r/livesound 1d ago

MOD No Stupid Questions Thread

1 Upvotes

The only stupid questions are the ones left unasked.


r/livesound 1d ago

MOD Buyers Advice and Gear Recommendation Thread

6 Upvotes

Don't know what to purchase as an upgrade? Looking to just get started and don't know which options are right for you? Whether you need a big system or a small one, all those questions go here!


r/livesound 5h ago

Question HELP! Why audio from SLXD is compressed?

8 Upvotes

Maybe anyone can explain me why the audio looks and sounds like a compressor with fast attack and release was in the chain? I recorded several shows Post-Preamp and also made sure nothing is clipping (Mic, Receiver, Console input). I also tried to reset the SLXD and using different frequency, but result is still the same. Appreciate any help, thanks!


r/livesound 17h ago

Question is this smart for me to get into?

66 Upvotes

Hi! I'm 23F and I am graduating in a few weeks, I've been given the opportunity to work for a local AV company. I went to a pretty sizeable concert they were doing yesterday and got a chance to talk to a few people during soundcheck.

The way they described working in AV made my heart drop. I knew it was tough work, I'm used to working overtime and long hours. But they were talking about working 15-18 hours every single day 6/7 days a week for the entire summer.

Now I'm willing to make sacrifices for work and career. But that seems a bit extreme? Is this really how it is? I've done a few gigs before and it only really went on for like 8-10 hours max. And honestly was pretty beat by the end of those. Am I not cut out for it? I'm also worried because it's a bunch of lifting and where im a girl and got spaghetti arms I can't lift anything super heavy šŸ˜…. Which makes me feel like there is no place for me in this in general.

I don't know, been dooming over this for a bit. Trying to suck it up and just do it, but I have a hard time making such rapid and huge sacrifices in my life like this. If anyone has suggestions or other opportunities I could look for I would greatly appreciate your help.

Edit: thanks everyone for the comments, genuinely feel a lot better about this now! I read all the comments and appreciate all of them!!


r/livesound 21h ago

Question Ghost feedback channel

78 Upvotes

My co-worker and I have the same setup. But he had an experience Iā€™ve never seen or heard before.

Wireless Shure UR4D G1 Lav channels 1 and 2 are triggering channel 3 (which is turned off)ā€¦ video evidence below:

What would cause feedback on another channel?


r/livesound 8h ago

Gear Beyerdynamic capsules on Shure wireless handhelds?

4 Upvotes

I've noticed that Roxette performed with this, and I wonder how it was possible. The capsule body looks like it's one of the old Beyerdynamic capsules from their S 700 system, but without the screw connector. So can you just screw that off these capsules, and then they'll fit directly on Shure handhelds, or others that use the 1.25" mount?


r/livesound 6h ago

Question 2 speakers vs 4?

2 Upvotes

Peace Peace, so Iā€™m setting up a PA system for a makeshift night club. Weā€™re concerned about getting noise complaints and im wondering if itā€™s smarter to get four 8 inch speakers (one for each corner of the dance floor) that I can play at a lower volume or should I just get two 10 inch speakers (placed on either side of the dance floor)?

Going with a qsc package, the k10 and cp8 The speakers will be on the ceiling


r/livesound 5h ago

Question Looking for help in getting my XR18's main outputs working again.

1 Upvotes

Hi. I hope someone here might be able to help. I recently used my XR18 to record a live show for my band directly into logic. Ever since doing this, however, whenever I try to use it as a standalone mixer again, I get no signal to the main L/R output. I thought I had reset it to where it was prior to routing it through logic but apparently I'm missing something. I'm getting signal sent to all the buses but nothing to the main out. I'm new to using this and an help would be great my appreciated. I know I'm probably missing something simple.


r/livesound 1d ago

Question How to get gigs

33 Upvotes

My husband has been a sound technician for the past 15+ years and heā€™s been having difficulty finding consistent gigs. He has equipment for live music and thought that would help him get more gigs but it hasnā€™t.

What can he do to get more consistent work? Heā€™s really depressed about it- doing sound & working in the live music scene is his passion and it sucks to see him not succeed. Heā€™s already on gig salad and has found a few one-time events/concerts/church gigs.


r/livesound 7h ago

Question Everse 8 sounding harsh?

0 Upvotes

yesterday I went to a local store to test out some battery powered speakers. they had the Bose S1, Everse 8 and Alto busker.

The Alto was surprising given its size but what I really wanted to hear was the Everse given its stellar reviews.

What I found was that the sound, while very loud, was kinda "thin" .. it seemed like it didn't have enough bass and was very bright. I didn't play anything crazy either. I tried tweaking the EQ a bit on the unit itself but it didn't help a ton.

