Better Sound, Mixing Style

[macsound]

I've been running sound for about 20 years, lots of musical theatre but then as musical styles have changed, I ventured more into mixing rock music, also for corporate events and churches with full orchestras, choir and rock bands.
After listening to lots of modern music and the recent Greatest Showman craze, I'm wondering if i'm falling into the same over-producing pits that these producers are, but in live sound.
I feel like most (like 90%) of modern music is lifeless, even when it seems like they are using real instruments and Greatest Showman, although trying to be like musical theatre, feels totally flat.

I'm assuming this is from extreme EQ and compression to try to get every last tiny bit of amplitude out of the digital signal, and this was far less of a problem with the limitations of tape and analog processing equipment.

What I'm worried about, and in order to continue honing my craft with the continuing advent of technology and resources we tend to bury ourselves in, where should I be careful that I'm doing too much, or techniques to ensure in our live (and maybe recording) ventures that we're not overproducing like so much of the industry is doing.

 

[TimMc]

I'm assuming this is from extreme EQ and compression to try to get every last tiny bit of amplitude out of the digital signal, and this was far less of a problem with the limitations of tape and analog processing equipment.

The digital noise floor is 20dB lower than the analog circuits built around the digi-stuff. There are plenty of old and new soundhumans who didn't get the memo or, like certain politicians, refuse to "believe".

I had a young guy tell me I was "wasting bits." I replied that unused "ones" are returned to the reservoir for reuse.

 

[FMEng]

My $0.02... If you feel the need to put a compressor on every channel, stop yourself and ask why. Compressors should only be needed for vocals. The same goes for EQ. If every mic needs radical EQ, something is wrong.

If you need compressors and limiters to acheive enough loudness, then you have a system gain structure problem. The console should have plenty of headroom at nominal SPL. Digital or analog makes no difference. The same amount of headroom can be achieved in either domain.

 

[TimMc]

My $0.02... If you feel the need to put a compressor on every channel, stop yourself and ask why. Compressors should only be needed for vocals. The same goes for EQ. If every mic needs radical EQ, something is wrong.

If you need compressors and limiters to acheive enough loudness, then you have a system gain structure problem. The console should have plenty of headroom at nominal SPL. Digital or analog makes no difference. The same amount of headroom can be achieved in either domain.

I remember when one of my bosses first fired up a digital mixer and called me to say that everything was really touchy, sensitive and LOUD. He came from the Ye Olde Skool of Analogue where the operator would PFL an input and raise the input gain/trim/preamp until the meter read 0dB. He wasn't one to notice details (not an engineer-type of guy). I had to explain "DBFS" and relate it to analog metering. He had trouble wrapping his head around the idea that analog, moving-needle meters only resolved the middle range of a mixers full dynamic capability. Once I convinced him that setting input trims so signals hit about -20DBFS the console responded more like the PM4000 he was accustomed to.

 

[RonHebbard]

I've been running sound for about 20 years, lots of musical theatre but then as musical styles have changed, I ventured more into mixing rock music, also for corporate events and churches with full orchestras, choir and rock bands.
After listening to lots of modern music and the recent Greatest Showman craze, I'm wondering if i'm falling into the same over-producing pits that these producers are, but in live sound.
I feel like most (like 90%) of modern music is lifeless, even when it seems like they are using real instruments and Greatest Showman, although trying to be like musical theatre, feels totally flat.

I'm assuming this is from extreme EQ and compression to try to get every last tiny bit of amplitude out of the digital signal, and this was far less of a problem with the limitations of tape and analog processing equipment.

What I'm worried about, and in order to continue honing my craft with the continuing advent of technology and resources we tend to bury ourselves in, where should I be careful that I'm doing too much, or techniques to ensure in our live (and maybe recording) ventures that we're not overproducing like so much of the industry is doing.

@macsound Have you considered scaling back to putting one or two great mics in front of good talent and reinforcing them with a minimal amount of great reinforcement gear on the basis of good stuff in, louder good stuff out? Perhaps consider going back to a simple, great, analog system. In the 1970's I was fortunate to work with a number of great musicians and a lesser number of great composers. I learned a HUGE AMOUNT by putting up two or three quality mics and / or stereo pairs thereof then listening to the mics while the musicians were warming up prior to recording. From memory, we had a range of AKG and Neuman mics to choose from. One of the composers owned a pair of Neumans with nickle diaphragms which had a somewhat distinctly different sound which was 'just right' on some of the solo reed instruments.
Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard

 

[RonHebbard]

I remember when one of my bosses first fired up a digital mixer and called me to say that everything was really touchy, sensitive and LOUD. He came from the Ye Olde Skool of Analogue where the operator would PFL an input and raise the input gain/trim/preamp until the meter read 0dB. He wasn't one to notice details (not an engineer-type of guy). I had to explain "DBFS" and relate it to analog metering. He had trouble wrapping his head around the idea that analog, moving-needle meters only resolved the middle range of a mixers full dynamic capability. Once I convinced him that setting input trims so signals hit about -20DBFS the console responded more like the PM4000 he was accustomed to.

