Summative Report

To begin the process, as a pair, we planned what microphones would be placed where and began to make the connections. As each cable was plugged in to the XLR splitter rack the corresponding channel strip was labelled with a sharpie and tape. The microphone used for the kick drum was a D112, the snare top and bottom SM57s, overheads were c1000s, the guitar was miked with a single SM57 and the vocalist used an SM58. SM57s are industry standard live microphones used for these particular applications because they are dynamic, have a high SPL, low bleed pickup and are hard to break. 57s also have a moulded frequency response with a natural low cut and some excitement in the high end making it suitable for instruments with a lot of harmonic qualities – i.e a snare drum/guitar. The D112 has a warm response in the low end of the frequency spectrum and the SM58 is brightened in the mid range making them both suitable for these applications. The C1000s are condensor microphones with a cardioid/hyper-cardioid polar pattern, with a frequency response tailored to provide brightened top end making them suitable choice for the role of over heads as more distance microphones are receiving and replicating, mostly, the top end of the sound. In retrospect, the process of setting up took a little too long but a cautious approach helped to ensure the connections were made correctly. After everything was connected I took charge of the main desk to ensure the signal was routing to the desk correctly. To achieve this my partner, Ikenna, stood on the stage and scratched the microphones whilst I boosted gain using the PFL setting on the Soundcraft Live 8 and analysed the LED meter to see if there was response. The only microphone to fail this test was the right C1000. Here began our first troubleshooting scenario. After following the signal path for this microphone all the way through and ensuring everything was cabled correctly and phantom power was provided the fault was placed on the microphone and the overhead scrapped and left out of the mix because time was against us. In an ideal world this problem would have been solved, but the severity of a lost overhead is less than that of a delayed gig. Once this process had taken place I quickly removed the most troublesome frequencies from the EQ via ringing out. I found trouble and got caught up on a frequency that I later found to be at around 800 Hz.  Once this initial setting up process had taken place we were able to get the band in to soundcheck. I went through the instrumentalists in order of drummer, bassist, guitarist and then vocalist checking each aspect of their instrument was set to a correct gain using PFL on the mixing desk. Once I had done this I could place the instruments in this mix and set levels. I noted that the vocalist was the quietest of the instruments and attempting to mix around this, this however created some difficulty because the vocalist was slightly unpracticed and didn’t use the microphone correctly and wouldn’t sing during the setting of levels, she would only speak. This lack of microphone knowledge hindered the mixing process because I was unable to adjust to a consistent level on vocal. However, I could have reduced the volume of the other instruments to improve the overall mix. During this process, I also failed to engage the EQ on some channel strips meaning my adjustments weren’t taking action. In the future, it would be invaluable to remember to do this. The bass guitar was DI’d through the amplifier during the verse chorus soundcheck the were a few loud cracks in the sound and bangs within the system. We then discovered that the bass guitar has a loose jack input, but also an XLR used to DI the bass was loose. Unable to fix the bass guitar at that point, we settled for fixing the DI connection by inserting a DI box and encouraged the bassist to be careful with his instrument. During this soundcheck, I attempted to feed in the auxiliary effects but they didn’t seem to be working. To fix this problem I checked the signal path from the point in which I knew it worked onwards, eventually finding that the effects had been unplugged and replaced with similarly labelled cables. To fix this I wired the auxiliary effects back in correctly, set gain and introduced them to the mix.

In reflection the aspects that needed greatest improvement during this assessment were organisation and cable management. To be successful in the live music industry, tasks must be managed with time efficiency and safety. The pressure of assessment found my partner and I being overly careful with processes we were both actually comfortable with, so keeping a cool head and mind set to task would help to create a more productive, successful process. Cable management was also very poor, I believe, due to the lack of prioritisation within our workflow. Whilst having to go back through already tidied cables to uncover problems hindered the tidying process, if this task had been approached as an ongoing responsibility, it would never have become unmanageable. Alongside this, my lack of knowledge of this particular desk found me making silly mistakes whilst mixing and removed my ability to be watching the band, as I had to spent a large amount of time locating things on the desk. In conclusion to improve upon my ability in this area I should be more practiced in live mixing scenarios and more organised in my approach to time allocation and time management.