PA with NO sound guy

andyp13

andyp13

Power User
i have heard of bands micing up drums and bass & guitar going direct into the desk (via Axe fx obviously) and using in-ears for monitoring..... And getting a great consistent sound night after night - and in some cases without using a sound guy out front...

I would love to be able to do this as at the moment the band I play in use backline amps and a vocal PA (Samsung 700 watt 12" bass bins and 1,000 watt Yamaha DXR 10" tops and a QSC digital desk). The lineup of the band is guitar (Axe fx into a guitar cab) bass, sax, trumpet, drums and 2 vocals we are also bringing in a keys player soon.

How do you guys get the balance right out front without a sound guy? Do you have the levels and eq pre set from gig to gig so you only need to alter the master volume etc etc

Hope someone can enlighten me

Thanks
 
for a 4 piece playing out with no sound guy aint to hard with the axe fx the guitar is easy, with all those wind instruments it will be a little harder. If you get the stage noise to a minimum and every one listens to a flat monitor mix you can adjust vocal and instrument levels with dynamics. if stage volume is loud it is hard to hear what the whole group sounds like. with todays digital boards with recall once you get set up if every thing gets plugged back in the same and set up the same it should only take minor tweaks to get close enough.
 
We use the Behringer X32.

With that you can mix the FOH with an iPad f.e.
We set it up before the gig. And mostly there's someone of our fanbase with a good ear who can make little corrections on that iPad.
We play in-ear so don't have much stagesound (except drums and bassamp)
So not w/o a sound guy totally.

The other advantage of the X32 is that every bandmember can set his own monitoring through his phone or iPad. So we don't have monitoring issues.
With that setup it's possible to get a decent sound most of the times.
 
I have heard a few bands that use IEMs and stage mix it, but they don't realize they should have someone out front with good ears to adjust things. The mix out front was not good. Some of the EQ on instruments was shrill as well. The IEMs might have sounded great to them, but they needed someone out front for the FOH mix.
That is one shortcut I am not ready to take. I have stage mixed without IEMs, and the FOH sounded very good - still relying on others with good ears on what to tweak.
 
My band has used both Presonus and X32 mixers, both being iPad control capable. This is the critical capability for it to work with us. I play on a wireless system and use a wedge monitor to complete the function. When we play, I go out front to do soundcheck, playing rhythm and lead parts from the front while my guitar counterpart does his from the stage. You'll have to do this, as all of that acoustic output will have a bearing on how you adjust your mains. Each player adjusts volume for solos (vocal or instrument) by either varying distance from the mic or having presets/headroom on volume faders (keys mostly there) to raise and lower volume as needed. I can get out front when needed to spot check.

It takes a lot of discipline and practice to make it work, but it is the best means we've found of operating on those gigs we do not use a sound man. In my opinion, it is always a "making do" sort of arrangement, as you'll always sound your best with a good sound man who knows your music.
 
I mix the band I play in from the stage using an Allen & Heath Qu-16 and as Rick has said, I mix out front for the sound check and then go out from time to time to listen to the balance. I have an iPad on a stand next to me so I can adjust without having to go back to the physical mixer whilst playing. It works well. In the PA we have 4 vocals, sax and trumpet and a little bit of my guitar, the rest is from the backline and we don't mic the drums (we are not that loud). we are looking into a sub to put the kick into but seem to manage pretty well without it.

We have played this way for years and we are used to balancing the sound. We back off for brass solos etc. We decided along time ago that if ever we needed to fill a large space and mic all the drums etc then we would bring in a trusted sound reinforcement company (we have a couple we have used).
 
Yep - we do this via Presonus RM32AI and ipads, laptops, iphones. We're all digital (Axe FX, Roland TD30, samples, keys, bass) so only 3 vocal mics. Our bass player is pretty damn good on the old mixing front so he buggers off outfront on his wireless to get the FOH moving air. We've all got our own stereo monitor mixes in our ears from the Presonus and it sounds the bollocks!!
 
I think some of the best mixes from FOH is when you get a good mix and friggen leave it. Dont tweak, dont boost and cut, dont constantly fiddle...get a good mix and leave it. When we run our own sound, we use one of those digital presonus boards (i honestly dont know). Everything gets plugged into the same inputs everytime and we just run a quick 1 or 2 songs, get levels, and its set for the rest of the night. The only thing we change is usually in our IEMS during the night.
 
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