Live sound and recording setup (long winded)
Feb 24, 2014 16:05:58 GMT -7
bluzman, heynewguy (Ol’ Bill), and 6 more like this
Post by Deleted on Feb 24, 2014 16:05:58 GMT -7
As some of you guys know one of my sideline businesses is consulting for clubs and studios. Everything from help with a purchase or a room tweak all the way from start to finish design and instal.
Recently I completed a job for BBQ place near me. They were open as a restaurant and had nothing in there for music but the guy really wanted it. First I tuned the crazy reflections in the room (All concrete (floor) brick (walls), steel (ceiling). I had been in there to eat and the liveness of the room was just nuts to distraction. I gave his contractor a spec'ed out drawing for some absorption panels to be built and place on about 70 % of the ceiling, especial over where the stage would be and near where there house music (not live music) speakers were. The guy and his staff were bowled over by the change in the room from just those panels.
After that I did some tests with a snare drum and a Blues Jr to see where the sound was coming out of the building. Determined it was some windows. The ones that didn't ever need to open were just double windowed with about 3" of air between the windows. The windows and glass door on the back of the place needed some sort of hoods to go over them that could be closed for the music and opened up when the weather was good. Contractor built them, brought back the snare and the Blues Jr and the hoods had done the job.
Gave a drawing to the contractor for the stage and electrical. Seating is on German beer hall tables so I kept the stage low so the amps would not be up at listener head level. Electrical outlets all over the back wall and 3 quad boxes recessed into the front of the stage for powered monitors and pedalboards.
This fall while doing so many club dates with the Del-Lords I had a great opportunity to play a lot of different joints w different gear both stateside and over seas. There is some mighty nice stuff out there. I ended up spec'ing mostly powered QSC speakers for the mains and monitors with some additional super small EV powered monitors. The star of this setup was the latex model PreSonus 16.4.AI. I'd played several venues with these boards and liked the sound and the integration w the iPad and computer. I know some of you guys have some of this PreSonus stuff. When you get to really use all of it's features they are untouchable in their class.
To save important table space for the BBQ Joint I went ahead an located the board right next to the stage, knowing that the mixer could roam the room with the iPad to mix the shows. Also stand on stage with the band to dial in the monitors. Normally I would have had to buy a pair of EQ's and compressors for the house and a set of EQ's and compressors for each of the 4 monitor mixes but w the PreSonus all of that could be done and saved on the board itself. Even though the PreSonus has system tuning software I went with a Dbx Driverack + to handle the mains and the crossover frequencies. If you've ever used their setup wizard program it's really something. You can get very very close in a matter of minutes with that thing. In addition, I didn't have to buy any outboard effects for the club. Very workable reverbs and delays also built in to the console.
I also got some absorption panels for the back wall of the stage. I set the guy up with a nice little back line that included a '70's Ludwig kit w a 20" kick and brand new hardware, One of the new 100 watt Ampeg SVT Mini Stacks, a Blues Jr and a Pro Jr III. House back line is really important at NYC venues because it costs band guys a lot to have to cab it to and from gigs and if you are going to control volume the best way I've found to do it is to supply a nice, reasonably good sound sort of "matched output" back line.
There was also a lighting rig too.
All of this stuff worked pretty darn good straight out of the box. I did a couple days training w 3 sound guys and the place was off to the races.
When I purchased all the gear for the guy I purposely bought more mics than he needed for sound reinforcement knowing that it would be hard to get the guy to spend even more money a few months later.. I bought what you would need to do live multi-track recording.
After we were set up I told the owner "you know this rig is capable of live multi track recording to ProTools or any software straight out of the board with just one firewire cable. The guy was floored.
I had gotten a couple shows multi-tracked from the Del-Lords tour from one of these boards and the results were damn good. PreSonus gives you everything you need. The software to control and save on your computer, to control from iPad, even monitor control from an iPhone. They also let you download their "Capture" multi-track recording software.
This rig has been up and running for about 6 weeks and everybody has been floored by the work flow and the sound. The PreSonus is set much easier to use than many other digital boards. I can certainly see why it's been a popular piece with a lot of you guys.
