51m0n

First time playing The Lewes Con Club, in fact first time I had been there. Really nice venue, great sound guy (totally got what we needed monitor-wise and dealt with the larger than standard line up with ease). Initial thoughts as we walked in were oooh this is maybe a tad big for us given that we haven't done more than a couple of little charidee festivals in Lewes before. Punters are kept nicely hidden away during soundcheck, though to the point where we really thought we might be playing to an empty room (oh dear). Needn't have worried though, punters allowed in to the main room 10 minutes before we went on, had 3 rows of people dancing for 2 hours solid, and the room full to the back and the bar area well occupied. Sold decent amounts of merch after the gig too. Had a complete blast and am frankly still buzzing about the whole thing BTW E.P. is here if anyone wants to have a listen:- https://mistersuperjuice.bandcamp.com/releases

If anyone is remotely interested here is Mister Super Juice's debut E.P entitled Produce The Juice, we bill ourselves as Cinematic Funk (Lalo Schifrin / Roy Budd inspired in a big way):- https://mistersuperjuice.bandcamp.com/releases These tracks are more from the second set of the night (first set would be darker, mellower and a fair bit jazzier than these are). Be interested to hear if anyone digs it at all . All the best, Si

Cheers Dad , its always tricky if its not really your bag isn't it, glad you weren't immediately turned off by it (if you managed to listen to the whole thing and it isn't your bag then you are a superstar :D)

If anyone is remotely interested here is Mister Super Juice's debut E.P entitled Produce The Juice:- https://mistersuperjuice.bandcamp.com/releases Be interested to hear if anyone digs it at all All the best, Si

My band is pretty loud. 7 piece bands with horns and percussion and drums and keys and guitar and bass will do that. However we try to keep stage volume as sane as possible. We mic everything for every gig. But for monitor mixes as much as anything (a lot of the tracks are cue driven, if anyone cant hear everyone else enough then they cant hear the cues and we train wreck :D). I tend to put enough kick in the FOH to hear the bass extension that brings to it, add snare to match and a touch of a mono OH to bring out the hats more than anything. Now we are talking a touch really hear, definitely not trying to prove anything, just lift the top of the drums forward into the mix a little. Bass is DI'ed, now I have a BigTwin and that thing can easily deal with any pub in the land on its own, but I turn it up for the stage volume and add enough to front of house to keep it projecting, mainly because that way the top end is muffled by my capacious butt, instead its coming out of the FOH (a pair of FR800s, so the same cab effectively as the Big Baby - it can deal with bass all day). Guitar is mic'ed so I can keep his amp as quiet as possible and run his monitor guitar heavy instead, its pointing away from the audience so that means I can lift the guitar into the audience through the PA which means none of that laser like guitar cab quality whereby the guitarist turns up and if you are sat in front of his amp 30 feet away you're effectively deaf for a week. He also uses a tilt back amp stand - anything to get the guitar loud for him and quieter for everyone else. He is not a loud guitarist and certainly not a selfish player, he understands why he needs to get his level by pointing everything at his head in order to better control volume in the venue. Keys brought up in PA, he uses IEMs so he controls his own monitor mix, as does the percussion. Percussion is always tricky, a lot of it is very quiet compared to drums, some of it is scary loud, I mic all of it (I have the channels so why not), works a treat, can balance him to the drums in the room beautifully, but it does take up to 5 mics to do that. Horns are special, bass trombone is mega loud when you're too close, but needs a little help at the back of the room, its mic'ed for the fatness that disappears futher than 6 feet from it. Our trumpet player uses a harmoniser (sweep pedal controlled) to self harmonise on the fly - I have no idea how she manages that) but this does mean she must be mic'ed too, even though of all the instruments in the band she needs it the least in a pub. We often play in medium sized pubs. We get there early to set all the gear up and have several times had the landlord come over and say, I think you might be a bit loud? Or words to that effect. Only ever happens once though because of the way we play the first set. We tend to soundcheck at a fair whack, but the set starts off at a whisper and we grow the volume very slowly over the next 45 to 50 minutes (which is the length of our first piece), at the end of which we are bouncing along at about 80%. A couple of short (9 minute) tracks later and we stop for a 10 minute break. Then its into the really funky set (the first is darker and more jazz in places). By the end of the first set the place is usually jumping and we get no more requests to turn down - more meat in a venue does help, plus everyone is busy telling the landlord its great so he feels too daft to ask us to curtail anything. Always always tell the punter to go grab a drink in between sets, the landlord loves that! Last gig we played was at Lewes Con Club, had a sound guy, who was fantastic, within 3 or 4 minutes of the first track we had 3 rows of dancing happy punters, they kept at it for 2 whole hours. Best gig I have played in years, on stage sound was great, I only had to worry about playing not doing sound (FOH and 6 monitor mixes is a head spinner at the best of times), and the punters loved our stuff and bought the EP and T-shirts enough to double our take. In the room though (far bigger than a medium sized pub) we were about the same level as we are in a pub. Although we are loud, we sound really good, and people enjoy it, dance and drink a lot as a result. Seems to keep the landlords very happy indeed!

