Hi, and welcome to the ultimate live sound school. I'm so glad that we're gonna spend this time here. I've just been having a lot of you guys that really want an in depth course on the subject. A lot of stuff I teach is based around recording and while there are a lot of kind of overlapping subjects between the recording and the live sound world, there's a lot to learn in live sound that requires a split second decisions in a live sound situation. When think about this no retakes. You've got to be really quick on your feet and know immediately why something's not working.

Now as a live sound engineer, you will have to be all of these things. You'll need to know how to mix. Know how to troubleshoot problems that speak both what I call engineer ease and musician is understand audio and electronic principles. And if you're really really good, no one will notice what you're doing anyway. Find it really rewarding. Because when you think about you're the final stage before the musical audio hits the audience's ears, and it's really fun to get it right now, maybe just starting out in this bill, maybe you drew the short straw, as you and your friend started a neighborhood band and you would dubbed the sound guy or, you know, maybe you're really serious about this being a career choice.

Maybe you're a volunteer at a local church and just really want to make a difference in people's lives. We are all in the same boat here. I've just kind of been downstream, a little bit more sober your tour guide on this adventure. And with that being said, let's actually see what we're going to learn. This course is broken down into these sections here, first out where they have the instructional live sound where we'll learn the broad strokes of what a sound system does, and what your role is also made up of. Then we'll go ahead and dive into what sound is things like understanding how And DVDs are reflections of basically all the stuff that should be born but we'll try to make a path okay?

I mean, this is basic theory that you really should know to make the rest of the course. Make sense there as you can imagine as an analyst amount to know here but I ball down all the subjects down at the least you need to know in order to succeed. Next we'll look at the equipment. Take basically a bird's eye view of all the gear and what it does, you know what a mixer does, while systems, amps, speakers, wiring effects, and all the goodies that kind of make up a sound system. Even if you're hiring an outside person to put together a system. This section will really help you understand the basics, so you'll know how to kind of speak all the lingo to that outside contractor.

Then we'll take a tour of the stage and see how to set it all up including mic selection and placement, setting up monitors. all that kind of good stuff there. Then we move into the mixing console and learn it from back to front so that you will never be intimidated by a big mixing console. Again, not a big section is going to be the troubleshooting section. And that's really kind of what separates the men from the boys in a recording environment if something goes wrong and you just ask the band to take five while you sorted all out in a live situation, you got to be on top of it and know intuitively how to zero in on any problem that comes up. I'll teach you how to have a sixth sense in terms of troubleshooting.

Now, the mixing section will be a large part of this course and this is where the rubber really hits the road. We'll learn how to blend levels use EQ, control dynamics also use effects. Also the important area of master mixing to help the musicians hear themselves up on stage. And finally a section on recording and duplication for those of you who are Maybe in the church community, or maybe you're a sound guy for maybe conferences, and so on and need to hand out or sell those recordings we'll learn all about in that section. As you can see, we have a lot to cover. But I really recommend taking a little bit at a time using the navigational features of this course to zero in on the parts that are really of interest to you at that time.

So I guess it would be fair to ask who's this guy and why should I trust that he has anything parents value? Well, I've been doing this for a long, long time. I've been teaching musicians and audio people how to use this stuff, and do all this stuff for over 25 years and I've been in environments where I've worked with the very best in the business. Nothing teaches like doing I've done a lot a lot of work down the road with massive acts like Michael Jackson Collins, Whitney Houston, Diana Ross, and I've also run that sound at my local church. I've had the privilege of mixing thousands of events. And you know, you kind of get to learn what works and what doesn't.

My hope is that I can break it all down, break everything down. And you know, basically everything I've learned looking over the shoulders of incredible audio engineers that I've worked with. To be honest, I'd have to be an absolute idiot, in working this business for so long, with some of the biggest names in the business and not learn a thing or two, right? Trust me, okay. My hope is that by the end of this course you're known to, and you'll be an excellent audio engineer. That's absolutely the goal.

So let's get started. So let's break down the basics of a sound system. And this is the smallest sound system I could think to demonstrate this and believe it or not any sound system, or PA system is basically the same as this guy here. Now, by the way, PA system is just an old school way of a short acronym for public address system also pa or sound system from now on. Basically this, we have sound source in this case, I have to have a vocal mic and a guitar coming out of this cable here comes into this little mixer, this mixer mixes them together, change their tone and whatnot, sends it out to a power amp inside here and then out to a speaker here. The purpose is to take these two sound sources here, mix them together, tweak their sound a little bit, then amplify it and send it out on its way so the audience can hear that.

Believe it or not, the biggest pa you can think of is basically doing the same thing. A PA system is taking all the inputs from stage, running them into a mixer that has EQ and effects. Then running that through an AMP rack, then into a power speakers. That's the basic structure of PA system. And there are a few other things like monster sands and crossovers and things but this That's pretty much it in a nutshell, sound sources going into a mixer, maybe some effects, and out the app and speaker combination. So the next time you go to a big concert, remember that all those dozens of tracks of equipment that put together that massive sound system, this is really all that's going on.

