Erik Stenglein (Northless)
SPB: What part of your live show is the hardest on sound engineers?
Stenglein: I would say the hardest aspect of our live sound would be the mix between our instruments and the vocals. We play loud with a lot of bass, and depending on how bright the room sounds, sometimes getting the vocals to cut through and sit in the mix right is a big challenge. I think another thing I’ve heard from sound engineers is that since our music is so heavy in the low end that keeping everything from going to mush, while all instruments are essentially competing for the same frequency range, can be difficult as well. The vocal thing we’ve done nothing about, really, except I do try to sing louder, haha. The instrumentation part we’ve spent some time on, by really trying to dial a lot of midrange into the guitars, while keeping the bass more relaxed in the midst so it can fill in the lowest frequencies and sound distinct from the guitars, as it should.
