Mixers/Consoles Soundboard channel levels

r0cker91

Member
The sound guy in my church is out in Mexico for a good 2-3 weeks so he left me in charge of the mixer. I'm a musician but I've only just touched the surface when it comes to boards. I know just enough to get by for now. It's a Mackie Onyx 32-4 board and from what I know it's been in the church for a while. My problem is our piano player is...a douche who thinks loud = good so he wants the faders up almost all the way. I wouldn't have an issue with that if the channel signals didn't go yellow 80% of the time and almost 50% for red. The main mix is near the point of clipping. I'm trying to prevent that from happening but he won't have any of it. He just wants it boosted as much as possible.

It would be awesome if someone could tell me how I can achieve a decent level for all the channels so I don't have to worry about the main mix getting messed up. The gains for each channel never go past 12, only a few of them go to maybe 1 o'clock but no higher
 
Let me preface this by pointing out that a large portion of live sound and mixing is user preference (and designer preference) so there is no right or wrong way to mix it all comes down to a system that works for you.

So that being said...

When I mix I like to start with a good sound check. I try adjust the faders to 0 and work with my gain as much as possible. The reason for this is if you look at the numbers next to the faders the levels decrease exponentially. The numbers right around zero usually increase or decrease by about 5 and then 10 thus making it possible to make slight changes during your show. Bringing the fader all the way down doesn't bring the sound level to zero it actually brings it to negative infinity and if you look closely you'll see that it jumps in increments of as much as 20 30 or more (depending on the board) dB, making very sharp cuts to and from your audio

One thing I found effective in cases like you're describing where the pianist wants their volume to go louder is to just bring up their monitor level so that they can hear themselves more (if you do this a couple times during rehearsal and bring it enough that it feeds back for a second you then have some ground to stand on when you tell them you can't go any louder or it will feedback, MOST of the time the people will pull back and stop asking you to bring Their volume up louder because they don't want to hear the annoying feedback, if they still want to bring it up well just stop listening to them because they have no idea what they're talking about anyways) your job is not to please the pianist as much as it as it is to make sure that everyone in your audience can hear EVERYTHING that's going on and make it sound good try and listen for a good balance so that everything sounds about the same. you may want to bring you piano up little bit just so that it's over the vocals but you still don't want the Piano blasting through all of the vocals so that you can't hear what's being sung.

I would try and stay out of the yellow range on your meter as much as possible and I try and never have red appear.

Occasionally I have been in a situation where I'm getting too much signal from the microphone. if that starts happening you may have to bring your gain down a bit and go up on your fader but in most cases this is a rare occurrence for me.

I hope this will help you to solve some of your problems let me know if you have anymore questions

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD
 
I'll start with two questions. First, did the person that is away for 2-3 weeks provide you any related training and guidance or did they just take off? If the latter then it might be a good time to think about how to avoid similar situations in the future.

Second, what is your role and that of the piano player? Why are they telling you how to mix and where to set their levels, is it their role to define how things should sound and how you should mix? If they are the Worship leader or Music Director then you may have to deal with their directions but otherwise they may need to be reminded, appropriately and through proper channels, what the roles are. And as already mentioned, is there any chance they may actually be looking for more of themselves in their monitor mix rather than in the house mix?
 
The pianist sounds like a bully. He sees a less experienced, temporary person he can push around. My guess is he doesn't talk to the regular guy like that. Tell him you have your instructions and to go away. The less you say, the better.
 
Apologies people, I failed to mention in my original post that we only run one floor wedge right now and that one is designated for the singers only. The one that ran for the rest of the band stopped working a while back. More or less the reason he wants the signals boosted is cause he can't hear himself. He wants the piano way, way up but that would drown out the singers. And his piano sound is, in my opinion, brittle and kinda ice-picky(or I guess the way he touches the electric piano makes it sound that way). We've tried to tame that high end lol Our original sound guy and I thought about buying in-ears for the pianist so he can hear himself all he wants. He can go deaf for all I care.:twisted:

The regular sound guy is a good friend of mine. He's trained me enough to get by for when he can't make it to a service. Being a musician pretty much goes hand in hand with knowing how the rest of the sound works so I'm pretty much the apprentice. I do plan on learning more from him when he does get back. I also do my own online research from time to time about audio mixing just to make sure I'm not totally lost looking at the board.

