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Volume balance
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Ricardo
Posts: 14806
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC
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 RE: Volume balance (in reply to itoprover)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: itoprover
A question mainly for people who have some experience setting up the sound for flamenco performances and rehearsals, but everyone is welcome to chime in - please share your views on
how you see the perfect balance in terms of volume between guitar, voice, palmas, and percussion(cajon). I realize dynamically some instruments can get louder in certain spots
i.e. footwork/palmas in llamadas/remates but what is your perfect overall balance? If possible specify the descending order - for example:
1. Voice
2. Footwork
3. Guitar
4. Percussion / Palmas
You have no reference and volume is relative. For sure it is rare that the guitar is made too loud in flamenco. In a situation where there is only one microphone for a small hall or venue, the guitar gets the mic. When I saw PDL last in a huge concert hall from row 4, his guitar was super hot, the voices about 50% of that, the Cajon was not coming out, it was only acoustic coming right from the stage, and balance was perfect like a recording un compressed.
Normally for tablao gigs I don't mic floor or palmas, if both voice and guitar use same type of mic (shure beta 87), voice is flat at 12 o'clock gain, guitar has bass reduced to about 9 o clock, gain up to about 2 o clock, and both voice and guitar can have the same exact volume level going to the mains. The bass on the guitar is reduced so I can have the guitar very close to reduce bleed, but with reduced bass the guitar needs more gain to compensate. I use a fishman problend system on my flamenco guitar for tablao show which has a built in pre amp. It just so happens that with the direct line I can have both voice and guitar flat and equal gain and volume settings. Of course different singers scream at different volumes. One guy I know I have to pull back some gain to about 11'oclock, and another singer that I need to boost to about 2 o clock.
Nothing annoys me more however, when the palmero treat the tablao performance like it's dance class and whack whack away at full volume with no dynamics. Even with a very loud PA it is still annoying.
_____________________________
CD's and transcriptions available here:
www.ricardomarlow.com
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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date Feb. 9 2017 17:11:53
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Ricardo
Posts: 14806
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC
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RE: Volume balance (in reply to itoprover)
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quote:
Last night I got into somewhat heated argument when I heard that palmas should be about the same volume as footwork (this is coming from a palmero, of course) in order for dancer to be able to hear palmas.. this why I kind of need to draw a general relative baseline for volume setup within this group.
Yes, this is typical dance class mentality. Whack whack whack full volume. they don't realize how ****ty it sounds to the audience. And worse for the musicians on stage. I would just explain to them, by their very nature the palmas and footwork (on wood floor), are cutting through and projecting sound in all directions and don't need much if any reinforcement, even though it might feel different on stage. That's why good sound engineers like to use monitors on stage where you can make whoever the loud guy is think he is the loudest so they might back off a notch. Trying to control and balance can be tough when everybody seems to think they need MORE volume and in the end are not LISTENING to the ensemble as a whole, and further, don't seem to care. Flamenco sound tech can be the most painful experience. In the end, 9 out of 10 times, on stage or in the audience, I feel the guitar is not really given the juice it needs. If you want a baseline, play an arpeggio falseta and have the palmero do Claras (not sordas) and see if they can hear the guitar ok. If not, the guitar needs more volume, it's that simple.
Now there is a phenomena on large stages where there is a sound delay and the dancer loses synch because the palmas are coming in delayed. So they get behind and then palmas might slow to compensate and it just gets worse. Side fill monitors are essential and I feel more important than the personal monitors in front of the musicians, so dancers can feel the rhythm down stage.
_____________________________
CD's and transcriptions available here:
www.ricardomarlow.com
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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date Feb. 10 2017 11:25:17
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