February 07, 2018
A significant majority of music gigs are held in indoor environments. In order to achieve the best possible results indoors, it is helpful to keep some important fundamental principles in mind. Here, in no particular order (because they're all very, very important) are some things you should always keep in mind when mixing sound indoors.
Not Everybody Can Hear the Same Thing
This isn't a recording studio. A very large proportion of your audience will hear only the speaker they're in closest proximity to, so lose the stereo panning. When you pan an instrument away from center you don't so much spread the instruments across the stereo field as attenuate them on one side or the other. In fact, a lot of pro sound techs always run in dual-mono mode for this very reason. While you're at it take a walk around the room when the band is playing and make sure you can hear all of the instruments proportionately from most of the seats in the venue.
Reflections Are the Enemy
When you surround the stage with four (or more) walls and a ceiling, usually of random length and height and built without giving acoustics more than a cursory thought, you end up with sound reflecting off all the surfaces and back into the listening field where it wreaks havoc on your mix and equalization. Bass reflecting back can cancel itself out (phase cancellation) and absorb all of your available power even as you're trying to get the bass to come across. High frequency sounds come back out of sync with the source creating audio clutter and in some particularly cringe-worthy situations can cause dreadful feedback problems. Overall your mix loses clarity and punch. Because of this you want to situate your main front-of-house speakers in such a way as to reach the most number of seats possible. You want every seat to be covered by direct sound from the mains and close enough for the direct sound to be greater than the reflected sound coming back to it. If the room is deep you may need time-delay speakers further out into the room in order to adequately cover the seats towards the back. The time delay must be carefully set to synchronize the auxiliary delay speaker with the FOH speaker or your own auxiliary speaker could become another virtual reflection!
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If you’ve decided to use backing tracks or a drum pedal to augment your solo or duo performances, this article address some tips on sourcing backing tracks and creating custom backing tracks.
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