如何成为混音忍者

This article is designed to help you avoid some of the many pitfalls that you can fall into when doing audio mixing for live production.

There are all kinds of issues that arise when you’re mixing and producing audio for live events. 一个是麦克风摆放不当. Another is that your speaker is using a podium mic, and they just keep walking away from it. Or they’re working with a handheld mic and they use it to point.

通常情况下，源音频会淹没麦克风. 通常, 这将发生在音乐上, like when your performer is using a vocal microphone for drums or a harmonica and the audio distorts at the microphone.

Another common issue arises when the mic gain overwhelms the whatever comes next. 如果你有无线麦克风, you're distorting in the mic transmitter before you even get it anywhere else. Then you can’t adjust anything on your mixer to fix it because it's already bad.

You may also find yourself dealing with over-modulation on the input to the mixer, 或者混频器的均衡性不好. 电位器或退频器过高或过低, 然后你会试着弥补它, 在搅拌机的另一个阶段. 主人太高或太低, 因为你可能把它举得太高了, or it may be distorting so you’re just trying to tamp it down.

最后是可怕的反馈. 所有这些(或大部分), at least) are problems you can learn to address by mastering the controls and features of a good audio mixer, 或者——更好的是——指导演讲者, 人才, or other members of your crew on how to make proper use of the technology in their hands so they send you a clean and usable signal.

麦克风位置

让我们从解决麦克风放置开始. 首先, we all know that the closer you can get a microphone to a person's mouth, 你的产品就可能越好. Headset mics are helpful in this regard; or, 如果你演的是戏剧, 在舞台上和很多演员一起工作, you’ll get the best results if they're wearing microphones on their body somewhere (preferably, 隐藏作为他们服装的一部分).

Placing the microphone as close as possible to the speaker’s mouth lets you decrease the gain down so you can minimize the amount of noise from the room that your microphone picks up.

在胸前装上麦克风方便有效. Many times you’ll encounter a speaker who 说s, "I don't want to wear a mic. I'll just stand right here," and then proceeds to move around the podium as he continues the talk. You can’t compensate for that when you’re dealing with podium mics, 哪些麦克风不一定是最好的呢.

With handheld mics, the as-near-the-mouth-as-possible rule applies. 如果你曾经主持过婚礼或其他活动，注意看DJ. DJ知道如何使用麦克风. He can stand in front of the speaker, but he’s holding it right here on his mouth. 他几乎是在吃. 他说话声音很大. He's got his system set so that unless he puts his picrophone into the speaker, 它不会产生反馈.

When it comes to instrument mic, naturally, the best approach is to put the mic on the instrument. 在一些作品中你可能会遇到, 说, an acoustic guitarist who wants to play to a mic on a stand. That’s a lot further from the instrument than a guitar mic on the guitar, which will pick up the strings and the resonance of the chamber, and give you much better leeway in the rest of the chain to avoid feedback and other issues.

These are all areas in which effective mic placement--and aggressive mic guidance from you, as the producer--can make a big difference in the quality of the audio you can capture and deliver.