FOH Soundman tone input...opinions needed

The Whale

The Whale

Inspired
My band is beginning our regional summer calendar with a new FOH guy. He's a much older gent than our previous guy...has tons of touring experience and a great ear. We hired him based on a recent festival we played and the conversations afterward. Great dude all around.

That being said, he's been hyper critical of Axe rig and my tone. I'm running a Les Paul or a PRS Cu22 with low wind PAFs into a Brit45 with stock Ownhammer H30 55 full cab IR. The Brit 45 is jumpered with the knobs from left to right as follows: vol 1: 6, vol 2: 4, bass off, mids: 7.5, treble: 5, presence: 5. Everything else is default with the bright switch on. Drive pedals are an AC Booster with Drive at 2 and volume at 5 and a Fuzz Face with drive at 5 and Volume maxed. All other settings on the drives are default.

Our FOH was telling today that he finds the tone to be thin and overly bright. He starts my channel flat and then starts low pass filtering at about 2k! I was shocked! Is this normal? I listen to the board mixes and they sound solid. The stereo mics at the board sound great too. But, I know if I were to put a similar filter on my preset, it would sound remarkably neutered and muffled. In my in ears (separate mix and EQ) the channel is flat and it sounds killer.

Gigging guys or tour pros, can you lend some insight here. I'm not sure how to learn from this feedback.
 
lqdsnddist said:
If the mix sounds good, then let the man do his job. You like your isolated tone, he makes you sound good in a mix, no need to change anything
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Oh, definitely... Mix is great. I'm more wondering if I should be shaving that high end off my tone before it reaches the board. That is what he would like me to do. We're off for a few nights so I have time to monkey.
 
You're paying him. IMO. If you like the board mix, ask the band, and decide for yourselves how it should sound FOH.

His job is to work with the equipment in front of him, not to decide what amp you should play (since you might feel that he's got a bit of a slant against any type of direct feed from a digital device.)

I get it, you always want him on your side, since he's got a HUGE amount of power to present your music to the audience. I would ask that he works with you one on one, and find out what HE thinks is a good tone (make clear that the amp will NOT change), and acquaint him with it...he may be surprised and be glad to work on this. If you can find a middle ground, then it's a win.

Otherwise....you're paying him to do what you want.
 
Are you using the same mix desk and set of speakers that you dialed in your tones with or are you at the mercy of the venue's contract sound and running thru a new board / speakers at each show? Are you playing the same place every week?

If the new guy is hearing you on equipment and in places that you don't know well, I'd probably lean toward taking his advice.
 
Take it as an opportunity to trade ideas and learn from each other.

Let him know that you like and respect his work. Then tell him what you told us: "...if I were to put a similar filter on my preset, it would sound remarkably neutered and muffled. How do you make it work?"
 
Maybe turn the bright switch off and add a little bass. Bass on 0 with the bright switch on and treble at 5 and pres at 5 just sounds thin to me. Just a suggestion. I don't really know your setup though.
 
2k sounds a little bit aggressive but the proof is in the mix. Maybe try some headphones to your axe and listen to your tone with the cab block high cut on 2k. Play with it for a bit, then see if you can do some other tweaks to get a similar result while retaining some sparkle. There might be a certain frequency you can cut the does the trick. MBC maybe will tame the highs nicely
 
The Whale said:
My band is beginning our regional summer calendar with a new FOH guy. He's a much older gent than our previous guy...has tons of touring experience and a great ear. We hired him based on a recent festival we played and the conversations afterward. Great dude all around.

That being said, he's been hyper critical of Axe rig and my tone. I'm running a Les Paul or a PRS Cu22 with low wind PAFs into a Brit45 with stock Ownhammer H30 55 full cab IR. The Brit 45 is jumpered with the knobs from left to right as follows: vol 1: 6, vol 2: 4, bass off, mids: 7.5, treble: 5, presence: 5. Everything else is default with the bright switch on. Drive pedals are an AC Booster with Drive at 2 and volume at 5 and a Fuzz Face with drive at 5 and Volume maxed. All other settings on the drives are default.

Our FOH was telling today that he finds the tone to be thin and overly bright. He starts my channel flat and then starts low pass filtering at about 2k! I was shocked! Is this normal? I listen to the board mixes and they sound solid. The stereo mics at the board sound great too. But, I know if I were to put a similar filter on my preset, it would sound remarkably neutered and muffled. In my in ears (separate mix and EQ) the channel is flat and it sounds killer.

Gigging guys or tour pros, can you lend some insight here. I'm not sure how to learn from this feedback.
Click to expand...

Post an audio clip from your system.
 
You're smart to have your own FOH person, especially if you're running DI and can't get a traditional stage mix, i.e., amps and drums on stage. Your FOH person will know what your supposed to sound like out in the audience and make it happen, hopefully!

I know from working both on stage and at FOH that there are huge disparities in the quality and / or tone of mixing board preamps. There are even a couple of do-it-all prosumer boards that I've found to be almost impossible to dial in to my liking. All DI is not created equal. The entire signal chain matters. Your Axe FX settings may sound great when you set them up in your rehearsal space but may fall apart outside of your controlled environment. Your FOH person's opinion that your tones are thin and treble-y may be due to the quality of the board's pre's, the condition of the venue's speakers, power amplifier settings, venue acoustics, etc., The bottom line is there is no set-it-and-forget-it.

