[Frank Stearns]

"George's Pro Sound Company" writes:

and some of us labor to do that with a sound system
reinforce, not over produce
I have even accomplished it a few times
once with a sitar/tabla show that brought tears to ones eyes from the beauty
of it

it can be done, but it's a lot of work with lots of really expensive stuff

You know, I'm glad you brought this up.

You're right - it can be done up the limits of the physics and the state of the art;
the trick is a painstaking balance and tuning of the system by someone with
musical/good hi-fi studio ears who can still hear above 5 Khz and who has musical
sensitivity along with knowing when it sounds like a cruddy PA and when it sounds
right, like real music, and going that extra mile to get there, just like for a very
hifi record. And it takes continuous anal attention to system health details from
microphones to speaker boxes to support all the other hard work.

Beyond good hardware the keys seems to be rational volumes, tonal (and compensating
EQ) awareness of phase issues from multiple mics on stage and multiple, co-mingled
"sound pools" from mains, monitors, on stage sources, and the room itself. Whadda
soup!! But sometimes it can taste pretty good if all the "spice" is balanced just
right.

In fact, a Big Secret here of why some live recordings sound so engaging is the
capture of that spice. Call me crazy, but in my location work with amplified shows I
embrace stage bleed (within reason), though some of my clients grumble when they
can't autotune so easily because of it. g

My general thanks to you that you seem to be aware and can tune & mix PA
appropriately.

Frank Stearns
Mobile Audio

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