Follow up post on "Mixing the worst room ever"...

[Donnie Frank]

Hey doods!

So a few months ago I posted an article expressing my frustration with a room I was mixing in Santa Fe, N.M. The venue is the legislative "round house." As the moniker suggests, the room is large, round, marble with a 60' ceiling. I don't think one could design a better echo chamber. To exacerbate the room conditions, the "show" is a combination of a band alternating with podium speakers. Speakers range from extremely strong to extremely weak. As you can imagine, pushing the gain in such a room is dicey business. My original rig was an analog desk with K8 speakers. No monitor wedges. No subs.

In my original post I had asked for general suggestions, which included microphone suggestions. Unfortunately, the client insisted on a wireless mic. I only own one, which is the Shure SM58 wireless. So I was stuck with that mic.

One of you guys pointed out that the wide dispersion of the K8's was part of the problem. Good call on that one! So here's what I did...

The next show I brought my K12's. The narrower throw definitely helped, but I was still having slight feedback issues. Not bad....but just those slightly looming frequencies that always felt like they could take off if not actively managed. So...

Next show I decided to put the podium mic and band on different sub-groups. This way I could attenuate all the band mic's during the speaker segments, and pad the podium mic during the band segments. This REALLY helped a lot.

The final nail in the feedback coffin was really taking time to ring out the room pre-show. Because it's a government building, I wasn't allowed to make a bunch of racket. So I broke out the RTA on my iPad and found the biggest offenders, which was 200Hz and 400Hz. Those got a severe 12dB cut (1/3 octave). I high-passed the podium mic pretty high...around 200Hz, as I recall. My console has a HPF button, so for speakers who spoke far away from the SM58, I would open up the bottom end a bit. This worked well.

I high-passed the band @120Hz.

As you can imagine, 800Hz was problematic, but not nearly as much as 200 and 400. So I pulled that back about 6dB. 4K got a smiley face with a 6dB cut and 3dB to the respective frequencies on both sides of 4K (don't remember what they are).

And finally, I mixed the band in my headphones. With a room that ambient, it's just impossible to hear anything. The way I see it, get the basic mix good in the headphones and it should sound as good as possible in the room. This seemed to work extremely well, as the recordings (board mix and ambient room mic) were very good.

So....after doing all of this, I can finally say that I had what I would call a "near perfect show." Everyone was heard, the band sounded good (as good as could be expected in an echo chamber), no feedback issues. Best of all, NO COMPLAINTS with lots of compliments, including the guy who handed me my cash for that day. Pleasing the client is always #1.

I would like to thank everyone for their suggestions. This gig really taught me a LOT about dealing with problem rooms. I applied these exact paradigms to a show I did in a gymnasium a few weeks ago and it worked perfectly.

Thanx again!

D

[mr_es335]

Donnie,

Great new!

PS: Happy belated B'Day by-the-way!

[Donnie Frank]

Donnie,

Great new!

PS: Happy belated B'Day by-the-way!

Thank you, sir!!! You're only 10 months late...so let's consider this an EARLY birthday wish....<;^)

[Richard Rupert]

Hey doods!

So a few months ago I posted an article expressing my frustration with a room I was mixing in Santa Fe, N.M. The venue is the legislative "round house." As the moniker suggests, the room is large, round, marble with a 60' ceiling. I don't think one could design a better echo chamber. To exacerbate the room conditions, the "show" is a combination of a band alternating with podium speakers. Speakers range from extremely strong to extremely weak. As you can imagine, pushing the gain in such a room is dicey business. My original rig was an analog desk with K8 speakers. No monitor wedges. No subs.

In my original post I had asked for general suggestions, which included microphone suggestions. Unfortunately, they insisted on a wireless mic. I only own one, which is the Shure SM58 wireless. So I was stuck with that mic.

One of you guys pointed out the wide dispersion of the K8's was part of the problem. Good call on that one! So here's what I did...

The next show I brought my K12's. The narrower throw definitely helped, but I was still having slight feedback issues. Not bad....but just those slightly looming frequencies that always felt like they could take off if not actively managed. So...

Next show I decided to put the podium mic and band on different sub-groups. This way I could attenuate all the band mic's during the speaker segments, and pad the podium mic during the band segments. This REALLY helped a lot.

The final nail in the feedback coffin was really taking time to ring out the room pre-show. Because it's a government building, I wasn't allowed to make a bunch of racket. So I broke out the RTA on my iPad and found the biggest offenders, which was 200Hz and 400Hz. Those got a severe 12dB cut (1/3 octave). I high-passed the podium mic pretty high...around 200Hz, as I recall. My console has a HPF button, so for speakers who spoke far away from the SM58, I would open up the bottom end a bit. This worked well.

I high-passed the band @120Hz.

As you can imagine, 800Hz was problematic, but not nearly as much as 200 and 400. So I pulled that back about 6dB. 4K got a smiley face with a 6dB cut and 3dB to the respective frequencies on both sides of 4K (don't remember what they are).

And finally, I mixed the band in my headphones. With a room that ambient, it's just impossible to hear anything. The way I see it, get the basic mix good in the headphones and it should sound as good as possible in the room. This seemed to work extremely well, as the recordings (board mix and ambient room mic) were very good.

So....after doing all of this, I can finally say that I had what I would call a "near perfect show." Everyone was heard, the band sounded good (as good as could be expected in an echo chamber), no feedback issues. Best of all, NO COMPLAINTS with lots of compliments, including the guy who handed me my cash for that day. Pleasing the client is always #1.

I would like to thank everyone for their suggestions. This gig really taught me a LOT about dealing with problem rooms. I applied these exact paradigms to a show I did in a gymnasium a few weeks ago and it worked perfectly.

Thanx again!

D

Thanks for the detailed update, Donnie. Good information, especially for those of us who encounter that environment occasionally!