My advice is to quickly run thru a few presets at sound check, get your FOH person's opinion and go to your global EQ settings on the Axe FX to adjust for all the variables. Run thru those same presets again. Rinse and repeat.

Finally, if you're on a rental mixing board, make sure that your FOH checks all of the the board's compression and eq settings! Try to start your sound check with the board as flat as possible. Virtually all of the newer digital boards have compression and eq hidden several layers deep. For instance, you may turn off your guitar channel's eq or compressor, make some extreme adjustments on your Axe FX and find later (or maybe not) that there's a 4-band multicompressor strapped across the master buss that's also set to some opposite extreme. The bottom line is that there's no way you can know this stuff so... your only option is to take your sound person's advice!
 
yek said:
Post an audio clip from your system.
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Here's the same song from two different sources. In both mixes, the Axe FX settings are the same. Here's the room mix from the most recent show. Source is a 4 track Tascam recorder with stereo board mix and stereo room mic. Phased and mixed together. https://www.dropbox.com/s/u650xfhhi4ziqb3/Ruthie Board and Room Mix.mp3?dl=0

This is what my in ears sound like. In my ears, the guitar channel strips are flat. https://www.dropbox.com/s/h4se7uoos078wmz/Ruthie In-Ear Mix Rehearsal.mp3?dl=0

Same board, same Axe Fx preset, same guitar.
 
Great question and all good advice from everyone. Dont forget about your cab block settings too. Proximity is super important in my tone shaping when using NULL or mic's there. I love the Brit45 but notice that a little EQ change can go a long way on that amp. It seems a little more difficult to dial in than most amps at least with my rig. Ultimately it's a matter of trust on your part that your FOH guy has good ears. I tend to lean towards low and high shelf cut off wider than I would in my own mix. I think this way it does give the FOH mix some room to open up the mix if needed. for instance, if I am mixing I usually roll off guitars at around 200 to clear the mud, but in fractal I roll off beginning as low as 100, this way once it hits FOH board there is some wiggle room if more low is needed for guitar at any particular venue. FOH can always pull more out of mix but its hard to add it when needed.
 
FractalAudio said:
I'm not surprised he says it sounds thin, you have the Bass turned off.
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With a Les Paul and a JTM45 Jumped? Can get rather woofy with the bass knob up past 1.5... at least to my ears. If I'm not jumping the channels, I'd run the bass knob higher. Honestly, I don't think the recording from my in ears mix doesn't sound thin at all. The recording of the board mix sound like there's a blanket over it. Again, happy to learn.
 
I just took a listen to both the files and everything seems pretty good to me. I might have put a smidge more bass on there, but nothing drastic. I don't even hear it being all that bright.
 
Listening to the room mix it sounds like he was reserving the high end for the acoustic guitar which was pretty much all I could hear.
 
Work with him. I had the same issue with our desk guy. He dialed in a freq.comp @1.6~ 2.5k on my strip. BTW, that was the (band pass) crossover freq. in our top boxes, and my coaxial FRFR wedge. I have found the same issue when monitoring thru typical (band) floor wedges. 1.6~2k is like an ice pick in the compression driver. I ended up inserting a PEQ, tapered to make my wedge flatter in the band pass. That resolved all the cut the desk was placing in my strip. I have since gone to a 212 cabinet, I can hear myself in the stage mix better also. Let him do his thing, if he's worth his weight. Also, his ears may be better, if he has guarded himself from excessive SPL's.
If your overall tone is sharp, he's going to subtract your instrument in the mix if he can't identify the problem frequencies quickly. It isn't easy mixing a full band with a lot of instruments occupying the same tonal pocket.
 
The Whale said:
Here's the same song from two different sources. In both mixes, the Axe FX settings are the same. Here's the room mix from the most recent show. Source is a 4 track Tascam recorder with stereo board mix and stereo room mic. Phased and mixed together. https://www.dropbox.com/s/u650xfhhi4ziqb3/Ruthie Board and Room Mix.mp3?dl=0

This is what my in ears sound like. In my ears, the guitar channel strips are flat. https://www.dropbox.com/s/h4se7uoos078wmz/Ruthie In-Ear Mix Rehearsal.mp3?dl=0

Same board, same Axe Fx preset, same guitar.
Click to expand...
Your in ears sound decent to me but the FOH is harsh. One thing about FOH mixes and the reason a good sound engineer will cut highs is quality drivers can destroy a guitar tone the same way subs can. So they usually tend to cut all lows below 100hz and highs above 5k. I would listen to your sound guy. I use an eq block on my channel 1 to FOH, so I can tweak if needed. My guitar sounds strong and as a rule I cut below 100hz. It is also very bright and I cut above 5k.
 
Be careful about drawing conclusions from listening to the house mix. Variations in room response and stage bleed can radically affect the way it sounds in the venue.
 
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