Posts belonging to Category Live Sound

I’ve been using a Tascam DR-40 portable recorder for over a year now to record our band reharsals and services each week at church. After each rehearsal, I import the recorded audio into my DAW, export each song as an MP3, and e-mail those MP3’s to the other members of the band so we can evaluate our parts, practice them, and listen to the songs to help commit any new ones to memory. I’ll often do the same thing after our services, just so we can listen back and hear how everything sounded out front during the service. I also want to begin posting the pastor’s sermon each week on the church website, but recording the sermon with the DR-40 has brought some challenges (more on that in just a moment). (more…)

The church where I attend (and play the drums in the worship band) recently remodeled our sanctuary. This included new lights, paint, carpet, and expanding the size of our stage. As part of this project, we also installed an all new sound system. Like many churches of our size, we’ve undergone a fairly recent transition from more traditional piano and organ-based music to a live band with guitars, bass, keyboard, and drums, so the old sound system was woefully inadequate for our current needs. For the new mixing console, we ultimately chose the Behringer X32. And boy, am I glad that we did. It’s been a real answer to our prayers (pun intended)–solving many of the problems and overcoming the limitations of our old analog system. For those of you who might be facing similar issues with the sound system in your church, I’d like to highlight some of the stellar features of the X32 which we have found to be a real God-send (again, pun intended). (more…)

A few months ago, my trusty old analog mixer that I had used since 2008 developed an intermittent short in one of the aux sends. Unfortunately, this was one of only two pre-fader aux sends on this mixer, so I was using it for one of two monitor sends for band rehearsals and live gigs. This board had a total of 4 aux sends, but two of them are post-fader, and are therefore unsuitable for use as a monitor send. (more…)

Over the course of the last several decades, the Shure SM58 has become the de-facto standard vocal microphone for live performances. And for good reason: it’s built tough, reasonably priced, and generally sounds great on just about any voice. With a price tag of around $100, the SM58 may still seem out of the price range of some musicians, tempting them to look for other cheaper alternatives. But in the remainder of this article, I’ll attempt to persuade such frugal buyers to think twice before compromising, and why you should definitely buy the SM58 if you are able. (more…)

When discussing modern recording techniques, you can’t get far without someone bringing up the topic of compression. If you’ve seen a compressor in the mail-order music catalogs or online music store, but never understood what it was or why you might need it on your recordings, sit tight. (more…)

When connecting a mixer to a digital audio interface or multi-track recorder, you normally connect the Direct Out jack of each mixer channel to a track’s input on the interface. For example, let’s say your kick drum mic is connected to channel 1 of the mixer. If you wanted to record the kick drum to track 1, you would connect the channel 1 Direct Out to the track 1 input of the interface. You would then connect the channel 2 Direct Out to the track 2 input of the interface, etc. Using the Direct Outs in such a way takes each channel’s signal post-fader and post-EQ and sends it straight to the recording device. This allows you to record that one instrument (and only that instrument) to its corresponding track on the recorder or in your DAW software.

But what if your mixer doesn’t come equipped with Direct Outs? (more…)

I’ve wanted a new mixer for the last few years to use in my project studio and for occasional live gigs, but I’ve had a hard time choosing one. I wanted at least 16 channels with XLR inputs (on all 16 channels), 4 subgroups, at least 2 pre-fader Aux sends with balanced outputs (for monitor sends), built-in effects for a touch of reverb (so I don’t have to carry an additional rack unit), and at least 8 direct outputs for multi-track recording. And of course, I wanted all of this for a reasonable price (I’m not asking for much, huh?). (more…)

Introduction
When dealing with live sound systems, a common question that I have both asked and been asked over the years is, “How much power amp do I need to sufficiently power my speakers?” (more…)