Gen Xperience: Into The Great Club Gig Unknown
Success is in both preparation and quick thinking at the venue
By
Nathan Short
It’s a slate gray spring afternoon and I find myself crammed in the back
of a creaking Econoline van making its way across the Midwestern prairie
to a club gig tonight in central Iowa. We’ve gone from the man-made peaks
and valleys of downtown Chicago through the bland sameness of the northern
suburbs and now find ourselves looking out across thousands of square
miles of dormant brown fields that occasionally yield to exit ramps and
truck stops. Only three hours to go...
But I’m not really thinking about the terrain, but rather, tonight’s gig,
where I’m going to serve as sound mixer with my van mates, a hard-working
melodic metal act called Homage Sun. I particularly love working with
these guys; they have an unconventional, down-to-earth professionalism,
great showmanship, and through many gigs together, we share an uncanny
trust of my sometimes oddball ideas about live sound.
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My primary concern: have I done everything possible to make sure
we have a successful show tonight? Have I done enough homework?
What are we really walking into, in terms of the room and its system
capabilities? As with every gig, I want this one to be the best,
or at least go as well as humanly possible given factors outside
of my control. |
And like many of you, I also ran sound at a very large church, and since
then my experience has been enhanced by mixing (and sound teching, gear
schlepping as well as playing chief nursemaid and bottle washer) at hundreds
of live gigs just like the one I’m facing tonight. The only part of this
equation that can really be known is the band.
What’s the best way to prepare to mix a club gig? At times, the process
of contemplating an approach to this particular art form seems to serve
primarily to inspire a good headache. Multiple variables and angles are
the rule of the day. It’s rare that two shows even those with the same
act in the same venue are usually exactly alike. My survivalist tendencies,
and love of this business, have resulted in an approach that is followed
so religiously that it’s second nature.
BEFORE CURTAIN GOES UP
Preparation makes perfect, or at least respectable. The time leading up
to the gig should be spent making sure everything that can be controlled
from a sound perspective is indeed under control, because in the live
mix process, you’re asking the mind to critically analyze an amazing amount
of data from your ears’ nerve receptors and make the right changes and
enhancements on the fly. When show time comes, it’s all juice endorphins,
adrenaline, sweat-glands in overdrive... the reason we do this, and usually
too late to do anything more than tweak.
Every show requires a little bit of “old boy” and “new blood” networking.
I start by asking my elder (and presumably, wiser) mentors what problems
they recall with the room I’ll be working. But it’s also advantageous
to check in with the young guys and gals that have either mixed or recently
attended a show at said establishment. The two sets facts or fictions
give me a better overall idea of what to expect.
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If there’s at all a chance to visit the venue ahead of time (such
as when it’s much closer to home than a six-hour drive to Iowa),
I take in a show. Combine the elements of my preliminary research
and then just listen to the room, system and show. |
And why run the risk of unnecessarily offending the person? No need
to make enemies before the gig has even started.
The tough part is hypothesizing the “problems” I believe are correctly
analyzed and then approaching them from alternate viewpoints. Every console
and piece of outboard gear, through wear and tear, has its own personality
and quirks. Also, every sound reinforcement system pieced together squawks
a little differently from the others. And finally, we don’t mix in cushy
rooms with lots of acoustic treatment. The room will almost always put
up a fight.
WHAT ARE THE PARTS?
Returning to thoughts on the Iowa gig - a bit surprisingly, one of my
friends at school had mixed there previously. He relayed that it is mid-sized,
about 500 capacity, with a small stage and perfectly parallel walls. Load-in
happens up a flight of deadly metal stairs.
The venue also has a web site, and I printed out a copy of their technical
specs and gear list. An acceptable console with two sweeps, effects that
cut the mustard but are a big harsh-sounding in my experience, unmentionable
one-third-octave equalizers, four monitor mixes from my position, a mixed
bag of non-pro amplifiers, and a monstrosity of small, slapped together
main loudspeakers. Needless to say, but I wasn’t very exited about this
particular sum of ingredients.
In the following band meeting, I explained my misgivings about the lack
of quality I expect will be encountered. That said, the band also knows
my priority when working in a non-optimal setting: vocals will always
be heard, I’m a kick drum “Nazi,” and guitars/bass will then be added
as allowed.
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We roll up to the club, “meet and greet” goes just fine, and then
I quickly head upstairs for my initial first-hand look at the room
and tools that will serve us over the next few hours. Yep, a long
room with parallel walls, along with unfinished ceiling actually,
a bare tin roof. The house guy is extremely accommodating, the systems
are arranged as we requested, and he lets us have a two-hour house
and monitor system tweak-fest. Mike, our monitor engineer, suggests we aim the two guitarists’ (four by 12-inch loaded) cabinets at the rear corners of the stage to help control stage volume. Good idea, and I readily agree with the approach. We gave the house wedges and side fills a real workout. I checked the lines up front, and Mike called back the monitor cuts. Side fills carry guitars, kick, and high notes of the bass. The center wedge handles lead vocal and more guitar. |
The bass was put on a custom DI that I had modified with silver wire,
silver solder, and a transformer surrounded by ferrite. Still, the “slap
and ping” of the bass had to be fine-tuned, along with beater click of
the kick drum between 4.5 kHz and 6 kHz. The house AKG D112 large-diaphragm
microphone was applied to kick drum, while the Shure SM57 mics on guitars
were tailored to sacrifice frequencies from 1 kHz to 4 kHz, helping with
vocal clarity up front.
HOT METAL IN COLD IOWA
While the house guy fought feedback while mixing the warm-up bands on
the bill, we had a smooth show. The mains sounded much better than anticipated,
and surprisingly, my mix was much easier to pull together than previously
assumed. Our bass and kick drum relationship melted together nicely, helped
by a parametric EQ slaughter of everything between 200 Hz and 600 Hz.
The only thing I have to compromise for the entire mix is pulling some
top end out of the snare drum because vocals are (as always) the high
priority of the night.
The locals, owner and bartenders noted they hadn’t heard the system or
room sound quite as good before. And in fact, it’s wasn’t hi-fi, but it
was clean, loud and feedback free, definitely not among the worst gigs
I’ve had to work.
It was a cold night in Iowa, but the system was as dialed-in as we could
get it, the crowd got rowdy and the metal music was hot and flying. It
sure did make for a better, but still cramped, ride home... I’m wondering,,
where’s our next gig? I wonder what the system’s going to be like? Can
we do any better than tonight? All I can think is you’ve got to try.
Based in Chicago, Nathan Short has already developed a reputation as one of the top young working mixers in the area. He can be reached at nathans@technotrix.net
June 2003 Live Sound International