Understanding Live Sound

Live sound applies to both the musician and the DJ. The first thing you need to learn about sound is sound itself. What is sound? Sound is nothing more than waves of changing air pressure that cause your eardrums to move. Sound starts with a physical resonant source this could be your vocal cords, a speaker or anything else that makes sound. This vibration causes air to move. And when this moving air hits your eardrum, your eardrum will resonate in proportion with the source.

This is the essence of sound. It takes all three ingredients; a source, a medium to pass it through and something to receive it. OK now let's talk about dispersion. Dispersion is the direction that sound will go, after it has left the source. You'll usually hear the term dispersion in reference to live PA speakers. You know, 90X60, 60X40 and so on. Once sound leaves a piezoelectric or compression driver it needs to be controlled. A horn attached to a driver will do just that. At the base of the horn, is the throat. The throat is a narrow channel that the sound squeezes through. Once the sound leaves the throat, it wants to explosively spread out in all directions. Now it's up to the horn flare to control the angles of dispersion. Some horn designs are better than others though. If you have a 90X60 horn, you would expect that all the frequencies would be dispersed in this pattern. This is not always the case.

The best horn designs that we deal with are waveguides and constant directive or CD horns. These are both designed to disperse all audible frequencies in the specified angles. Waveguides look like round dishes and naturally, they give a cone shaped dispersion. CD horns are what you see in most PA cabinets today. They offer a more horizontal dispersion. Which bring us to phase. Most of you know that when you're wiring a system, it's important to connect positives to positives and negatives to negatives. But what really happens if you don't follow this rule? One speaker will push while the other pulls. The result: phase cancellation! You'll find that some consoles have phase reverse switches on each channel. This is so you can solve phase problems without rewiring.

Think about micing a snare drum on the top and bottom. Even though your cables are wired correctly, since the mics are pointing directly at each other, they're out of phase right from the get go. Flip the phase reverse on the console and your problems solved. A more advanced application. Let's say you have a 60 cycle hum in the system. Take a signal generator set at 60Hz, plug it into a channel, and flip it out of phase so it cancels out the interference. Most of us can tell when sound gets about twice as loud. This a good starting place, but it needs to be more precise. So if you were to break it down into tenths you would have a decibel. The literal translation of "decibel" is tenth of a doubling in volume. Where deci means "tenth of" and bel means "twice as loud". In other words, a10dB increase in sound will seem twice as loud.

Herbert E. Kelly Owner of Crossbones Recording located in Fort Collins,CO and Music and DJ Instructional Media which is a site that offers online music and DJ courses combined with two very unique beat machines and awesome home recording course. So if you or someone you know is looking for online instruction without the cost of time consuming lessons. Please visit my site at http://www.musicanddjinstructionalmedia.com/ I'm always adding new products to this site so visit often it's just a click away.

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How Can Wax Potting My Guitar Pickups Help My Sound?

If you have ever seen a guitar player having difficulties trying to stop the terrible whistling and howling of electronic feedback blasting out through the onstage amplifier, you've very possibly been witnessing an electric guitar with pickups in need of wax potting. It's worth noting that there are of course a few other reasons why an electric guitar may feedback excessively, one example is if a guitarist is facing their amp at close distance, while performing at high volume. This can create a feedback loop between the pickups and the amplifier.

So what exactly has wax got to do with the guitar's pickups and how possibly can it help out?

When wax potting a pickup it is submerged into a molten mixture of 80% paraffin wax and 20% beeswax, and the temperature for the molten wax must be close to 140 Degrees Fahrenheit. This temperature is important as if it's too low the wax is not going to circulate, and too high can damage the pickup's component parts. The explanation for mixing paraffin and beeswax is that this combination appears to saturate the coil efficiently and will become hard but not brittle.

Nearly all guitars on the market arrive wax potted as standard. For certain kinds of guitar pickups, for instance the bridge pickup on a Fender Telecaster, this process is a lot more significant than ever due to this pickup being particularly susceptible to electronic feedback. Fender pickups have always been wax potted, even back in the glory days of the 1950s.

Interestingly the mythical Patent Applied For humbucker manufactured by Gibson in the 1950s was unpotted. Some guitar players love how they sound as for some, these pickups generated an airiness to their sound that can be lost during the potting process. Consequently some aftermarket pickup suppliers produce humbucker designs which come unpotted. Numerous guitar players feel that the heavy potting procedure will dull the sound, other people believe the process is definitely important for problem-free performing. Another perspective is that for guitar players who only play at low volumes, the waxing process is not so significant.

Even top guitarists who utilise humbucker pickups are different in their opinion of this, which signifies that this is not something which is written in stone. Some guitarists even incorporate the electronic squeal as part of their sound.

So to sum up, it seems that Fender style electric guitars should be wax potted for problem-free playing while the humbucker pickups of Gibson style electric guitars is still very much a personal preference, based on the volume you'd be playing at as well as the sound you are seeking.

The author has played in various bands over the years and owns a variety of electric guitars. He loves to customise his instruments and highly recommends the excellent replacement guitar pickups from TubGuitarPickups.co.uk. including a great range of Telecaster pickups.

