Vocal EQ - How to Mix Live Vocals (feat. Jon Thurlow "Shout Your Name") 

We have a lead singer that is high and really powerful, should we be cutting some of the 2K moreso? Also wondering about EQ on violin/viola which is miked about a foot and a half above on a boom. Thanks!

Norm Peterson Yes, you can cut really deep on the high-mids, as long as you make your bandwidth (Q) really narrow. If you have another band of EQ, you can also try cutting in octaves (2k and 4K) and see if that gets it. And try cutting less of the lows when she goes harsh. I ride the EQ up and down all the time. Oh, and make sure she’s staying close to the mic rather than backing off (elbow compressor) so the proximity effect helps you in those sections. For violins and violas, 3.15k is going to be your scratchy screechy freq range, so a wide cut there helps. Also roll your HPF up to 150 or so.

Old fashioned church setting. Always Live every service with no practice sessions or any heads up to who might sing or play a special song. And with super dynamic preachers with really soft quiet moments and really loud powerful moments. Usually I have a basic medium line for any situation. But the two things that are the most changing and hard to pin is reverb and compression. Got any specific tips or equipment for this situation? I really enjoyed your insight on reverb, but it is hard to tweak stuff in the 30 seconds of a first verse :)

Attaway Audio 👍🏿

How zit, Majozi here... How do I eq those preachers that scream into the Mic and have no Mic technique at all, some goes for singers.

Boom

Kind of like a 1980s toyota pickup

@@AttawayAudio lol exactly. Simple and reliable.

Good old king Peavey.. They still around?

You're very welcome! I'm so glad it's helpful! What part of India? I have some friends who live in Kolkata

cool! Thanks for watching Jaco 🙌

i'm honored Shlur! Thank you!

You're welcome! Glad it's helpful!

I have a friend with a baby-grand piano, so I'm planning on doing some stuff with that at some point. Thanks for the ideas!

You're very welcome!

Thank you so much! I'm glad to hear the video has blessed you. Once you get everything setup, life becomes MUCH easier on the sound board!

Si true!

Alaaaa....😂

Heavens our A/V guy is heavy into drums and percussion. However, over the last year, our mixes have improved dramatically. I wish I could share the link to our RU-vid channel... but if Attaway doesn't mind, I can at least tell you to search for COOL Witness on RU-vid and you should find us.

Peach brother.

@@AttawayAudio I'm assuming that you meant Preach... although it is a peachy tutorial! 😉

@@btnstudios1978 lol yes... definitely meant preach. Silly autocorrect 🤣🤣🤣

+maranathashalom I receive it! It’s my pleasure. Thank you for serving Jesus at your church!

Glad it was helpful! Thanks for watching Stephen 😀

Exactly! The proximity effect doesn’t just go up 5db, so do what you’ve gotta do. Happy mixing!

Well wide is the Q, so when you cut or boost, it’s how many frequencies are affected on either side of the selected frequency. I think 1.5-2 on the Q is a good starting place for cuts. The mode is kinda related to Q- it’s just the shape of the bell curve, where the V is supposed to mean vintage, like some vintage EQs used, and P means parametric, so you can be a little more precise. The gain is how much you’re cutting or boosting in decibels. Basically, how much you’re turning that frequency down or up. Let me know how it goes next time you mix!

Thank you 🙌 Jon's amazing... you should check out his channel ru-vid.com/show-UCj1ja69H-IGGpE6JGEHjdPw

Thanks Pure! 👍🏼

You are so welcome! Thanks for watching Andrew!

@@AttawayAudio you are a blessing! Thank you! I’m trying to setup a mobile digital mixer rig for my band to take on tour and your tutorials have been so helpful to get things dialed in.

Thanks Don! Sometimes I ramble. Glad I got to it quickly!

I got spoiled on it... but it's just a tool. The band and the PA still make the biggest difference

Glad it helped Mario!

Glad you enjoyed it!

Glad they’re helping! Thanks for serving Jesus at your church 🙌🏼

You're welcome!

You bet! Glad I can be helpful for you

Thanks Mike! 🙌

You're welcome!

I have to respectfully disagree. But if that gets you hired, awesome!

@@AttawayAudio people hear the vocals. They feel the rhythm section. I’m sure you would agree that the majority of your time is spent mixing the drums, no?

