Live Sound ยท free drill

Instrument Setup

Right mic, right place, right input, for every source on stage.

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Instrument Setup

Right mic, right place, right input, for every source on stage.

6 rounds, about two minutes. Headphones help. Nothing is saved until you choose to.

What you are training

Half of a good live sound is decided before anyone touches a fader: which mic on the kick, where on the guitar cabinet, DI or mic on the acoustic, phantom on or off, high-pass where. Get the setup right and the mix is easy; get it wrong and no amount of EQ recovers a snare mic pointed at the hi-hat. This drill presents an instrument and a stage situation and asks for the setup: mic type, placement, input choice, and the first channel settings. The answers explain the trade-off behind each choice, because there is rarely one right answer and there are always several wrong ones. Six rounds cover drums, bass, guitars, keys, and vocals across the stages a working engineer actually sees, from a corner bar to a festival changeover with four minutes on the clock.

After this drill, the plan: The daily plan drills drum setup first, because it is the largest source of avoidable problems on any stage.

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