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You Don't Need a Big Studio For a Big Sound

You don't need a room full of expensive gear or a fully equipped studio to work your songs until they're strong and full of impact. But you do have to leave any tendencies to creative laziness and mediocrity out of the studio. Working your songs until they are perfect is a lesson every musician should inject into their sessions. So before you start tracking, take a good hard look at the songs in your project and make sure they're absolutely ready. Then look at the songs again, because a significant number of musicians lie to themselves about the studio readiness of their material. Create a simple signal chain you don't have to have a stellar mixer or audiophile processors. All you need to do is find some good quality preamps (Grace Design m101) comes to mind and a decent interface and route your signals direct to your digital audio workstation. The goal is to record the source sounds as transparent as possible without adding audible hiss or other noises, and the less devices jockeying for a spot along side of your audio chain, the cleaner and more vigorously healthy the sounds will be. And don't forget to use Mogami cables they are the best.

If you are tracking an acoustic drum kit, your mic cabinet is probably not as fully stocked as you would like it. But this approach to the overheads gives you the opportunity to track huge drum sounds with minimal mics. Bringing up the overheads in the mix is about more than just cymbals they bring up the headroom of the kit and opens it up. Remember how they recorded drum tracks in the early sixties here is the basic setup. Position a Shure SM-57 dynamic mic over the snare head, place a large diaphragm condenser just outside the kick drum and pointed at the beater, and then put two small-diaphragm condensers about two feet over the drummer, one pointed left the other right. Listen critically, and move the mics as needed to capture a natural, punchy and dimensional image of the drums and no EQ at this point it's better to work the sound when the kit is heard in context with the other instruments as your dialing in the final mix. Again you will want to keep the signal chain as clean and simple as possible.

A big amp doesn't always translate to a big amp sound on tape or disk. You can achieve extremely aggressive tones with a cranked fifteen watt combo. Put a Shure SM- 57 dynamic placed right on the speaker grill is one of the classic positions for achieving punchy and articulate midrange. Want a warmer, more natural sound? Leave the dynamic where it is, but put a large diaphragm condenser in the middle of the room upside down facing the amp and record it on a stereo track or use a ribbon mic and position it about a foot from the grill. If you want less ambient room noise move the mic closer to the speaker. As always listen critically, and keep moving the mic around until you hit the sweet spot. One of the most important things you need to know is microphone placement when in the studio. Make your mic work for a living, it doesn't cost a thing to experiment and move the mic around to perfect your sound. Or you could place the mic off-axis to the speaker cone at an angle of about 45 degrees to capture a different tone. Point is there is no right or wrong here, there are no rules it comes down to what gives you the tone you're looking for.

Herbert E. Kelly Owner of Crossbones Recording located in Fort Collins,CO and Music and DJ Instructional Media which is a site that offers online music and DJ courses combined with two very unique beat machines and awesome home recording course. So if you or someone you know is looking for online instruction without the cost of time consuming lessons. Please visit my site at http://www.musicanddjinstructionalmedia.com/ I'm always adding new products to this site so visit often it's just a click away.

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How to Restring Your Guitar to Improve Your Sound

Restringing your guitar is probably one of the easiest ways to make your guitar sound and look better. Changing your strings is so easy to do that you don't have to take your guitar to the guitar repair shop. New strings give your guitar sound bounce and even make your playing sound better. I know it is kind of hard to believe, but it's true. The fresh sound isn't the only reason to change your guitar strings though. New strings also keep your guitar healthy. Think about it. Old corroded strings will do nothing but tarnish your frets and dirty your fretboard. Neither of these things is good.

You might ask, "Well, how often do I have to change my strings?" The answer is, it depends. How much do you play? If you play often like I do, you may want to change your strings once a week. Zakk Wydle once boasted that he has the strings changed on his touring guitars after every song. Okay yes, that is a little ridiculous, but you get the point. Changing your strings is important. It is also one of the easiest guitar repairs that you can do.

Changing strings on your guitar can be tricky if you have never done it before, but I will walk you through the steps of this simple guitar repair.

First, you will need to detune your guitar. I like to lowered the tension about half way on every string. Then I go back and loosen each string until they are floppy and ready to take off. This two-step process gives the guitar a little chance to get used to the lowered tension.

Second, you can remove the strings from the tuners and the bridge. There are many different styles of bridges on guitars. On acoustic guitars, you will need to pop the bridge pins out with a string winder to remove the strings. Electric guitars' strings usually come right out of the bridge after the string tension is gone.

Third, you can replace the strings. Now you will need to put the new string back into the bridge in the exact way you removed the old strings. For acoustic guitars, you can put the string all the way in the hole and fit the bridge pin in place. Then you can just pull the string. The pin will keep it in the hole. Electric strings are usually held in the bridge by tension.

Lastly, put the strings through the tuners, wind them up, and clip the string ends with some wire cutters. You may have to retune your guitar a few times before the strings are fully stretched and hold their tune before you start playing. Just tune it, play it, and tune it again.

