3 Reasons it’s Hard to Get a Great Online Mix (and How to Fix).
Why is getting the online mix so much harder than making it sound ok in the room? We’ve all had a Sunday where we felt really good about what happened in the room then gone back later Sunday afternoon and listened to the live stream that was recorded on Facebook and thought “I know it sounded better than that in the room, what happened?”.
So let’s look at some reasons that make getting a good online mix difficult and also some possible solutions. But before we jump in, its important to note that I’m looking at this topic mainly through the lens of being a church that only has one console to get both the room mix and the online mix. Many of these issues still apply when you have a separate mixer for online so you’ll have to pick the ones that apply to you.
Challenges
The Room.
The room you have church in could be covering up mix, and pitch issues that become obvious when listening to a more direct feed. I like to say “the room can hide a multitude of (musical) sins”. In the room you also get the direct acoustic sound off louder instruments like drums, that will make the sound of whats coming out of the PA. Some examples of this might be:
Vocal pitch,
Drum volume,
An overall “flat” sound,
Too much or too little effects.
Sound System setup
If the system isn’t deployed (speakers aimed correctly) or tuned correctly for your space it will cause you to make mix changes to correct for the system issues which will cause your mix that is heard through different speakers or headphones sound bad. It can also make it difficult if you have aux fed subs. Often times with aux fed subs if more or less low end is wanted in the room, the engineer will just turn up or down how much of a given source is being fed to the subs. This can mean the low end in the online mix simply isn’t treated at all. These scenarios can lead to the following issues.
Added harshness
Lack of clarity
A lack of warmth or low end.
Muddiness
Microphone choice and placement.
Often times we have to work with what we have available. So choosing the best mic you have for a source is key, but how much time do you spend looking for the best place to put the microphone. Even slight movements can make drastic changes. This will effect both your in room and online mixes, but because the source itself is often in the room with you, it can be hard to hear the subtleties of mic placement that can become obvious in your online mix. If its a microphone issue, online may sound:
Harsh
Flat
Thin
Muddy
Dry
Sterile
Solutions
So now that we’ve discussed some potential issues, let’s look at how you might fix them.
Capture the room sound.
Often times just putting some microphones around the room and adding them in with your direct room mix will solve this and give more of a “live” feel to the mix. I like to put a pair of mics near the mix position and another pair on stage facing out as crowd mics. Now there is a trick to making this work or it will just sound muddy and unclear. The trick is time aligning the mics so that the direct sound and the mics all hit at the same time. The way you do this is by delaying the main mix and any subsequent mics to the furthest mic source. So for example if you have your main speakers right above the front edge of the stage, and your crowd mics right below them on the front edge of the stage, they are in line on the horizontal plain, they both need to be delayed back to the room mics at the mix position. Since sound travels at 1,125 feet per second you will need to measure the distance from your mic to the speaker and divide the distance by 1,125. This will tell you in seconds how long your delay needs to be set for.
Make sure the system is setup and tuned for the room
This is an area where you may need professional help, but there are a few obvious things you can look for. First, are your speakers pointed at the majority of the seats or do you have areas that are clearly not in the direct sound of the speakers? The other side of this is if your subs are fed from an aux, you will need to be sure you are still applying EQ to the low end on all of your channels even if its just a high pass filter to be sure it sounds right online. One trick is to turn off your subs (during rehearsal or virtual sound check) and get everything sounding good without them then add them back in. Or listen on headphones with the subs off, so you don’t feel the impact outside fo the headphones.
Move or change the mic.
Not addressing mic placement is laziness. Simply walk up to the stage with a pair of headphones on and move the mic around in front of the source until it sounds the most like the original source. Experiment with how close or far the mic is from the source. You’d be surprised how much difference an inch will make. This will not only make your online mix sound better but your in room mix as well.
Bonus Tip:
Think like a studio engineer. In the studio, when mixing, it is sometimes helpful to use very short room reverbs to close mics to help get a less “right in your face” feel. In the real world, there is typically space between an instrument and the listener and this is how we naturally think of things sounding. When that space is gone we perceive things as just sounding off or sterile, it just doesn’t feel right to us. So if you can, try adding in some reverb that simulates a little distance between the instrument and the listener. This is especially key when you do have the luxury of a separate console for your online mix.
Special note for COVID-19
Many of us are completely online during this time. While the principals above will help get your online mix sounding good all the time, during this time, An extra step may be to connect your main mix directly to your recorder or streaming device and mix the band on headphones.
If you’d like to have a conversation about what specifics you can do to get a better online mix in your situation, send me a message and let’s have a conversation about it.