what does a sound man need from my laptop?

[zephtragic]

I've been a performing musician for 5-6 years (mostly just mono piano sounds from my Kurzweil) and I now delving into laptop based music. I've been wracking my brain for a few weeks now and I just don't know how I should be splitting up my sounds to send to the soundman.

I was hoping to get some opinions from other laptop musicians as well as soundmen themselves.

My laptop will be running Mainstage 2, and will be generating:

1. synths sounds (usually more than one instrument at a time)
2. Backing tracks (instruments)
3. Backing tracks (drums)
4. Backing tracks (samples)


Here are six of the biggest questions I keep asking myself:
1. Should I be treating this like a DJ and giving the soundman just two outputs - a left and a right?

2. Should I be separating everything into their own outputs - so that I would be giving the sound guy 5-8 outputs? ...or more?)

3. Should I be outputing my synths in stereo at all?

1. Is it ok to have my FX (reverb and delay) on the same outputs as my synth right and synth left?

2. If the answer to the previous question is a "yes" than is it ok to also have the fx for the drums on those channels?

3. Should I split up my kick/bass drum sounds from the other drum sounds so its on its own output?

[arkmabat]

What is the soundman planning on doing with them? All separate tracks and then a stereo mixdown of everything as well would be playing it safe If you're not sure if something is mono or stereo, just go with stereo.

[nix808]

It might be a good idea to render multiple stems,
with and without fx.
Can't go wrong then.
It's also nice for your own archive, if you want to come back in future.
I imagine it's a good idea to ask the mastering engineer what he needs,
for the audio you send him maybe.

[thecontrolcentre]

Depends if you want to mix yourself or you trust "the soundman" to mix for you. I would stick with a stereo output and mix myself.

[zephtragic]

It might be a good idea to render multiple stems,
with and without fx.
Can't go wrong then.
It's also nice for your own archive, if you want to come back in future.
I imagine it's a good idea to ask the mastering engineer what he needs,
for the audio you send him maybe.

Hey there...

Thanks for taking the time to put your two cents in.
I was thinking through your answer and it wasn't so clear to me. Were you thinking this was for a recording? My question pertains to how I should be sending my laptop sounds to the soundman during a live performance.

[zephtragic]

Depends if you want to mix yourself or you trust "the soundman" to mix for you. I would stick with a stereo output and mix myself.

Thanks for your thoughts on this... Can I get an idea of what your setup is like so that I can better understand where you are coming from and how much it might pertain to what I'm trying to do with my rig?

1. Do you have synths and drum tracks and backing tracks?

2. Also, do you use FX (reverb and delay) when performing live?

3. How do you mix yourself while on stage? I'm new to the concept of performing with a laptop but I know that with traditional band gear, the sound man would rather you not mix your own sound (i.e. guitarists shouldn't turn up their amp when they feel they are too quite, etc.) The reason being is that what you hear from stage monitors is not what the audience is hearing. Its a mushy high-cutted summed to mono version of what they are actually sending to the audience, so you can't mix based on that.

4. I was thinking that I should have the bass drum separate from all of the other drum tracks. (Does anyone know if that idea holds water?) My thinking is that when a sound man mics a real kick drum, they usually run it through a channel on the mixing board that's dedicated for kick drums and that channel has a heavier compression. So with that in mind if all the drums were on the same track, wouldn't the compression kill the life out of all the other drums, as the compression responds to the kick?

5. Lastly, how many outputs do all of you send to the house? I've heard some say two, and I've heard other people say stuff in the ballpark of 8-10.

I performed a show once with an EBM band called Nitzer Ebb who had two instrumentalists... and they filled up nearly all the channels on the snake, just between the two instrument players; 24+ channels. I don't know all of their setup. but I know that Bon was running Reason on his macbook.

[nix808]

Sorry man I totally misinterpreted the question.
Thanks for being so nice about it.
I say maybe use 2 channels, unless you want to do some surround stuff with the way the speakers are layed out.
I have no experience though, apart from being at raves where they use surround sound.

[BertKoor]

As always: it depends...

If you don't trust the sound guy: send only a stereo pair! There's too many random guys in the world put behind a mixing console that are clueless what's really expected from them, and they frankly don't give a damn as long as the people are dancing and getting lots of drinks.

If you do trust him and want him to be creative: send it as much separated as possible. Then he can put some extra effects on some things, take care of a proper balance between the instruments, apply EQ on seperate items, etc. Most recommended if you have a regular engineer you hire every gig, worth his salt, letting you concentrate on performing since he will take care of all the other stuff.

[thecontrolcentre]

I've had a few different live setups over the years.

In the 90's there were 2 of us going out with 2 samplers, 4 analog monosynths, a kurzweil workstation/piano and a bunch of effects processors. Sequencing was Pro12 on an Atari St. Everything went into a mixer on stage. I would have the kick and bass on their own mono channels, the rest of the drums in stereo, and stereo channels for "other" samples. The synths and piano also got a channel each. I would then send a stereo feed to the sound man.

More recently I've used a sampling groovebox with internal fx and again sent stereo to the house mixer. As long as I have decent monitoring onstage (and headphones to set up) I feel comfortable mixing from the stage. I know how I want it to sound and as mentioned above, you can't always trust the in house sound guy.

[Great Galactic Ghoul]

...There's too many random guys in the world put behind a mixing console that are clueless what's really expected from them...

And 90% of these assholes apparently live within 50 miles of me and they all balk at the idea of keyboards because they only vaguely know how to mix a three-piece death metal band. You want anything more, well, "You guys must be insane or something!"

(I'll stop pontificating about my distaste for inept live sound engineers now... I wonder if there's a thread about drummers that I can go spew vitriol in? )