Achieving A Killer Online Mix From Your FOH Console: Part 2
Check out Part 1 of this series with Kendall Self, the Production Director at New Life Church in Arkansas.
To this point in this series, the principles we have discussed with achieving a killer online mix from your FOH console have strictly been with the actual house mix.
Once you are confident in having a good source that is not overly EQ’d to compensate for the room and you are mindful of how changes translate to a feed, it’s time to think through the next steps.
Feeding the Stream
Personally, I like to feed any recordings, stream or even feeds to other areas of the building off of a matrix or stereo matrix. On most consoles a matrix will allow you to route an output and inputs to it as its source. This may also be accomplished through other auxes and busses depending on the console being used.
In the stereo matrix, I feed the main Left and Right outputs along with all speaking microphones (headsets, handhelds, etc) and playback devices. Sending these inputs to the matrix along with the main outputs allows me to double the signal of those units which helps to level out the end result between worship and speaking.
The next item we need to add to this matrix are audience or ambient microphones. These are mics placed in the room and used to give an adequate representation of the room itself and fed only to the matrix or to ears but never to the main stereo mix. How many audience mics you use and how you set them up are dependent on available channels, available mics and the ability to correctly time align multiple sources. Ideally, you could use two mics placed on the sides of the stage but as close to inline (front to back) with the speakers as possible. this will require the least amount of time aligning but even with one mic, you need to be able to time align the mic to the sound system or your feed will have varying phase and other issues. How to do time alignment is best reserved for another discussion but necessary for a clean mix.
These mics should be properly gained and EQ applied to provide the sound you are wanting. Sometimes a bump in the 1k range will result in enhancement of audience clapping but too much can be detrimental. I also like to high pass (low cut) my audience mics. Take some time with a good set of headphones and listen to just the mics and then how they sound with a source being played through the system. Solo the mics then solo your matrix and make adjustments as needed to volume and such for the desired sound.
Listen, Listen, Listen
At this point you should have a good chain from source to matrix out and can be checked in your headphones. What I like to do from here is record some live services and listen on a few different systems (phone, home stereo, tv, computer, etc.) and make adjustments as needed. Don’t be afraid to apply some slight EQ to the matrix and/or some compression but always reference it on a few different systems since a person listening may be on any of these.
If you have stuck with it to this point, then you should have a quality and fairly accurate representation of your house mix and ready to let the masses hear your hard work. As things go in the audio world, there is always a way to go one more step it seems like. In this case, you could feed your matrix through a plug-in or outboard piece of gear that allows you to do some multi-band EQ and compression and really polish your feed. There are a few outboard pieces of gear I have used and been pleased with but my favorite is the TC Electronics DBMax.
As I said earlier, in audio there is always more than one way to do things. In writing this I am in no way implying that having a separate “broadcast” mix is a terrible idea but my opinion is that the best online mix that represents what is happening live in the room is from the person mixing it…live in the room. While it may sound great being mixed specifically for online by another person, using the information above will help you translate your mix and hard work to those that cannot be in the room live.
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