Nnniiiccceee
I finally got over my jealousy of you all because RS&KT is playing for FREE at a church event in GA June 25th! And Jake will be there too! 
What are y'all up to?
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Great to see you @Stuart.Gamble! We ended up moving over to a center section.
The guys were spectacular as always. I have to say, however, it was the worst mix I’ve ever heard Skaggs with. The bass notes were non-existent unless the notes were on the bottom half of the instrument, even then no definition. This isn’t a slam against Dewey. That room is just super tough. It’s historic and special, but just a giant box.
It also didn’t help that the promoter did a lackluster job and there were hardly any folks there to absorb the sound. Probably the smallest crowd Ricky has played for in 40 years or so!
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So, does that mean that what you chould hear was “muddy”, not bright enough? Asking cause I would like to understand how a record producer perceives live sound. Any other commentary? Very interesting stuff.
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I was disappointed in the crowd size. I didn’t really decide to go to the last night show until the beginning of the week since I already had tickets for tonight when the Shreveport show was announced. When I saw I could sit on the 3rd row I could not help but get those seats.
I’m know nothing about audio mixing but I just felt like something seemed off but didn’t know what.
It was my first time seeing Billy Contreras on fiddle and he is incredible. Like you said, that group is soooo incredible it’s hard to not enjoy.
So today we are doing our impression of a Deadheads following the Grateful Dead to their next show. Driving east on I-20 to Vicksburg this evening (I’m going call us ThunderHeads 
but most of the time I’m just a knucklehead)
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Yeah, that was part of it. I’m sure I could have detected a difference if the bass fiddle wasn’t there at all, but it would have been difficult. If you would have blindfolded me and asked if a bass was playing with Ricky I would have said “no.” I think it was just the room because even when Gavin took bass solos you could hardly distinguish the notes.
I’m not an expert on this and def not an engineer. There has to be a solution, though. There was a country 3-piece that opened the show. Electric bass, but it slammed the room and sounded great. I know upright is different but it was disappointing. This is also coming from someone who has heard Skaggs live many many times and I have a standard in my mind. The whole show just lacked energy b/c of lack of low end. Vocals sounded pretty great, especially Ricky. His mando was awesome. Jake’s guitar was loud enough but lacked note separation b/c of the room. The banjo was boomy and lacked definition to me, part of that was b/c Russ was playing a mahogany…a maple would’ve cut more in that room.
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@BanjoBen I’ve never considered the possibility that certain banjos would work better in certain environments. I always just assumed you would play a mahogany, or curly maple, etc. based on your personal preference of the sound of that banjo, regardless of the venue. Interesting stuff!
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Gret in depth analysis…thank you.
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Regarding the bass issue: It could have been a feedback issue with the bass that they did some heavy-handed “fixing” or alternately they couldn’t fix. If there is a strong resonance on the stage they may have made a big, wide cut or high frequency pass instead of ringing it out and cutting only what was necessary. It could have been a problem with the bass itself too. I had a guitar transducer that went bad and lost response above a certain frequency range.
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They’re all in-ears, no stage noise. I bet it sounded great to them or they wouldn’t have proceeded, talked to them all afterward and they thought it sounded normal. However you’re right that those are all viable issues!
For those who don’t know: there are usually 2 audio engineers. One (monitor engineer) controls what the musicians hear, either in their wedge speakers or in their in-ear monitors. The other, called front of house engineer, is controlling what the audience hears. They essentially have nothing to do with one another, especially when musicians are using noise-cancelling in-ear monitors.
I have a funny story but I’ll save for another time…remind me 
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The Friday night Skaggs show had a more full sound (my wife just said it sounded better). It was a much smaller room, low ceiling and the room was pretty full.
We stuck around afterwards and met Dennis Parker and Jake Workman (both graciously signed their CD’s for us). I did do a name drop and told Jake that i was a forum friend of @Flatpickin_Libby (I did apologize to Jake for not being as vocally excited as you during his solos 
) He did tell me to say “Hey” on here to you.
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I’m honored to have been mentioned in one of Jake’s conversations.
As far as the vocal excitement, well why didn’t you?
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That makes sense too.
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I can almost hear Stewart doing his best Libby: “Wheeeeeew!!!”
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It’s actually a secret process unknown to mankind… @Flatpickin_Libby also takes in all of the sound through her ears, but has figured out how to store, compress and then vocalize it in an extremely concentrated state. Scientists have yet to figure out how this is done.
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Next up, live from Bloomingdale, Georgia…Libby Lindblom with Bluegrass in Three Seconds!
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Not sure I understand
I’m heading to LAKE FORK to meet a bunch of bluegrass pickin’ bass anglers! Woohoo!
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I’m headed to Bryan Sutton’s Blue Ridge Guitar Camp today!
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I really wanted to find a funny picture with a bass fiddle hooked on the end of a fishing line but found this instead. Sure it’s a cello and not a bass but it does incorporate fishing (don’t try this at home or really anywhere )
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