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Post by stormymondays on Sept 23, 2018 12:26:14 GMT -6
My band's got a fairly complex setup, with 6 musicians and lots of acoustic instruments and I'm looking for a way to run our own monitors so we can have a consistent stage sound with pre-made monitor mixes done at our rehearsal studio. We'd taylor the mixes ourselves and our road manager can act as surrogate monitor guy during the show.
I'd like your opinions on whether this is a good idea, if it's doable on a decent budget/weight/quality, if it will be easy enough so PA guys don't want to kill us, etc. The number of cables can be a concern as well.
Here's my idea:
-24 channel / 8 aux send digital rackmount board, like the Soundcraft Ui24R.
-24 channel splitter --> NO IDEA what to get here. Rackmount too?
-Our own monitors (Mackie 350v3) for smaller places, or the sound company's monitors on decent stages.
-Our own specialty mics and DIs for everything, so we're mostly self contained.
The PA company would have to supply mic stands, XLR cables, a few SM58/SM57 and that's it. And the monitor wedges if it's a big stage with nice equipment. All the channels go into the splitter, and then on their way to the monitor desk and PA. Monitor sends from our rack to the wedges.
Let me know what you think...
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Post by Tbone81 on Sept 23, 2018 12:48:17 GMT -6
I’m not sure what type of music you play or what type of gigs you play...but...Sounds like you’re making a complex setup even more complex and difficult. That’s a lot of gear for a band to haul around and setup.
And even though you’re trying to “preset” monitor mixes at rehearsal, you’ll find a lot changes when you step into a new room, with its own stage and acoustics. A homemade preset may be a good starting point but I think you’ll find yourself making lots of adjustments.
Mixing monitors is an an art form all it’s own. IMHO it’s much harder then FOH. And that’s coming from a guy who spent most of a decade running FOH.
Maybe look into in ears instead?
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Post by stormymondays on Sept 23, 2018 13:25:48 GMT -6
More info: the music is Folk Rock. There’s a 4 piece rock band (drums, bass, keys, guitar) plus string player (cello, violin, hurdy gurdy), wind player (sax, flute, clarinet) and we also play a few assorted acoustic guitars/mandolin.
My final goal is for every musician to have a comfortable, quality sound onstage that’s under their control, just like my electric guitar sound doesn’t depend on the monitors/FOH. And we also need to hear each other well, because there’s lots of interplay and dynamics. We’re not a loud band.
Sometimes there’s a monitor desk (usually with a lousy tech), sometimes our sound man has to run monitors from FOH, sometimes we play a small club/bar.
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Post by christopher on Sept 23, 2018 15:49:11 GMT -6
IEMs would be the best way if you want everyone to have their own mix. Then something like an X32 or similar digital mixer, though I haven't used the X32 yet.. I worked for a 7 peice that couldn't afford a Yamaha ls9 so they used the original presonus studio live, actually one on stage for monitors and another for FOH. It was really harsh above 7k.. I always had to roll off everything like crazy, but it worked for their IEMs without complaints.. Hopefully there's better sounding stuff for cheap now. Not everyone could afford the IEMs at first but that just meant we dragged one stage monitor for them. Way easier to deal with.. feedback was not an issue. Except when the singer would walk out and stick the mic in the air at the mains!
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Post by Blackdawg on Sept 23, 2018 17:23:56 GMT -6
Get a x32 setup.
It'll run Dante, then you can get 1 rack for mic pres, one surface for FOH and use phone apps on stage mounted just below your mic stand or music stands and live mix your own monitors.
The X32 is pretty nice all things considered. Pair that with some QSC K10.2 or K12.2s for mains and K8.2 for monitors or use inears and you're looking at one sweet little rig. Hard to beat the cost too.
I've mixed full shows with the X32 and with just an ipad and the X32 rack mixer with K10s. Was very nice sounding and versatile. I don't think you'll be disappointed.
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ericn
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Post by ericn on Sept 23, 2018 18:26:04 GMT -6
If you go with wedges, an analog system will be quicker and easier to solve problems, many National touring acts are using a X32 rack, IEMs and personal monitor mixers.
If the company providing FOH is using an X32 or M32 no need for split, if not Sound company should be able to provide split, only reason for you. Providing your own split is if you need a 3 way for recording.
