Stacking Studio EQ effects

[Indianrock2020]

I'm so fed up with volunteer sound techs ( and drum volume ) at my church that I'm about to get extreme.  I'd like thoughts on stacking Studio EQ effects near the end of my patches on an HD500x.  What I'm imagining is footswitch 1=overdrive of some type

FSW 2=Studio EQ with mostly flat EQ and some gain boost

FSW 3=another Studio EQ   with mostly flat EQ and some gain boost

 

Volume pedal set at end of patch with minimum 70% and maximum 100%

 

Yes there may be some discussions and negotiations with the music leader and sound techs -- actually there already has been some. Since I run sound as well as play guitar on different weekends, the leader seems ok with me walking the room during rehearsal ( considering a Line 6 G50 relay wireless rig for that  -- need to find out if that has any gain boost options ).

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....boring background you probably don't want to read

 

I'm also discussing the need to get a sound consultant in for evaluation and training.  What we've done in this 300-seat church is migrate towards quiet stage by getting rid of all amps.  But the church quit before dealing with the acoustic drums.  So with a maximum 95 decibel limit, you wind up with a ton of drums in the room, vocals boosted to stay on top, and other instruments mostly buried in the mix.

[DunedinDragon]

The unfortunate situation you have is that although you can correct the mix imbalance from your guitar, it will still be unbalanced because you can't correct the mix imbalance for everyone else.

 

Sadly the situation you find yourself in is rampant among churches nowdays.  There's been a massive rush toward silent stage as a way to gain total control over the sound levels, but silent stage can only be successful if you put the money and training behind it, neither of which are insignificant. And that's truly sad.  I can't tell you how many churches I've visited with extraordinary investments in their sound system (including high end electronic drums) only to find out they haven't got the slightest clue how to present a balanced, professional mix.  Exacerbating the problem is that everyone is using IEM mixed specifically for them, so the people on the worship team have no clue how bad the real mix is out front.

 

But to be quite honest much of the blame lies with the musicians themselves.  Many of the musicians are volunteers as well and are so focused on THEIR sound they forget to listen to whether or not they're blending effectively with the rest of the band, guitarists and drummers being the two worst offenders generally.

 

I'm very fortunate in that regard in that I'm the only one that knows anything at all about sound, either live or recorded, so I'm trusted with all the decisions.  Every once in a while the concept of silent stage raises it's ugly head and I'm prepared to argue it down because I'm also in charge of the band, so I've been very careful about getting everyone to manage their stage sound and listen effectively to each other when playing so the stage mix is correct and all the sound man has to do is duplicate that mix into the PA for better throw and projection.  That's very different from silent stage in that the ENTIRE destiny of the mix lies in the hands of the sound person.  To me, dealing with volunteers that I have to train, that's absolutely frightening.

 

I wish you the best of luck in getting things corrected at your church.  Certainly a good electronic drum kit would go a LONG way to getting things under control.  But I hesitate to get your hopes up too high.  It's probably not very likely that anyone on the front of the house is going to even know what to listen for to get the mix correct.

[Indianrock2020]

Thanks for the "compassion" DunedIn.   It does seem like it would only be fair for guitarists to start bringing in amps since the drums still "bring theirs."   I do understand how to play what's needed.  With two electrics and one acoustic I quite often take the middle ground of playing chords above where the acoustic is, but below the higher lead parts the other electric is playing.  Or I'll play finger picked arpeggios or "one strum per Measure" stuff.   But when several musicians out in the pews tell you "can't hear the electrics" and your wife says " why do you bother," it's a bit depressing.  This is all about service, but warming a spot on stage and adding to the "wall of mud" makes no sense -- I'd be better off cleaning the bathrooms  :-)

 

Even if we had electronic drums, the sound tech needs to ride the faders so each song and passage gets what it needs -- not sure I see that happening so I guess I'm just trying to deal with my own situation for now.  The only paid person is the full-time worship minister.   It looks like the purchase of a "quieter" drum kit with different cymbals is in the works, but that's been the news for several months so not sure when its going to happen.   

