05-25-2008, 10:42 PM
I'll start by saying that I have about 14 years of experience in audio, it being a mixture of live and studio situations. Whether that's actually 14 years of experience, or 1 year of experience 14 times over is not for me to decide. You would think, though, that not being a bonehead would come a bit more easily as time passes, regardless of the quality of the experience.
Maybe not.
So, the opening band for a show brings in an upright bass.
(All the experienced guys know where this is going. An upright bass is potentially one of the best tests of whether or not you have your excrement collated. My test score for the night was EPIC FAIL, DUDE.)
Yours truly decides to just slap a mic on that sucker and go, so I grab one of the mics that was originally slated to be grabbing some crowd noise for the live recording that night. (I was told that the opener was going to be using only the equipment provided by the headliner, but that wasn't actually the case.)
Now, I'm not going to discuss mic makes and models, because I'm going for general applicability here. I will say that the mic was inexpensive, and chosen for use because of its low profile, integrated stand mount, and the fact that it "basically sounds like a vocal mic" (because you can point it at something and it will sound reasonably like that something). Also, it was handy, whereas the equipment room was difficult to get to with all the gear on stage.
(Did I say that all the experienced guys know where this is going? They do, you know.)
Hindsight tells me that what I needed was a mic with good "selectivity" and feedback rejection, and that I should have probably mic'ed more at the bridge area than trying to jam that stupid mic right up to the bass's soundhole. Of course, that's hindsight. What I did was exactly the opposite of that, combined with a stubborn belief that EQ was going to fix my problems.
Should I have known better? Yep.
DID I know better. Yep.
Did I still manage to become totally inflexible and idiotic in the heat of the moment? HELL YES!
To cut to the chase, we could not get anywhere near the needed amount of bass in the monitors. There was an enormous amount of drum bleed making it into the mic (both directly, and I suspect, indirectly from the reflections off the bass body), and there was one very specific angle where the interactions of the mic, bass, and monitor set off some of the most sudden, earsplitting, and out of control HF feedback I've heard in ages.
The HF feedback happened three our four times. The vocalist had her hands over her ears and a very distraught look on her face. (As an engineer, if you ever create a situation where ANYONE puts their hands over their ears, you have failed. FAILED. Insert another quarter. Painfully loud != good. EVER.)
The band and I eventually give up trying to get sufficient monitor level, and hunker down for the set. With the HF feedback problem fixed, my new problem was the LF feedback I was getting (constantly) while trying to just make the upright audible in the house. The band's set was basically ruined - but they were very nice about it. (Hooray for gentle people!)
The point of posting this is to point out some generalizations that, if I would have had my way, my own self from 10 years in the future would have been screaming at me:
1)Engineering occurs about 75% on stage and 25% at the console. If you get your setup wrong, you are screwed. SCREWED. All the knob twisting in the world CANNOT SAVE YOU.
2)Corollary to #1: If you get behind the console and the EQ can't fix your problem quickly and easily, the EQ will never fix your problem at all. If it's taking you more than a few seconds to "dial out a problem," the problem needs to be fixed at the point where it is. Which is on the STAGE.
3)Use the correct mic. NOT the convenient mic. The two minutes you think you've just saved may cost you an ENTIRE SET in the end. Effort at the gig is saved by preparation, not by cutting corners. Not EVER.
4)Effort can neither be created or destroyed, it can only be transferred from one part of the execution of a production to another. If you haven't spent most of your effort in an aspect of preparation (like mic choice and placement) - WATCH OUT!
5)The instant you get complacent about "knowing the room and the rig," you are moments from getting FLATTENED. Depend on it.
The worst part about the whole thing is that I actually knew all this going in, but failed to ACT on it effectively. The results were flat out disastrous. It does not matter that the headliner's set went extremely well, because an entire band's prep was completely blown by one person.
Be very careful when the suck knob is between your fingers, 'kay?
Friday, June 27, 2008
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2 comments:
For what it's worth - and maybe to encourage you a little - this reminds me of the upright base that 'Jars' had that fateful night in the coffeehouse. That was about as cool a sound as I had heard. I don't recall if or how you mic'd it that night, but it was perfect (as is the sound in the recording thereof, so double-destroyer kudos).
As much as I'd like to take credit for the sound of the upright, I'm almost 100% sure that it had a pickup (and the player had brought his own amp). It was all about what the player did - but I will certainly take your comment as encouragement that, yes, an upright can sound quite good and be feedback free. :)
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