@TimMc I spent some time recording for a composer who liked to work with glass; the gentleman brought in an assortment of glass wind chimes of various sizes and eventually we ended up multi-tracking the wind chimes and breaking glass of various sizes, thicknesses and shapes. Another year the same gentleman got into recording crinkled cellophane and swore up and down that crinkling pink cellophane sounded distinctly different than crinkling blue cellophane. In our studio we had mono, stereo, 1/2" four track and a 1" 16 track available but we had to mix down to 1/4" two tracks and 1/2" four tracks for our theatres. One of his productions featured mono and stereo recordings of pink and blue crinkled cellophane.
Someday I'll elaborate on his "silent waves" period. The gentleman was a French Canadian composer from Montreal with many Stratford productions to his credit.
Recording glass wind chimes was a real lesson in the differences between the analog meters on our Scully 280's and the clip lights on the Scully 280B's.
Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard

 

[macsound]

@macsound Have you considered scaling back to putting one or two great mics in front of good talent and reinforcing them with a minimal amount of great reinforcement gear on the basis of good stuff in, louder good stuff out? Perhaps consider going back to a simple, great, analog system. In the 1970's I was fortunate to work with a number of great musicians and a lesser number of great composers. I learned a HUGE AMOUNT by putting up two or three quality mics and / or stereo pairs thereof then listening to the mics while the musicians were warming up prior to recording. From memory, we had a range of AKG and Neuman mics to choose from. One of the composers owned a pair of Neumans with nickle diaphragms which had a somewhat distinctly different sound which was 'just right' on some of the solo reed instruments.
Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard

I'm not sure if I am, specifically, over-producing the work that I'm mixing, I think more in general for bands, orchestras and theatre, trying to figure out (except for over cranking the compressor) what is everyone out there doing that creates this over-produced sound so I can be sure I'm not leaning that way.
In the era of digital consoles, I am totally putting compression on every channel. I don't think that's bad, because it's about using the tools properly and not overusing them vs being afraid of the tools and avoiding them all together.

 

[themuzicman]

My $0.02... If you feel the need to put a compressor on every channel, stop yourself and ask why. Compressors should only be needed for vocals. The same goes for EQ. If every mic needs radical EQ, something is wrong.

I super agree that if you're putting a compressor on every channel strip you should stop and ask why. However I super disagree that compressors should only be used for Vocals. Regarding just vocals -- Corporate work I get it, you have talent that has poor mic technique and little to zero vocal training so having a compressor helps as a nice little tap on the brakes. Concert work I'd say it's genre dependent how far to go - I'm probably not doing more than the lightest of compression on bluegrass vocals but my screaming garage rock band will be over compressed because it's in the style of the sound. Musical Theater work, I try to never use compression on vocals ever. My mixer (person not gear) is the compressor, and maybe the leads will get the lightest touch of compression, or maybe one Ensemble member pushes out of the mix a little on the reach notes and I need to reign that person in a little. Now I generally reach for Dynamic EQ before I reach for compression (assuming it's available to me, on a DiGiCo it's on every channel strip, on a Yamaha CL you're inserting on the channel from the Premium FX rack) -- it takes a bit longer to dial in but there are a number of reasons I prefer Dynamic EQ over Compression if the situation allows for it.

I wouldn't even come close to making a blanket call on Compression on instrumentation -- way too many variables to even comment. I generally have compression on Kick, Snare, and Hat on my kit -- Maybe E Guitar if they have pedal changes and haven't normalized their pedalboard. Brass get compression from me if the orchestration is especially dynamic. But again, there are no hard and fast rules.

Regarding EQ -- I think we largely agree and I am going to assume you were talking about overall EQ and not Vocal EQ -- unless it's in the style of music, I always attempt to EQ as little as physically possible. This isn't just a thing for me with inputs -- it's also my philosophy on outputs. Speaker placement and mic placement are the biggest contributors to how things will sound, and from there you EQ. Drastic cuts are generally, but not always, a band-aid on a bigger issue. They are a sign that you probably have a deeper issue you should be looking at. I generally also always do subtractive EQ. There are a few times additive EQ has gotten me far, but I can count those times on a hand and post-mortems on those shows usually revealed why additive EQ was the answer.

 

[josh88]

I tend to only compress vocals (and even then not always everybody) and the drums. Drum kits I throw a little on, nothing to extreme, just because I find it helps tie the whole kit together. I've also had some good experiences with compressing some screaming hot horn players just a little to help them blend better, but other than those that's about all I use it for on the regular.

 

[Lextech]

The only thing I start with a compressor on every gig is bass. And most of the time I just tickle it to balance out strings. I mix a lot of acoustic music and spent time with a symphony, compressors more often not get in the way of the dynamics. Yep, I have engineers come in with bands and I can listen and tell the ones that have comps on everything. It's usually loud and in your face. And we are talking bluegrass and Americana. Music needs to breath, too much compression ruins that. Compressors have their place where needed. I use it on vocals when needed and on other instruments on occasion but only after I can't fix it in any other way. I am a firm believer in less is better, fix it at the source before using processing or eq. I started in the day where if you had six comps in a rig with a 40 stick console you were lucky. Even now that I have them on every channel I try not to use them.