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Post by Tbone81 on Sept 23, 2018 19:35:40 GMT -6
If you go with wedges, an analog system will be quicker and easier to solve problems. [ Amen to that. I still have a fear of digital mixers after having two Presonus Studiolive console crap out on me during gigs. You’ve never seen someone tear out a console and patch in a new mixer as fast as me! Lol, These were first generation mixers. Sent the first one back (bad rotory encoder on main pcb cause the main out volume to go crazy), it was repaired. Happened again. It was replaced by presonus. The 3rd one started acting up again so we sold it and bought a mackie onyx. Gotta love analog consoles for that reason alone. On the mackie if something went wonky I could just patch around it and carry on until I had time to fix it. |
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ericn
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Post by ericn on Sept 23, 2018 20:32:45 GMT -6
If you go with wedges, an analog system will be quicker and easier to solve problems. [ Amen to that. I still have a fear of digital mixers after having two Presonus Studiolive console crap out on me during gigs. You’ve never seen someone tear out a console and patch in a new mixer as fast as me! Lol, These were first generation mixers. Sent the first one back (bad rotory encoder on main pcb cause the main out volume to go crazy), it was repaired. Happened again. It was replaced by presonus. The 3rd one started acting up again so we sold it and bought a mackie onyx. Gotta love analog consoles for that reason alone. On the mackie if something went wonky I could just patch around it and carry on until I had time to fix it. Even just grabbing a knob to bring down a howl it’s always right in front of me as are all the EQ’s going through pages is slow and I have to remember to much, analog it’s all right in front of me. I did mix Wedges on an 02R after hear Randy from Yamaha, MJ’s old monitor guy did the Grammies on a DM2000. Presets were great, having Dynamics on everything awesome but nowhere and no digital board since has been as quick to solve the problems that happen live as a Midas or Ramsa 840! |
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Post by johneppstein on Sept 23, 2018 21:14:43 GMT -6
My band's got a fairly complex setup, with 6 musicians and lots of acoustic instruments and I'm looking for a way to run our own monitors so we can have a consistent stage sound with pre-made monitor mixes done at our rehearsal studio. We'd taylor the mixes ourselves and our road manager can act as surrogate monitor guy during the show. I'd like your opinions on whether this is a good idea, if it's doable on a decent budget/weight/quality, if it will be easy enough so PA guys don't want to kill us, etc. The number of cables can be a concern as well. Here's my idea: -24 channel / 8 aux send digital rackmount board, like the Soundcraft Ui24R. -24 channel splitter --> NO IDEA what to get here. Rackmount too? -Our own monitors (Mackie 350v3) for smaller places, or the sound company's monitors on decent stages. -Our own specialty mics and DIs for everything, so we're mostly self contained. The PA company would have to supply mic stands, XLR cables, a few SM58/SM57 and that's it. And the monitor wedges if it's a big stage with nice equipment. All the channels go into the splitter, and then on their way to the monitor desk and PA. Monitor sends from our rack to the wedges. Let me know what you think...
I thinmk you're in for a lot of heartache unless you hire your own, dedicated monitor engineer. Doing a proper job on stage monitore usually entails beaing able to deal with a problem immediately when it happens, which is almost invariably in the middle of a song.
For the same reasopns i would advise against using any type of digital mixcer, especially compact rack mount types. Althyough tyhe feature sets of such mixers are highly tempting on paper, the last thing you want is to have to page thrtough screens and menus to arrive at the controls to deal with the problem at hand - a 24 channel analog mixer with a rack of graphics, cvompressors, and, if necessary gates is infinitely faster to deal with. You know how I'm always going on about how I want to be able to reach out and grab a knob without having to think or page through screens? Well it's largely because of my years of experience as a live sound engineer in often chaotic environments, including lots of experience on stage monitors. The LAST thing you want when your lead vocal mix starts feeding back is to have to page through screens just to get to the needed channel. And let me tell you, when you have an immediate and obvious problem with one channel you are ALWAYS several screens away. It's the corollary of Murphy's Law andf digital monitor consoles.
The idea of presetting monitor mixes at the rehearsal studio almost certainly won't work. Conditions as almost always different at the gig, both logistcally anbd acoustically.
If it's a big enough gig to offer a reasonably controlled environment there will likely be a monitor engineer withj hi own rig. Let him do his job.
If you choose to ignore this advice and go ahead anyway you'd better be prepared to do monitors for every other act on the bill, as the house engineer(s) will not be well dispoised to the idea of you rewiring the monitors in mid show. Nor will the stage manager be open to the idea of the protracted get on/get off times entailed by trying to set up/tear down your own monitor system.
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Post by johneppstein on Sept 23, 2018 21:40:16 GMT -6
More info: the music is Folk Rock. There’s a 4 piece rock band (drums, bass, keys, guitar) plus string player (cello, violin, hurdy gurdy), wind player (sax, flute, clarinet) and we also play a few assorted acoustic guitars/mandolin. My final goal is for every musician to have a comfortable, quality sound onstage that’s under their control, just like my electric guitar sound doesn’t depend on the monitors/FOH. And we also need to hear each other well, because there’s lots of interplay and dynamics. We’re not a loud band. Sometimes there’s a monitor desk (usually with a lousy tech), sometimes our sound man has to run monitors from FOH, sometimes we play a small club/bar. Your best bet is to learn to develop a good natural balance between everybody's onstage sound and not waste money on a dedicated monitor system
And FWIW, in my experience some of the most difficult monitor mixes are those that involve mixing electric instruments and drums with miced acoustic instruments.