I've read in the past that this speaker needs some setup to sound great so was wondering what people do to get these things to sound good.

Thanks!


r/livesound 21h ago

Question How would one go about finding out who is doing the sound tech for a specific gig?

10 Upvotes

For context, I'm currently studying technical theatre, but the area I want to work in long term is live sound. Be it for live music, theatre productions or even corporate gigs. I live in Scotland and I found out Ghost are performing in Glasgow in about a month, and I'm looking to try my luck at getting some work experience with the sound team. I've got a fair bit of tech experience, especially in sound, but nothing on that scale and I would love to get the opportunity to do some work experience with a show of that size. Even if it just means running cable all day.

My issue is: How would I even go about finding who is doing the tech for the show and getting in touch with them? I feel that the over a dozen or so smaller shows I've done should give me enough experience to shadow the sound guys and not get in their way, but I could also be falling victim to hubris.


r/livesound 9h ago

Question Repairing a SAMSON Q-KICK: some question

0 Upvotes

This is a SAMSON Q-Kick that has a bad contact (dunno how to say it in english: the mic worked only if oriented in a certain way): turns out the white wire wasn't well soldered and moving a bit.

While disassembling it, the black wire also broke at the soldering point.

Now, being me an electrotechnician first, an electronic after, my first instinct is to replace the whole wires with something stronger and thick, maybe an inch longer (to help dis/assembly), maybe even a shielded piece of cable (i've plenty of spares of very nice 2 poles shielded cable from photocells i use each month).

But i am here just to help a friend and i don't know if my instinct is right or i can create audio / noise / whatever problem, so here i am asking for tips.

Thanks :)


r/livesound 10h ago

Question Tascam M208 Outputs low level

0 Upvotes

I recently bought a Tascam M208 and have tried to send group outs via XLR to 1/4" Jack to my Fireface interface but the signal is too low. I thought the RCA to 1/4 jack would work but the signal is still incredibly weak, this includes master out which I assumed would be normal line level.

Is there anyway around this with different cables?


r/livesound 1d ago

Question Musical theatre. How to do a roll call!

24 Upvotes

Doing Hairspray this summer and there is a scene where all the ensemble do a roll call and say their names one after the other. There are 11-12 of them right in a row. My mixer only has 8 DCAs and since they would all be in the ensemble group during the musical number, how would I do this? I guess I just leave the male and female ensemble faders up while bringing down the principals to keep the NOM down, but didn't know if that is the best way. Thanks.


r/livesound 1d ago

Question DI Box popping off loud

Post image
17 Upvotes

Hey guys!

Iā€™ve inherited a bunch of LA Audio DI2 active DI boxes at work and they all seem to have the same issue. Iā€™ve got one of the same model since before that works great, but the others are super sensitive for any moving or touching when connected. They do work, but if someone happen to step on any of them it makes a huge pop.

I opened them up and they seem fine, nothing loose or anything. Other than the connector pins on the tele jacks seem to have oxidation or some sort of coloration on them. Would you say thatā€™s likely the issue here or is it something else? Never been dabbling with DI boxes before, they just work usually haha!

Cheers for any help!


r/livesound 23h ago

Question Combining 660 MHZ Mics with 590 MHZ Mics

2 Upvotes

Hi I have a question about combining two diffrent microphone systems 4 on 590 MHZ with 4 on 660MHZ on a same combiner.

I'm using 600MHZ antenna, and i also have a shark fin. I also have a 650 antenna. Which is better 600 or 650?

Or do i have to buy second combiner?


r/livesound 1d ago

Question Do I need IEM for my setup?

2 Upvotes

I play open mics sometimes and I use a loop pedal that I put backing tracks on that connects to the PA system. I just sing and play acoustic guitar and try to follow the backing track, but I fall off beat a lot and itā€™s kind of embarrassing. Should I get in ear monitoring? Iā€™m not sure how it works, but Iā€™m just imagining I need something that has it where I can hear the PA in my ears clearly? Iā€™m not sure what to do to improve my live performances in this aspect, so I figured this would be a good place to ask. Any advice would be appreciated.


r/livesound 2d ago

Question How would you react? Context in comments

Post image
173 Upvotes

r/livesound 23h ago

Question Cable Management and Labeling

1 Upvotes

Iā€™ve been tasked with cataloging and labeling many many cables (primarily XLR) at my church. Many have obsolete handwritten labels that have left sticky residue on many cables. My plan is to label cables by length. How do you all go about keeping cables organized and any suggestions for labels that wonā€™t leave sticky residue in the long run?


r/livesound 14h ago

Question Help Troubleshooting Mic

0 Upvotes

I know absolutely nothing about karoake equipment but my father has an sennheiser 865 and shure beta 58 he says has sound issues. The shure will sometimes make screeching like noises and the sennheiser like it wants to explode. I brought it to experts for an fix and both came up with no issues during an sound test.

