Been through all the threads here and i don't see one for Live sound mixing. The closest thing i can find is Music recording and it's way much different than Live sound mixing. With live, you only get one shot, one chance to get it right. It's hard to find lessons on live sound mixing here in Malaysia unless you enroll for a certificate or degree course with SAE (school of audio engineering) and i always believe in sharing knowledge.

I guess we can start off by stating your experience in Live sound mixing and where do you mix. Don't have to brag here, just wanna know the depth of knowledge we have around here.

For myself, I've been mixing for 4 years and i do the mixing for my church service. Don't have any formal education in sound engineering except for short courses and things which i pick up as i go along.

What do you guys look for when doing live mixing? Vocal clarity, focus on instruments, or mish mash of everything?


One question, would you guys be interested to join short courses (2 - 84 weekends) for basic and intermediate audio/mixing course?

Well i wouldn't call it a mish mash of everything. Everything has to sit right. I usually do instruments first and blend them together before i start going on vocals. Just personal preference. I don't believe in compromise when i mix. It's either I do it well, or i just turn everything up to the same level which is really equivalent to not doing anything at all.

I find live mixing easier than studio mixing. Sure you only get one shot, but the thing is you don't have to bother looking for the room image (as in echo and hall) because you can mix everything dry and you have natural reverb from the room you are in. That's a big load off your shoulders.

quite true. Most of the time, you don't have to bother with the reverb unless of course the hall has extremely bad acoustics.

Speaking about acoustics, how do you compensate for a bad acoustics hall (lots of echos and places for soundwaves to build up)? So far, i've been mixing in a pretty well designed hall, but i believe there are soundman who are mixing in not so ideal conditions. Heard that there's some processors which picks up signal using a condenser and automatically does the correction to the mix.

I guess we both have the same approach, mixing instruments first and then proceeding to vocals. However, since i mix for church worship, i tend to focus more on vocal clarity in the end.

i mix for church worship too. And you're right, the tendency is to have clear vocals, but that's how i always mix anyway regardless of whether in the studio or live or church or not.

About the hall acoustics, I don't compensate. If anyone complains i just say "Your hall sucks. Build a new one" ...But sooner or later that excuse is not going to work at all. Never heard about any processor that processes bad acoustics. Sounds like a scam to me.

hmm, sad la. why only two of us talking. It's more like a dialog now instead of a discussion. no one here do live mixing?

Do you do audience capture? eg place condensers or mics on ceiling and mix it to the FOH? Prolly it's not worth it if it's a small hall.. but for large hall, i think it'd sound nice... I'm not sure though, haven't got the guts to try it. lol.. wait feedback all the time and the whole congregation will turn and look at you like you committed some major sin.. lol

dialogue is still a discussion

Why do you want to do audience capture and run it through to FOH? I only do it if i'm doing a video. Even then it's usually pretty low. I don't think the audience want to hear themselves

haha to hear their own out-of-tuneness perhaps?

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Added on October 26, 2007, 1:04 pmSigh.. headache.. the electricians wired our electrical outlets wrongly.. we specifically asked for one phase solely for sound system and equipments.. mana tau, they go mix it up with the lighting..

Now everytime we turn on the lights, the system will go .. "pop pop"... headache headache.. Any idea on how to fix it short of ripping out all the cables and rewiring it again (cos plaster ceiling already in place). If dun fix, sooner or later, the speaker's drivers gonna go, and apogee drivers don't come cheap..



This post has been edited by raist86: Oct 26 2007, 01:04 PM

Hi, glad to see this thread.... I'm doing LIVE broadcast, also in church. I have been involve in AV ard 6 years... But I'm still on the way for improvement. For church PA, basically i think they want clear vocal, reduce echo or other annoying sound. Well, I'll try my best to do help out if u guys need help...

This post has been edited by mwkh_hope: Dec 1 2007, 10:20 PM

ooh live sound mixing lol.
I'm another church mixer i guess, 3 years.
Yeah, I usually go for stronger vocals, but i like to have an equal blend of the instruments, although i will turn up the drums and bass by reflex, so the guitarists always complain sometimes.

haha.. looks like all live sound mixers are all from church background.

an idea just hit me.. cos a friend was asking me about it. Possible to use a bass amp to run it as a subwoofer? He was saying that his church too small to afford a proper sub and amp, but their service like no kick because cannot project lower frequencies. His mixer has a channel for sub with frequency cutoff selection.

For echo/reverb/reflections, acoustically treat the room...diffusers, bass traps, rockwool panels etc.

Don't really know about any "processors" but what I know is you can use a spectrum analyzer which will tell you what frequencies are being boosted/cut due to the room's acoustics, and then use a 31-band EQ to flatten out the curve created by the hall.

Downside is spectrum analyzers are expensive, but you probably can get by with renting one.

you can try those AC regulator things they use to stabilise your voltage for your PC. I'm not sure how much wattage they can hold, but that's the only thing i can think of that may help.

we're using the AC regulator thingy..

and the verdict:

it' doesn't work. :\
now, whenever i have to turn on and off the stage lights, i'll have to turn my house amp off first..

hmm, then it's not a voltage problem? Still strange. You have any measuring oscilloscope or something to measure voltage?

I mix for church too...

I generally have one objective in mind. It should sound as if I just put a good CD into a CD player and played it over the FoH.

As for the electrical problems, sorry, but there's no cheap fix. Just budget for an additional phase. For now, just turn on your lights before your audio.

Oh, and if you want to learn more, i'd suggest interning with a studio or live events company. I looked thru SAE's coursework. Good if you're coming from a situation where you know nothing.

This post has been edited by ionStorm: Dec 2 2007, 05:41 PM

just had a crisis this morning. whole sound system overloaded and went offline. Went to check the circuit breaker and it was tripped. What shocked me was that all our sound system equipment is linked to just one circuit.. that's why it overloaded.

gawd.. really feel like strangling whoever that did our wiring. No blueprint to trace back the lines also. looks like have to ask for budget to redo wiring.

wth?? dude thats some bad wiring to the extreme.

YES....
sigh.. sad la.. just installed in the new equipments but wiring lacking to the max.

aiyo, feel so sad for you.

i've heard of splitting it to two phases, but thats like the bare minimum. And you also said the lights are wired into the same phase right? Thta's not surprising why it overloaded, but still, kill the contractor who wired it for you.