Live Vocal Thread

[lelandbowman3]

Searched and Googled, didn't see anything, so I'm opening the pit:

What is the best way to eq and mix live vocals?
-Cleans
-Screaming
-Backup
-With Effects
Etc.

Let's see what SS.O has to say, because I've been trying to perfect live sound and one thing I can't stand is for my vocals to change from venue to venue because of their house tech keeping everything flat, or me not being able to dial-in my voice. Any thoughts, tricks, tips?

 

[lelandbowman3]

obviously you can't run a chain of compressors, eq, etc. so what are the best live engineers doing to get that attack, response, and mass in a live setting?

 

[RevDrucifer]

How are you planning on implementing anything you decide on?

I wanted to take control of my reverbs/delays so I turned half my guitar rig into a vocal rig, ran a mic into a TC Electronics G-Force and controlled everything with an expression pedal and a Ground Control Pro. As far as EQ, you're really at the mercy of the soundman and experience has shown me it's MUCH better left to those guys to EQ your vocals than for you to go and tell them what you want. They know what the room sounds like and are much more familiar with their gear than you are and more often than not, you'll piss them off by giving them tips before you even hit the stage.
Even if you run your mic into a mixer with your own EQ and everything on there, it's still going to hit a mixing console after that, where the soundman will do whatever he wants to make it sound best for the room you're in.

 

[DudeManBrother]

I’ve never bothered with what the sound guy does to my vocals. I just bring my mic and go. I will set up my own eq for private gigs where we supply the PA; but never worry about it at the standard venues.

 

[lewis]

if you use laptop + interface live for backingtrack and Clicks for the drummer, then its very easy to do a Wet/Dry vocal setup in the Daw (providing you have enough inputs & outputs on the interface)

So what we are planning is wet vocals (with compression, reverb and automated Tempo delays in places) go to the FOH, then completely dry vocals go to our stage sound to avoid compressor/feedback problems.

EDIT: This also means you can have automated compression settings for cleans, and different (lighter) settings for Screams etc in time with the backing track

 

[TedEH]

I've never really been a live singer, for the most part, but I'd be hesitant to do a lot of vocal processing before the sound guy gets a chance to do his thing. Introducing your own compression could potentially mess with the sound guy's normal workflow, make it harder to control feedback, etc. Assuming you have a decent sound guy to begin with, every element you try to control like this is something you've taken out of his (or her) hands - limiting what they can do for you. That might be ok, but it's important to be aware of what tradeoffs you're making.

 

[GunpointMetal]

Just do what half the bands are doing now. Put all your time-synced delays and reverb FX on the backtrack. As far as compression/saturation that goes into "heavy" vocals a lot of times in the studio, they rarely ever actually work in a venue because the settings used for recording will cause massive feedback at any decent volume. I've seen a bunch of bands over the years where the vocalist has his own FX board and it almost always sounds awful, or causes feedback the whole time when they try to do anything besides basic delays/verbs. Shit even Entheos was having some issues at the last show I saw with the "robot voice" thing they use all over the newest album. The first few songs it was super quiet, then when it was loud enough it was making the mic feedback in the mains, then it got stuck on for parts where it wasn't supposed to be on. My experience with performing and occasionally doing sound is to leave dynamics up to the FOH guy who knows the gear/room and is setting the gain staging. If you're screaming/singing and you need saturation, heavy compression, and doubler on all the time to "sound right" live, you need to practice more. (not saying that's you, just an observation)

 

[lelandbowman3]

This is all super helpful. I just have a constant fear that my vocals will sound like Chelsea Grin because a ton of sound guys in the area are just trash, so I was trying to see how best to combat that.

 

[lewis]

ive said it a million times on this forum, and alas I will say it again.

Most people on here talk about shows/soundguys like its going to be Wembley Arena with the best soundguys ever, when in reality my last gig took 2 soundguys 20 mins to plug in 4 XLR cables (we D.I everything) - literally worse than useless so the reality is you simply HAVE to take as much control back over your sound as possible, otherwise you all sound like complete trash every gig.

 

[TedEH]

^ Counterpoint: Being on stage puts you in the worst position to try to control what the audience is hearing, in terms of mix. Stage sound is not what the audience is experiencing. You've potentially improved your stage sound, but could have equally screwed the house sound. IMO the solution, if your sound guys really are that bad, would be to bring your own sound guy with you.

 

[GunpointMetal]

ive said it a million times on this forum, and alas I will say it again.

Most people on here talk about shows/soundguys like its going to be Wembley Arena with the best soundguys ever, when in reality my last gig took 2 soundguys 20 mins to plug in 4 XLR cables (we D.I everything) - literally worse than useless so the reality is you simply HAVE to take as much control back over your sound as possible, otherwise you all sound like complete trash every gig.

What kind of "venue" are you playing that even has two sound guys? If this some bar with two speakers on poles and an old analog Yamaha board from 90's?
Anyways, point is, if you're doing your FX for vocals you can't run your usual studio chain like you can when you're working with a track when you're live. Obviously not always the case, but especially for heavy vocals, there is usually heavy compression, de-essing (more compression), and saturation (more compression), and that stuff doesn't work live unless you want to find the one spot on stage you can stand between the mains where you don't get feedback. If a vocalists "sound" relies that heavily on that stuff, there's a fundamental technique issue. (big period) I think having the ability to do your own mix is wonderful, I have that option with both of my bands, but you still have to be smart with your dynamics in a live setting. Running your own FOH mix is good IF you're in a situation where there's a less than ideal tech/sound system.

