Live problems

No, this is not about Albeton Live, but about live performances in general and about performances using a PC in particular. In this post, I will tell you about my experience of live performances, and in the comments I would like to read about the experience of Habs users and, so to speak, share wisdom with each other.

The biggest problem that at first can be encountered, in my opinion, lies in the absence of “peers” who have about the same set of software and hardware, and who can ask for advice. Perhaps in large cities with developed musical culture there is no such problem, but in cities there is less. For example, in Irkutsk, on speeches, a laptop (or desktop) is used, what is called “anonymus one and a half”, and it is very difficult to find a professional who can help among them. Sometimes there is no time to ask on the forums (if you need to solve problems here and now) and even after a long wait the answer may not satisfy you. Therefore, one has to “step on the rake” and draw conclusions.

Another problem is clubs with different acoustics and equipment. In my group from the laptop "minus" is a bit, some effects, and the keys on which I play. On the rep.baze the sound is debugged, everything sounds just fine and everyone is happy. Until then it is time to perform somewhere. If the rest of the band members have a little bit of a side effect on how the drums will sound in another room and on other equipment, then it is very important to me as a person who killed a lot of time to prescribe and mix them. I don’t know how in other cities, but in Irkutsk the groups perform in a crowd and on the soundcheck at best 5 minutes stand out, that is, he came in, “stuck”, said “once-a-sausage dog” and started to play. In 5 minutes, even if I’ve already connected all the hardware, I only need 5 minutes to rebuild the keys, but I’ll have to rebuild the drums, which can lead to a loss of quality. And since different rooms are not acoustically prepared differently and the equipment can be rebuilt in the most unpredictable way, it may happen that some components of the "minus" (for example, a worker or a cymbal) will sound wrong. It is especially noticeable when the local equalizer adds sand to the “top”, and it is not possible to disable it. From here, by the way, another problem emerges - there are very few groups that have their own sensible sound producer, who will bring the sound in order during the performance. And so, in clubs (sometimes even in large ones), there is either no sound engineer or “it would not have been better”.

In theory, if the head is bright and the arms are straight, then it is possible to do some of the work of the sound engineer yourself by controlling the midi-controller. For example, using Novation SL MKII (or analog), you can adjust the volume of the tracks on the fly or tune in / up certain frequencies. But here another problem awaits us - in Russia and the CIS countries it is sometimes very difficult to get the necessary device model, often you have to order and wait a month or even several. The option to buy something simpler for the first time is not for everyone, the prices for "iron" in our country are too high, but to buy something so that in a couple of months you can buy something that everyone does not need, and it is not advisable . Especially the situation is deplorable when your instrument is out of order and you need to urgently buy a new one, exactly the same, because in a week the performance. And because of the problem number 1, it is not possible to take the same “device” from colleagues.
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And now solutions to problems.

Problem number 1. The need for outside help.

If there is no one to ask for advice, and the search in the forums does not give anything, the most sensible will be to close for a couple of hours at the base and conduct experiments, simulate various situations and draw conclusions. Not the most ideal solution of course, but it's still better than screwing up at a performance. And I personally did not find another solution.

Problem number 2. Various equipment and acoustic preparation of the premises.

If we failed to agree on a preliminary sound check with the organizer, and the method described above was ignored, it remains only to rely on the adequacy of the local sound producer. Or "steer" the sound of a speech directly risking a complete heresy.

Advice from Flammen .

One more thing that was thought ... You often perform in different clubs, or, for example, there are 1-2 clubs in a cat. Do you constantly play? .. If there are constants, then I think you can sit down and make presets for a particular club.

Advice from SADKO .

The work of a sound engineer on the fly can only be done in a restaurant ...

In terms of the club, while on stage you hear a monitor line, the sound and balance of which has little to do with the sound and balance of the hall, and it should not be the same ... When I was a sound engineer, I generally used multi-channel monitoring so that the vocalist did not mess up, and the bassist with the drummer worked well ...

In your case, it makes sense to do a reduction for groups precisely taking into account the fact that you will work under this, get a separate group of volume effects.
The basic idea here is that the room in which you have to perform has its own reverberation, and, as a rule, such that even a dry mix can be more than enough.
Excessive compression in the conditions of a humming room, as well as notable sources of turbidity, so the minus for a live performance should be rough in this regard, let it be steep attacks and skinny tails, but at least listeners can distinguish the sound of individual instruments.
And there is also such a beast vocalist, which is not easy to wade through the squeezed mix, but you will not find a compressor for the vocals in every Moscow club.
This is also important to consider when mixing groups minus!

In general, the minus is that the mix is ​​not mixed at all for the album, only without vocals, it is a completely different story ...

Problem number 3. The difficulty in acquiring equipment.

If you terribly want to speak, and there is no suitable equipment (as in my case), then you can prepare in advance using advice for problem No. 1 and calmly speak, although this will already be a half live performance, which is not very good. But as they say - if you can not, but really want, then you can. Another option (it unfortunately does not suit me) to use Ableton Live, even without a midi-keyboard, you can assign most of the commands to the laptop keyboard, and somehow wind the sound live.

These are the pies. So far I have only encountered these three problems, but for certain there were other difficulties. So I suggest in the comments to share your problems and how to solve them.