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[Dave Pluke]

The sound guy was just sitting there talking to friends and checking out the ladies. Not even paying attention to the band or attempting to make any improvements.

Anecdote to support your thesis:  I attended the city of Randleman, NC's once-per-year Food Truck Festival maybe two years ago and watched in dismay at how three people under the mixing tent sat, chat and checked their phones (they did not have tablets controlling the console in hand) not even looking at the 7 or 8 piece "Beach Music" band performing on stage.  Unless there was feedback, no one left their chair.  And, for the record, the FOH system had a lot of nastiness in the 1k-3kHz range all day.

Anecdote to disprove your thesis:  I attended a Blackberry Smoke concert at the Tabernacle in Atlanta and watched, impressed, at how active the Staff Sound Person was during the Opening Act (she really knew her way around the House's Avid Profile).

So, there ya go.  As one esteemed member of this forum is fond of saying; "It depends"...

Dave

[Ike Zimbel]

So, there ya go.  As one esteemed member of this forum is fond of saying; "It depends"...

Dave

Lately, I've been thinking this ought to be "wear Depends (TM)" 

[Tom Roche]

We seem to go through cycles of topics... this time it's about crappy "mixing".  We're probably overdue for this one...

My observation platform - while I'm primarily a system engineer these days (well, for the last 15-20 years) I got into audio because I had some musical gifts and some electro-mechanical gifts.  Both sides of my brain got to play together as a Mixerperson.  I've been mixing audio since sometime in the 1970s...  I'm a formally trained musician and my degree program was performing arts (music, speech, theater) education.

I suppose it matters more about at what level of performance we're talking about.  I don't expect good mixes in bars or nightclubs (see below) or the glass and tile rooms that weddings/receptions seem to get held in.  I've long given up any hope that competent people will be used in the audio dept. of those venues.  As one moves up to bigger venues and "artist stature" so do my expectations.  These days it's rare that a mix is so bad that I want to push the BE out of the way and fix things, and if they suck, well, that ain't under my control.  I have earplugs and a few books loaded in my Kindle app...  But Brian Maddox is spot on about the way things were - I often thought that some of the BEs got their gig because they had a bag packed and could leave "now".

But in a typical bar band situation, as I see it there are 2 problems:  the first is that the band's acoustic presentation on stage (without PA) is not optimal to start with, be it from inadequate musicianship to simply being too damn loud; and second, the person "mixing" has no clue about what things are supposed to sound like to begin with.  Both presume that the Mixerperson is motivated to actually do good work but cannot for reason of external impediment (the band) or internal ignorance and lack of experience.  If the fader pusher du jour is more interested in hitting up the customers or staff, or drinking, or FaceSpacing, etc, well... the fader pusher needs to be shown the door.

I don't blame digital mixers with preset libraries (nor do I blame the "plethora of plugins"), although they make it easier to cop-out when it sounds bad... "but I used the Jack Puig EQ plug in and settings!"  The incompetence is not inherently linked to the device, only the excuses are.  Inaction with the channel EQ - whether analog or digital - is likely just as ineffective as applying a preset, in terms of what is right or needed.

The primary issue for bands is that seldom are they genuine ensembles, but rather 4 or 5 bedroom soloists who happen to be playing the same song at approximately the same time.  Self balance is important:  if players can easily hear themselves AND the other players (including vocals), they're well on their way to having a good mix in the PA.  Most bands practice way too loudly.

Quick story - I did a gig a few months ago, mixing 2 acts older than me, Crystal Gayle* and Lee Greenwood.  And you know what?  Both of those acts made me look like a really good Mixerperson, when most of what I did at show time was staying on top of vocal blends and picking the reverb parameters that worked with the songs.  IOW, 98.7% of the 'mixing' was being done by the musicians, just as has been done for hundreds of years before electronic amplification and pesky soundpersons.  When a punter stopped by and said "great sound!" I say "Yeah, the magic happens on stage, my job is to share it with everyone."

As usual, Tim, a lot of wisdom in your post.

Most venues in my area do not provide a house PA, so bands bring and run their own.  Some do an adequate job, many are mediocre.  The most common problems are buried vocals, bass-heavy vocals, and over use of FX.  It could be worse.  Oddly enough, the few venues with in-house sound clerks tend to be worse at mixing than bands that mix themselves.

