Access Music User Forum

Hi all

as topic, i have some difficulties to listen the virus in a mix while i am playing with other instruments...guitar bass etc. The virus sound often seems to be too much "soffocated". Maybe someone could give me some suggestions about this? i don't know, a tip to make a sort of compressor with the effects, or some suggestions about the equalization..

thanks in advance !

Hay mate how you going.

Mark from Access sent this link on this forum a few weeks back and i managed to save them, hope this helps.'

http://www.digido.com/level-practices-part-1.html#loudness

http://www.digido.com/level-practices-part-2-includes-the-k-system.html

thank you very much, very interesting

unfortunely my problems are not in recording, but when i play live with other people

maybe some sort of enhancer and comp like SPL VIRTUALISER or similar

but mainly its EQing on the mixer(F.O.H)

hi, thank you very much for your precious comments, i really appreciated

yes i think your is the right way to work, i will try to follow it.

I've just started rehearsing with a metal band - big drums, massive overdriven guitar, pulsing bass guitar, powerful female voice and flute on the top. it's the first time I have tried to use my keyboard in a live band situation. Many of my parts are kind of determined by what the previous keys player did in terms of both the part itself and the sound/patches they used, but from now on its down to me to devise my own parts. We rehearse in a somewhat cramped old barn, where none of us is ideally placed with respect to the PA speakers. Monitoring the keyboard is a challenge all right. If my sound disappears in the mix I've figured out that it's usually going to be an arrangement issue, and maybe less frequently a timbre issue. perhaps not so much a problem as an indicator or where to go with the part.

Guitar is playing much of the time, and it can be either rhythmic staccato chords or long sustained chords, and occasional solo lines. I've found that, even when my virus patch occupies a similar frequency zone to the guitar (for example, a mid rangey organ timbre), I find an effective part by complementing the guitar rhythmically - so if he plays choppy, I can play sustained pad style ; if he is sustaining a chord, I can play staccato; if he plays solo lines, I can drop out for a couple of bars to give the guitar its due prominence, then come in and match it with a harmony.

How I fit in with the vocalist is another challenge. It's early days for me and I'm trying to get a handle on what happens in the genre with voice and keys. Given the versatility of the virus, it is tempting to emulate voice (and flute) and produce some duet effects, but I have a feeling this will be occasional rather than routine - whatever my role is in th eband, it is not to steal a vocal soloist's thunder! One part of my role with the vocalist is clear: after manic instrumental passages with huge overdriven guitar (sweet!), she is looking to me to find a chord to come back in with, so at certain points I need the virus sound to start cutting through clearly with some broken chord or arpeggio to re-establish the key for the voice to return - and there, timbre is important.

I found it helpful to figure out the overall 'role' the band wanted from keys. As much as anything it's 'orchestral', so string and brass accompaniment to guitar and vocal soloists rather than solo or rhythm role. However, the guitar player said himself he is not much of a soloist, so it could be that my role could need to develop some occasional solo role too, within the genre ('melodic goth metal').

So my message would be: thinking about 'getting the synth heard' - alongside timbre (including local eq/filtering and front of house manipulations), think about the instrument's function within the band overall, and within each song in arrangement terms so that it complements the sound without competing.

Cheers,
Suzzy