performing live was a disaster, level and audio problems

[krachtwerk]

hey guys,

yesterday me and my friend had our first gig at someones homeparty.
we had everything prepared over the last couple of months, playing our own stuff.
chopped up in 1000 clips, including 1 vst for each song to play with cutoffs and so.
in our studio it sounds great, we're using a laptop that goes into a motu ultralite and then to fostex 0,5 speakers.

so,
yesterday we did a short soundcheck, and were satisfied.
then the first dj started to play, and after 2 hours it was our turn.
we triggered the first scenes..
but got signs from people on the dancefloor that it wasn't loud enough.
first the kick wasn't loud enough.. so i turned up the volume of the kick.
then the melody didn't come trough..
in the end everybody was tunig the mixer.. we turned the ultralite as loud as possible, and even in ableton turned up the master level..
but this created a completly compressed and saturated sound..
it was horrible, because origanlly we have a lot of dynamics in our music.

i have to say that we didn't have a compressor on the master, because by trying that at home, some songs sounded too saturated.
in fact there were no crompressors at any channel, exept for somesidechaining..

we need to find out what we did wrong, and i'm asking you how we can improve it

david

[SubFunk]

you are based in berlin?

make a copy of the set (best collect all and save!) before you try to tweak anything yourself... i mean use the original set to tweak yourself, of course! but keep a copy of original what you played...

watch this space: http://www.ableton.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=101561

or drop me an e-mail for the ALUGB meetings on catrax@gmail.com

and bring that copied set and your laptop to the next ALUGB meeting coming up soon... there you get some hands on help and we can actually listen and see what the story is!!!

maybe it was just the crappy soundsystem on the houseparty and people who wanted... Boom Boom Boom... ?

cheers
axel

[krachtwerk]

oh that would be great
we'll definitely be there..

[SubFunk]

oh that would be great
we'll definitely be there..

yeah drop me an e-mail... we always have an open stage and you can play again, while getting advise, tips 'n' tricks, etc. and ahh... of course meeting an amazing bunch of berlin Live users while having a beer or two

[Da hand]

If everything sounded fine during soundcheck and then your volume level was simply not loud enough during the performance, then it has nothing to do with your set in Ableton Live. You simply needed to increase the volume on the sound system's mixing desk or if that is already too high, then increase the volume on the amp. Trying to change the volume balance of individual elements in your set at that point is going to really mess things up.

For the future, when doing a soundcheck make sure you have headroom on the system to boost the volume if needed because things may sound loud in an empty room during soundcheck, but once filled with people it will need an overall volume adjustment.

[krachtwerk]

but once filled with people it will need an overall volume adjustment.

yeah i noticed that..
the master level on the mixer was as loud as it goes btw..

[krachtwerk]

oh that would be great
we'll definitely be there..

yeah drop me an e-mail... we always have an open stage and you can play again, while getting advise, tips 'n' tricks, etc. and ahh... of course meeting an amazing bunch of berlin Live users while having a beer or two

[Da hand]

the master level on the mixer was as loud as it goes btw..

Then you would need to boost the system's amp volume, assuming there is still room on this. Basically it sounds like the person managing the overall volumes of the party did not take into consideration everyone's levels. The performer before you should not have been playing at max volume if there were still others following - especially an act that doesn't have the life compressed out of everything

These kind of situations do suck though. I did a party at a known space in Montreal where we had two live acts (one of them was me) and three DJs. The tech doing the sound at this place swore by his DB peak meter and not his ears. So the DJs would play at a very nice volume and our less compressed sets would play a lot lower. Everyone noticed the difference, but he refused to budge - always pointing to his db peak meter and saying "look it is the same as when the DJs played" - and he still had tons of room on the board to boost the volume. It sucked and I haven't been back to play there again

[SubFunk]

Oh god, i hear you... I develope smoke coming out of my ears if i see FOH engineers or audio techs using smaart (a widely spread "pro" measuring software) and do try to tell you about sound through numbers and graphs... Argghh...

[knotkranky]

It's quite possible the DJ before left you with a difficult situation.

Did he not help you?

Suspicious. Maybe not straight up sabotage but possibly made tough for ya and not cool.

There are all manner of gain level stages in a system.

[slirak]

If the DJ sets were loud enough and you maxed out the sound system and still weren't loud enough, I'd say you're victims of the ultra-maximizing trend.