 

I may try pulling out one ear bud and try to get a feel of what's happening in FOH before buying a wireless system.  I realize the risks in only using one ear bud so you can't be cranking them. 

[Indianrock2020]

In testing a patch with two studio EQ effects at the end, I see its easy to get into distortion quickly.  I'm running into an Alto Professional TS112A 12-Inch Active 2-Way PA Loudspeaker   So doubt I'm overloading its input.

[pfsmith0]

There's nothing inherently wrong with stacking the Studio EQ. I use 5 of them (!) for EQing my banjo (there's a banjo joke in there somewhere - how many EQ's does it take to get a good banjo sound?) but I only cut frequencies to tame feedback. I don't do any boosts except for a flat global boost when I switch to a solo when needed. If you're getting distortion you may be hitting the HD500 ceiling. I sure wish there was a level meter FX block we can move around so we can see signals levels at various points inside the signal path.

[DunedinDragon]

If it helps at all here are the guidelines I give my sound guy as targets for gain staging the raw signals from the stage which they find very useful.  These are roughly where the instruments need to sit in the mix.  If they gain stage the channels to these levels on his meters, they can pretty much set the faders all at unity and everthing will be pretty close to where it needs to sit in the mix.  Then just minor tweaks on the faders as necessary.  Hopefully your guy knows the proper procedure for how to gain stage signals on the board during sound checks.

 

                                                     Nominal Value     Peak Value

Vocals                                                    +2db                  +4db  (with compression)

Drums                                                    +2db                  +4db  (electronic drums)

Lead Guitar                                             -2db                    0db

Rhythm Guitar                                        -4db                   -2db

Acoustic Guitar                                       -4db                   -2db  (with compression)

Harmonica                                              -3db                   -1db

Bass                                                       -3db                   -1db

Keyboards                                              -2db                     0db

[Indianrock2020]

LOL, sound check?   The worship leader recently asked if we could try to keep the faders near unity, adjusting channel trim/gain to accomplish that.   I said "if we do a sound check"    

[Indianrock2020]

There's nothing inherently wrong with stacking the Studio EQ. I use 5 of them (!) for EQing my banjo (there's a banjo joke in there somewhere - how many EQ's does it take to get a good banjo sound?) but I only cut frequencies to tame feedback. I don't do any boosts except for a flat global boost when I switch to a solo when needed. If you're getting distortion you may be hitting the HD500 ceiling. I sure wish there was a level meter FX block we can move around so we can see signals levels at various points inside the signal path.

Ok so I read this to mean I need to lower the final gain/volume level of my patches and crank up the volume on my powered speaker a bit as I set up patches that will eventually be used with the church PA.   If I wanted to use two Studio EQs at the end of the patch just before the volume pedal effect, I would set the amp channel volume lower ( or the HD500x master volume lower ) .  This lets the POD do less "work" and puts more burden on the amplifying device, which is fine.

[pfsmith0]

Yes, that would keep the HD500 from clipping as easily.

[napynap]

Indianrock2020,

 

   Your situation reminds me of multi-set restaurant gigs I've played where the owner can't decide if the venue is better for customers enjoying their dinner, or enjoying the live performance of a party band. The key to making both work simultaneously is having an organic show. First, everyone playing in the band needs to know they are part of the overall message your church is working towards with their congregation. Including the leader of the service to a band meeting or rehearsal can be helpful here. As the service proceeds, the volume of each member can adapt to help reinforce the message. The same thing happens in other types of shows, with different kinds of customers. When the service is completed, everyone should be happy with the result, if they've all done their homework and performed what was practiced. The technical details you asked about are more like icing on the cake.

[DunedinDragon]

Napynap,

 

I don't get the sense that Indianrock's problems have much to do with the material or message.  Unlike a band who has complete authority over their presentation, chuches simply don't work that way.  The real decision makers aren't part of the band.  The band is subject to their decisions whether good or bad and, as is often the case, if those decision makers have no understanding of how to effectively present the music, the presentation is often flawed.  There's only so much the band members can do to overcome bad decisions.