I was lucky that the guy who hired me went with my idea and I was also really lucky to have been out on tour using a variety of similar new gear to make some evaluations. What you can get out there now even compared to just 10 years ago is pretty astounding. Great value too.
PA systems and practice room recording set up questions come up here from time to time. I wanted to relate this story.
Recently I completed a job for BBQ place near me. They were open as a restaurant and had nothing in there for music but the guy really wanted it. First I tuned the crazy reflections in the room (All concrete (floor) brick (walls), steel (ceiling). I had been in there to eat and the liveness of the room was just nuts to distraction. I gave his contractor a spec'ed out drawing for some absorption panels to be built and place on about 70 % of the ceiling, especial over where the stage would be and near where there house music (not live music) speakers were. The guy and his staff were bowled over by the change in the room from just those panels.
After that I did some tests with a snare drum and a Blues Jr to see where the sound was coming out of the building. Determined it was some windows. The ones that didn't ever need to open were just double windowed with about 3" of air between the windows. The windows and glass door on the back of the place needed some sort of hoods to go over them that could be closed for the music and opened up when the weather was good. Contractor built them, brought back the snare and the Blues Jr and the hoods had done the job.
Gave a drawing to the contractor for the stage and electrical. Seating is on German beer hall tables so I kept the stage low so the amps would not be up at listener head level. Electrical outlets all over the back wall and 3 quad boxes recessed into the front of the stage for powered monitors and pedalboards.
This fall while doing so many club dates with the Del-Lords I had a great opportunity to play a lot of different joints w different gear both stateside and over seas. There is some mighty nice stuff out there. I ended up spec'ing mostly powered QSC speakers for the mains and monitors with some additional super small EV powered monitors. The star of this setup was the latex model PreSonus 16.4.AI. I'd played several venues with these boards and liked the sound and the integration w the iPad and computer. I know some of you guys have some of this PreSonus stuff. When you get to really use all of it's features they are untouchable in their class.
To save important table space for the BBQ Joint I went ahead an located the board right next to the stage, knowing that the mixer could roam the room with the iPad to mix the shows. Also stand on stage with the band to dial in the monitors. Normally I would have had to buy a pair of EQ's and compressors for the house and a set of EQ's and compressors for each of the 4 monitor mixes but w the PreSonus all of that could be done and saved on the board itself. Even though the PreSonus has system tuning software I went with a Dbx Driverack + to handle the mains and the crossover frequencies. If you've ever used their setup wizard program it's really something. You can get very very close in a matter of minutes with that thing. In addition, I didn't have to buy any outboard effects for the club. Very workable reverbs and delays also built in to the console.
I also got some absorption panels for the back wall of the stage. I set the guy up with a nice little back line that included a '70's Ludwig kit w a 20" kick and brand new hardware, One of the new 100 watt Ampeg SVT Mini Stacks, a Blues Jr and a Pro Jr III. House back line is really important at NYC venues because it costs band guys a lot to have to cab it to and from gigs and if you are going to control volume the best way I've found to do it is to supply a nice, reasonably good sound sort of "matched output" back line.
There was also a lighting rig too.
All of this stuff worked pretty darn good straight out of the box. I did a couple days training w 3 sound guys and the place was off to the races.
When I purchased all the gear for the guy I purposely bought more mics than he needed for sound reinforcement knowing that it would be hard to get the guy to spend even more money a few months later.. I bought what you would need to do live multi-track recording.
After we were set up I told the owner "you know this rig is capable of live multi track recording to ProTools or any software straight out of the board with just one firewire cable. The guy was floored.
I had gotten a couple shows multi-tracked from the Del-Lords tour from one of these boards and the results were damn good. PreSonus gives you everything you need. The software to control and save on your computer, to control from iPad, even monitor control from an iPhone. They also let you download their "Capture" multi-track recording software.
This rig has been up and running for about 6 weeks and everybody has been floored by the work flow and the sound. The PreSonus is set much easier to use than many other digital boards. I can certainly see why it's been a popular piece with a lot of you guys.
I was lucky that the guy who hired me went with my idea and I was also really lucky to have been out on tour using a variety of similar new gear to make some evaluations. What you can get out there now even compared to just 10 years ago is pretty astounding. Great value too.
PA systems and practice room recording set up questions come up here from time to time. I wanted to relate this story.