That's all there is to it. See, what did I tell you? Changing strings is one of the easiest guitar repairs that you can do. Now sit back and play your newly strung guitar!

You can find more easy-to-read, helpful articles and information about guitar repair at http://www.guitarrepairbench.com/. Guitar Repair Bench is a site dedicated to helping everyone learn how to repair and build his or her own guitars. Learn some new electric and acoustic guitar repair projects today!

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What Songs Sound Good on Piano Or Keyboard Without Needing Other Instruments As Accompaniment?

The advantage of playing keyboard compared with most other instruments is that the keyboard doesn't rely on any other instruments to fill it out pieces of music to sound good.

The keyboard has a voice of its own and can stand strong and independent no matter how big or small the audience.

You can build in other sounds yourself on a keyboard too, and this will thicken up the sound when performing.

Many solo artists would be lost without a keyboard because it allows them to programme in drum beats for them to perform along to. It also has connections on the back to enable integration with a PA system when performing at a larger venue.

If you consider a comparison to playing woodwind or percussion instruments where you would rely on a small team of musicians for accompaniment, you don't have this worry when playing keyboard because everything can be built into its interface.

Some songs will sound better than others on the keyboard. This will depend on whether they have been arranged specifically for keyboard or have been arranged for a different instrument.

If written on a keyboard then they will have all the necessary sections to fill out the song for a full performance.

Below are some suggestions of songs that sound great played solo on the keyboard or piano:

'Everybody Hurts' by Rem. This song is very expressive and is great for adding strings into the chorus. You can also add a soft beat to this which can be programmed into your keyboard. It has a 6/8 rhythm which makes it stand out from other pop songs which are normally written in 4/4 time signature.

'Somewhere Only We Know' by Keane. This song was written by modern rock stars and was written on keyboard. It has a great feel to it with lots of flavor, which really makes this piece of music beautiful to play on either piano or keyboard.

'Everything I Do I Do it For You' by Bryan Adams. This is a beautiful rock ballad, and is a favorite with young and old audiences alike. It is often played by professional keyboard players for wedding functions and gatherings, and is a great first dance song.

Any song can be adapted to suit keyboard but as a beginner it is advisable to learn the songs suggested.

These are usually arranged in various books and courses to help you progress with you piano and keyboard playing.

It can take many years of practice to reach the standard to be able play your own one hour song repertoire on piano or keyboard. This is by far the quickest way to learn: Beginner Piano Tunes

But what if there was a simple method that could show any beginner how to do it in just 12 days? Find out how it's done Easy Keyboard Lessons

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How Do I Get That Billy Gibbons Guitar Sound?

I often hear guitarists talking about the fact that having splashed out on a set of endorsed humbucker pickups, they cannot for the life of them comprehend why their sound is not considerably more reminiscent of Billy Gibbons. Oh and incidentally, if you have not a clue who Billy Gibbons actually is, he's the guitarist and singer of the Texas blues band ZZ Top - the one with a beard well over one foot long! Well one answer is this, does a pair of David Beckham boots actually make you play like his majesty? In other words, there's an awful lot of marketing going on and also a number of variables. Not only where skill is involved but also in the materials department.

Let's definitely not forget that so much of that Billy Gibbons blues sound comes from the electric guitar itself, and this specific axe is in all probability one of the greatest sounding '59 Les Pauls ever. The wood, the age of the wood, the guitar's construction and the metal hardware all play a vital part - and that's before the guitar pickups play a part. Throw into the mix the style of amplifier that Mr Gibbons uses compared to you, and finally his playing style. This all effects his tone.

Having said all this, the endorsed models are stunning guitar pickups that emulate the overall performance spec of the original incredibly well. Excellent care has been taken with every element, from the magnet strength to the windings. Let's be honest, these are lovely sounding pickups, but this specific reproduction will not mean that it will give your particular guitar and amp combination the greatest impersonation of the Billy Gibbons sound. An entirely different pickup maker may perhaps produce a 'bluesy' model that just creates the sound you are chasing far more effictivley for your guitar and amp combination.

Taking this a stage further, look at all those signature model guitars available. Jimmy Page, Jeff Beck, Stevie Ray Vaughan and Eric Clapton all now have models styled on one of their prime guitars. They cost a small fortune, look amazing, may be collectible but will not make you sound exactly like the players themselves.

So getting back to the new pickups. It's alright to read what's on the tin but I'm afraid to say you're simply going to have to taste it. Read the spec but don't trust that alone - make use of your ears and proceed from there.

There are some great pickup makers to choose from so there is plenty of choice. Visit their web pages, listen to many sound samples and remember to go with your ears. Some of the smaller businesses make amazing sounding, hand made guitar s pickups and offer replacements should you fail to be completely delighted with your order. This extra backup is a nice bit of security. Best of luck!

The author has played in various bands over the years and owns a variety of guitars. He loves to customise his instruments and highly recommends the excellent replacement humbucker pickups and other great guitar pickups at TubGuitarPickups.co.uk.

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