My role in the church is playing guitar. The piano player isn't the Worship leader - that specific role changes every week between the singers we have.

This isn't the first time the pianist has complained about anything. Back in 2007 we used to have problems with him losing his temper because a singer would have a bad day and that seeped in during practice. He has a tendency of pointing fingers and calling out any flaws(some church pianist huh?) I was like 16 at the time so you know, let the adults handle things. I'm not gonna taking any bull from him at all the next few weeks lol If he calls me out I'll bark back if it means getting my point across. I already know my role for now: Look over the sound system. That's it. I'm not gonna sacrifice the overall mix for a boost in the piano channel's signal. Last Sunday one of the main speakers cut volume quite a few times without me touching anything and he looks at me like I did it. Got me pretty riled up.
 
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Being a musician pretty much goes hand in hand with knowing how the rest of the sound works so I'm pretty much the apprentice.
A musician may have knowledge that is certainly beneficial in designing and operating audio systems but that doesn't necessarily mean they know much about audio and experience has proven that to sometimes be quite true, in fact I sometimes encounter musicians that have numerous misconceptions and misunderstandings regarding audio.

That may be relevant in your situation with the pianist as if they understood sound systems they would not be trying to do what they are apparently doing. They need to understand that in order to get sound to the listeners and also avoid feedback the sound system needs to try to limit the levels on stage. If they hear the piano at a comfortable level on stage from the house system then they are virtually guaranteed to be too loud out in the audience. What they need is a dedicated monitor, however you may then need to be careful of them turning that up too loud.
 
The pianist sounds like a bully. ...
While that may be true, it doesn't make him wrong.

... More or less the reason he wants the signals boosted is cause he can't hear himself. He wants the piano way, way up but ...
Even if he's the most onerous person in the world, his needs are still valid. Try the "Is that better?" while miming touching the controls. It's worked surprisingly often for monitor engineers.

Now one only knows WHY he waited for the normal soundman to go on vacation to stage this tirade. The solution needs to be both education and additional equipment, or get a less-complaining pianist.
 
No wonder! From your description, the pianist is in a tough spot. Any musician would be extremely unhappy if he cannot hear his instrument adequately above the wash of sound on the stage. Since this is an electric piano, chances are he is living with the $2, 1/2 Watt speaker in the instrument. He should consider using headphones plugged into the piano, or a small instrument amp. Elevate and position the instrument amp so that it points directly at the musician's ear and away from the house. Set the volume loud enough for the pianist to hear himself without spilling much sound over the stage or house. Continue feeding the mixing console with a DI box.
 
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No wonder! From your description, the pianist is in a tough spot. Any musician would be extremely unhappy if he cannot hear his instrument adequately above the wash of sound on the stage.
Agreed, the difference in how you resolve it may be whether their attempted 'fix' was intended to make a point or reflects a belief that it was actually a practical solution.

I would think any guitarist or bassist might have a similar situation and since the monitor that "... ran for the rest of the band stopped working a while back" has apparently not been repaired or replaced, there may be other factors involved. While it could be coincidence, the timing does make me wonder if this is an issue that has come up before and if they are trying to take advantage of the current situation.
 
For the sake of argument, assume he is on legit grounds and he can't hear himself. Valid concern! Given your monitor situation, I wouldn't try to fix that issue in the mix. I would take a pragmatic approach. Is there a piano amp or is his only sound through the monitors? I wouldn't advise headphones. He'll hear only himself and you create a whole nother batch of ugly.
Is there a spare amp and a DI box? Keyboard to DI - DI 1/4" to amp and XLR to main mix/monitor mix. Face the amp away from the audience if need be. It doesn't have to be a keyboard amp, anything will do better than the approach you're taking now. Most guitarist I know have several amps - even a practice amp could do the trick.

Also, re: piano sound. I have found that almost all digital pianos sound like crap unless they're run in stereo, it doesn't matter the cost. If there's a way to run him in stereo you might improve the sound tremendously.

Good luck
Phil
 
Wait, the pianist was complaining that he couldn't hear himself in the monitors? I read it as he was trying to tell the guy how to mix. If that's the case then I'll hold off on my advice to tell him to **** off. Although, it might still be warranted.
 

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