Here are some tips on producing a great clean sound mix during an event. What is a muddy mix? A muddy mix is when the overall sound of the band instruments and vocalist sounds really busy like there is too much going on in the mix.
This can easily occur when we hear that the bass guitarist is not loud enough. The normal response might be to simply turn up the bass guitar. Yes, many sound technicians will do this. A similar call might be made because the guitarist is not loud enough. Turn him up too…
It won’t take long before the sound mix is overwhelming and muddy, making it harder for the vocalists to hear them selves even on the monitor mix.
The better solution for fixing the bass guitar issue would be to “make a space” for the bass guitar. What I mean is to remove other instruments from playing in that same space as the bass player, frequency wise. You do this by lowering the bass frequencies of the keyboards as well as the guitar and make room for the bass guitar. You will quickly notice that mix sounds cleaner though you can hear every instrument clearly.
Close your eyes and visualize where each instrument might appear on a spectrum analyzer and starting making spaces for each of the instrument. Experiment and you will notice a 100% clarity in the performance.
Each channel on the sound board with a low frequency cutout button should be turned on (cutting the lows) except for the bass guitar and the kick drum.
Finally, realize that these are merely guidelines and that a different scenario would be to increase the lower frequencies of the keyboard and guitar player if the bass player was not present. This way the mix would sound too thin…
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