Sound sources, going into a mixer. And those sources being mixed, ie queued, and affected, then sent out to the app. And then speakers, note the flow of signal here from a source into the mixer, then app and speakers, I really want to get that into your consciousness, that that is the flow because then troubleshooting will just make a lot of sense. Like imagine this for example, if I brought this up, and I could, I could hear my guitar, but I couldn't hear my vocal mic. Then I could make the assumption that from the amp, and the speakers are out in the mixer, everything from the mixer Speakers is fine because I can get my guitar here. But if I can't hear them that there must be something wrong between here and here.

Right? So maybe it's a bad mic cable or say a bad microphone. Actually, there's a switch on the top here by turning on. There you go. So I just wanted to get you kind of use this simplified idea of signal flow because it will make a lot more sense and really help with your troubleshooting later on. So what's the role of a live sound engineer?

Now if you do your job really, really well then people should hear just a great sounding mix but no feedback or distractions, or taking them out of that experience of the concert or the speech or sermon? You must be able to know how it's all supposed to sound like if it's a concert, it should sound like like a record, right? If it's a speech or a semi, it should sound like a full clear reproduction of the spoken voice. Not Thin or faint or full of feedback and so on. If you have several people speaking on stage, then you should be able to blend their levels. Even muting the voices that aren't being used at that particular instance.

If nothing else, you should reproduce basically what's going up on the stage and blend it, tweak it and massage it. So that sounds really great your listening audience. But having said that, there are Gremlins that will haunt you. Things like sound sources that don't come up on your mixing board. microphones that squeal with feedback, speakers that don't work. A good sound engineer is one who can quickly diagnose any problem and know in his or her gut, how to make an educated guess about how to tackle that problem.

You probably heard this story right at the store a story of Henry Ford being handed a $10,000 bill for work done in this factory. The story goes like this Nikola Tesla visited reformed edits factory which was having some kind of technical difficulty, or asked Tesla if you could identify the problem area, Tesla looked around and walked up to a wall of boilerplates and made a small x in shock on one of the plates for the thrones tournament send them an invoice. The bill arrived at 10 grand and thousand dollars. And Ford asked for breakdown. Tesla sent another invoice indicating $1 charge for marking the X and $9,999. For knowing where to put it, that's probably a apocryphal story, but the message is a valid one.

If the air the band, if you're mixing a band, everything's going fine, then, you know, it's pretty easy to mix, but you really earn your paycheck when something goes wrong. Now, one other thing I'll mention in terms of what a live engineer does, is this. A really good sound engineer must understand what makes good sound and then know how to reproduce it. In other words, he or she should have a pretty good understanding of music. And what makes a good mix, and the technical engineer type stuff to kind of make that happen. I'm a musician first and an engineer.

Second. And I actually don't quite understand how engineers cannot be musicians. But I'll tell you what, there are plenty of great sound guys here, there, who do not do all this without being musicians, I just find knowing that how music is arranged gives me a better understanding of how it all comes together on a mixing board. Now, having said that, you don't have to be a musician to know how to mix. But I probably would recommend that you at least start hanging around musicians and ask them to teach you what sounds good. You know, maybe take a music appreciation class, anything that will help you gain an appreciation and kind of understanding of this thing that we're trying to reproduce.

Through your sound system. live sound is really where art meets technology. And you really need to speak both languages. The best sound guys, I know I kind of like a diplomat that who translates between the artistic world or the musicians, and the technical world here. I'll speak a lot about this in the subject. But for now, I just want you to know that a great sound engineer will hear a musician say something like, it sounds kind of mushy, and then take that non technical idea to the console, and then fix that problem.

One of my pet peeves is a bunch of nerdy engineers making fun of a musician who says, mushy instead of low and mid range, right? If a musician says mash, and the engineer sees that as the 200 hertz range, then you need to know how to translate that as we deal with people as well as equipment, right. So I don't want to scare you off with tech talk right now. I just wanted to introduce that idea that a Good sound engineer will be conversing with people who really don't know all the DBS and hurts you will but you'll also know the layman's terms for them so that you'll treat non technical people with the respect that they deserve. In fact, take this oath right now with me I carry I state your name, or solemnly swear to be a technical geek in terms of my knowledge of audio, but will not Lord this over non technical types and vowed to hear their concerns and make a best effort to translate their needs into a positive solution.

So help me God. Okay, good. Don't be a snobby geek. As an audio engineer, you'll be dealing with lots of people who will have a valid complaint, but may not be able to articulate if a musician says my voice sounds thin or your boss says more the drums don't sound right. Then take that criticism and make your best guess as to what they are explaining then go ahead and Those changes don't make a line of artists versus engineers. It's not going to help anybody, okay?

In the rent. So having said that, let's delve into the principles of audio and look at sound theory.