This is my first ever album to be released ANYWHERE, and I recorded the entire thing right here in my bedroom with limited equipment.

What did I use?  I used a borrowed powered mixer, a borrowed Audio Technica Condensor Microphone, a $400 HP PC with Vista 32-bit Home Premium, FL Studio, Audacity, and a couple guitars!  That’s IT!  It took almost a year of work, recording, and writing, but it is FINALLY complete.

If you’re interested in purchasing my new 6-song EP, just click on the picture below:

You can check me out on MySpace anytime at http://www.myspace.com/davidcrandall

ALSO, I am in a contest to be signed by MySpace Records.  If you want to vote for me, you must spread my widget around on blogs, MySpace Profiles, FaceBook Satus’s, and anywhere else!  Just click the “GRAB THIS” button below to copy the code, then paste it where ever you can.  THEN, tell your friends to do the same!  Your help will be greatly appreciated!

Here is the widget:

Take it easy,

David Crandall

Right now I am in 4th place of over 1,200 Bands!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Please help me get to the top and remain at the top until July 1st (This is when no more submissions are taken and 5 finalists are chosen)

All you need to do is visit http://adsupport.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=rockthespace.fan&sproutid=0QB9j3a9BdYlfUHH

From there, it’s pretty self explanitory; just copy the code and/or URL given to any Blog, Myspace Page/Bulletin/Comment, Facebook Page, Tweet (the URL anyway), and any other web page or social media website you can paste a piece of code!

Then tell ALL of your friends to do the same! It’s VERY simple.

Again, currently I am in 4th place of over 1,200 bands/artists. Please help me to make it to 1st place and remain there until at least July 1st!

Then, check back with myspace.com/toyotamusic to see who the 5 finalists are. If we all do our part, we will prevail!

So please help out a fellow geek by spreading the word and getting this widget out there:

PS: You can also get your own code from this widget by clicking “Grab This”

Firstly, let’s start off with equipment.  You will need 1 mixer with enough channels to accomodate all your band members, 2 main speakers, 1 or 2 nice subwoofers, and some monitors – however many is up to you, but will be limited to the ammount of available AUX lines are on your board (typically 4-6), all your cables, microphones, 32-band EQ for each of your speakers and monitors D/I boxes for keyboards/guitars/instruments that will be plugged directly into your sound boardm and some nice poweramps to power your speakers, subs, and monitors.  Make sure that you buy nonpowered speakers/subs.

You may wonder “Why not buy powered speakers and subs instead of paying for nonpowered speakers and subs and power amps?”  The reason is this – because I assume you are new to the live sound business, you’ll save yourself a lot of money should you blow a speaker’s horn or woofer.  If you did this with a nice powered speaker, you couldn’t just replace the speaker – you have to replace the speaker and the amp inside it – not good.  Where as if you blow a horn or woofer of a NON powered speaker, you don’t need to replace your poweramp – and that’ll save you some serious cash.

Now, it is time to set up.  Here is an easy-to-understand diagram of a BASIC set up:

Let’s break this down a little bit.  We’ll start with Monitors:

Your mixer should have Auxiliary (Aux) outputs.  Each Auxiliary can be used as a monitor mix.  Above each channel on your mixer, you should see knobs that say “Aux 1″ or “Aux 2″ etc.  These knobs adjust the volume of that channel into that particular Aux or monitor’s mix.

Firstly, go out an Auxiliary channel (in this case, we’ll say Aux 1) into a 32 Band Equalizer (EQ.)  From there, go out into 1 channel on 1 power amp, then out on the corresponding channel into 1 monitor.  Plug a microphone into channel 1 of your mixer, turn the channel on, turn it up, and turn the Aux 1 knob up.  You should hear some volume coming out of it.  If you don’t, there may be an Aux 1 send knob that needs to be turned up – if there is, then do so.  (The Aux send knobs dictate how much overall volume is pushed into the monitor.)  Repeat this step for Aux 2, 3, and however many monitors you want to use on your mixing board.

You may use 2 monitors per power amp should the power amp have 2 channels.