 

This would be more akin to working in a show band at a Las Vegas show or a cruise ship in which the producer or director makes decisions about the presentation of the music within the show that are inherently flawed.

[napynap]

... The real decision makers aren't part of the band...

My point was really for everyone involved to have a clear understanding of how the performance should go, especially the decision makers. However, if their decisions are flawed, and they don't listen to suggestions for improvement, then it becomes difficult to stay motivated to continue. One way to help this is to record the service as the congregation hears/sees it (audio, video, or both from the room, not the board). It doesn't have to be the best quality recording, just enough to recognize flaws.

[Indianrock2020]

The situation is somewhat complex.  We, like many other churches, started down the right towards a quiet stage.  But we stopped when we got to the drums.  So until that is fixed, I'm just trying my own workarounds.  Or I just accept the fact of being buried in the mix as long as the music is serving the greater purpose.  Or I find something else to do.

 

Here's a cell phone recording I took a while back.  At one minute in you can barely detect the guy playing electric that week was trying some lead parts, but because the drums ( unamplified ) along with the vocals ride on top, you really can't hear him. ( also at 3:05)

Now the sound tech might have fixed that if riding the faders, but the 95 decibel limit would not allow the other instruments to remain full in the mix for very long.   This particular week we had one of our better drummers, but the rest of the team is what I'd call the junior varsity.

 

https://soundcloud.com/indianrock-1/11-22-2015/s-1iqyS

[DunedinDragon]

After listening to your recording I can say your soundman is making the exact same mistake that I hear in about 90% of the conventional churches I visit.

 

Yes, the guitar is buried.  But what happens is the sound personnel are conditioned by tradition to have the piano/keyboard carry the bulk of the load as far as the harmonic instruments.  Basically, if you look at my guidelines earlier for gain staging the instruments, the guitar should be at roughly the same level as the keyboard.  The problem sits clearly in the hands of the people running the sound.

 

After almost 40 years mixing sound both live and in the studio here's my critique of what your recording reveals:

 

Voices are pretty much where they need to be, and surprisingly so are the drums.  However there is WAY too much kick drum for the overall volume level of the performance and it's interfering with the bass.  Keyboards are just about right although they could come back slightly and the guitar needs to come up to match it at the same level.  The bass (although I can't make it out that well) has no articulation and is being drowned out by the kick drum.  I don't know if they've got the kick drum mic'd or not, but if so it needs to come down and get a little tighter by rolling off some very low frequencies and giving a slight increase around 100hz and 3.5 khz if they have a parametric EQ.  If not, they need might want to consider using the high pass on the kick drum because the natural resonance of the room is making it very muddy and boomy.

 

Now, here's the trick if you bring up the guitar level to match the keyboard.  For this to work the keyboard and guitar have to work very closely together.  The guitar can't just be strumming a rhythm, it has to be played more in line with the piano using more fill patterns and arpeggio style strumming and fills so that it fits together with the piano to match the mood of this style of song.  One of the other problems churches have with guitarists who have primarily come from more rock backgrounds is there is a LOT of various guitar techniques used in most modern worship songs today that come more from jazz and some folk styles.  It's more natural for keyboard players who typically come from a broader background to adapt their style.  What you don't want to happen is for the guitar to come up to match the volume of the keyboard and not blend in, or stick out because it's not fitting in with the style of the music.

 

Another aspect of this is the keyboard and the guitar need to feel who is carrying the song at any one time and it may switch back and forth.  In a live situation you can't expect the sound person to manage this, so this is something you and the keyboard player will have to work on to develop a feel for in each song.  Sometimes you'll hold back, sometimes he/she will hold back while you provide most of the underlying harmonic instrument content.

 

Sorry if I'm overstepping my bounds here, but I wanted to share some of the things we've learned as a christian band over the last 10 years to see if that helps your frustrations.