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Post by johneppstein on Sept 23, 2018 21:51:23 GMT -6
If you go with wedges, an analog system will be quicker and easier to solve problems. [ Amen to that. I still have a fear of digital mixers after having two Presonus Studiolive console crap out on me during gigs. You’ve never seen someone tear out a console and patch in a new mixer as fast as me! Lol, These were first generation mixers. Sent the first one back (bad rotory encoder on main pcb cause the main out volume to go crazy), it was repaired. Happened again. It was replaced by presonus. The 3rd one started acting up again so we sold it and bought a mackie onyx. Gotta love analog consoles for that reason alone. On the mackie if something went wonky I could just patch around it and carry on until I had time to fix it. Digital mixers have a tendency to be sensitive to glitchy power. Reboots, lockups, failures. Not often, but always at the worst possible moment. Clive Davis walks in for 15 minutes before catching a flight back to LA? The mixer crashes. Don't ever forget that a digital mixer is a damn computer.
That being said, the X32 is pretty decent as digital mixers go.
I have a Midas Venice analog that I use for small FOH gigs but it would do great for monitors.
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Post by Blackdawg on Sept 23, 2018 23:15:26 GMT -6
If you go with wedges, an analog system will be quicker and easier to solve problems. [ Amen to that. I still have a fear of digital mixers after having two Presonus Studiolive console crap out on me during gigs. You’ve never seen someone tear out a console and patch in a new mixer as fast as me! Lol, These were first generation mixers. Sent the first one back (bad rotory encoder on main pcb cause the main out volume to go crazy), it was repaired. Happened again. It was replaced by presonus. The 3rd one started acting up again so we sold it and bought a mackie onyx. Gotta love analog consoles for that reason alone. On the mackie if something went wonky I could just patch around it and carry on until I had time to fix it. That studiolive thing is a pile of junk. Thus the catastrophe. I wouldn't even touch one if given to me for free. |
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Post by stormymondays on Sept 24, 2018 0:07:10 GMT -6
Lots of great advice here, both on the analog and digital front. I totally agree about problem solving, digital sucks for that.
How would I do a split for the times that the sound company plans on doing monitors from the FOH? I’m thinking ART rack mount splitters.
I will also discuss this with a couple local sound companies, hear what they have to say.
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Post by jeremygillespie on Sept 24, 2018 6:22:04 GMT -6
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Post by stormymondays on Sept 24, 2018 6:50:53 GMT -6
Great, thanks! Off to do some reading... My soundman knows a local band that's big in the punk-rock scene, playing big stages, and that's doing something similar to what I want to do. It'll be interesting to hear how they manage at festivals! Gear-wise, I could approach this as carrying our own in ear monitoring with personal mixes. There are added dangers when feeding that to wedges, sure... |
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Post by ericn on Sept 24, 2018 7:21:39 GMT -6
Great, thanks! Off to do some reading... My soundman knows a local band that's big in the punk-rock scene, playing big stages, and that's doing something similar to what I want to do. It'll be interesting to hear how they manage at festivals! Gear-wise, I could approach this as carrying our own in ear monitoring with personal mixes. There are added dangers when feeding that to wedges, sure... Go all in ears no wedges mixing the to is a PITA without a experienced monitor engineer. More and more bands are going to the personal mix IEM for consistency and ease of carrying on the road. |
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Post by stormymondays on Sept 24, 2018 7:43:02 GMT -6
Great, thanks! Off to do some reading... My soundman knows a local band that's big in the punk-rock scene, playing big stages, and that's doing something similar to what I want to do. It'll be interesting to hear how they manage at festivals! Gear-wise, I could approach this as carrying our own in ear monitoring with personal mixes. There are added dangers when feeding that to wedges, sure... Go all in ears no wedges mixing the to is a PITA without a experienced monitor engineer. More and more bands are going to the personal mix IEM for consistency and ease of carrying on the road. Yes, I’m considering that. However I’m still not sure what gear I would need to get so all my mixes are already premade and I don’t depend on the monitor desk. |
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Post by ericn on Sept 24, 2018 8:19:44 GMT -6
Go all in ears no wedges mixing the to is a PITA without a experienced monitor engineer. More and more bands are going to the personal mix IEM for consistency and ease of carrying on the road. Yes, I’m considering that. However I’m still not sure what gear I would need to get so all my mixes are already premade and I don’t depend on the monitor desk. The former monitor guy in me hates personal mixing systems but more and more acts I have worked with or respect and sound companies I respect tell me IEM and personal mix systems are the standard. Even with IEM’s the mixes are not set and forget, you need to be able to tweet and grab if something goes wrong so having a controller in front of each performer makes the most sense. An X32/ M32 system is probably going to be the most common mid level console so an X32 rack makes sense with their personal mix controllers the split is a cat five cable, go look at the manual and how their system works. It’s cheap and works well. |
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Post by jcoutu1 on Sept 24, 2018 8:27:36 GMT -6
When I was playing in a cover band, IEM's were the best purchase I made. Loved them.