Now it is time to add mains and subs.  This is a very similar setup.  Basically you go out your main left and right outputs, out to two 32 band EQs, or one dual 32 band EQ, then into a crossover.  What the crossover will do, basically, is separate your low frequencies from your middle and high frequencies; your low frequencies will run into your subwoofer, and the rest will run into your main speakers.  Your crossover should have 2 inputs, 1 left and 1 right.  Go into those appropriately from your EQ.  You will have 2 corresponding outputs PLUS 1 subwoofer output; your subwoofer output will feed into it’s own power amp, while the left and right outputs will go to their own poweramp.  From the poweramp receiving the left and right sends, plug in your main speakers.  From the poweramp receiving the ‘subwoofer’ send, plug in your subwoofer(s).

Now we should talk about EQ.  If you’ve followed this setup, you should have one 32 band EQ on each speaker.  Plug CD player into your mixer and play it; the reason we use a CD player is because the audio on professionally produced CD’s is mixed properly.  Adjust the EQ on each speaker and monitor to your liking.  Be careful when doing this though; each slider on your EQ represents a frequencey, and if you over drive the frequencies, you can get an ugly sound, and even mess up your equalizer.  If you want to emphasize a certain frequency – instead of turning it up, turn the rest down.  I hope that makes sense   There’s so much to adjusting to EQ, it could take a million articles to fully explain, but this should be enough to get you started.

Now we must talk about plugging in your microphones and instruments into the mixer.  The way these things sound is completely up to you, but you must be careful not to blow your channels on your mixer.  You should have a fader on the bottom of each channel, and a “Gain” or “Trim” knob above each channel.

To avoid peaking, use direct boxes for things you are plugging in directly to the mixer – from CD players, to mp3 players, to keyboards, and guitars/guitar amps.  Set all your channel faders at “Unity” or at “0″ (zero.)  Let’s say you have a guitar plugged into the channel you want to set first; have your guitarist play as he normally would, then slowly turn up the gain on his channel.  If it starts to peak, turn the gain down until it stops, and with room to spare.  You should have substantial volume coming from his channel, and you should be able to adjust the volume of his channel using the fader without peaking.

Typically, I would reccomend NOT exceeding unity on your channel’s fader, unless it is temporary (i.e, emphasizing a guitar solo.)

You may wonder why I reccomend adjusting your channel’s volume in this way.  Well, the “Gain” or “Trim” adjusts the ammount of volume/signal that goes into the channel, where the fader adjusts how much volume goes to your speakers.  Should your trim be too high, though your faders are down, you could still blow a channel.

I should also reccomend looking into buying compressors for your vocal channels.  To put it simply, a compressor, though this is excessive, will can a whisper and a scream at near the same volume.  Use the compressor for vocals so that should you be too loud, you won’t peak, but should you be too quiet, you will still be heard clearly – and this will help keep you from peaking your channel.  This is often overlooked, but is extremely important.

There you have it.  A very basic, but decent set up for live sound.  Now, get out there and start jamming!

What do you think?
How do you set up your live sound equipment?  What equipment do you use?  Whatever you have to say, I want to hear!  Leave a comment below or send me an e-mail at david@funkytower.com
I’d love to hear from you

Take it easy,
David

The internet has a TON of places to listen to music online for free – some are legal, some are not.  I wanted to find a place online where I can stream audio from the internet and discover new music.  I was browsing the internet for that very thing, and that’s when I ran into Pandora Radio (www.pandora.com)

With Pandora, you can type an artist’s name or song title, and it will start playing music based on your search.  I like bands like Coldplay and Mute Math a lot, so I did a search for only “Mute Math.”  Pandora automatically searched its database, created a “Radio Station” based on my search, and begand to play a song by Mute Math, then, believe it or not, once the song ended it started playing Coldplay!  After that, it began to play more music by artists I did not know, and I begand to discover new music that I enjoy.

Pandora is free.  You don’t need an account to use it, but you do need an account for it to remember your taste.  You may sign up to Pandora for free.  The way it works is you give your name, e-mail, age, etc., do a search, and listen.  When listening to a song, you can choose whether you like the song or not by clicking a ‘thumbs up’ or ‘thumbs down’ icon.  You can also get more information on the music you are hearing with one click; it is really that simple.

There are other places like Last.FM, AccuRadio, and Clear Channel Music, and even MySpace where you can find music as well, but I really like Pandora Radio because of it’s simplicity of use and effectiveness in finding new music that’s similar to my taste.

What website do you use to listen to music or find new music and why?  How do you discover new music?  I want to know your favorite websites to discover and listen to music!  Post your thoughts below or send me an e-mail at david@funkytower.com!  I would love to hear from you!

Take it easy,
David