 

[GunpointMetal]

^ Counterpoint: Being on stage puts you in the worst position to try to control what the audience is hearing, in terms of mix. Stage sound is not what the audience is experiencing. You've potentially improved your stage sound, but could have equally screwed the house sound. IMO the solution, if your sound guys really are that bad, would be to bring your own sound guy with you.

Pretty much everyone who is running their own sound like that is going to have a digital mixer and the ability to mix from a phone/iPad off-stage. But otherwise you're right, you can't do a FOH mix from the stage unless you've played the room before and have a preset scene saved.

 

[TedEH]

^ Even with the room knowledge and presets, I've still yet to run into any serious venue where this would be an improvement over letting the soundguy do his job.

Stress on the "serious venue" part though. If you're showing up at a place with

two speakers on poles and an old analog Yamaha board from 90's

and let's not kid ourselves, this does happen - then no amount of self-mixing is going to correct for the sh*tshow that's about to go down.

 

[GunpointMetal]

^ Even with the room knowledge and presets, I've still yet to run into any serious venue where this would be an improvement over letting the soundguy do his job.

Stress on the "serious venue" part though. If you're showing up at a place with

and let's not kid ourselves, this does happen - then no amount of self-mixing is going to correct for the sh*tshow that's about to go down.

That's pretty much my philosophy. If we show up at a place and there are installed subs, hanging arrays, a full monitor compliment, I'm going to assume the guy running sound knows what he's doing or someone wouldn't have put him in charge of that much equipment and I'm gonna get out of his way and just run my IEM rig and let him handle FOH. If he's tripping over cables and scratching his head at the snake during setup, I'm gonna hand him a two-channel, tell him to set it flat at the board, turn it up, and mix from my tablet with the wireless. IME if its a place with a garbage sound system, the "engineer" is usually on par with the gear, and I'll decide what to send to the mains again. When it comes to stuff like "sounding like Chelsea Grin in that one Marge Simpson video" the trick isn't FX, its to not blow out your voice/suck at vocals to begin with.

 

[TedEH]

I'm reminded of times that I've shown up at venues where the PA setup made no sense, but got an earful when I made suggestions. More and more as time goes on, I'm appreciating the value of picking and choosing which shows to participate in.

 

[GunpointMetal]

I'm reminded of times that I've shown up at venues where the PA setup made no sense, but got an earful when I made suggestions. More and more as time goes on, I'm appreciating the value of picking and choosing which shows to participate in.

Definitely. If it's an "home show" we probably take less than 1/3 of what's offered. Getting asked to travel usually includes some form of monetary guarantee, so we take most of those, plus its nice playing for new people. I'm so over shitty sound guys I don't even care anymore about keeping the sound guy happy. If he's an idiot and fucking stuff up, or I hear the band before us and they sound like shit because of the "sound guy" I have no problem asking him to leave use to our own sound. If he's a dick about it, I'll be a dick right back. No time for morons making me look like an asshole because he doesn't know the different between a gain dial and level fader.

 

[lewis]

What kind of "venue" are you playing that even has two sound guys? If this some bar with two speakers on poles and an old analog Yamaha board from 90's?
Anyways, point is, if you're doing your FX for vocals you can't run your usual studio chain like you can when you're working with a track when you're live. Obviously not always the case, but especially for heavy vocals, there is usually heavy compression, de-essing (more compression), and saturation (more compression), and that stuff doesn't work live unless you want to find the one spot on stage you can stand between the mains where you don't get feedback. If a vocalists "sound" relies that heavily on that stuff, there's a fundamental technique issue. (big period) I think having the ability to do your own mix is wonderful, I have that option with both of my bands, but you still have to be smart with your dynamics in a live setting. Running your own FOH mix is good IF you're in a situation where there's a less than ideal tech/sound system.

ok well this was our last gig/Venue

https://www.google.com/maps/uv?hl=en&pb=!1s0x47d9e3cac2ba567d:0xa08ee4ed61416a3b!2m22!2m2!1i80!2i80!3m1!2i20!16m16!1b1!2m2!1m1!1e1!2m2!1m1!1e3!2m2!1m1!1e5!2m2!1m1!1e4!2m2!1m1!1e6!3m1!7e115!4shttps://lh5.googleusercontent.com/p/AF1QipM_fv3vaBWF6P-Sc5nBoKFRYQeeccLx5aHfZ14=w180-h240-k-no!5sb2 venue norwich - Google Search!15sCAQ&imagekey=!1e10!2sAF1QipM_fv3vaBWF6P-Sc5nBoKFRYQeeccLx5aHfZ14&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwidiMj0r-bhAhU9SBUIHX7RBcAQoiowCnoECA4QBg&cshid=1556028017118310

and this place has 2 soundguys atm because one is training the other (at the expense of bands)

 

[TedEH]

Actually, one the best venues I've played at in terms of sound had a dedicated stage sound engineer. Two sound guys can work out great, if the skills and gear are there to match.

 

[GunpointMetal]

Actually, one the best venues I've played at in terms of sound had a dedicated stage sound engineer. Two sound guys can work out great, if the skills and gear are there to match.

If your stage is less than 60' wide and your venue holds less than 1k, a dedicated monitor engineer is a waste of money.

 

[TedEH]

That was not the case in this venue. It sounded worth it to me at the time. Both sound guys worked for/ came with the venue as far as I know.