Beautiful Voices: Seven Keys To Optimizing Vocals In The Worship Mix

ProSoundWeb: Singers produce a range of sounds, good and bad, and no two voices are alike – the good news is that focusing on the following areas can take a lot of the hassle out of the process.

How Well Do You Know Your Audio Console?

Church Production Magazine: Taking the time to engage more fully with our technology and understand its capabilities makes us better in our craft. Time spent here is an investment in ourselves and it allows us to use our talents to engage others more effectively. It allows us to minister better. Here are three capabilities that I generally see underutilized--or that are even unknown to many operators serving in our churches.

Five Things I Wish I Knew When I First Started Mixing Live Music

ProSoundWeb: My live audio career began on a cold night in 1981 in a dive bar in Vancouver, Canada. It was a rough day that prefaced an even rougher night. I didn’t have a single clue what I was doing behind the NEI-Neptune 24-channel analog console.

Getting Your Head In The Game – The Pre-Show Routine

SoundGirls.org: Have you ever watched athletes arrive at an arena hours before the game begins? Or read an entire article that is just about how an actor gets into character for a film shoot? Do you know someone who has a weird superstitious ritual that they do before giving a presentation, or taking an exam, or even just before leaving the house? These scenarios are alike because they show us that preparation is key.

How to Use Multiple Types of Reverb in a Mix

Pro Audio Files: Is it okay to use multiple types of reverb in a mix? My answer is yes, probably. Thank you for reading this article. Jokes aside, I’ll see this question come up every once in a while, and I understand there may be people on both sides of the argument. Before we dive deep into my reasoning, let’s quickly cover what the different types of reverbs are, and how I may typically use them when producing and mixing.

Musicians Are From Jupiter, Engineers Are From Saturn

ProSoundWeb: Being the online forum lurker that I sometimes am, there are times when I’m struck by a pattern or trend that was never clear before (for whatever reason). It happened just a while ago, and the context is relevant to what we do in our business of live sound.

7 Tips for Getting a More Dynamic Mix

Pro Audio Files: Tips 1-7: use less compression. That’s it. End of article. Just kidding! Honestly, using less compression is probably the most surefire way to ensure a more dynamic mix. But as someone who loves some heavy handed compression, I’m not even going to pretend that I endorse a suggestion like that.

A Musical Middle: Adding Depth & Musicality To The Core Of Your Mixes

ProSoundWeb: Here we’re going to look at everything that happens in the mix between the foundation and the vocals. It’s the peanut butter and jelly between two slices of bread, and it’s extremely important if you want the song to sound musical and powerful. The instruments that live in this area will give the song its musicality and key signature and encourage people to sing along, so let’s explore how we can wrangle all this musical information together so that all the instruments are clearly heard and identified yet working together to form a beautiful “musical middle.”

A Little Bit of Magic

SoundGirls.org: I miss mixing shows. That thought has snuck up on me every week or so for the past several months. It’s always a tiny bit surprising because I knew I liked my job, but I’d never stopped to take stock of exactly how happy it made me. I know I’m not alone in that; all of us want to get back to our usual, wonderfully irregular lives. One of my favorite things about mixing is that there is always something to do.

The Lowdown On Mixing - Re-recording mixer Jacob Cook

SoundGirls.org: If you’re like me, then you think being a re-recording mixer sounds not only intimidating but also very confusing. I think of the giant mixing board with a ton of buttons and nobs on it. YIKES. I thought the best way to get my questions answered was to ask one of our re-recording mixers, Jacob! He has his hands in all of our shows so he definitely has the lowdown. Let’s jump right in!

Mixing Recorded Audio

Church Production Magazine: A clear, intelligible, and engaging audio mix is perhaps the most important part of any recorded content. During the pandemic, church techs, including filmmakers as well as FOH and monitor engineers, are finding themselves mixing for live streams, recorded services, and other post-produced content.

How Many Tools? Putting The Ear Ahead Of The Gear

ProSoundWeb: My first experience with digital consoles came during a large New Year’s event many years ago, where I and another engineer were hired as freelancers for the show. I worked monitors, he handled front of house.

My monitor rig took up nearly the entirety of stage left with a double rack full of EQs, a multitude of additional amplifier racks and processors, and an analog console the size of a queen mattress – all to cover a whopping dozen stage mixes.

Klang:fabrik Masters Mixing at Liberty Church

Church Production Magazine: With six campuses spread throughout the greater Pensacola area, Florida Panhandle-based Liberty Church is known for hosting services that are both contemporary and uplifting. In keeping with the contemporary theme, the non-denominational church’s 200-seat Gulf Breeze campus recently became its first location to integrate a Klang:fabrik 3D IEM mixing system, with the goal of making the monitor mixing at this house of worship more streamlined.

5 Interesting Ways to Use Delay Effects in a Mix

Pro Audio Files: I love the “sound design” element of mixing records. Crafting interesting tones and textures is kind of like my version of being a playing musician. One of my favorite tools for doing this is the Delay — a repetition of the sound it’s applied to. It’s amazing what you can create with something as simple as a repeat of a sound.

4 Mixing Tools You Didn't Know You Had

Pro Audio Files: When we think of mixing tools we generally think of compression, EQ, reverb, and distortion. In reality, we have a lot more tools at our disposal, none of which require any specific plugins. We have an arsenal of compositional tools that we might be ignoring. And yet, these tools are every bit as powerful as any signal processor.