[Dave Jarrell]

Tim, this is straight gospel here, which I intend to spread far and wide.  Book of Tim, chapter 1, verse 4.   

I did a show a few years back for an amazing up and coming blues artist and was amazed that the stage was kept low enough that the artists could talk to one another on stage without having to shout.  They let me at FOH do the heavy lifting and the audience - mostly older folks - was thrilled.  After the show, the artist's mom cornered me coming out of the sound booth and in front everyone asked "What did you do?  I could actually hear my son singing today!!  Thank you!"  Simple, the band made enough acoustic space for the mix to happen - at a comfortable volume - and the musicians actually listened to one another on stage.  Glorious.

^^^^ This right here!!  The “lost art” is not always the mixing......more times in my world the lost art is the musicians “leaving enough acoustic space for the mix to happen” and actually listening to what others are playing.  The high stage volume always has a huge influence on the mix....rarely ever is it a positive influence

[Luke Geis]

It's not a lost art, and I don't believe that it is any worse than it used to be. What is different is the cost of entry ( more players on the field ), an increased learning curve and our modus operandi about mixing is greater. What we have is a larger talent pool with a larger learning curve basically. The law of averages just increased and what you get is more individuals that don't hit the mark. Furthermore, we have a standard of quality ( our modus operandi ) that has increased with the quality of our gear, leaving no excuse for a sub-par mix to be acceptable.

Think about it. 20 years ago you didn't have a compressor, gate, delay and fully parametric EQ for every channel. You also didn't have fully parametric EQ, limiting, multi-band compression and other processing for the majority of your PA sends. There were fewer people that could afford to buy a PA worth a damn and that meant you had to go through a much more stringent process to even get behind a mixer, to begin with, and being behind a great PA system was limited to only the best of the best. The talent pool was smaller which meant fewer people doing more work, so faster learning and less reference to judge against. If you were good, you were employed, if you weren't good, you were a stagehand.

Now, just about anyone can get a decent PA ( compared to what you could get 20 years ago ) and put it to work. You also now have digital mixers with compressors, parametric EQ and other more complicated processing that compounds the learning curve. This makes newer users more prone to mistakes from misunderstanding or just being overwhelmed. As the talent pool grows, you tend to acquire more median grade performers with it. Those that can't cut the cheese, apple out, but those that can at least manage, produce a bloat in the middle. The 1% club stays small as it always does and the upper 1/3rd have a larger struggle as they now have to stand out among a significantly larger pool of talent. This concept is the same for musicians. The tools and the talent increase, further mucking up the odds of success.

The band is probably 50% responsible for your success as an engineer. If you only ever seem to mix for great bands that sound good even if you're there or not, your odds for success increase as you will be attributed to that result. If you only ever mix for the crappiest bands known to man, that even the best engineer in the world couldn't help, well you're attributed to that too... More bands, more odds for bad apples, which means more odds for you to be swimming in a pool of crap.

What we are seeing is the widening gap between the middle and the upper third. Much like in auto racing, there is a large group of racers that can perform to an average level, but there are always only a few that are always in the top 3. It's that upper third though that are faster than the average racer, but not quite a top 3 contender. Same with being a sound guy. When you see shows that are less than stellar, you are seeing the bloated middle where your odds of seeing the same level of performance is higher. Every now and then you get to see the upper third at work.

The standard for mixing is higher too though. Most engineers that have been around a while have had the chance to see the progression from mediocre gear to great gear and how it affects their mixing. We know what it can be and how it should be, we understand the tools that are available and the power they have and have a good reference pool to judge against for others mixes. What we fail at though is our ability to " turn it off " so to speak. We are always judging what we THINK it should be, forgetting that it is about enjoying the experience and allowing others to have their artistic character infused in the performance. There are many albums that you can listen to that from an objective standpoint are fine, but from a subjective standpoint sound horrid. What I like to do when I am watching shows is to worry more about the objectives. Can I hear everything? Is the mix at a reasonable volume? If those two things are a yes, then most anything else is not for me to worry about. If the vocals sound woofy, or the kick sounds like a cough, that is simply because the engineer just couldn't get that part right for whatever reason. What I tend to try and do is find what the engineer got right though. I find some engineers, while having a subjectively horrible sounding mix, tend to have one thing they do really well. They have a killer kick sound perhaps, or maybe they get the snare to pop just right, perhaps they get the guitar to sound amazing; whatever it may be, there is usually at least one thing they can do really well. I try and focus on that and think about how I can do the same.

