Pro Sound Web: So much of what we do as sound engineers is based on habit and repetition. Better safe than sorry, if it ain’t broke don’t fix it, that’s the way everyone does it, and so on.
I enjoy questioning and testing that validity of these patterns. One of the beautiful aspects of live sound is that there is no true right or wrong way, but rather, certain approaches are more likely to result in preferable outcomes than others.
2 comments:
I would have to agree with Dave Rat here, being that most of my professional sound experience has been as an A2 or Sound Tech I always wondered how singling out each and every drum for EQ was more useful than listening to the kit as a whole but it is something that I always figured was the norm so I started incorporating this to my own sound checks. It wasn't until I was working a gig for Passion Pit that I noticed their Engineer do exactly what Dave Rat is explaining here. He did a quick line check then he just had the band play a few songs and did all of his EQ and such in this phase. When I spoke to him after the sound check was over he said that when you EQ a mic on its own it might sound great but when you add more layers to the mix that one mic may sound nothing like it did before.
I think Dave Rat has a very good idea on how to mix sound and do sound checks. It is a waste of time to check each microphone and instrument individually and set everything based on them playing alone. Once the entire band is playing everything sounds very different. If all the levels were set high to hear each instrument alone, then when they all play together it will be very overpowering. Blending sound is very important and that is only possible when the instruments are playing together to make the sound they will in their performance.
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