setting up live performance and recording equipment Unit 49 brief 1

Equipment List:

• Mixer (Yamaha EMX 5016CF)
• Power amp
• Main and sub speakers (dB speakers)
• Support poles
• XLR cables
• Speakon cables
• Jack cables
• Microphone (Shure SM58)
• Power leads
• Masking tape

Steps Taken

• Take Boxes apart
• Keep lids away for safety 
• Keep mixing desk on power supply and move desk to position 
• lock wheels for safety 
• Move Base Bins to position 
• Add pillars 
• Set up main speakers on top, about same height 
• Ensure everything is secure
• Connect speakon cables to power supply 
• Make everything is taped 
• Connect desk to the amps with jack leads 
• Plug to mains 
• Flat line desk 
• add xlr cable to for mic 
• Turn on desk
• Turn on Speakers 
• Level testing.

Risk assessment

Hazard	Danger	Precautions
Live wires	Damaged/exposed wires can be dangerous electrical hazards that can cause injuries and even death via electrocution.	Avoid using any damaged wires at any time. If unavoidable ensure that the exposed/damaged section of the wire is thoroughly wrapped in electrical tape.
Liquids and electricity	If liquids are spilt then  it can cause electric shocks and equipment damages	Avoid having any liquids or drinks near the equipment at any time.
Heavy equipment	If lifted with back instead of your legs, heavy equipment can cause injury. If heavy equipment is dropped it can cause injury to those around it.	Always lift in the correct stance with your knees so that a majority of the pressure is kept away from your back. Keep lids out of way - storage box lids should not block any part of the performance space.
Tripping	Lids and loose wires can be dangerous tripping hazards. This can cause injury.	Make sure to keep wires tightly taped to the floor, and to keep lids together and out of the way of the peoples feet.
Noise	When noise levels are too high the hearing of the people in the vicinity could be damaged.	Don’t go over 107dB - the maximum noise level from a gig (within the audience) should not exceed this limit, as otherwise the law will have been broken.

Mixing and Mastering

Mixing and Mastering

Organisation: before getting into the the mixing of the track i first had to organise the file. I did this by by colour coding the instrument tracks. this meant it was easy to differentiate between instruments. i also cut the unwanted areas of the tracks out as this meant that there were no unwanted sounds in the tracks when the instruments were not playing, i took care to make sure that only unwanted sounds were cut out and not part of the song as this would take away from the quality of the track.



EQ: The next step that i took was to EQ each track. I did this by opening the EQ tab and then dragging the frequencies to different volume levels which i thought fitted the specific instrument. The first instrument I used the EQ for was the Kick drum. for the EQ of the Kick drum i wanted it to have more clarity, to do this i used a high pass filter below 50Hz to make the drum tight while cleaning up unnecessary low end. For the bass guitar I increased the volume around 100 Hz to highlight the bass sound and decrease the higher frequencies as this would make the bass sound clearer and would give more room in the mix for other instruments with higher frequencies. When editing the EQ on the snare drum I slightly increase the mid range but then decreased the high end sounds to stop the track from sounding tinny.

Compression: Compression is an electronic effect unit that reduces the volume of loud sounds or amplifies quiet sounds by narrowing or "compressing" an audio signal's dynamic range. To use this effect I added compression effect to the inputs of the channel I then edited the threshold and ratio of the compression until i found the best sound of that specific instrument.


Reverb: Is an electronically produced echo effect in recorded music, To add this effect to my tracks I used the Roomworks input on the track, I then edited the reverb time, size and pre-delay level until I was happy with the sound of the track.

Using effects channels/sends

Whilst Mixing the track I used channel sends to group specific instruments together. this allowed me to add effects such as compression and reverb and also edit the EQ. By putting these effects through an channel send I was able to apply an effect to to a group of instruments instead of just individually editing each track. The instruments I grouped together were the two acoustic guitar tracks, the vocal tracks and the brass instruments.

Track List

Lead and backing vocals: On the vocals I used the compression effect and reverb. I also edited the EQ levels to decrease the low frequencies.

Bass Guitar : I added compression to the bass line to make the quieter sounds of the bass the same level of volume. I also used the EQ to increase bass frequencies and decrease the very high frequencies. 

Lead guitar and Rhythm Guitar: I used the Amp Simulator effect on both the effects to give the sound some Distortion. I also used reverb to give the sound some ambiance.

Trumpet and Trombone: I edited the Eq to boost the mid range frequencies and slightly decrease the low frequencies.
Kick Drum: I used the EQ to increase the low to Medium frequencies.

Snare Drum: I edited the EQ to slightly increase the Mid ranges and decrease some of the Higher frequencies to tighten up the sound.

https://soundcloud.com/beatenyoualready/stick-together-final-master - stick together 
https://soundcloud.com/beatenyoualready/lewis-yellow-full-track  Yellow