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[Jay E. Smith]

Hi everyone. This is my first post and I'm a 100% novice to pro sound and running audio. So please hit with kid gloves. 

What my new band is looking to do is play our songs with sequenced audio backing tracks, obviously requiring a click. I've done a lot of searches to my specific situation but have mostly only seen situations where only the drummer gets the click. I'm looking to solve the hows, whys, and what equipment is needed of how to send the click to the entire band's IEMs.

Basically I know we need a board dedicated to our In Ears. I'm just curious if instead of all the advice I've read about the drummer having a mini mixer for both tracks and click - if we could just use our mixer dedicated to the in ears so everyone can go over and take the click in or out of their ears depending on what songs they need it for.

For instance:

• Obviously the drummer and also our DJ will want the click for every song
• I as the guitarist will want it for most songs but not all
• The 2 lead vocalists will only want them for songs that start with vocals or synth....or songs where there is a portion where the beat drops out and they need to know when to come back in so the backing tracks don't "beat them to it" and get out of time

etc...

Equipment-wise we have:

• DJ running Ableton on a laptop
• I believe he'll be using the Scarlett 2i4 for the interface
• 16 channel board for monitors

The band consists of:

• guitar and vocals
• bass and vocals
• male lead vocals
• female lead vocals
• drums no vocals
• dj and vocals

Our IEM wireless packs are a mishmash of different brands and quality but most importantly half of us running low line mono units and 3 of us using pricier stereo monitor packs. The reason for this info is our ideal in ear mix would be:
 - everything panned properly in stereo for those of us running stereo packs (we will encounter quite few systems with stereo p.a.'s as we play a lot of casino and high end nightclub gigs)
 - click in all of our ears and we can mute if for tracks we don't want on a per musician basis

I'm diving in head first trying to learn the basics of running this stuff. Our DJ knows a bit more about running sound than me but he's still not a full on pro soundguy. And when I look at a mixing console the only things that aren't alien to me are EQ knobs, volume sliders, the mute button, and gain knob. Aux's...sends....loops...etc, I'm still clueless and learning. 

Any info is much appreciated and please let me know if I have not given enough information!
 - Jay

[Jon Ross]

Your DJ can send the click track from Ableton Live. You will need a pair of DI boxes and 2 more outputs from his Scarlett interface, so the click and backup click tracks can be separate from the rest of the signal coming from the dj. Obviously you don't want the click to come through the main PA system.
What is the 16 channel board you have? You will need 9 aux sends to run 3 mono and 3 stereo iem mixes. That's not likely found on most mi analog mixers.
You will also need a splitter setup of some description to split your input channels to both your iem monitor mixer and the main PA system.

[Adam Lambert]

Hi everyone. This is my first post and I'm a 100% novice to pro sound and running audio. So please hit with kid gloves. 

What my new band is looking to do is play our songs with sequenced audio backing tracks, obviously requiring a click. I've done a lot of searches to my specific situation but have mostly only seen situations where only the drummer gets the click. I'm looking to solve the hows, whys, and what equipment is needed of how to send the click to the entire band's IEMs.

Basically I know we need a board dedicated to our In Ears. I'm just curious if instead of all the advice I've read about the drummer having a mini mixer for both tracks and click - if we could just use our mixer dedicated to the in ears so everyone can go over and take the click in or out of their ears depending on what songs they need it for.

For instance:

• Obviously the drummer and also our DJ will want the click for every song
• I as the guitarist will want it for most songs but not all
• The 2 lead vocalists will only want them for songs that start with vocals or synth....or songs where there is a portion where the beat drops out and they need to know when to come back in so the backing tracks don't "beat them to it" and get out of time

etc...

Equipment-wise we have:

• DJ running Ableton on a laptop
• I believe he'll be using the Scarlett 2i4 for the interface
• 16 channel board for monitors

The band consists of:

• guitar and vocals
• bass and vocals
• male lead vocals
• female lead vocals
• drums no vocals
• dj and vocals

Our IEM wireless packs are a mishmash of different brands and quality but most importantly half of us running low line mono units and 3 of us using pricier stereo monitor packs. The reason for this info is our ideal in ear mix would be:
 - everything panned properly in stereo for those of us running stereo packs (we will encounter quite few systems with stereo p.a.'s as we play a lot of casino and high end nightclub gigs)
 - click in all of our ears and we can mute if for tracks we don't want on a per musician basis

I'm diving in head first trying to learn the basics of running this stuff. Our DJ knows a bit more about running sound than me but he's still not a full on pro soundguy. And when I look at a mixing console the only things that aren't alien to me are EQ knobs, volume sliders, the mute button, and gain knob. Aux's...sends....loops...etc, I'm still clueless and learning. 

