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\u2026one over the bridge and one over the fingerboard (this arrangement provides \u201cwarm\u201d vs. \u201cbright\u201d timbres to be balanced)\u2026or 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\u2019t just emerge from the front!<\/p>\n
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\u2019s 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\u2019t compare with a couple of high quality studio condenser mics, but they are very commonly used in live concert because they minimize feedback.<\/p>\n
However, they output a monophonic signal that is sent through another input channel of the mixing console.<\/p>\n
From my vantage point, I couldn\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n
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)\u2026usually called \u201cslant monitors\u2026but 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 \u201cin ear\u201d monitors. I\u2019m not sure whether Neil used in ear monitors or not. I didn\u2019t notice any and there were a couple of floor monitors on stage.<\/p>\n
So how did all of this sound from my seat? I purchased tickets only a couple of days before the event so I didn\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n
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\u2019t provide the sonic depth that a stereo pair of mikes can. This makes a huge difference in the listening experience. However, it\u2019s not a common practice in live concerts. Why?<\/p>\n
Because the two hanging speaker arrays are typically provided the same signal\u2026the experience in the audience is dual mono. It\u2019s not stereo like we enjoy at home. You might think that a solo artist playing a guitar or accompanying himself with a piano wouldn\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n
Part III coming tomorrow…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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