Not sure what you're listening on but it would be difficult to tell the difference on phone speakers, as most of the changes were to the low end and phone speakers don't have much of that. He also only made cuts, which are a little harder to distinguish than boosts. Cuts are mostly about cleaning it up so it doesn't interfere with other things in the mix. Since the vocals were soloed, you obviously couldn't hear the interference with the rest of the mix. As for your vocal fuzz, is it just that they don't sound very clear, or do they sound distorted? If the former, you may need an EQ boost around 4.5KHz for added clarity. If the latter, your mix is likely too loud for the stream and is either peaking somewhere along the way, or being overly compressed by the streaming platform. As for your "untrained ear," I'd recommend spending some time training your ear to different frequencies. SoundGym is a good place to start. Once you have a good idea of what each frequency range sounds like, you can listen to a mix and pick out where the issues are relatively quickly. Hope this helps!

So glad you like it 😀🙌🏼

Great work 👏

Well I've got this one for the band: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-tjC89HiIx9w.html and this one for vocals: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-DsgpueqzEdA.html I'm planning a mixing class that goes more in depth. Stay tuned 😃

@@AttawayAudio perfekt thanks. I will wait 😁

I noticed that too then seen your comment.. weird coincidence

You're very welcome Ricardo! Thanks for watching

I’d be happy to! Trying to find a singer who’ll be a test subject 😀 Monitor mixing for singers is half psychology. Glad you’re enjoying it here! Happy to be serving you.

Attaway Audio Where are you located? I would love to sing for the video if the logistics worked!

I’m in KC. Middle of everywhere 😂

It could be, but I don't have any experience with that, unfortunately!

You're welcome!

you're right - it all starts at the source

Thank you very much!

I have a tech question, if I may take as much as one minute of your time. When dealing in the studio, with a voice the likes of Robert plant what is the best EQ'uing approach? thanks so much!

I honestly have no idea! Other than starting with the mic that gets you as close as you can and makes the singer feel the most like "themselves."

Thank you! they are themselves already, pretty much...♥♥♥

thanks!

Happy to be of service Prasad

Good point! But it also depends on the size of the room, the noise from the stage, the culture and median age of the congregation. What works for one church doesn't work for another church, and it comes down to what the leadership team wants. Personally, I love it when the music is loud and the congregation is loud. Sometimes you have a loud PA and the congregation doesn't know how to respond or engage, so they just stare like it's a concert or something. Lots of nuances to this topic, but glad you jumped in the conversation!

@@the-art-of-organ-playing No it isn't. You have to be up well over 100DB with a good mix for a substantial sustained amount of time. It's not the DB level that causes hearing damage, it's bad frequencies in the mix.

You’re very welcome Krishna!

Hey Debora! Yes - it's called a de-esser. It's basically a limiter that just looks at the highest frequencies and pushes down on them when they come.

Graphic EQ can be helpful if you have a LOT of frequency bands that need adjusting. But its actual frequency response when moving multiple bands next to one another is really funky. I actually don't recommend graphic EQs unless you're in a real pinch.

glad you found what works for your band! these guidelines only go so far 😃

You’re very welcome!

Depending on your console, you can change the pickoff point, or where in the signal chain the signal goes to the IEMs. I usually pick post-HPF on most inputs as a compromise.

Truth

Each one leaves with something...

Hmmm.... most drummers do. Do I detect a drummer? At least a closet drummer wanna be, right? 😄👍🥁

I used to do that. But you have to be careful because it can get harsh in a hurry, or have a tendency to feed back.

Nobody else in the room can hear your headphones. So make it sound good in the room 😃

Hard to tell without listening and trying different mics. There are so many great affordable options, plus more expensive ones too if you wanna spend a little more.

My wife (an alto) really likes the way the Telefunken M80 fits with her vocal range and style. We tried a lot of mics: Shure SM58, Sennheiser E 945, a few different wireless mics, ... and this Telefunken won out.

@@btnstudios1978 Thanks Bill I’ll have to check out that one out next. I currently bought the sebheiser e945 and it works perfectly for my singers. But I will definitely keep that one in mind next. Cheers mate.

Check out my Live Mixing Field Guide. www.livemixingfieldguide.com The book and eBook come with a companion course that walks you through the very basics of using EQ and compression.

Just the dry console feed. On some other videos I mix in some of my lav mic to get the room sound, but I didn't for this one.

These were probably Beta 87s if I had to guess... a lot of mics are the same, but yes, you're right, some have less proximity effect than others, like the ones you mentioned. There are a lot of other factors in choosing a vocal mic too, but that's definitely one of them. Thanks for the comment!

That’d be fun! Trouble is getting it in a format people can import on whatever console they’re on

What about making it usable for all daws. Through this, people will learn to get used to the chains, plugins and EQ.

leave enough headroom. wireless mics can distort internally, too, so you have to watch out for that

Yeah they're balanced on the faders to have the male vocal as the lead, with the other vocals behind him.

SSL L200. It's 😍