The Beauty of a Sound Board
- Trevelyan Owen
- Nov 13, 2021
- 2 min read
Updated: Apr 27
Based on the various sound sources and structures of a room, a sound board or sound console is needed to help balance the sounds so it can be pleasing to the ear. Have you ever been at an event where an instrument was extremely too loud or a singer’s note in the harmony was too loud? If your answer was yes, then this is where a sound board/console can help. The sound board helps with the mixing of sounds from the frequencies to the volume etc. and it's used to control the output of various sounds and the people/person operating it must care about the needs of the ear. Determining the right overall output of sound can be tricky but when you done correctly, the majority of everyone will be ok with it. If there is a sound that is too piercing to the ear, then the sound board can help take out some elements that makes it too piercing. When a group is singing in harmony and one of them are too loud, the sound board can help turn down their volume.
Mixing sounds a certain way will help with the overall experience when listening to it live or after it has been recorded. To some ears, it will be received as a balance of sounds and all the listeners will need to worry about is the overall volume and turning it up or down like they are listening to it on their phone. When at a concert with various instruments, audio performance tracks, microphones, and etc., the sound person has to use the sound board to mix all those different sources so the end result of what is heard from the mix will be as if the people in the audience were listening to music in their car. This can be very hard for the sound person to do at live events. When people are playing live instruments on stage, singing live, etc. everything can fluctuate because now they become an additional volume controller before the sound gets to be controlled with the sound board. If they sing too low the sound person will have to try and compensate for the lack. If they play too soft, the sound person will also have to try and compensate for the lack and so on without loosing the quality of all the components in the mix.
Sometimes the sound person doesn't get enough credit, respect or complements. I salute you sound person, live sound person, sound engineer, sound technicians, and all the sound positions and roles out there. You make it possible for us to enjoy the live sound and recorded audio we hear.
