The purpose of this blog is to reflect on the live sound practical sessions and training we as a class have received over the past 7 weeks of the Trimester from Ben Morris here at SAE Institute, Perth. I thought I would address this as a week by week discussion of both the issues and challenges we faced as a team as well as the outcomes as a result.

During the first week’s practical class we were all placed in the room with all the live sound equipment and Ben gave us a good run through and an explanation of each item in the room. He went right down to the basics of design of the speaker units, the sub speakers as well as the components that make up the live sound setup including the digital and analog desks and the differences between them. He also gave us a basic verbal instruction of the setup of the gear and how the sound travels in a live situation.

In the second week Ben had us in the room with all the equipment again, however this time we were asked to set it all up ourselves based on our audio knowledge thus far. He left the room and when we returned gave us feedback on where we could have improved and where we went wrong. Although at the time I thought it would be a better process to actually show us the correct way of setting the gear up first, however in reflection I believe this was probably the best way to learn. Some of the feedback I took away with me from this process was that the FOH speakers and sub need to be in front of the fold-back wedges. Also, the cables for these speakers must always run behind the fold-back wedges. So if you can imagine a line of cables  in a straight line behind the FOH speakers and in front of the fold-back wedges. This keeps cables out of the way of the musicians feet on stage etc.

Another thing that Ben mentioned and I thought was interesting was the angle of the FOH speakers. They must always be directly front on to the audience and not on an angle towards the engineer as you would with monitors in the studio, which I thought was quite humorous that we automatically set them up in that way, as did previous groups as Ben mentioned. Proves that we get so used to setting up monitors in a certain way throughout the course. The reason they need to be front on is to avoid phasing issues with the sound emitted from the speakers.

Another important point was to make sure the excess of cables is closest to the speakers and not the desk. We were also shown how the analog mixer works including some effects (that are not so great). We also activated the outboard Lexicon effects unit under the digital desk. We were shown how to check the signal from the desk through the units. It is important that the Amps for the speakers are always powered last. In the recording room 1 space at SAE Perth, the Amps must only be set to only 2 clicks for FOH left and right (top amp) and 6 clicks for the Subs (bottom amp) because of the small and sound absorbent space. We were taken through the signal flow and set up from the desk to the speakers and Ben was impressed as we had set this up correctly as a team. I made myself a dot-pointed list of the signal flow on this day to help me remember the order when connecting the cables. My learning style is visual so I usually need to see things like this written down as opposed to just hearing it verbally. The order from the desk is:

  • Desk
  • Graphic EQ
  • Compressor
  • Crossover Unit
  • Amplifiers
  • Speakers

It came in handy to remember this signal flow when connecting everything up for the first time. I think it’s important to remember this signal flow for any live sound setup in the future.

During the third week’s class Ben split us into two separate groups so that Ben could show us how the Yamaha LS-9 digital desk works. At the time I remember finding this desk a little overwhelming and thought that learning this desk would take a bit of time as it consists of menu’s within menu’s etc. However I managed to understand how the layers worked and as a group we were able to set up and troubleshoot and resolve any issues we had. I think our Amps were not on the ‘Dual’ setting on the back which means our mono signal needs to be distributed evenly to both L and R FOH signal paths. Apart from that, Ben said he couldn’t pick on our set up at all which was awesome feedback. He left the room and asked us to send some reverb and delay to the left and right fold-back speakers and we managed to figure it out in the end which I’m still a little confused about but hopefully it sinks in next time.

In week 4 there were only 3 of us, myself, Matt and Nathan and after setting up and connecting everything after the earlier group that day, we were shown the larger cable and the very complex process of how to connect it. During the class we were also shown how to ‘tune the room’. This means removing the frequencies on the Graphic EQ that surface as a result of ‘feedback’, which gives a different result based on the space you are using. By removing these frequencies on the Graphic EQ we remove any chance of feedback during the live performance. We also learnt about how to autotune the room via the Crossover unit. This unit scans for feedback frequencies automatically by using the small microphone and place it centred in the room and connected straight into the front of the crossover unit.

Weeks 5 and 6 we remained in our groups and established our positions of either FOH Engineer, Monitor Engineer, Systems Tech, Stage Manager and Recording Engineer. Again we got to have a practise run of these positions in week 6 and this was a good run through of the assessment which took place in week 7.

I took the position of Monitor Engineer so my role was to place the monitors and the analog monitor desk into position ensuring that they are all connected appropriately. During setup I ensured that the main digital desk outputs were connected via channels 1, 2 and 3 to the monitor desk inputs. I then had to connect an AUX 1 send cable to the monitor Graphic EQ input, then out of the Graphic EQ and back into a red return cable on the thick cable which runs to the stage box and onto the fold-back wedge. During the assessment we had lecturer Wayne Hodges join us so we set him up with a vocal mic, acoustic guitar DI box and a fold-back wedge.

We only had a small group of 3 for the assessment in the end, just myself, Dani and Matt. So rather than just sticking to our specific roles, we ended up helping each other out a lot and a lot of our roles and duties crossed over, which if you had more people would become messy however considering the circumstances we worked well together. So after I had set up monitor desk, wedges and cables, I then moved into the Systems Tech role with Matt and assisted with connecting the desk to the EQ to the compressor to the crossover, to the amps and of course through to the FOH speakers.

We had a couple of issues here and there during our set up, firstly with complicated task of connecting the multi cord then the issue of many of the channels not working due to the connection not secured properly, which is not an easy job even for Ben. We also had an issue with sending the reverb from the digital desk through to the monitor desk so that Wayne could be given some reverb through his fold-back wedge during his performance.

One of the errors I made myself during setup was the input and output cables were the wrong way around in the back of the Graphic EQ. Once we realised we weren’t getting any signal to the wedge I simply followed the signal flow from the main desk and through to the wedge and discovered where I went wrong. I learnt here also that it’s very important to make sure all the gain and AUX pots are down when adjusting cables, including the levels on the wedge itself, as we had a feedback scare when I was fixing the cable setup. Another thing that Ben told me was during sound check, to make sure the reverb and signals through the AUX channel are working correctly then just turn them all down until the musician requests some reverb from the Engineers. Also levels from the guitar and vocal can be adjusted upon request.

Overall I think myself, Dani and Matt managed really well for the assessment considering there was only three of us in the group. We all assisted each other where necessary to get the job done. During recording, Dani was focussed on ProTools, I was focussed on the monitor desk and Matt focussed on mixing and EQ on the desk.

Although we were thrown in the deep end on many occasions throughout the last 7 seven weeks, I feel I’ve really learnt a lot about the live sound setup, the signal flow and the typical roles that take place during a live sound setup. I look forward to using and applying this knowledge and training during the live sound pracs that we undertake at The Boston next door from Week 11.