# First time doing live sound, for death metal



## Sepultorture (Feb 7, 2010)

there's a show coming up soon in Toronto, one of the bands i am recording right now wants me to do their live sound, the guy working the sound at the bar i've been told by them and the owner that he is a layabout and they wanna fire him soon

so the band i'm recording wants me to step in and do their live sound

i'm still reletively new to studio mixing and such, doing a pretty good job so far, but i have no fucking clue on where to start with live sound

any help would be GREATLY appreciated


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## Arminius (Feb 7, 2010)

The guys that recorded our last show put a couple of mic's more or less in front of my amp and the monitors that the bassist and drummer share, so we probably screwed them up a bit, since i imagine it would have been better to get each instrument seperately, oh well . They captured the signal that went from the piano to the monitors directly, and kind of forgot about our synth guy .They also took the direct signal of the vocals from the mics. They also recorded the crowd, but I'm not sure if they just used what the vocal mics caught or if they had a few mic's for them too.


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## Sepultorture (Feb 7, 2010)

i don't want to RECORD the show, i want to do front of house mixing

actually be the LIVE SOUND TECHNICIAN


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## Arminius (Feb 7, 2010)

Oh, whoops... umm... yeah i feel smart 

Will you have time to listen to them play before the show? Like a warm up or something?


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## Sepultorture (Feb 9, 2010)

Aysakh said:


> Oh, whoops... umm... yeah i feel smart
> 
> Will you have time to listen to them play before the show? Like a warm up or something?



definitely


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## Dickicker (Feb 9, 2010)

DOnt put the mics on the cone. Little between the cone and where the speaker starts. Bass should be direct out. Vocals dont need to be super loud but loud enough where you hear the singer above the music. Drummer probably uses triggers too huh?


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## Sepultorture (Feb 9, 2010)

Dickicker said:


> DOnt put the mics on the cone. Little between the cone and where the speaker starts. Bass should be direct out. Vocals dont need to be super loud but loud enough where you hear the singer above the music. Drummer probably uses triggers too huh?



drummer uses an electronic kit with real cymbals, so i will be DI-ing them out and use overheads for the cymbals

DI-ed bass, sounds like something i was thinking of doing

thanks for the heads up on the speaker cone for guitar


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## boltzthrower (Feb 12, 2010)

This goes out to all sound guys doing DM shows. Ok here it goes.

FFS, stay within the limitations of the system. It seems like most sound guys think "oh this shit's heavy, I better make it loud as fuck", and they end up driving the speakers way too hard, resulting in a mushy fart sound where noone can hear wtf is going on. That's been my experience anyways, with at least 3/4 of the shows I've been to. I'd rather hear a practice-space volume show with a good mix, than the sound of King Kong taking a dump amplified x10.

The other big mistake I often hear, is a loud muddy-bassy kick drum. Alot of these sound guys around here don't understand the role that the kick plays in DM. DM is not Rock, DM guitars and bass occupy so much of the low frequencies that it's best to give the kick enough mids-highs to cut through instead of competing with the low end. 

So I'm sure you're thinking "duh" right now, but damnit, I needed to rant about this 'cause it's been the bane of my live experiences for so many years.


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## Arminius (Feb 12, 2010)

In all honesty, you got lucky that they are using an electric drum kit, putting up a mic for almost every drumhead sounds like a pain. Our drummer uses an electric kit, and whenever we have time to do a complete set up (rarely), he does most of the work himself; he knows what levels he likes his drums at. The problem is that all of the places we play at are different; some of them are too small to have a huge bass sound, some have a tendancy to make cymbals hurt you ears, ect. Basically, you just have to deal with what you got, I'm sure you'll be able to get it sounding great if my incompetent self can get volumes right once in a while . Getting to do a sound check before will save you, we have to text people in the audience to get info about our volume levels during the 3 minutes we get to set up .


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## Customisbetter (Feb 13, 2010)

I have done live sound a couple times.

Things to remember,

Know your buses on the board and where they are going. If the previous user was smart, he should label all of the stage monitor positions too.

if a band member is being a dick about his monitor, and you can hear it all the way at the back of the club, DO NOT TURN IT UP. he is obviously deaf and for the sake of the entire sound stage, just pretend to turn knobs until he finally says "thats good".

i have done it, and as cruel as it sounds, it works.

hope this made any sense.


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## Harry (Feb 14, 2010)

The principles involving live sound are not exactly the same as the studio obviously, but getting things sitting in a mix means they do share some common parameters (that is not to say the advice I'll give will work great for both situations, I'll speak more about live stuff)

High pass EVERYTHING. 
Kick drums at 40Hz, bass guitar at 40Hz, guitars at least 120Hz (the general rule is 100Hz for the studio, but better safe than sorry, hence why I suggested 120Hz) overheads at least 300Hz I'd say. 
Vocals, depends on vocalist really, but you definitely want it all out of the way of the mid bass range (which would in effect totally remove it from being in the sub bass region as well), so 300Hz minimum, but best to start at 300Hz perhaps.
High passing means the difference between complete mud and instruments being able to fit into their frequency region easier.

If the venue is small, don't worry about overheads. I've been to plenty of small venues where the cymbals were loud and clear without them.

Mid scoop the kick drums just enough to get it out of the way of guitars and vocals and then boost for attack at around 3KHz and maybe around 8Khz for that clicky sound.
Mid scoop toms a bit too, but not as much as the kick drum.
Boost for attack and click, but not over the top.

Learn about gain staging ASAP. Proper gain staging minimizes feedback and just sounds clearer and more pleasing to the ear.

Find feedback frequencies by boosting and then proceed to cut those frequencies out.

Also make sure the vocals are compressed enough to tame peaks so you can maximize headroom. Nothing worse than having volume spikes caused by vocals which drown out everything else constantly.


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## CrushingAnvil (Mar 7, 2010)

Customisbetter said:


> I have done live sound a couple times.
> 
> Things to remember,
> 
> ...


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## newamerikangospel (Mar 8, 2010)

Wow, that was a weird bump....


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## Aniketh (Feb 25, 2011)

Harry said:


> The principles involving live sound are not exactly the same as the studio obviously, but getting things sitting in a mix means they do share some common parameters (that is not to say the advice I'll give will work great for both situations, I'll speak more about live stuff)
> 
> High pass EVERYTHING.
> Kick drums at 40Hz, bass guitar at 40Hz, guitars at least 120Hz (the general rule is 100Hz for the studio, but better safe than sorry, hence why I suggested 120Hz) overheads at least 300Hz I'd say.
> ...



Thank you so much for this advice will try it out in the earliest coming up gig. By the way im a drummer for a gutterul brutal slam death band from India called Shock Therapy. You can check us out at Shock Therapy | hyderabad, IN | Metal / Brutal/ Slam/Grind | Music, Lyrics, Songs, and Videos | ReverbNation. Thank you so much for the kick drum advice was a major problem at most of our shows.


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## ghostred7 (Feb 27, 2011)

Pray they have a feedback ferret or feedback destoryer somewhere in their rack. Don't let them control their stage volume. The louder the stage, the less control you have FOH. If they need more, monitor mix them (following the "rules" that Customisbetter stated about monitor volume). Depending on the size of the venue, you may not even need to use overheads on the symbols. I had one band that used no symbol mics in 5 yrs b/c where they were playing didn't require them.


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