Live Sound For Salsa Music

Salsa music is a genre of latin music with many sub-genres.  I have run sound for many traditional salsa bands from quite a few of these sub-genres.  I will be discussing how to make it sound good in a general way.

First off, as an engineer you must be well prepared.  Very very seldom do salsa bands show up for sound checks, at least from my experience here in Chicago.  I'm not sure why this is.  Everything would be much easier for the band and the engineers if they did show up to a sound check, but as it is,  you must have everything set up, and the monitors rung out in preparation for the musicians to show up at the last minute.

The most common set-up for a salsa band is:

1. A percussion section consisting of congas, timbales, and bongos, cowbell, (or whatever instrument is playing the clave rhythm.) They usually set up dead center stage.
2. A horn section of anywhere from 2 trombones to a full selection of bones, trumpets and saxes.  They usually are upstage left.
3. Bass (usually electric stand-up these days.)  Usually upstage right.
4. Keyboard or piano often are down stage right.
5. Lead vocals get down stage center.
6. With some bands many of the musicians sing back up.
7. I've run into a few salsa bands that have other instruments such as electric guitars, trap kits, or even strings.

Percussion:

1.  Congas should be the loudest thing in the mix, and loud in the monitors as well.  I like to use EV 408s (what they now call the 468) on congas, or Sennheiser 421s.  I definitely prefer dynamic mics, so a 57 is preferable to clip-on condenser drum mics.  There are three types of congas, the tumba is the lowest, then there is the conga, which is the mid range instrument, and the highest toned one is the quinto.  If they have all three (many people only use a tumba and a conga) I prefer one mic on each drum, but often I am forced by lack of channels to use two mics on the three drums.

2. Timbales are very loud acoustically.  They are played very dynamically.  Indoors they often don't need to be miced, however you should always put at least one mic of them, just in case.  I prefer two mics on a set of timbales.  One (a dynamic mic) is placed underneath in between the two drums.  The other mic (usually a condenser) is placed over the various cowbells and percussion toys that are mounted over the drums.  If you have enough channels then you can use one mic under each timbal and two over heads.  You might have to put the bottom mics out of polarity.  Usually there is no need to put them through the monitors.  In general the timbal is lower than the congas in the mix.

3. Bongos Are pretty quiet acoustically, yet need to be nearly as loud as the congas in the mix.  They are played sitting down, and the best way to mic them is from behind.  The mic goes on a short stand, placed under the player's chair with the mic ending up underneath the drum.  Any dynamic mic will work for this, I prefer the EV 408 but a 57 works fine. 

4. The Clave Rhythm is played by different instruments in different varieties of the music.  Often it is played with wood blocks.  In Puerto Rican salsa it is played with a cowbell.  I use a 57 to mic it.  Often it is played by the bongo player.  It needs to be nearly as loud as the congas in both the FOH mix and monitors.  Yes, they will ask for more cowbell in the monitor, and they are not making an allusion to the Saturday Night Live Skit.

The mix:

If you are familiar with the genre, then you will know the how the mix should sound.  If you are not, and are setting out to mix salsa for the first time, do some research.  Listen to as much of the music as you can.  You Tube is free, folks, use it to study any type of music you are going to mix.  This is not an option, it is your job.  Buy music - You can write it off.  I'm working on a blog post about this subject alone, keep an eye out for it.

As I've said the congas should be the loudest thing in the mix.  This idea, that any percussion could be louder than vocals, seemed very strange to me when I first mixed this genre.  After some study, it became clear to me though that this is the right way to do it.  After the congas generally the vocals are little louder than the other percussion.  The next loudest thing will be the piano, bass and the horns, all at about the same level.   All that said, you need to make sure that when there is a piano or horn solo that they are the loudest thing at that moment.  Usually the band takes care of dynamics themselves, with non-soloing instruments playing quieter when others are soloing.  You shouldn't have to actively turn up solos all the time.  I usually don't compress anything too much, allowing room in the mix for the band to mix themselves through their arrangements.

I use very little reverb, just a touch on the vocals and horns, however many sound people use quite a lot of reverb in salsa music.  This is a matter of personal taste I'd say.  My mentor always said, "if you can hear the reverb, you are using too much," a sentiment that I agree with.

All in all, salsa (especially in it's traditional forms) can be a lot of fun to mix.  Once you get the mix to sit right, you should be able to sit back and watch the show.  Usually salsa fans like it loud, so bring ear plugs and crank it up.