Looking for Advice: How Should a Non-Audio Project Management team Learn to Evaluate Stadium Sound, Track QC, and Live Mixing Workflows?

Hi everyone,

I work in the live entertainment industry, mainly on the project management and production management side. I do not come from an audio engineering background, and I am not trying to become a FOH engineer or a system engineer.

However, in the large-scale live concerts we produce, audio has become one of the biggest and most difficult areas for us to manage. We often rely on rental houses, system engineers, FOH engineers, music producers, and freelancers, but as the project owner/production management team, we often do not have enough technical knowledge to properly evaluate whether something is being done correctly or not.

I would really appreciate advice from people in this community on how someone in my position should learn and understand the key principles, workflows, and quality-control standards.

For context, these are the main issues we have faced:

.1. Sound System Design and Approval

For large concerts, we usually hire a rental house to provide the PA system, for example L-Acoustics or d&b audiotechnik. The rental house also takes responsibility for the system design because their engineers are trained/certified by the manufacturer and they understand their own equipment best.

In principle, this makes sense to us. However, in practice, we have had situations where the system did not meet expectations on site.

In one recent stadium-scale show, we used an L-Acoustics K1 system. Even after tuning, we experienced issues such as:

• SPL substantially below the contractual target of 100 dB RMS across audience zones;
• significant peaks and nulls in the frequency response;
• uneven left-right balance;
• phase and time-alignment issues;
• an audible “reverberant” character, which seemed to suggest coverage misalignment rather than clean direct radiation;
• subwoofer headroom already exhausted according to the rental house’s own tuning file;
• predicted comb filtering across the audience area due to L-R sub spacing;
• very weak sub/low-frequency energy in the central VIP area.

The rental house and their system engineer asked for several hours to fix the issue, but the result still did not improve enough.
Eventually, we brought in an independent system engineer. He kept the same quantity of equipment but redesigned the deployment: moving the subs closer toward the center, changing the use of some K2 outfill elements as front fills, and making other system adjustments. After that, the result improved significantly, and the show was able to run safely and successfully.

The real problem is this: As the project owner, we did not have anyone with enough technical expertise to properly review and approve the original SoundVision file before going on site.

So my questions are:

• What should a production/project management team know in order to review a sound system design at a basic but meaningful level?
• What are the minimum things we should check in a SoundVision / ArrayCalc file before approval?
• Should we always hire an independent system design reviewer for stadium shows?
• What should be included in the acceptance criteria for a large-format PA system before show day?

.2. Tracks, Stems, and QC for Stadium Translation
Another major issue is the quality of the tracks, stems, and playback materials.
Our concerts are often based on popular TV show IPs. The music producers usually create mixes that sound good for digital platforms, streaming, and television. However, when those tracks are played through a large stadium PA system, they often do not translate well.

What we hear on site is:

• the tracks feel overly compressed or “glued together”;
• climactic sections become harsh, loud, and messy;
• the sound feels distorted or broken up;
• the vocal gets buried under the beat/track;
• the music does not have enough space, depth, or separation.

When I listen to well-mixed US, UK, or K-pop tracks through the same system, they sound much clearer. The vocal sits clearly above the music and occupies its own space. The mix feels more open and controlled.

Our music producers often say that they have already followed the required loudness specifications. But the final result still does not work well in the stadium.

At first, some people said the issue was because the d&b audiotechnik GSL system sounded harsh. Later, when we used L-Acoustics K1, the same kind of issue still happened. But again, when we played well-produced international reference tracks through the same PA, they sounded fine.

Another issue is the stem workflow.

In some cases, the music team does not provide detailed individual stems. They only provide a few broad stems, for example:

• lead vocal;
• backing vocal;
• beat/music stem;
• maybe one or two additional groups.
  Their reason is that full stems would be too heavy or too difficult to manage.

But then the FOH engineer says he cannot properly control the live mix because too many elements are already combined. He says some stems are harsh, metallic, or poorly balanced, and that the vocal/beat relationship is already problematic before it reaches the console.

The music producer, on the other hand, says the tracks are already correct and that any distortion or messiness on site may come from the FOH engineer using too many plugins or processing the material incorrectly.

As a production management team, we do not have enough knowledge to determine who is right, who is wrong, or what the proper workflow should be.

So my questions are:

• What is the correct best-practice workflow for preparing tracks/stems for large-scale live concerts?
• How many stems are typically required for proper FOH control in a stadium show?
• What should be checked during track QC before rehearsal and show day?
• Is “meeting loudness specs” enough, or are there other more important mix/translation criteria?
• How should a team translate a studio/TV/streaming mix into something that works on a stadium PA?
• Should there be a dedicated “studio-to-stadium translation” stage?

.3. Live Mixing Responsibility

During the show, we often experience the same problems:

• climactic sections become harsh and noisy;
• the overall sound feels messy or distorted;
• the vocal is buried under the track;
• the beat feels too dominant;
• the live vocal does not sit clearly in front.

The music producer says this is the FOH engineer’s job to adjust.
The FOH engineer says the problem comes from the stems, the track quality, and sometimes the singer not singing strongly enough over the backing track. He also says the backing track has been mixed in a way that assumes the artist will sing over it, but in practice the balance does not work.

Again, from a management perspective, it is very difficult for us to know where the real problem is.

So my questions are:

• Where does the responsibility of the music producer end and the FOH engineer begin?
• What should be locked during pre-production, and what should be adjusted during live mixing?
• What is a good rehearsal/QC process to identify whether the problem is from the track, the stem structure, the PA system, the FOH mix, or the artist performance?
• What are the red flags that a project owner should watch for before show day?

What I Want to Learn

I am not trying to become a professional sound engineer. My goal is to become a better project/production manager who can:

• understand the principles behind system design, tuning, track preparation, and live mixing;
• ask the right questions;
• review technical submissions more intelligently;
• identify risks before show day;
• know when a supplier or engineer is following proper principles and when something is wrong;
• build a better QC and approval workflow for large-scale concerts.

For someone like me, what learning path would you recommend?

Should I start with fundamentals of sound, system design, live sound reinforcement, critical listening, audio measurement, or music production/mixing?

Are there any courses, books, certifications, or practical exercises that would help a non-engineer build enough technical literacy to manage these issues properly?

I would be very grateful for any advice, especially from system engineers, FOH engineers, music producers, production managers, or anyone who has worked on stadium/arena-scale shows.

Thank you very much.
Ha Nguyen from Vietnam