Concert Sound Is Decidedly LoFi: Part II
When Neil was accompanying himself with one of the amazing guitars that he had on stage (on stands that encircled his chair), he would plug a cable into a jack located at the endpin position of the instrument. His guitars are not miked in the traditional studio session manner with a single mike at the sound hole, or a pair of mikes…one over the bridge and one over the fingerboard (this arrangement provides “warm” vs. “bright” timbres to be balanced)…or in some sort of stereo mic configuration. I routinely use an ORTF (Office of Radio and Television France) arrangement when I record a guitar because it provides a true stereo image AND gives the sound a lot of front to back depth. The sound from a guitar doesn’t just emerge from the front!
Performers that play acoustic guitars have internal bridge pickups installed in them. The bridge is the dark, rectangular piece of wood located just behind the sound hole. It’s where the strings are held to the soundboard. The pickup is integrated into the bridge and uses a contact transducer instead of a traditional acoustic microphone. The sound of a contact microphone can be quite reasonable but doesn’t compare with a couple of high quality studio condenser mics, but they are very commonly used in live concert because they minimize feedback.
However, they output a monophonic signal that is sent through another input channel of the mixing console.
From my vantage point, I couldn’t tell how the upright piano or baby grand piano were miked. I would imagine that the engineer positioned a couple of microphones in close proximity to the soundboard of the instruments. A traditional setup would have one pointing at the high end and another at the low end. Once again, this does not provide the benefits of a stereo pair but it does allow the mixer to tailor the sound across the entire range of the instrument.
In addition to the FOH mixer, there was another engineer on the right side of the stage. That engineer is called the Monitor Mixer and he or she is responsible for providing the sound coming from the microphones back to the artist. There might be few floor monitors (speakers near the artist position)…usually called “slant monitors…but they can also be mounted in the floor so that the stage is less cluttered. Many performers these days use custom fit, high quality, wireless “in ear” monitors. I’m not sure whether Neil used in ear monitors or not. I didn’t notice any and there were a couple of floor monitors on stage.
So how did all of this sound from my seat? I purchased tickets only a couple of days before the event so I didn’t get much of a choice. My wife and I were sitting just a few rows behind the FOH mixer and slightly to the left. The sound was clean, full range and well balanced for the most part. I would have pushed the vocal on several tunes, but I think the quality of the sound was very good.
But it was flat and mono. The engineer had very little to work with given that all of the channels were from mono microphones or from the bridge pickup mounted in the guitar. A single mono mic source can’t provide the sonic depth that a stereo pair of mikes can. This makes a huge difference in the listening experience. However, it’s not a common practice in live concerts. Why?
Because the two hanging speaker arrays are typically provided the same signal…the experience in the audience is dual mono. It’s not stereo like we enjoy at home. You might think that a solo artist playing a guitar or accompanying himself with a piano wouldn’t benefit from a pair of stereo microphones and a stereo PA system. But it would have made a huge difference in the quality of the sound in the Dolby Theater last Tuesday evening.
Part III coming tomorrow…
Mark,
After reading your Tuesday post, I purchased two tickets for Wednesday’s show. We were a bit farther back than you, under the overhanging mezzanine, so the sound was average at best. But as you’ve noted, the guitars all sounded flat and on a few songs, the vocals seemed muted. It was great to see Neil Young live, a bit of Rock and Roll history, but any nuances in his performance seemed lost in the presentation. Maybe it would have been better 5 rows back.
I compared it to Jennifer Nettles who we saw at the Wiltern a few days before. We were sitting in the front row of the mezzanine on the right side directly in front of the hanging speaker stack. Yes, the sound was coming from the speakers, and not the center stage, but the show was easy to listen to and we felt we heard everything the performers had to offer.
But I wondered if the performance was mic’d in stereo and questioned if the sound would be even better had we been sitting dead center.
My question is this: If a performance is mic’d in stereo, then it seems only those sitting in the center will enjoy the full “depth” of the performance. How do you compensate for that in the mix? Second question: Isn’t the experience of all of the sound from those large speakers stacks reverberating inside the venue creating the real natural depth of the performance? And would having stereo cause those on the extreme right of left to lose some of the sound.
I like the idea of sitting in Neil Young’s living room and listening to him perform (like the John Gorka studio mix on the Blu-ray), but if I’m at the Dolby or the Wiltern, I’m looking for something else. I want the big concert hall experience. I got that with Jennifer Nettles, not so much with Neil Young. Maybe Neil should have played Disney.
It’s quite common in live sound to use mono, for the reason you described – off centre seating. That way, everyone gets the same mix balance.
Of course, it makes sense for a larger ensemble. But in the case of Neil Young as a solo artist…it could have been quasi-stereo IMHO
I believe stereo would have made things worse in this scenario. Neil was a “point source”, in a natural acoustic. Adding additional reverberant information with stereo reinforcement would have detracted from the experience. Just my opinion…
As a matter of interest, how well focused was the image? Did Neil appear to be firmly centre stage? Or was he twenty feet wide and dangling from the proscenium? 🙂