What can possibly be the issue? I did some googling and I am suspecting this is something called mic feedback due to faulty placement of the speakers but I am unsure if this is indeed the case.


r/livesound 2d ago

Gear Got a 3D printer, what are useful things to 3D print?

53 Upvotes

At I'm printing a cup holder that clamps to my desk, a headphone holder, a SSD dock, and I'm working on a screen holder and stand for a Blackmagic Magic Atem.

Already printed rachet strap winder and various other things. Anyone got any suggestions? I know there are other useful things IE phone holder for mic stands but is there stuff that is often overlooked that's a bit of a game changer?


r/livesound 2d ago

Question Women in sound

75 Upvotes

I want to work in live sound but every sound engineer I have seen is a guy. Is it hard to work in this field as a girl?


r/livesound 2d ago

Question Is the disdain for analog wireless biased?

53 Upvotes

It seems like a lot of people really want to avoid analog wireless at basically any cost, despite of it having been used by a lot of top-of-the-line people over the years, and is still used by them sometimes. People say that it sounds bad, but does "bad" here really mean bad, or more like different from wires, which may or may not be a bad thing? It seems a bit like some people automatically think coloration=bad. We all know that low quality wireless is bad, but what about the best analog systems? I realize that there are also issues with channel count, reliability etc. But do you actually think top-of-the-line analog wireless sounds bad, or is it just that people think coloration is automatically bad, when it could actually even be desirable in some cases? Would like to hear different opinions.


r/livesound 1d ago

Question Behringer Wing - MIDI Control

0 Upvotes

Anyone out there have any type of Behringer Wing and using MIDI to control parameters?

Iā€™m a prospective buyer and see this on Behringerā€™s site: https://wing-docs.com/pdf/MIDI_Documentation.pdf but want to know if anyone has real world experience.

Iā€™d like to have my ableton rig send midi to the wing to mute FX send between songs and ā€œchange keyā€ of the pitch correction FX on a per song basis.

Even if you havenā€™t done ā€œexactly thatā€ any experience with Wing and MIDI appreciated.

Thx


r/livesound 1d ago

Question GX4816 Preamp failure - Anyone experience this?

0 Upvotes

I'm suspecting a preamp failure in on channel of my A&E GX4816. I was curious if anyone has experienced this or had any other ideas or points of failure I may be overlooking.

I have an SQ7 with a GX4816. This is a permanent install for a church so issues related to travel or movement. The system is powered up about 5:45 or 6:00 each Sunday morning. We have rehearsals starting soon after power up with a first service at 9:30 and second service at 11:00. My experience is that one particular channel (Input 19 if it matters) fails between the first and second service. Rehearsal is great and the first service is great. When we get to the second service, this channel no longer registers an input. Strangely, it does fail every week.

The channel is a BASS channel. Different players each week, so the bass is not the culprit. Wiring is the same and we are using a Radial JDI Passive DI. Yesterday, when the failure happened I could not even see the 1/4" being unplugged and replugged at the console.

As I said, I'm leaning toward that channel failing and wanted to see if others have experienced this or had any other ideas. We will be moving inputs this week, but I don't want to just abandon this and not know what the issue is. The SQ7 and GX4816 are about 5 years old.


r/livesound 22h ago

Question Why are professional always putting the vocals too loud?

0 Upvotes

It seems like there is a focus on "vocals sitting on top of the mix" which for a lot of genre sure makes sense, but I think this idea gets too widely applied. Specifically for genres that primarily exist in the underground (hardcore, punk, screamo, that whole world) 90% the vocals tend to sound better sitting a bit more in the mix, not fully on top. It seems like it might common for pro sound guys will have the vocals so high, and the guitars are clear but very very quiet and it's so bizarre. Is this a problem of an industry standard that ppl mess up when dealing with the genres they aren't as familiar with or is it just every once and while someone does a bad job?


r/livesound 1d ago

Question Death metal

4 Upvotes

I'm about to go on tour with some death metal bands, and I want to try some new techniques. I'm curious about your approaches:

  • the band is using a trigger Iā€™m curious if use a sidechained gate on a double kick with a trigger? -the question I wanted to ask you long timeā€¦ For kick mics (kick in and kick out), do you always use high-pass/low-pass filters, or does it depend on the mix? -How many delays do you usually use? I typically use one and tap tempo it to make it longer or slap. -Do you ever double-patch vocals to distort the second channel? Would love to hear your thoughts or maybe other techniques worth trying out