Regarding The Basic Principles Of Live Audio

03-13-2008, 03:40 PM

I'm a live sound reinforcement and recording engineer, at the bottom level of the industry. I might be called (affectionately or not) an "anklebiter." A reasonable summation of this position might be that one has enough equipment to get something done, but not necessarily with great finesse or otherwise superior quality.

1. The basic principle of mixing a live show, to me, is being able to hear everything clearly without excessive SPL (sound pressure level). Sometimes this isn't possible to achieve, at which point the goal changes to prioritizing the relative importance of different sources, and focusing one's effort on making the most important sources clearly audible.

2. Great live sound starts with great sources. A source that sounds bad without reinforcement can only be helped so much by the application of technology. After that, an engineer that makes good choices is critical, followed by having enough power and coverage for what one wants to accomplish. A step beyond that is to have truly superior loudspeakers. However, I must emphasize that the very best equipment can be made to sound truly awful if the humans involved are unskilled, or make poor decisions.

3. Live VS Studio is an enormous discussion, but from my experience, one might boil it down to studio work having many more safety nets in terms of ability to go back and get things as close to perfection as possible. Live audio, on the other hand, is much more immediate, and mistakes at the time of presentation to an audience can not be fixed (though you can react to them so that they are not made again.)