Is Giving The Audience Control Over A Concert Mix A Good Idea?

When Sir Elton John hits the stage Amsterdam’s Ziggo Dome for the first show of his farewell tour, the audience will be given a unique ability. Thanks to wearable tech from PEEX (PErfect EXperience) that ticketholders can rent, they’ll be able to give themselves a custom mix. The question is, is this really a good idea for the best concert experience?

PEEX, which Elton has invested in, provides a virtual 5 channel mixing console with earbuds for a $10 rental that reportedly syncs right up with the sound heard by the rest of the audience. The audience member then has control over the levels of the vocals, guitar, bass, drums and keyboards, and has the ability to solo each one as well.

I’m of two minds on this innovation.

Good Idea

We all know that the typical concert sound mix has great variations depending upon where you sit in the audience. Sit too close to the stage and you’ll probably hear something different than someone in the sweet spot, which will be different from someone way up in the nose bleed seats. This gives the audience member the ability to create a better mix than might be otherwise possible.

And we all know that some concert mixes can be downright bad, either due to the venue acoustics, the demands of the artists, or a mixer who just decides that the kick drum and subwoofers should rule. PEEX wearable tech can give the ticketholder a fighting chance at a better mix.

Bad Idea

Every engineer who’s done a tracking session in the last 5 years since headphone cue mixes came under the musician’s control knows that it can be a nightmare sometimes. Some musicians just can’t set up a mix to save their lives, and it ends up falling on the engineer to bail him or her out. That’s why the idea of sending a full mix in stereo along with “more me” channels of individual tracks came about.

Now if a musician who’s around studios and great mixes all the time can’t get a decent mix together, can you expect an inexperienced audience member to dial in a better mix than the house engineer?

Plus, there are many truly great house mixers that do wonders to make concert sound as good as it can be with pristine mixes approaching that of studio recordings. That could be hard to top regardless of how much or how little control an audience member has over their personal mix.

Yes, PEEX wearable tech is a chance to perhaps upgrade the concert experience, make some additional money for the artist and venue, and give the ticketholder something extra to do when bored. It’s also potential for a worse experience than expected, which no artist wants.

So far only the Ziggo Dome has signed on to provide this feature. It will be interesting to see how it works out.

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