Was Home Recording - Now mixing

#1 · January 24, 2018, 5:14 pm

Quote from Forum Archives on January 24, 2018, 5:14 pm
Posted by: gjn.pub <gjn.pub@...>

One f the mst useful pieces of advice I have been given so far as mixing is concerned is to separate the various sounds.

The way I do it is to separate left right and middle of the stage by where the musician is physically. There are some churches that have a central speaker stack this confuses the brain completely because the sound is separated visually and audibly. Clarity comes when they are close to each other.

Then to separate as much as possible tonally. So vocalists have very little treble or bass boost, guitars are higher up, bass is lower down. Depending on the keyboard player they get treble or bass boost. My wife is right hand dominant and my daughter left. Vocalists get a little bit of tweaking dependent on being a tenor soprano etc., also if they are backing lead or soloist

For worship lead vocals should be clear. If the congregation has a lot of oldies cut the highs. Be aware of the change bodies do to a mix from setup to actual service.

I have found listening to classical music and trying to hear one instrument in the orchestra has helped train my ear to be able to get a better balance in the mix.

Getting the mix right can make a huge difference to enjoyment of worship. remove distractions.

Geoff

donl wrote:

snip---

I might do sound stuff, too. I really love that stuff, and I have some ideas that I think might be helpful for lots of church-sound folks who are running purely on intuition because they've never found the right resources. And especially, leaning away from the "buy your way to success" philosophy, when Margaret can't pay her rent this month and there are sick people in India, so maybe there's a better place to spend that money. Again, knowing how it works is the best way to fix stuff; buying without knowing just doesn't work. We have consulting companies around, and they serve useful purposes, but if it's a "swoop in, build a system, swoop out" kind of thing that leaves the church on its own again, it just isn't going to improve the sound much. Some of those companies offer training, and that's good.

Anyway... I'll chip away at it! Big plans, little time and energy!

- donl

--snip

Posted by: gjn.pub <gjn.pub@...>

One f the mst useful pieces of advice I have been given so far as mixing is concerned is to separate the various sounds.

The way I do it is to separate left right and middle of the stage by where the musician is physically. There are some churches that have a central speaker stack this confuses the brain completely because the sound is separated visually and audibly. Clarity comes when they are close to each other.

Then to separate as much as possible tonally. So vocalists have very little treble or bass boost, guitars are higher up, bass is lower down. Depending on the keyboard player they get treble or bass boost. My wife is right hand dominant and my daughter left. Vocalists get a little bit of tweaking dependent on being a tenor soprano etc., also if they are backing lead or soloist

For worship lead vocals should be clear. If the congregation has a lot of oldies cut the highs. Be aware of the change bodies do to a mix from setup to actual service.

I have found listening to classical music and trying to hear one instrument in the orchestra has helped train my ear to be able to get a better balance in the mix.

Getting the mix right can make a huge difference to enjoyment of worship. remove distractions.

Geoff

donl wrote:

snip---

I might do sound stuff, too. I really love that stuff, and I have some ideas that I think might be helpful for lots of church-sound folks who are running purely on intuition because they've never found the right resources. And especially, leaning away from the "buy your way to success" philosophy, when Margaret can't pay her rent this month and there are sick people in India, so maybe there's a better place to spend that money. Again, knowing how it works is the best way to fix stuff; buying without knowing just doesn't work. We have consulting companies around, and they serve useful purposes, but if it's a "swoop in, build a system, swoop out" kind of thing that leaves the church on its own again, it just isn't going to improve the sound much. Some of those companies offer training, and that's good.

Anyway... I'll chip away at it! Big plans, little time and energy!

- donl

--snip