Hot Chip

Saw Hot Chip at the Brixton Academy on Friday along with Grovesnor and Casiokids in support. As always a lot of fun was to be had at the Academy and Hot Chip demonstrated how to rock with electronic stuffs... and a steel drum or two. Also the support was far from terrible particularly Grovesnor who played some kind of blues-tinged electronic rock.

The one amusing thing was that I spent quite a while before the gig seeing who else was going on the Friday. Probably one of the few musicy people in my office who I didn't ask was actually there. Typical. And he couldn't have been standing too far from me either. Hmm, someone should work out what radius of people in a club/gig it is possible to recognise a friend in.

What those crazy engineers do at gigs

Back to the music, I thought I'd post a simple explanation of how to make your music sound good live (at least on a small scale since this is all I have experience of!) Firstly, a diagram...

This typical of what you might want for a pub-sized gig although it is based on Noctula's setup hence the drum machine. The equipment should cover a whole range of situations though and is a good starting point for describing sound reinforcement. Firstly let's decide what the point of all this stuff is... (i) it is needed to reinforce the sound of your instruments and vocals to an appropriate volume for the venue, and (ii) once you start to amplify instruments it becomes increasingly hard to hear what you are playing since the sound is directed towards the audience rather than the performer hence monitor speakers.

So with that in mind what needs to go into your mixing desk? Well most guitar amps are actually loud enough to not need any reinforcement, however, if you mic everything then you can control how much of each instrument goes to the monitors. This is pretty vital since most vocalists only want to hear themselves whereas a bassist may want some guitar and lots of drums in their monitor. You can also plug some instruments directly into the mixing desk via a DI box which is useful since it reduces the problems of feedback from dozens of mics and amps. However, I find it is always nice to have the sound of your amp in the mix apart from the fact that it looks cooler! Drums are probably the hardest thing to deal with (as always) so for a small gig it is best to keep it simple - really only the bass drum should need a mic since drums are loud, very loud.

Now the key bit. Set all your faders to 0dB and get the basic levels right using the channel's gain controls NOT the fader. This gives you maximum control with the faders later on and prevents you damaging your mixing desk by having too hot a signal. A compressor is useful as an insert to any vocal channel since it can help to smooth out the sound and prevents vocals getting lost in the mix. Remember to keep checking the individual channels through headphones to ensure they sound good with no clipping etc. The overall sound can be adjusted by fine tuning the faders for each channel, the EQ on each channel and the multi-band EQ on the main output. It is often wise to roll-off the bass with the latter to reduce booming and feedback. EQing correctly will also help (again) to prevent you losing vocals in a muddy mess of sound BUT remember don't overdo the main EQ by cutting out too much otherwise you will lose overall volume as well.

The next thing that happens is you crank up the Aux outputs that go to the monitors (because no-one can hear what they are playing) and suddenly there is a deafening screech as you feedback. So you need to carry out a process called "ringing out". This is not an ideal way to reduce feedback but for small gigs in badly designed rooms (i.e. pubs) where mics are close to monitors it is the only real solution. There are plenty of good descriptions of the process on the internets so I will keep it brief. Essentially turn up the gain on the your main vocal SM58 until it feeds-back, find the frequency of this sound and cut it out using the multi-band EQ for your monitors. Repeat until multiple frequencies start to feedback. Then back off the gain a bit and this is the maximum volume.

There we go, the basics of live audio. And it gets a whole lot more complicated than that so go easy on the dude behind the mixing desk when you go to a gig and it sounds dodgy. Actually... it is their job so what the hell, have a good moan.

For those bored of science based posts...

I was pondering why I have an aversion to a lot of modern art. This was partly prompted by a talk at college by Roger Hiorns the Turner Prize nominated artist who filled an old council flat with copper sulphate solution leaving some stunning blue crystals on all the surfaces. How we managed to get a relatively well know artist to talk at one of the organic electronics group meetings is another story! I was also reminded of a pub conversation some months ago, which is normally the only time I have to think about such things.

Art in my opinion has to achieve two things. Firstly it has to be something that appeals to you emotionally through its beauty, ability to inspire awe or simply juxtaposition with its surroundings to give a few examples. Secondly it should have some deeper level of meaning that goes beyond the purely technical skills used in its creation that makes the viewer think, such as what the person in a portrait is contemplating or what a particular object might represent metaphorically. The problem arises (in my mind anyway) when the explanation of the artist's motives and the piece's meaning must be spelt out on a card next to the artwork. I have no objection to reading about the art to find out more but if I get nothing from just looking at it then it defeats the point. Often these explanations are very interesting and certainly thought-provoking which satisfies my second criterion, but it should be able to stand on its own. Let's take two of Roger Hiorns works as examples: Seizure (the copper sulphate flat) and Atomised Passenger Aircraft Engine (a pile a metal dust on the floor of the Tate). The first I liked a lot the second less so. For a start Seizure was truly beautiful and it needed no explanation to make you look at an old dilapidated flat in a completely different way, especially given the unattractiveness and blandness of the surroundings. Atomised Passenger Aircraft Engine on the other hand was just some dust that could well have been created by some careless workmen in the Tate for all the viewer knows. Until of course you are informed of its title and you find out how it was created. Once this is known it becomes interesting and satisfies criterion (ii) and maybe even (i), but since there are no clues to this in the actual piece I would go so far as to say it should not be classified as art.

So there we go, maybe a problem in definitions but then I enjoy art as I have stated it above - emotionally and mentally engaging and importantly self-contained. I appreciate that one can create an interesting work that says something on several levels but if it evokes no emotional or mental response without some further understanding of the creator's emotions and thoughts then it needs to be called something other than art.

(Photo of Seizure by aliceson)