Live sound is but one of many aspects of Audio Engineering. In a small environment it is particularly important to use your system to reinforce the performance as priority and not just turning things up because you can.
A recent opportunity gave me a chance to expand my skills in terms of live performance mixing and reinforcement. The venue was West End Uniting Church which isn't a huge area but provides its own challenges in terms of sound. With a large exposed barn style ceiling, deep seating with an upper Annex; Concrete walls, plenty of glass windows, getting a clear and balanced sound so that everyone was having the same experience no matter of seating position particularly under the annex was exciting due to one key element; The sound rig.
At the heart of this system is The SoundCraft Ui24R surfaceless mixer combines the power and versatility of a large-format console with a compact design and complete Wi-Fi control. With Ui24R, you have the features you need, plus the freedom to control your mixer from anywhere in the venue. This gave me first hand response of what the gig sounded like from the position of the audience with complete control remotely.
With any production, there are always challenges, with this case the stage manager moving wedges, artists wanting specific microphones, extra microphones being needed on stage, being diligent and flexible is a live sound engineers best friend and adapting to those changes quickly is a true test of an engineers ability. Working with the artists for monitoring mixes can make or break the performance because if they're not happy then they wont perform to their full potential. The artists and Instruments for the night where:
- Peter B & the Homeless Souls (1x vocal, 1x acoustic guitar, 1x bass, 1x keyboard)
- Blind Dog Donnie (1x vocal, 1x acoustic guitar, 1x electric guitar, 1x bass, 1x keyboard)
- Blues Acadia (2x vocal, 1x electric guitar, 1x bass, 1x keyboard)
All of the Mics used on stage where Shure SM58's and DI's for keys and Acoustic Guitars.
While these where all Jazz/Soul Artists each one had specific requirements and mixes relative to them individually, so clear communication with them and the stage manager was of up most importance between changes and during the performance. Tuning the room was easy with the interface of the of the Ui24 as each channel had their own EQ and Compression/Gate and on the master channel Multi-Band and Four Channel Parametric EQ, DBX Compression, Lexicon Reverb/Delay and a 32 band graphic EQ. While the equipment was fairly cost effective, there was no sacrifice on sound quality and ease of use.
Working with the event co-ordinator has opened opportunities in the future for similar events and also for music production.
Special thanks to James McEwan and Peter Branjerdporn for the opportunity.