Since much of my live sound work involves musicians of the 'singing hippy' variety, this is no small bonus. This approach requires a keener ear, as mid-range cuts stand out much less than mid-range boosts do, but I'll almost always find that a decent sound has taken shape before the first song is finished.Īnd in some cases, a deep mid-range cut is all that's needed! Toning down that egregious spiky sound might well be enough to let you hear some of the guitar's resonances, while creating that 'hole' in the guitar's mid-range often makes a useful amount of room for vocals. From there, it's all about making a subtle mid-range cut, slowly sweeping the frequency until the sound improves, and then gradually cutting more until I've arrived at a sound I'm happy with. There are no hard and fast rules, but the cut usually ends up somewhere between 800Hz and 3kHz.Īt events where I'm dealing with several performers and quick changeovers, such as festivals, I often don't have time for a proper soundcheck, in which case I'll either try to use the above method as quickly as possible while the guitarist is tuning up (an often overlooked window of time for last-minute adjustments!), or I'll let the musicians start playing, with the guitar channel's EQ more or less flat. If I have the luxury of a soundcheck, I'll do this in the way we've often recommended in our Mix Rescue articles: boost the mid-range, sweep the mid-frequency until that 'quack' sound is most prominent, and then cut, quite brutally if necessary. Mid-range cuts of 12dB or more aren't unusual, and these can be accompanied by some rather unintuitive boosts elsewhere in the frequency range to try and coax a natural sound out of the guitar.Ī deep mid-range cut is a good starting point for EQ'ing piezo-equipped acoustic guitars. More than any other instrument, I find that piezo-equipped acoustic guitars normally require some pretty savage EQ to combat their rather nasal quality.
This extremely dynamic sound can be effectively dealt with using compression, but my first port of call is to address the guitar's tonality, using my mixer's channel EQ. This is because piezo pickups sense sound from directly under the guitar's bridge, so rather than the lovely 'bloom' that happens when a guitar's strings, neck and body excite each other to resonate, you're left with a transient-rich sound where every pluck pokes through your eardrum and such sustain as there is sounds extremely quiet compared to the note's attack.
Probably the first thing you'll hear once you've turned up the gain and lifted the fader is a very spiky sound (often referred to as 'quack') that barely resembles that of the guitar being played acoustically. Most built-in acoustic-guitar pickups are of the piezo variety, which is unfortunate as they almost universally sound horrible.
For more info on DI boxes, I recommend you read Hugh Robjohns' excellent article in last month's SOS: /sos/may13/articles/using-di-boxes.htm.
But plugging them in is only the start of the battle: making them sound good is the tricky bit! In this article, I'm going to share the tips I've learnt over many years of dealing with more strummers, pluckers and pickers than I can remember.Īssuming the guitar you're working with has an onboard pickup system, you'll want to plug it in to a DI box, to better match the guitar's output level and impedance to the mic inputs on your mixer. In practical terms, they are also often relatively simple instruments to amplify, as performers tend to use guitars with built-in pickup systems, which means you don't even need to bother with a microphone. Acoustic guitars are central to many live performances, but making them sound good through a PA isn't as straightforward as you might imagine.Īfter vocals, acoustic guitars are probably the most common instruments a live sound engineer has to deal with.
0 kommentar(er)
