Balancing sounds for live performances

[RedLeo]

More often than not, though, it's the experience of keyboards just being hellishly annoying because levels are all over the place.

A competent sound guy who's unfamiliar with the band and the material will keep adjusting volumes DOWN until they no longer annoy.

Which means that even if he's well-meaning towards the keyboards, he'll have them set at a level that's comfortable in the mix, and the second a sound comes over that's TOO LOUD, he'll pull it down until it's comfortable, and not touch it again.

This isn't ill will, at all:
Experience will have taught him that if the band is working with a keyboard player who can't handle his levels, he'll probably be better off tackling the lack of microphone discipline and riding the lead vocal's levels throughout the show.

Sadly this is indeed what often happens. But the sound engineer is being paid to do a job and has an obligation to do it properly. Many musicians will give a sound engineer all sorts of problems. Tough. That's the name of the game. Simply messing up a band's sound mix because he can't be bothered to stay on top of things all night and would rather just have an easy time of it is disgraceful. You don't get to pick and choose which parts of a paid job you want to do properly. You're being paid to do the whole job, same as everybody else.

[analogika]

True enough.

But sound guys aren't supermen, and the golden rule is "s*** in, s*** out".

Most jobs working with non-professionals, the technician has his hands full with damage control, rather than attempting to give it some sort of magical Midas touch.

If he's focussed on riding the lead vocal levels, that's because they're usually more important than whatever you're doing.

Learn to handle your levels. That's YOUR job, not the sound guy's.

[ralhop]

Hello,

I personaly do the trick with EQ. volume is important but he real cut true is done by EQ.

listen or if you can't analyze it with a freq analyzer to the other band members and find your sweet spot position and boost that frequency a bit up.
if you hear your sound solo you probably think that it is awful but if you hear that same sound in the mix it fells in position.

I Play keyboards in one of my bands with 2 guitars bass and drums and explained them that they leave me no space. so we once multirecorded our band and divided for everyone with "space" they get. I know that guitars always want a big sound and if they program their sound it is always to big so we cut low and top so the bass keyboards fill in the created empty space

we do much festivals with a lot of different sound engineers and we always ask if they can write problems down on our setlist for instance extreme volume or EQ changes and now they all love it that they don't have to change so much any more.

this way is also better for small venue because most amps and drums on stage are so loud that the PA system can only put vocals and keyboards on it and make the volume fit to the onstage Amps and that is not easy mixing.

this is not a golden rule but it has helped our band a lot.

[hector space]

I found the NS2 was pretty bad at providing a balanced sound across all it's instruments and sample sets. In particular the sample sets are all over the place in terms of volume. Typically what you'll find is that in the studio or at home your patches will sound great. But get them out at a gig against bass, drums, guitar and vocals and you are in trouble. This is because these sounds have not been optimised for live performance in this situation. The same is true for my electro 3, but because I really only use it for organ and strings (22violins) live, I've honed these to cut through.

I have never managed to get a good brass sound live out of either the NS2 or the E3. Roland's fixed rompler sound sets on the Juno Di and my old trusty rd700sx run circles round them. This is simply because Roland has optimised the sound energy spectrum to suit live full band situations. People listen to live recordings and say your brass section sounds good! We don't have one.. Lol

Even with the Roland I have to do the following:- use the global parametric eg to create a presence peak of about 4 to 6 db at around 2k and the spectral compressor to really bring up those quiet piano dynamics.

The issue with piano dynamics (acoustic or electric) is that once you get behind even just a singer, your audience will loose the gentle bits because the dynamic range of the piano is far too large for the PA to handle. The NS2 compressor is a pretty blunt instrument but it will certainly help you here.

The point about sound men isn't that there is anything personal in it! It is just that it is usually a full time job trying to balance the keyboards from one patch to the next in the mix and if you've got a whole band to mix then there just isn't enough space to bother with the keys. Yes guys keyboards are last.. The old musical hall saying "if you want to star never perform with children or animals" can be applied to us keyboard players if you want to be heard and appreciated never perform with guitarists or sax plays.

Really what this means is you the keyboard player, has to get to grips with your levels.. The problem with piano is that it has a huge dynamic range and a bigger spectral range than most other things on the stage. You have to play parts that don't mess up everyone else's. Realise that typically your overall mix does not want to be muddied up with left hand piano parts interfering with the bass and bass drum. That you cannot occupy the vocalists mid range and there is no point in fighting the guitarists mid range either. That without a suitable compressor on the keys there will be no level that will be right. Without good parametric eq you'll not find your slot in the mix.

Just being loud is aggressive ignorant rubbish.. What are we? Guitarists!!
But ultimately if you don't balance your own patches no one else will... Nord don't make this easy. But at least their keyboards look good! That's why so many keyboard players don't even get in the photos.. Who? Lol

[kblok]

I'm agree with you. I quit using mainstage because I was tired of leveling all the sounds all the time, and when I moved to my new NS2 I found things like the sinth section being able to go three times louder than the piano section.

Of course these kind of issues have an explanation, but as you said, you don't want to end up your day checking the levels of each damn sound.

[jpag57]

As hector space replied, it's all in the time and testing intensive work of optimizing sounds for live (ensembles and solo being distinct) and studio applications. You'll find it worth the effort!