 

Here's a live recording direct out of our mixing board of one of the songs we do which is an adaptation of Third Day's "Thief".  Although we don't have a keyboard in our band I still think it demonstrates several things here.  First the mix level of the instruments and voices so everyone is heard and contributes.  Secondly the interaction between the two guitars and some of the guitar technique aspects that tend to be useful in addressing worship music.

 

Unfortunately I can't paste the link...some anomoly with the way this forum software works, but I've typed out the link below so you can copy and paste it into another browser window:

 

http://www.soundclick.com/player/single_player.cfm?songid=12764911&q=hi

 

Hmmm...seems it recognized my typing as a link..at least on my browser, so you may be able to just click it.

[Indianrock2020]

Whoa DunedIn, thanks for that.  If you're ever up in the Pacific Northwest you can come by and tweak our sound board  :-)

 

Well yes we're off topic but if they delete the thread, no big deal.  Several of our guitarists own Line 6 gear as does the church, so we can't be that bad.

 

I do both sound and electric guitar, and in my recording, unfortunately, I think I was running sound that day.  I generally do boost the lead guitar at the appropriate points, but either I was asleep, busy recording (  :-)  ) or it was just that the lead guy that day tends to not prepare and noodle pentatonic stuff.

 

I did introduce high pass filter on our Presonus StudioLive 24.4.2 when I arrived here two years ago.  It's at about 150hz on everything except kick and bass guitar.  Bass is about 40hz and kick about 100hz.

 

I'm glad you re-stated the need for "arranging" and generally we have an acoustic strumming chords plus one electric.  What the electric is doing depends on who it is.  I usually only play as a 2nd electric so I try to find space between the acoustic and the "lead part" electric -- this could be finger-picked arpeggios, single strum per measure or rhythm chording different than what the acoustic is doing.

The rest of the band is the acoustic drum kit, keyboard, digital piano, bass guitar and usually 3 vocals.  There are two vocal wedges up front for the vocalists. All but vocalists are on IEMs.   The drums are mic'd but the channel faders are off except for the kick.  Generally the drum mics are there just to provide in-ear monitor feeds.  Pushing up the kick fader makes no noticeable difference since the partial drum shield really does nothing so it's pretty much stage volume you hear from the drums.

 

We are shopping for a quieter drum kit with different, hopefully quieter cymbals.  My push for E-drums has gone no where.  As has my push for ambient room mics so we could feed some FOH room sound into the in-ear mixes.  So with the drummer wearing cans, he has no real idea of his impact on the room.

 

We have a hard limit of 95 decibels using a meter set at A-weighted/slow.  From my amateur perspective, therein lies the problem since once you have drums and vocals, plus some piano and the other instruments barely audible, you've reached 95DB.  Of course, 250 people singing affects this but I haven't noticed the db meter change much when the people start singing once we've set it at about 95db in rehearsal.

 

Hope I'm not repeating myself when I say that, like many churches, I think this one started down the path to quiet stage and stopped when not complete.  I don't see us getting guitar amps back, even in isolation closets.   I have managed to get the guitars distinct, but only at 100 decibels plus.

 

Loved your band recording.  Finding something like what the Posse band does could be so therapeutic for many worship musicians who feel so restricted in church.   In my area ( Bellingham, WA ) most of the outside playing opportunities are bar jams at 11pm on weeknights   :-)

[DunedinDragon]

Thanks for the compliment IndianRock.

 

As far as the 95dB limit.  Yes, there is an aggregate boost the more each instrument is boosted, however theoretically, in a true silent stage approach, the mix is irrespective of the FOH db limit which is controlled by the main fader.  If you guys can get the mix in the ballpark the whole concept of silent stage is the mange the overall volume simply from the master fader.  However, that then raises the nasty spectre of the drums, which isn't subject to the master fader.

 

For the record, I would absolutely agree with you that until they come up with a plan to manage drum volume (other than a human being) whether it be a sound booth or electronic drums, you really haven't accomplished the main goal of the silent stage and it was all a big waste of time.  Sorry to be harsh, but I know this wasn't your decision.  But you know as well as I do that it's the truth.