You know, records these days are often mastered to sound extremely loud. People use various more or less clever EQing techniques and most importantly heavy dynamics processing to achieve this, to the extent that peaks are clipping. This can easily raise the perceived loudness like 12 dB.

Stuff like Waves L1, L2 and L3 is popular, sometimes at quite extreme settings. If it's good or not, well that's another thing. It does kill dynamics, that's for sure!

I guess you could handle this in at least three different ways:
1) Make sure the DJ sets doesn't use up all of the sound system's juice, so that you can raise levels at least like 6 - 8 dB when you start playing. To hell with the DJs, we demand dynamics!
2) Use heavy dynamics processing on the master channel while playing live. To hell with dynamics!
3) Use Ableton's Compressor and Limiter (yeah, both, in series, Limiter last) on every single channel, at least for live usage, tweaked so the effect is barely audible when you solo the channels + use multiband compression + brick wall limiting on the master channel, but less aggressive than in scenario 2.

Loosing a bit of dynamics live shouldn't be a problem (for club music at least). The noise floor will be pretty high with people shouting and whatnot, so you can't expect the same difference between the lowest and highest levels as you would when listening in a home environment anyway. Low levels need to be pushed a bit live just to be heard.

[hurlingdervish]

club music + dynamics = lol

but seriously what that guy said ^^^^^

[inakiesarte]

It's quite possible the DJ before left you with a difficult situation.

Did he not help you?

Suspicious. Maybe not straight up sabotage but possibly made tough for ya and not cool.

There are all manner of gain level stages in a system.

Even on house parties you better be carefull who is playing b4 you if all sounds good when u checked it.
Did you do the sound check in an empty room and then was packed?
Also, did you check on your own that the sound wasn't as before or people were telling you that from the distance?

Thanks!

[knotkranky]

Also...

ya don't need all that maximizing compression crap to make it right. If the mixer was full-out and distorting before it hits the system, no limiting or compression will help. At least not enough to make up a huge amount of db. Nope.

I dunno about the dif at sound-check. The dude before was fine, you were not just after. Really, there's not that much difference between DJ sets to make that huge a diff. Something went ragga. A missed gain stage or a messed-with gain stage post mixer. Cross-overs, amps, pads. I bet It was post interface though.

The only other possible problem was that a resistance load was introduced by some impedance mismatch. Something not there at sound-check but patched between sets.

[slirak]

If the mixer was full-out and distorting before it hits the system, no limiting or compression will help. At least not enough to make up a huge amount of db. Nope.

Sure, but why was the mixer distorting? It couldn't have been with the DJ's stuff if that sounded fine. Reason? Limiting, compressing, 'maximizing'.

I dunno about the dif at sound-check. The dude before was fine, you were not just after. Really, there's not that much difference between DJ sets to make that huge a diff.

Oh yes, there is! Ever looked at the waveform of a commercial record (especially in club music) from the last few years??? It's ridiculous really, the way people push loudness these days. I'm not saying it's a good thing, not at all. But it's a fact and it sure makes a huge difference to perceived loudness. Huge.

You wouldn't notice it that much during sound-check, they rarely max out the volume then, and there's no audience masking the low level sounds or changing the acoustics of the room.

Something went ragga. A missed gain stage or a messed-with gain stage post mixer. Cross-overs, amps, pads. I bet It was post interface though.

The only other possible problem was that a resistance load was introduced by some impedance mismatch. Something not there at sound-check but patched between sets.

Possible, anything's possible.

But the phenomena's I described definitely is part of just about any professionally mastered club record the last ten years or so. What you suggest can happen, if you're really unlucky. (The impedance of the gear changed after sound-check??? Wow!) Place your bets, gentlemen...

EDIT:
If your music's not very dynamic, 'maximising' will still make a difference, but not all that much. But the OP suggested their music was in fact pretty dynamic and then it will. And I'm not only speaking from a theoretical standpoint, I've both mixed and played live music with so much dynamics that it posed a problem.

EDIT AGAIN:
No need to argue really. Just export a couple of your tracks as they were at the gig and make them available online. Then we can all compare them to a couple of commercially mastered tracks and see if there's any significant difference in perceived level. I can host them for you if you like, just send me a private message.