Get Better at Troubleshooting Live Sound Issues

One of the most important qualities of a great sound engineer is not only trying to prevent the issues from happening, but also how quickly and efficiently they can resolve problems. Although most of them usually have a simple solution, the main factor of success is how quickly one can pinpoint the exact piece of gear or the exact situation that is causing the headache. Learning to be a troubleshooting ninja takes time and experience, but can also be acquired more swiftly when keeping in mind some of the following points.

Teaching Sound Check

The only live mixing events I have been allowed to do in the past 6 months have been mixing school performances at the Music and Ballet Conservatory in Ljubljana, working with the students and teachers from their jazz department. It gave me an insight into how a person that does not have a lot of stage experience can be overwhelmed with the stress of being on stage and how we as sound engineers can help them.

Live Audio PhilosophyAleš ŠtefančičFebruary 15, 2022live sound, live mixing, live audio approach

Creating a Session Template

Session templates are a great tool for a modern sound engineer. They allow you to be efficient and fast, while on the other hand the process of their creation also provides an always needed opportunity to reflect on your own workflow and come up with ways of making it even better.

Sound Advice for Drummers

Drum sound is one of the most prevailing and all-consuming topics in live sound. Whenever I attend webinars, lectures or seminars given by engineers, or even during my teaching experience, most people want to know how to get a great sounding drum. This is partly because a drum kit is in most cases the most complex instrument on stage we have to tackle, partly because having a great sounding drum translates into a great sounding show. The beat element in music is so primal and so rooted in our bodies that we tend to intently focus on it as listeners, which means that sound engineers across the globe spend hours and hours of their time getting the drum sound just right. That being said, drummers can make our jobs much easier if they know what can help us get there.

Aleš ŠtefančičApril 18, 2020live audio approach

How to stay in mixing shape when not working

Freelance audio engineering life usually comes in waves in terms of the quantity of work. There are days where it seems like everyone and their mother is calling to mix their show, but you can also experience periods of time where you are not working gigs and you might have some time on your hands. During those times, however, there are still things you can do to stay in top mixing shape for your next show. Here are a few suggestions that work well for me.

Live Audio PhilosophyAleš ŠtefančičFebruary 23, 2020live audio approach, live mixing

When mixing monitors is like fighting fire

I truly believe that drawing comparisons with seemingly unrelated passions in our life can make us perform better and maybe sometimes even provide surprising and fresh solutions to complex situations.

Prepping for a show- a case study

I wrote several articles on specific elements of getting ready for a show, but I never wrote about the entire procedure from the booking call to the event itself. In this article I will break down my process for a specific show I did a short while ago for a legendary singer/songwriter from Slovenia.

Live Audio PhilosophyAleš ŠtefančičSeptember 25, 2019mixing, live audio approach, live mixing

Can you teach anyone how to mix?

During my talk at the Live Sound Summit (thanks again Nathan Lively for organising this great event) I received a question from on of the participants, who wanted to know if anyone can learn how to become a sound engineer. And it is not an easy question to answer, but I will try to break it down as I see it.

Microphone Placement for Drum Overhead Mics

Placing overhead microphones is almost a separate artform, as it involves making an informed decision depending on the type of music, the sound of the drum on its own, the way a musician hits those drums, the physical properties of the venue, and what you are trying to achieve sonically in your mix. So right off the bat - I don’t believe there is one proper way of placing overhead microphones. Learning about different techniques and how they sound allows the sound engineer to respond to a number of variables, helping him to shape the sound of the drum along the way.

Source Input Mixing

If you can influence the sound source in a way that sits better in a mix and supports the entire sonic image without ever touching the processing part of the console, that might be the best option for minimising work for yourself down the line. Here are some tips to help you accomplish just that.

Growing Pains

When people ask me about advice on how to become live audio engineers they expect me to tell them to learn about microphones and consoles. They do not realise that all of that is second to your personal approach to sound, which might be much more instrumental in ensuring that your career is successful than really nailing down the attack and release times for a particular compressor on a particular vocal.

Live Audio PhilosophyAles - gainmedialabMarch 13, 2018live audio approach, live mixing

Stance on Substance

Being of a constantly sober constitution gives me an opportunity to ponder on what it means to be a working cog in the rock’n’roll industry with its notoriously bad reputation of substance abuse. It is my strong belief that if you want to be considered an audio professional (or a professional in any field for that matter), there is no place for any type of substance abuse while you are working. Let me explain why.

Live Audio PhilosophyAles - gainmedialabFebruary 14, 2018live audio approach

Educational Disasters

A friend of mine recently posted about a gig he did, which did not go the way he planned. Hearing about that story triggered a knee-jerk reaction in my head - I was immediately thrown back to my own nightmare scenario. But no matter how horrible that show was, I wouldn’t go back to erase it.

Live Audio PhilosophyAles - gainmedialabFebruary 6, 2018live audio approach

Less channels does not an easier mix make

“It is going to be an easy gig, we only have 3 vocal microphones and an acoustic guitar.” A sentence I’ve heard many times from PA providers who hired me to mix was surely meant to comfort me, but it had the exact opposite effect. Let me tell you why I still dread intimate acoustic events to this day and what techniques I have developed for dealing with them.

Live Mixing Or Mastering?

The focus of live mixing for major shows turned from focusing on single channels to the master channel. Sure, you have to be a mixing engineer during the preproduction stages, and you might still go back and tweak some channels on various cues and snapshots during setup, but when show time comes, you are zeroed in on the master bus, mostly taking care of snapshots being fired at proper moments. From a studio point of view, you are not a mixing engineer anymore, you are tweaking the summed results of a mix - you are now a live mastering engineer.