1/6 Yamaha Live Sound Clinic – Mixing a Live Band
John Schauer from Yamaha shows us how to use a mixer to setup a live band
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0:00:00. –>
the first thing I’m going to want to do we plug everybody in Iran the liars we haven’t seven checked or check a single thing so the first thing we’re going to do is we as I make sure I mark the board with this many inputs it’s too easy to get lost did not know where you are if you buy some electrical tape and some sharpies you’re going to be a lot better off put some extra tape on the board you’ll see all this yellow tape I put all over this board I don’t want to mark it up permanently but I definitely want to know where I’m at I never want to get lost so the first thing I’ve got here is a kick drum so let’s just start we’ll set up this vein like we would any other band so the secret to make a drum sound really good is to have him make them sound really good first I can’t talk if there’s really bad hands on these drums if the snares are really loose if it sounds bad up here so I’m going to sound words for you out there so he’s got the drones in the ballpark of where he needs them to sound and it’s going to make my life any are it’s a lot easier a sound
0:01:01.5 –>
up so the first thing is we dampen the kick drum there’s some padding you can see inside the drum the padding that touches both heads the idea is that your muffling the drum somewhat a lot most people might drums right at where the hole in the kick drum is and they’ll have you start like right here that’s a good starting point for that so I’m going to ask him to just play the kick drum for me just kick the kick drum with you you start to get a setting on the second hand or the first control on the mixer you get a good sound good level and it should be above sign go ahead and send it out with BAC paneer
0:02:12.3 –>
hey stop so you’re hearing a pretty good kick drum sound it’s pretty solid we’re still hearing a little click maybe I want to hear a little bit more of that click that attack that beater isn’t in that head so if I wanted to do that I would just adjust this mic so was it directly in this hole but just off excess of it just like so but just slightly off axis now I’ll have you take that drum again play it at the same levels if you would and then see what you think of this sound you can get you can hear that and you can even up there you can hear it now
0:03:00.4 –>
I’ll tell you a little secret low frequencies are directional so when I turn to someone he hears oh don’t do a sound check without the vanes on they’re going to say they can’t hear it he could hear the kick drum now I ain’t even started on his monitor yet so you see my point and again I move that my an inch to get that better sound now you it’s my job now to make sure that that might doesn’t move when he gets down off the kit I got to make sure he doesn’t change it but that’s a good sound and we got a pretty good sound of her that kick drum and I haven’t even touched the EQ on the system yet all right so now the next thing on my drum kit I usually set it up so it’s kick snare so the very next thing will be a snare so I’m going to turn off the kick drum and I’m going to work on the snare I do the same thing when I ask him to play at his normal level and I’m going to set that level up ahead and and boy
0:04:14.4 –>
okay on the way up into the air we’ll really busy right good stop you hear the ringing a little bit of ringing this it’s kind of not what we need to hear so let’s go up and take a look at where that Mike’s placed and it’s kind of sideways if you can’t really see it from here but it’s kind of sideways at a 45 degree angle over the drum head I’m going to pull it back a little actually want to make it closer to the drum head
0:05:17.1 –>
both of you guys it before okay is that in your way the whole time I’m doing this kind of stuff it’s important to that I talk to the guys and make sure that you know what we’re doing is not going to bother them we don’t want to mic where they’re going to hit it you know and you certainly want to cramp your style Hitman so try now a little bit I derive falls directly on taxes instead of off axis or get a little better sound you want to bed books narrow there you go that’s good okay that’s a good basic sailor for a start for this snare drum now we’ll go on and
0:06:01.1 –>
the next thing is a hat I did we have a separate line for the high hat so we’ll do the same thing picks out a level I’m just going to have you play um in high hat in your normal level all right I’m going to pretty good start there I’m going to roll up all the low in because there’s no low end coming off of a high hat that’s the first thing I do I’m going to trim on a string and you should feel better there we go go close it in to play pretty real okay that’s a good sounds good alright next we’ll do these hearts right tom the fit bag that one closest let’s go ahead and take those mics and turn them a little bit more directly head on are these
0:07:02.3 –>
going to be in your way not up here at the cymbals you call that okay I should tell you guys I never worked with these guys being a sound man all the time for the same bands you get used to not doing this it’s important to do this treat them like they’re humans that’s like you’re part of the it’s important that they know I’m working to get them with that sound we can get together okay all right let’s try the first rack okay so there you go that hollow sound that we’re here I’m going to tune that elevate cube
0:08:04. –>
it’s hard to mix sideways alright we’ll try that rap overtime and thank you Tom’s are known to be ringing you hearing that after tone that mm and that’s real helpful for us to get us extra feedback later so we don’t want that so we’re we’re going to try to muffle these as best we can these are pretty let live Tom’s there they have a lot of sustain built in this actually can hurt us if we’re trying to get a really big time rock and roll sound out of these drums it could hurt us so we’d want him to maybe put some mufflers on these drums or some rings to calm them down a little if that’s what the sound we were going for let’s try that second rack
0:09:15.4 –>
as ins even worse we’re getting it down real low maybe a hundred fifty or so cycles how do guys talk in terms of the cycles musicians talk in terms oaks notes so this is like down in that bottom octave but it’s funny it seems like all rooms want to ring in this area you’ll hear that 150 to 200 cycles it’s a real sympathetic maybe it’s a size of rooms we play in maybe maybe it has to do with electronics I don’t know but this this is an area especially on the second rack and a floor time that will cause you nightmares of trouble alright so we’re going to keep playing with that I’m going to mess with the EQ on a little will straighten that out