Dont have vocals... You would be surprised how much this solves 😆

Yep, its absolutely fascinating - literally all the research papers dating back to the 30's on studio design, absorption and diffusion, partition wall design, acoustics in various studios. I mean this is the absolute real deal, proper science and actual investment in trying multiple possible solutions to many problems faced in studio design. It is a time consuming read, but I can't recommend it enough. I've read most of it that pertains to studio design/acoustic treatment that was written in the last 50 years and its truly excellent material.

If thete is one organisation you can trust to give you access to decades of their research ibto acoustic designs in studios its the BBC:- http://www.bbc.co.uk/rd/search?query=Acoustic&submit= Enjoy!!!

That's it mate - you're soooo screwed

Yep all sounds great, but the problem with subs is time alignment with your mains around the crossover point. The whole idea that a sub can go more or less anywhere and sound great is misleading at best, it must also be the same distance from both mains (or they will skew, you will get comb filtering and other weirdness etc etc), and any wall reflections need to be taken into consideration. Eventually you find there may be nowhere where your sub doesn't do something funny to the sound in the area where you mains produce something (not enough) and the sub top end. It can be done, but it is very difficult to do (very very very difficult) even with software, and IME you're better off getting full range speakers to do the job and just take all that guess work out of it

Well probably not. Your ears dont really do sub 40Hz very well, Fletcher-Munsen curves and all that. So given we struggle to hear that low anyway, if your mains are attenuating that low by a further 6 to 9dB (not unusual) then you have pretty much no chance of telling if there is anything there at all. Now in a mix situation this is not such a huge deal. But when you are mastering it really does. Anywhere you can get rid of garbage you should. Not only is it wasted energy but its wasted bits and that equates to less apparent level. Now I am by no means an advocate for the loudness wars thing but if it taught mastering engineers anything it was stow all that rubbish. So you say, big deal, hi-pass filter sorted. Yeah but sometimes what is down there is real weight thats good, in the bass maybe, and losing that makes the mix weak, but the kick is just phat tubby lard as well so now you need to set up a multiband compressor limiter situation to deal with this. And that is when you'll be all kinds of happy that your monitors can give you some definition and decent clues that deep....

Well you want to be able to hear the bad stuff that might be going on down there. People tend to forget that 20 to 40Hz is an entire octave (like 10KHz to 20KHz is only one octave). If your monitors can't do that then who knows what rubbish low end energy you might be chucking out!

that way madness lies, I warn you

I hate subs. They are nightmarish to get right. If they arent right or you get a skewed mix you are always left thinking "Is it the sub set up?". Give ne some mahoosive monitors every time 😆

Heh! My mains are floorstanding transmission lines, they are indeed immense and also very very old, but I know them ridiculously well, and as a reference for deep bass, and I mean close to 20Hz if you need it, as well as for reverb and other spacial fx levels they are fantastic for me. One day I will upgrade them, I love transmission lines though and I have always wanted a set of PMCs but the 40k+ price is a bit of an issue I tend to use a variety of tools when mixing and mastering, headphones are superb for setting up transients and compression, anything where real detailed listeing is required, the big mains are superb for balancing bass/mids and the aforementioned spacial fx, I like to use TV/ mobile phone/laptop speakers for checking and mid/top attack settings and that mixes/masters collapse to worst case scenario playback, and the car is great to make sure I've not over done the booooom Its slow and time consuming to reference on this many systems, but its how I've worked for years, and the result tends to be mixes that translate across pretty much everything.

Now that is fascinating... My main speakers are over 14" deep. They are therefore placed about as close to the wall as I can get them, about 3" away. Never really noticed a big dip in the bass, this probably has helped 😆 Worse than that dip in many situations was the problem of putting your mains on the back edge of your mixing desk. The reflections off the desk would comb filter with the direct sound to your ear blowing not just frequency response but stereo image as well!

Particular issues lie wherever you have two dimensions or more as multiples of each other, ohhhhh boy inherent unsolvable badness incoming! I've built non parallel internal rooms to get out of this whole before now for serious studio builds, yes its massive ballache, but you can't beat it in the end.....

