Melissa Fairy - Acoustic Mix Live

[JonFair]

I’ve been using Gig Performer as a live mixer for my daughter’s acoustic club and cafe performances recently. It’s been 100% reliable, and I love that I’ve been able to customize the UI. I record the raw inputs at every show without worries.

Rather than build a traditional mixer UI, I went with a more purposeful design…

The first thing you might notice is the VU meters for various stages. I’ve also got monitor widgets to detect peaks. The first VU meter is after a CL2A compressor for vocals. The second is after the 1176 vocal compressor. I only expose the knobs related to gain and threshold, as the ratio and attack/release are predetermined. the third VU meter is after the 1176 compressor on the guitar. Each VU meter has a switch so I can make them visible/hidden. The main reason is that I layer them so the meters hide the faff, rather than the other way around.

The EQ is probably the most interesting. Rather than frequency, gain, and Q, I have some predetermined gain knobs with constrained ranges. For instance, both guitar and vocal have a low shelf that can be cut but not boosted. It’s simple. If I get p-pops on vocals or boomy hits on guitar, I turn it down. Vocals have some boost regions for Up-Front, Definition, and Air. Guitar can get a cut for mud and boosts for presence and air. The frequency ranges are complementary and based on experience with the artist.

For reverb, I have Tai Chi on both guitar and vocals. I’ve predetermined the sound and the space. I just have the wet control and a ducking threshold for each. I love ducking reverbs, and the beauty of this plugin is that it doesn’t duck the initial reflection and room tone, but it does duck the tails. The result is that the attacks on the guitar and consonants of the vocals are clear as a bell, with a consistent sound. As the voice or guitar trails off, the reverb fills the space. The controls enable a full sound without mush. I can switch off the vocal reverb when the artist speaks.

On the bottom, I’ve got controls for the master and monitor gains, and both VU and peak meters. On the monitor path, I’ve got an EQ with some sharp cuts that I can use to kill a low and a high frequency if we get feedback. I just sweep them to find offending frequencies. We put the FOH speaker out front enough that I don’t need any funny business on the signal path for feedback. Both monitor and main have the same overall mix and effects, and that’s been adequate. Reverb on the vocal monitor really helps a vocalist hear the monitor over the direct sound.

For recording, I just record the Shure SM58 and the pickup from the guitar. I should get an additional ambient mic for applause. I shoot video of the performances, and, I’ve just been using camera sound for that so far.

I should get another Behringer X-Touch and use it for live. I own one, but I have it kind of permanently mounted to my own setup. The computer UI has been okay. With well-adjusted compression, each show is nearly hands-off after a few songs. That said, having hardware controls for such specific knobs like “mud” and “wet” would be handy, given good labeling.

We did the recent two-hour show on battery only. We have a couple of Mackie Thump Go battery-powered speakers, and these lasted the whole gig. My 13-inch M1 MacBook Pro and RME Babyface Pro FS lasted as well, though I started turning down the screen brightess for the daytime, outdoor gig to manage the computer battery draw. My Canon R8, shooting 4K video made it for 90 minutes and could have used a power bank.

This was our fourth show using this setup. I can store a different variation for each venue - outdoors is very different than an undamped bar! After each show, I just drop the dry recordings into a Logic project with various plugins for the audio to match with the video.

The bottom line is that this setup meets all my requirements. The highly focused controls makes my mixing decisions really easy. I don’t overthink it. No glitches at all. The recordings have been perfect. Sure, a full board would be more flexible, but that flexibility can take longer to set up and gives the opportunity to mess up. Like, “did I accidentally hit a mute or solo button?”, or, “what happened to my send?”

Oh, I should mention that RME’s Totalmix has been great too. I have a preset for her shows (which is quite different than my personal setup.) I just recall her setting and the input gains are just right. It’s the packing/unpacking, and setup that take time. There’s just a moment for a simple sound check. (Do we hear guitar and voice on FOH and monitors?) If so, the first song just starts and I fine tune from there.

I should mention that I got the initial EQ frequencies from the cheatsheet offered by Hardcore Music Studio. I then tweaked them a bit for the artist and instrument. See the bottom of the page here: https://www.hardcoremusicstudio.com/

Without Gig Performer, I wouldn’t have ever considered mixing with this approach. With Gig Performer, it’s easy to make a setup like this. No scripting necessary. Making a generic mixer with Gig Performer is a much heavier lift. (I’ve done it.) And have you looked at the prices of mixing systems that host plugins?!!

Sure, if you mix as a hired gun, you need the flexibility of a true, general purpose mixing system. But if you mix a small number of artists, this kind of focused UI works beautifully.

Once again, Gig Performer offers top, professional results, economically. It’s fully customizable for your needs. It’s rock solid for live use. And all I need are a laptop, audio interface, and USB cable to mix a 2-hour gig without needing to run AC power. My experience with this use case couldn’t be better. It’s been perfect.

