As an ex-recording engineer, I don't think someone walking around a venue, constantly fiddling with the sound is the best idea and given the chance to constantly change things, they will. That's why the sound levels in concerts always get higher in the second half of a show: the mixer wants to feel like they're doing something AND they're deaf from the high levels, so they turn it up even more.
In fixed venues, what one would normally do is send white or pink noise through the system and then equalize to the house. This is what the calibration modes in A/V pre-pros and receivers attempt to do. Once you do that, you should not be playing with the overall frequency response (as opposed to the frequency response of a single instrument or mic input).
As someone who does live sound reinforcement I find these comments a bit offensive and stereotypical.
I’m hardly deaf and I don’t “fiddle” with things just so I can feel like I’m doing something. I don’t crank the levels as the show progresses either.
Equalizing “to the house” using pink/white noise only gets you part of the way there. When a venue is filled the frequency response changes because human bodies are actually pretty good at absorbing sound. Then you have environmental changes (temperature/humidity) which also alter the sound (esp outdoors for an all-day-evening show). This often requires changes to be made as a show progresses. And these are only a couple things that might require fine tuning during a show (there are so many I don’t have time to list them all).
I find playing reference songs I’m familiar with through the system as one of the best ways to determine how a venue sounds. Pink noise/room analysis software and a spectrum analyzer follow
My experience is that it's quite rare that I hear good concert sound today. This even applies to some Broadway shows. The levels are unbearable and would exceed OSHA regulations if they were factories. A few years back I went to a small club and the opening act was a solo flute player. The sound mixer turned the levels up as if this guy was a heavy metal band. It was ridiculous. And I think part of the problem is that too many live sound mixers have never actually heard great sound and they just copy what they have heard. And they're not the only problem - certainly the ego of the band comes into play as well (as well as the hearing impairment of most musicians). In both live performance and recordings (and movies for that matter), everyone has forgotten what dynamic range is and how to use it.
EVERY show that I've attended in the last 10-15 years gets louder as the night progresses. This is true for both big shows and small shows. And it's also dangerous. Even after wearing hearing protection at one show, I walked out with ears ringing and had tinnitus for a year. In some cases, the mixes are actually quite good - they're just too freaking loud. A few years back when the Rascals reformed and toured in a show produced by Steven Van Zandt, I saw them and the levels killed my enjoyment of the show even though the mix was great. A drum hit should sound full and crisp, but it shouldn't sound like an explosion. All those high levels do is turn the mix to mush and it causes tedium in the audience. And those are the places with good sound systems. When I'm at a show where the sound is thin, mid-rangey and metallic sounding, I want to kill myself.
There's a "big band" that I go to see every once in a while. Big horn section with maybe 12 horns. I saw them in a venue that doesn't normally have live music and when they do, it's usually just a combo. So they came in with a small portable mixer, a relatively small P.A. and just a few microphones, primarily for the vocalists. The sound was fantastic, because we were hearing most of the drums and all of the horns acoustically. I saw the same band at the (now gone) Bottom Line where there was a mic on every horn and the mixer blasted us out of the club. And what infuriated me was that the mixer was wearing a wool hat over his ears.
I do agree that human bodies completely change the sound of a house. That's the problem with high-end movie theaters, like Dolby Vision/Atmos theaters. The sound is fine when they're full, but frequently over-the-top when they're near empty.
So you might be a great house mixer, but most aren't. All IMO, of course.
As a working professional musician most every venue where I perform these days has some kind of iPad controlling the house system. It is pretty much a standard.
I was just thinking the same thing. This technology has been around for well over a decade. And they were running ProTools. Even small black box theaters have been using this for almost as long, with the sound mixer sitting in the audience.
Not sure why this is particularly notable now, but ... sure why not.
Comments
EVERY show that I've attended in the last 10-15 years gets louder as the night progresses. This is true for both big shows and small shows. And it's also dangerous. Even after wearing hearing protection at one show, I walked out with ears ringing and had tinnitus for a year. In some cases, the mixes are actually quite good - they're just too freaking loud. A few years back when the Rascals reformed and toured in a show produced by Steven Van Zandt, I saw them and the levels killed my enjoyment of the show even though the mix was great. A drum hit should sound full and crisp, but it shouldn't sound like an explosion. All those high levels do is turn the mix to mush and it causes tedium in the audience. And those are the places with good sound systems. When I'm at a show where the sound is thin, mid-rangey and metallic sounding, I want to kill myself.
There's a "big band" that I go to see every once in a while. Big horn section with maybe 12 horns. I saw them in a venue that doesn't normally have live music and when they do, it's usually just a combo. So they came in with a small portable mixer, a relatively small P.A. and just a few microphones, primarily for the vocalists. The sound was fantastic, because we were hearing most of the drums and all of the horns acoustically. I saw the same band at the (now gone) Bottom Line where there was a mic on every horn and the mixer blasted us out of the club. And what infuriated me was that the mixer was wearing a wool hat over his ears.
I do agree that human bodies completely change the sound of a house. That's the problem with high-end movie theaters, like Dolby Vision/Atmos theaters. The sound is fine when they're full, but frequently over-the-top when they're near empty.
So you might be a great house mixer, but most aren't. All IMO, of course.
Not sure why this is particularly notable now, but ... sure why not.