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Post by ericn on Sept 24, 2018 8:31:50 GMT -6
When I was playing in a cover band, IEM's were the best purchase I made. Loved them. I wish there were wired more IEM’s like the old Garwood systems for drummers and more stationary band members simply to avoid RF hell! If |
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Post by jcoutu1 on Sept 24, 2018 8:34:02 GMT -6
When I was playing in a cover band, IEM's were the best purchase I made. Loved them. I wish there were wired more IEM’s like the old Garwood systems for drummers and more stationary band members simply to avoid RF hell! If As a drummer, I was running the aux from the board with a wire to a headphone amp, the using wired Sennheiser IEM's.  |
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Post by jazznoise on Sept 24, 2018 11:10:41 GMT -6
Your best bet is just to buy some decent powered wedges. Half the problems are usually down to onstage wedges being blown or not having the power to get the volume up to what you need cleanly.
That said certain acoustic instruments on stage - fiddles, flute - tend to be a nightmare with drummers or electric guitar players nearby.
Monitors is a hard job. Sound check usually leans far too much the other way when it's easier fix FOH midshow than it is the onstage sound
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Post by johneppstein on Sept 24, 2018 13:19:05 GMT -6
Yes, I’m considering that. However I’m still not sure what gear I would need to get so all my mixes are already premade and I don’t depend on the monitor desk. The former monitor guy in me hates personal mixing systems but more and more acts I have worked with or respect and sound companies I respect tell me IEM and personal mix systems are the standard. Even with IEM’s the mixes are not set and forget, you need to be able to tweet and grab if something goes wrong so having a controller in front of each performer makes the most sense. An X32/ M32 system is probably going to be the most common mid level console so an X32 rack makes sense with their personal mix controllers the split is a cat five cable, go look at the manual and how their system works. It’s cheap and works well. Of course if you play a venue that has an analog system the cat5 split won't work at all.... |
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Post by Tbone81 on Sept 24, 2018 15:22:09 GMT -6
[ Amen to that. I still have a fear of digital mixers after having two Presonus Studiolive console crap out on me during gigs. You’ve never seen someone tear out a console and patch in a new mixer as fast as me! Lol, These were first generation mixers. Sent the first one back (bad rotory encoder on main pcb cause the main out volume to go crazy), it was repaired. Happened again. It was replaced by presonus. The 3rd one started acting up again so we sold it and bought a mackie onyx. Gotta love analog consoles for that reason alone. On the mackie if something went wonky I could just patch around it and carry on until I had time to fix it. That studiolive thing is a pile of junk. Thus the catastrophe. I wouldn't even touch one if given to me for free. I like the way that console was laid out, with the fat channel...made it pretty easy to get around and see everything you needed. But yeah, the erratic nature of the problems were a killer. I always assumed it was because we had the very first generation of the board, and maybe they had some production issues that have since been worked out, but who knows? I'd never get one again however. If I was looking for another digital I'd look at the Allen Heath, Berhringer and Midas offerings. |
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Post by Blackdawg on Sept 24, 2018 16:05:15 GMT -6
The former monitor guy in me hates personal mixing systems but more and more acts I have worked with or respect and sound companies I respect tell me IEM and personal mix systems are the standard. Even with IEM’s the mixes are not set and forget, you need to be able to tweet and grab if something goes wrong so having a controller in front of each performer makes the most sense. An X32/ M32 system is probably going to be the most common mid level console so an X32 rack makes sense with their personal mix controllers the split is a cat five cable, go look at the manual and how their system works. It’s cheap and works well. Of course if you play a venue that has an analog system the cat5 split won't work at all.... Be easy enough to bring your own x32 with you everywhere. Or the producer one that is smaller. Even the ipad mixer is powerful enough that if you said, tough shit to the tech, use this. They would be fine to mix the show. Has happened to me before when i was running FOH at some festivals. But was the Mackie one..which I didn't like as much as the X32 ipad setup...not that I like mixing on an ipad period..but still. |
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