I feel that your odds these days of seeing a less than stellar show is very true, but only because there is a higher quantity of less than stellar artists and engineers doing them. Finding both a good band and a good engineer at any given show is just muddled in the mix of a bunch of average ones. As the quality and quantity of venues dwindle, the opportunity to see better performances also diminishes. The good ones are out there, they just tend to be employed differently. You are not going to find A national acts and a 1% engineer working at your local downtown club or festival on any given night.

[Steve Oldridge]

Think about it. 20 years ago you didn't have a compressor, gate, delay and fully parametric EQ for every channel. You also didn't have fully parametric EQ, limiting, multi-band compression and other processing for the majority of your PA sends. There were fewer people that could afford to buy a PA worth a damn and that meant you had to go through a much more stringent process to even get behind a mixer, to begin with, and being behind a great PA system was limited to only the best of the best. The talent pool was smaller which meant fewer people doing more work, so faster learning and less reference to judge against. If you were good, you were employed, if you weren't good, you were a stagehand.

Now, just about anyone can get a decent PA ( compared to what you could get 20 years ago ) and put it to work. You also now have digital mixers with compressors, parametric EQ and other more complicated processing that compounds the learning curve. This makes newer users more prone to mistakes from misunderstanding or just being overwhelmed. As the talent pool grows, you tend to acquire more median grade performers with it. Those that can't cut the cheese, apple out, but those that can at least manage, produce a bloat in the middle. The 1% club stays small as it always does and the upper 1/3rd have a larger struggle as they now have to stand out among a significantly larger pool of talent. This concept is the same for musicians. The tools and the talent increase, further mucking up the odds of success.

I'm no pro, and every bit the "lounge" weekend warrior type.. I did NOT stay at a holiday inn express last night, but in addition to prior points.. I think the above (bolded) puts it in a nutshell.
Every channel + output mixes, etc has that on a digital console these days.
Beginners are overwhelmed and think they have to use every single "effect" (EQ, comp, gate, sends, effects,..) on every channel.
Heck, poor EQ improperly used can instantly kill a decent mix, never mind gates and compressors!
Then there's routing, etc.
Being relatively cheap - the digital domain has opened FOH to folks who really should have stayed home, or were "volunteered" as church tech, and branched out into public!

My band played at a world famous venue in Dallas end of last summer for a wedding gig. M32 console, LAcoustics arrays/subs, QSC k.212 wedges (I think) with house provided "pro" engineer! 
Nice PA. I wanted to run IEM's for 3 of us and put my WAP (router) at FOH so we could run our own IEM mixes from the stage - so he didn't have to!
The guy had no idea how to route the output busses for IEM mixes, nor link them to be stereo. Once I adjusted the routing and showed him the lights came on.
We hooked up the IEM xmitters to the appropriate outputs on the Midas DL32 at stage side, and all went good!
From what we were told, the FOH was great !!

My point being.. not everyone who mixes FOH (even for a living) knows all the in's and out's - tho I believe they should at that level.

[Matthias McCready]

I don't blame digital mixers with preset libraries (nor do I blame the "plethora of plugins"), although they make it easier to cop-out when it sounds bad... "but I used the Jack Puig EQ plug in and settings!"  The incompetence is not inherently linked to the device, only the excuses are.  Inaction with the channel EQ - whether analog or digital - is likely just as ineffective as applying a preset, in terms of what is right or needed.

I have the fortune/misfortune of using Waves a lot. It certainly is no substitute for talent, a well-deployed PA, or a quality chain-o-signal. However, if those bases are covered it is useful.

My goal using plugins is to REALLY know them well and to be as intentional as possible, rather than grabbing random presets as I see too often. I am young and unfortunately at this stage I have had limited hands-on with the real hardware, which is helpful to understand the emulation. However, if I do not understand the tool I am using at the gig (be it hardware or software) that is on me, as an audio engineer it is my responsibility to have prepped.

Every week I try to get a little better. I have a plethora of multi-tracks from one of the venues I work, and I pick 1-4 plugins (such as an EQ, comp, special or maybe just a single channel strip and verb) and use only those bare tools to see what kind of mix I can create.

It is great to have lots of available tools, but they are worthless if you don't know how to use them.

[Dave Garoutte]

First, do no harm.

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