp too ( it sounded weedy otherwise ) and guitars were just through their respective amps. We managed some kind of monitor mix too which was really helpful.

Basic questions.

Should we mic the drums?

Should we mic the guitar amps? -

volume wise neither drums nor guitars need extra volume to be heard without deafening people in the size rooms we are playing is there other benefit to micing them?

Is there a go-to method for setting levels up quickly in a busy pub?

Any hints / tips greatly appreciated as none of us really now about any of this stuff!

[stevejamsecono]

More experienced folks than me will weigh in, surely, but here's my two cents --

- Audible and discernable vocals are the only thing 98% of people seeing a live band will care about, so that should govern most of your choices.

- I personally think people 'over mic' small club gigs. If your group has a good sense of ensemble volume, the PA only need be used for vocals and keys. Unless it's a very robust system or you're playing the Royal Albert Hall, adding drums and guitars to it will just take up space, imo.

- Loud guitars tend to be frequency eaters and in my experience most guitar players crank because they can't hear themselves. Using an amp stand or tilting it on its back so that the speakers are aimed at your ears rather than your kneecaps can solve this and ensure that the volume isn't excessive.

- As far as a quick setup goes, always have a friend in the audience stood near the back who gives good hand signals and can belp you mix on the fly.

Good luck!

[JSett]

I'd just run vocals through the PA and make the keyboardist use an amp. You can work out respective volumes at a rehearsal and agree on set levels for everyone. I did hundreds of small punk shows like this back in the 90's and balancing a NAT-standard rock band in a small room isn't particularly hard - start with the one constant (drums) and build up from there.

If the keyboardist suffers from volume creep, put the control into someone else's hands and tell them to stay in their lane

[marqueemoon]

Guitars can quickly get out of hand. I agree about going direct. Unless you have good monitoring stick to amps. If you have combos using stands to get them more pointed at your ears will help.

Also agree that the audience just wants to hear the vocals. Roll off the lowest end of the vocals to get rid of whatever rumble they’re picking up. I will usually cut low mids around 350Hz and do a gentle boost around 2.5K.

If your setup has compression learn how to use it. It Eq before compression.

For vocal reverb I like a plate sound. Just a little though. A subtle dark delay can help warm up a more shrill sounding singer.

For drums in a small room the most I’d mic is the kick as the beater click and the low end sometimes don’t come across well. A little goes a long way though. The kick that eats everything is my #1 pet peeve with live sound.

Bass is a tough one. An amp is going to sound better than most small PAs. Bass waves need space to develop though, so if the bass player is standing right in front of their amp everyone else in the room can hear better than they can. I play bass myself and always try to position myself a good distance from my amp whenever possible.

For the keys it sounds like that person might already have their own in ear setup. If everyone else is using amps maybe they should use it for their own stuff.

Probably the best thing you can do is bring a long cable and go stand where the audience will be listening to get a sense of how things are balanced and have people turn up or down as needed.

[panoramic]

honestly I do this :
Everyone plugs in and plays at the gig volume and then I step way the hell back and listen to us as if we are in the crowd and adjust it from there. The vox are all most people hear TRUE but i like to have the bass and guitars mixed well and have the drums be slightly lower as they eat signal on guitar parts, VERY SLIGHTLY btw not guitar way over them. I also try to have all of the actual speakers going to center of the crowd.