Any info is much appreciated and please let me know if I have not given enough information!
 - Jay

Jay, I have run almost the exact same configuration except we use a MOTU Traveler 8x8 as the interface. What Jon Ross said is spot on and only thing I would add is that having a "cue track" for the vocalists as opposed to the "click" is super helpful. It takes an additional channel and a little more time to prep the cue tracks in Ableton but it keeps the constant click out of their ears and gives them a "count in" to keep in time with the backing tracks.     

[Scott Wagner]

Jay, I have run almost the exact same configuration except we use a MOTU Traveler 8x8 as the interface. What Jon Ross said is spot on and only thing I would add is that having a "cue track" for the vocalists as opposed to the "click" is super helpful. It takes an additional channel and a little more time to prep the cue tracks in Ableton but it keeps the constant click out of their ears and gives them a "count in" to keep in time with the backing tracks.   

While you're creating the cue track, you could even put a tone behind the "count in" so they're in tune as well as in time.

[Jay E. Smith]

While you're creating the cue track, you could even put a tone behind the "count in" so they're in tune as well as in time.

Excellent suggestions thus far everyone. Keep them coming and thanks! I've got a feeling I'm going to learn a lot around here.

[John L Nobile]

I'm not sure why anyone else besides the drummer needs or would want a click track. We've been using one for years. The drummer gets it and everyone else plays off him. If there's no drum parts, he keeps 1/4's on his hat and always has a bar or too before the song starts to count everyone in.

[Tom Roche]

I'm not sure why anyone else besides the drummer needs or would want a click track. We've been using one for years. The drummer gets it and everyone else plays off him. If there's no drum parts, he keeps 1/4's on his hat and always has a bar or too before the song starts to count everyone in.

I was going to mention this as an alternative as well.  It also assumes the drummer's up to the task. 

Regardless of approach, it's imperative for all musos to lock in above all else or the sequenced parts will sound completely off.  If everyone is getting the sequence and the click, it relieves the drummer from total responsibility as everyone is now directly accountable for their time/lock. 

You may want to experiment to determine which approach works best for you.  Also consider recording and listening back to gigs to hear what's going on and use that to make it better.

[Jay E. Smith]

If everyone is getting the sequence and the click, it relieves the drummer from total responsibility as everyone is now directly accountable for their time/lock. 

Basically this. With all of us being on in ears most if not all of us but the drummer himself probably won't want much if any hi-hat in our ears. And since we're a pretty energetic band with lots of crowd engagement I know we, the singers especially won't want to turn around to the drums for visual cues each time.

But it was good advice about about a cue track instead of a click if not along with. There's a LOT going on in our tunes and we want to reduce the risk of "Milli Vanilli'ing" ourselves as much as possible. Not that any of us are lip syncing but we're using every physical track or vocal possible that we physically cannot perform as a band due to limited number of band members.

[Adam Lambert]

Basically this. With all of us being on in ears most if not all of us but the drummer himself probably won't want much if any hi-hat in our ears. And since we're a pretty energetic band with lots of crowd engagement I know we, the singers especially won't want to turn around to the drums for visual cues each time.

But it was good advice about about a cue track instead of a click if not along with. There's a LOT going on in our tunes and we want to reduce the risk of "Milli Vanilli'ing" ourselves as much as possible. Not that any of us are lip syncing but we're using every physical track or vocal possible that we physically cannot perform as a band due to limited number of band members.

Are you guys running Ableton from "clip launch" or "session"? If you run in clip launch you can create scenes that will allow you to go crazy with the virtual instruments and then launch a new scene to get everyone back on track. This is how we do it and we are able to give it a nice "live" feel even with the backing tracks. A little more work for the DJ but it plays well.

[Jay E. Smith]

Are you guys running Ableton from "clip launch" or "session"? If you run in clip launch you can create scenes that will allow you to go crazy with the virtual instruments and then launch a new scene to get everyone back on track. This is how we do it and we are able to give it a nice "live" feel even with the backing tracks. A little more work for the DJ but it plays well.

While I'm still learning, I'm using arrangement view to sync everything up view and had been using session view to build scenes for the set list. I am unaware of clip launch so off I go to read about it. Thanks!

[ProSoundWeb Community]