Generally speaking the best bang for the buck and bang for the volume required of bass trapping is achieved with a corner design absorber known as a 'superchunk'. A good example for how to build Superchunks is here:- http://forum.studiotips.com/viewtopic.php?t=535 Whenever dealing with bass absorption the place to put your absorption material for maximum efficacy is where walls meet ( you can check this out by playing some good bassy music in your room and walking up to the corner where two walls meet, you get a significant boost in bass, soaking this up here gives you more bang for the buck). This is even more apparent where three walls meet. However this also applies where floors meet walls and walls meet ceilings, effectively it is possible to super chunk every internal edge inside the room, giving a maximum of 12 places to put bass traps for absolutely maximum efficiency! For more general absorption the most important place to put it is where the sound from your speakers is bouncing off the wall and then coming back to your ears in your central listening position. You can find this with the help of a mirror and a friend. You sit in the listening position, they move the mirror along the wall, when you see you speaker in the mirror, thats where the absorption panel goes, same for the neares and furthest speakers, in many cases an absorber can cover both speakers at once on a wall. After that A good idea is the wall behind the speakers for a couple of panels, again you can use a mirror to locate the best places for this absorption. Points to note, too much absorption is not great, the room will go 'dead', at this point you need to consider adding diffusion or a sheet of foil or plastic over the front face of the absorber behind the fabric and in front of the rockwool (or equivalent), or to use plywood with strips cut out of it to cause diffraction/reflection over 500Hz. Obviously the precise nature of the pattern cut into the board has a massive affect, plenty of examples on gearslutz in their acoustics forum. You often see diffusers placed on the wall behind the listeing area (the 'backwall' of the room). There are extremely specific designs required for diffusers, they generally only work for higher frequencies, and take up a lot of space if you want to get deeper frequencies affected (up to 6ft deep is possible for a diffuser wall, the diffuser room at Nashville's Blackbird Studios being the best example of this I know of:- https://www.blackbirdstudio.com/studio-c Note George Massenburg, who designed this room, is a genius, he invented parameteric eqs!) This will breath life into the room, massively improving it as a space for mixing and tracking and mastering. Panel absorption across a corner is way better than nothing, but it isnt as good as a well built superchunk. Panel positions within the room are very important to get the best of them.

So a chain with some or all of these will see you right 95% of the time:- Multiband compressor with up to 5 bands, if you really know how to use it 3 band very broad eq for some gentle eq 'Surgical' hiQ eq if there are any nasty frequencies to get rid of Mid side compressor for widening and control of the stereo field Multiband saturation Feedback comp for gentle level control across sections Decent brickwall limiter is a must Check in mono too...

Just one last look, I promise (those walls!):- https://www.gearslutz.com/board/photo-diaries-of-recording-studio-construction-projects/161575-manifold-recording-studio-construction-thread.html

Yes. I have spent the better part of 30 years learning sound engineering. Still learn new stuff every mix/recording session/mastering session. Its been brilliant, I was lucky enough to be mentored by some superb engineers/producers and experience some name bands with actual budgets working in 'real' studios. Beats the hell out of youtube videos when you are immersed in it 24/7 even for a few weeks. You never seem to forget stuff from those experiences. Its been challenging (deadline to complete soldering the 32 channel fully balanced desk for the new B Studio we needed to be ready within a couple of weeks was'optimistic' at best). A certain guitarist's attitude was rather trying at times. My ears could only last so long back then because I didn't know how to listen as well, that was hard to understand. I know I have forgotten more about mic placement than I think most modern chaps learn in college and the next few years of their careers. My ears a pretty good, they could be better, but they are better than most. The kit never guarantees a recording, learn the theory and practice of sound engineering as much as you need to to get the results you are hoping for. It not worth learning more unless you are serious about a career in it. A lack of skills will prevent a reasonable recording more than anything else. Budget gear these days is insanely good for the money, not as good as the big boys toys, but still, unbelievable really. Having said that, with decent mics/board and just 2 tracks I can record a live take better than most people can mix umpty and three tracks; if the band are on it and the room is good. HAVE FUN! Don't beat yourself up, your efforts are going to be woeful for far longer than you stay with GB if the bug bites. Keep learning, go and look at the Gearslutz website (the beginner and budget areas are where your interests should take you, forget the big boys toys, they are useless to you).

Not necessarily true, but they probably haven't needed to push the limits of what GB can do yet and so haven't seen what a DAW is actually capable of either.... Or, and I am not trying to seem rude, they have found a DAW too complex or confusing or just different enough from GB to be a too significant a learning curve to get over in order to find the benefits of the power of a fully operational Death Star, sorry, DAW....

Best bang for the buck cans for recording are Studiospares m1000 . Beat speakers 5x more expensive IME. Loads cheaper than monitors which are not really going to help much if the room isnt treated, theyll just confuse the issue to a greater or lesser degree.

Oh yeah ☺

Cool Things have moved on so far since the first DAWs I used 😆