[themaartian]

All I can say is: IMPRESSIVE!

[jpt]

Bravo! Bravo!

[npudar]

@JonFair

And have you looked at the prices of mixing systems that host plugins?!!

What solutions did you consider and what is their price?

[JonFair]

I didn’t dig deep into hybrid solutions, but I glanced at the Waves eMotion stuff. The LV1 is nearly $10k and I think you need to purchase additional things to get a full system.

It’s certainly apples vs crates of oranges. The Waves system would be appropriate for a church installation or a touring band. My setup is optimized for an acoustic solo act. But I could build this out for a larger band as well, given a bigger audio interface and a MIDI control surface. The key is to wire it for the job at hand and to expose only what you will adjust live.

[JonFair]

This week, I redesigned my Acoustic/Vocal mix system from the ground up. I had assumed that my daughter would want to have a Gig Performer system with the setup, so I was conservative with plugins. In my redesign, I used my favorite stuff without worry about the cost to replicate it.

The bottom line is that it sounded fantastic. I had previously recorded her raw performances (with Gig Performer, of course), so I was able to dial in the mix at home. I literally adjusted nothing but levels at the venue. The mix allowed her to rise over the din at the cocktail lounge, and it was smooth and scooped enough to allow conversation at the same time. That’s the Goldilocks scenario in that kind of space.

And here’s the kicker. She lost her voice this morning. She spent the day with tea, honey, and lozenges. She lost at least her top octave. For her set, she’d scroll for songs with lower registers, not knowing if she could pull it off. That’s bravery. And frankly, the strong mix and good monitoring really helped. She could perform relaxed with high gain and not a squeak of feedback.

Here’s the signal chain:

1. Waves F6 EQ with a low cut, low shelf, and low Q adjustments for mud, presence, definition, and air. The voice and guitar had complementary frequency adjustments.

2. Waves CLA-2A. This levels both voice and guitar.

3. Waves CLA-76. This handles peaks. Again, one plugin for voice and one for guitar.

4. Waves Sibilance. Voice only.

5. Waves Magma BB Saturator. I dialed in more “Beauty” on the vocal channel and more “Beast” on the guitar. A bit of saturation adds character and power. It avoids a sterile sound.

6. Waves F6. This is on vocals only. It pulls down 2.5K when it gets loud. When my daughter belts out high notes, this can get harsh. It keeps the power notes smooth.

7. Waves Doubler. This is on guitar only. I used it to widen the stereo field and make room for the voice.

8. LiquidSonics Seventh Heaven Pro. On the voice, the predelay is 120ms to put the voice up front. The guitar has minimal predelay. Both use ducking to keep the attack clean and still fill in the tails. I used the Large Chamber for both. 0.9s tails for voice. 1.9s for guitar. Silky smooth without being too wet. The wet mix was -6dB or so for both.

9. Trackspacer. This uses a vocal sidechain to cut a hole in the guitar, but just for the middle frequencies where the vocals are present. I was judicious with the amount of cut. You don’t really notice the effect on the guitar, but the vocal is never obscured.

10. I mix the signals and send them to Waves AR TG Mastering Live plugin. I used the Acoustic Warm It Up” preset and adjusted to taste. This adds some saturation, compression, and EQ to the final mix to blend the sounds together, coherently.

11. I added a final EQ for the room, but I didn’t need it.

12. I added a limiter at the very end, but the signal never got that hot,

Throughout the signal chain, I included gain plugins that allowed me to add metering at important points. It’s a gain staging sanity check.

I also added routing and controls for the monitor output. I added trim controls to set the faders near unity during the show.

The sound system uses three Mackie Thump Go speakers. (I get the matching subwoofer on Monday for a gig where I will also DJ, using the Streaming Audio File Player.) I placed the two FOH speakers in front of her, angled wide. The third was a floor monitor. All three were set at 12:00 with the MON profile. I turned the Feedback Killer ON for the floor monitor, but left it OFF for Front Of House. I had a good deal of headroom for the lounge.

I couldn’t have been more pleased with the results. I turned it on, brought up the levels, and enjoyed the evening. With her weak voice, I bumped up the vocal level early. As more people arrived, I pushed up the main gain. I pushed it up again for the second set. That was it.

I probably sound like a Waves plugin salesman, but they do a good job of publishing their latency specs. Most of my choices have 0 delay. Magma BB is 73 samples. The limiter is 64 and I could have skipped it for this setting.

A big thanks to the Gig Performer team. Being able to put together such a customized signal flow with a custom UI and bulletproof reliability is amazing. Couple it with the Mackie Thump Go system, and it all runs without AC power. Add Touch OSC, and you can mix from a tablet or phone. Add the control surface of your choice, and you have physical knobs and switches. Plus it can record the whole show.

To get this level of a professional result at this budget is wild.