Techknowledgey

Steve Jobs.  One of the greatest visionaries my generation has known.  Rest in Peace.

DC*B cover art for their Christmas album.  Love this!

(Source: marktheshark)

Picasso, Rembrandt, Van Gogh, Michelangelo, Monet, Degas.  What do all these names have in common?  They’re all great artists who expressed their art through the medium of paint.  What I love about this particular list of names is that, while we see all of them as great artists with beautiful works to their name, they all approached their art differently.  Take Michelangelo’s “Creation of Adam” and put it side by side with Van Gogh’s “Starry Night”.  Both are wonderfully painted pieces, yet, they’re so very different in the way in which they were painted.  Do you think that Van Gogh said to himself, “I’m a painter.  I’m going to create another work of art.  I wonder what kind of brush Michelangelo used on the Adam painting.  If I had the same brush he had, I know I could make beautiful art.”

Putting aside the painting analogy for the moment, does that sound familiar?  As a mix engineer, have you found yourself thinking, “If I only had the same console as (insert band name here) I could get a killer mix.”  Or lighting guys, “If I had “Brand X” moving head lights on the stage, I could make some awesome lighting looks.”

With the leaps and bounds in technology in our line of work, it’s easy to focus on the science side of our jobs and get caught up in the rat race of gear.  “If I had a digital desk” “If I had better lights” “If I had line arrays” are all statements that say to me we’re losing touch with the art side of our jobs.  Remember, we’re painting with sound and light.  Let’s not forget that we all started out painting with the little water color paints in the plastic flip top box as kids, right?  We didn’t start out with oil paints on a 3’ canvas for our first projects.  But as we got better, we started buying better paints, and better brushes.  In the same way now, we upgrade desks; analog to digital, small format to medium or large. Par cans to color changers, lekos to movers.  See the process?  To use and already overused cliche, you have to walk before you can run.

“OK, CP, so what are you trying to say?”  What I’m getting at is, make art with what you have.  Master getting great sounds out of your analog desk with 2 swept mids on it.  Be creative and make lighting looks on stage with pars and led color changers.  Then as you evolve and improve, move to that digital desk with the 4 band perimetric eq.  Lighting guys, get that stage full of movers with a new touchscreen controller.  When you can master making art with the brushes you already have in your box, how much more “HD” will your painting be when you upgrade to better brushes and paints?

This past week, the worship leader at The Kirk picked up a new drive pedal.  The two of us jumped into getting it hooked up.  We pulled his amp out on stage and started tweaking knobs.  About halfway through the tweakfest, I was reminded of this question:

“How can you get a guitar player with an amp on stage to sit in the mix?”

I’ve heard this question over and over again.  Thanks to a resurgence in the popularity of classic amps, we’re seeing more and more guitarists wanting to play through their amp because it’s such a vital part of their “tone”.  Don’t get me wrong, my dad has an early 70’s Fender Vibrolux twin that absolutely sings, and I love playing through it.  So I totally get it - really I do.  But, in order to really get that baby to sing, you gotta drive those tubes to get them saturated and really shape that tone.  Driving tubes equals louder amp, which means more stage volume for you to have to overcome.  So, when the pastor comes back to the booth because you’re running worship at 110dBA, how well do you think, “I have to get louder than the guitar amp” is gonna fly?  So how can we tackle this?

My first suggestion is to isolate their cab backstage or use an isobox or closet.  That’s the quickest and easiest way to have maximum control over stage volume and allows the most room to really be able to place their sound in the mix right where I want it. 

However, not all stages (churches or otherwise) have a space nearby to use for isolation.  So in that case, we get to become creative with amp placement on the stage (Yes, this can be done).  First off, let me address something to avoid.  Never, and I do mean N-E-V-E-R place an amp facing straight upstage if you have a hard wall behind you.  The bounce back will do nothing but muddy up the sound.  Trust me on this one, I’ve had to mix too many muddy guitars this way.  Instead, face the amp off stage into the wings.  This directs (most of) the sound straight off stage and allows better control over the level of electric in the mix.

Now in some rooms, even with the amp facing straight off stage, you still get a TON of spill coming out into the room.  Most of us would look at that an decide not to even bother micing up the amp, since we wouldn’t want to make it any louder in the PA anyway.  But, we’re missing out on shaping that guitar sound in the mix if we don’t mic up the cab.  So, mic the amp up and then start EQ’ing out those gnarly mud frequencies below 400Hz or so and push the fader up in the mains.  This will allow the top end (treble) of the amp to come through the PA and mix with the spill coming off the stage, thus giving you a nice, full, clean tone for the guitar.

So, play with this next week and let me know how it works out.  Or, if you have a great way, how do you do it?

CP