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Author Topic: Subgroup and VCA Mixing Workflow  (Read 14577 times)

Lauritz Leiber

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Subgroup and VCA Mixing Workflow
« on: March 21, 2018, 04:56:21 AM »

Hello!
I've been mixing on smaller format consoles (X32/M32/Si Series) for a while now and have used VCAs all the time. Sometimes I also do basic mixdowns of live recordings for demo purposes in my DAW and started to like using groups for all sorts of parallel processing or using a big instrument group as a quick way to make some space in the mix for vocals with eq and so on.
This year I'm going to go on a few bigger weekend tours with a band I've mixed for about a year now and we as our tech crew decided to go for an SD9 for this purpose.
We have about 35-40 input channels and four Vocal IEM Mixes along with several Aux busses that feed a personal monitoring system for the musicians onstage.
As we have more Groups and Auxes available on the console than we normally need, I would like to implement parts of the workflow I use in my daw into my live mixing, to have some more options for processing channels together.
We have two days to prep the console before we meet with the band but I'd like to have the basic stuff figured out beforehand.
Now one thing I can't really get my head around, is how you would best use VCAs and subgroups together, mixing live. I've looked at a lot of YouTube videos where pro mixers go over their channel processing and a lot of them seem to use bus processing. But how would you assign channels to VCAs then.
For example using my drum channels, I would route them to a drums group (with some eq and a little compression) and a parallel group, which gets smashed and sent to a big verb. I can then mix those together in the LR Bus.
With only VCAs I would have a Kick/Snare and an Overall Drums VCA so I can mix these accordingly. There would be no parallel processing and no overall treatment of the drums. If I were to do this with Group processing applied it wouldn't work as I would be constantly pushing the compressor too hard or not at all, deping on how I'd set my VCAs. This would make the whole group thing useless as it wouldn't work. But if I would assign the groups to my VCA, then for example sending my snare of to a post fader aux for reverb would be hard. Everytime I'd turn the drums down, the reverb would still have the same level.
Is there some way I can work all of this out in a logical way to get the best of VCAs and Groups together.
I know I'll probably have to change my workflow up a bit but I'm fine with that, as long as I find a solution that works.
I'm just interested if and how you guys are mixing  with both subgroups and VCAs. I'm hoping to get some ideas and input to kind of piece together a workflow of my own.

Thanks in advance!
Lauritz
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Luke Geis

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Re: Subgroup and VCA Mixing Workflow
« Reply #1 on: March 21, 2018, 02:50:19 PM »

Well lets clarify that a VCA is not part of a digital desk. A DCA is the digital version of a VCA. VCA is the acronym for Voltage Controlled Amplifier, while DCA is Digital Controlled Amplifier.

There is no real technical difference between a sub group and a DCA other than the channel EQ and processing.  That is to say you can run a sub group if you wish and still have the same control ( with the exception of the mix bus channel EQ and dynamics ) as that of a DCA. The sub group will allow you to add EQ and dynamics as desired as well as another pick point for inserts. From a mixing only perspective they are pretty much the same. Move one fader up and down to control an entire group of channels all at once.

I DO NOT like flipping between layers, so what I typically do is build all my mixes into sub groups and then use a DCA to control the sub group channel. This way I can still utilize all the extra processing of the sub group channels and still mix it from a dedicated DCA fader layer. I am not certain if the SD9 has custom fader layers ( I haven't worked with that one yet ) so you may be able to place all your sub groups and key channels and DCA's onto a single layer?

From a work flow perspective, I try and do as little layer flipping as possible. So I will put all my effect returns onto DCA's ( to control the FX return faders ) and then of course the sub groups will also be on DCA's. I can then build a fader layer where all my important channels are built into it and keep it on top. This means I only have to flip to another fader bank when a specific change is needed on another less important channel.
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Roger Talkov

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Re: Subgroup and VCA Mixing Workflow
« Reply #2 on: March 21, 2018, 03:19:33 PM »

In most cases (for me) I like to use the subgroups for instruments and the DCA's for people.  That helps me keep things fairly sorted out and of course there are exceptions but generally thats how I like to set things up.

R
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Tim McCulloch

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Re: Subgroup and VCA Mixing Workflow
« Reply #3 on: March 21, 2018, 03:34:25 PM »

I tend to use "sub group/mix bus" for additional EQ or dynamics processing - serial, parallel or for output rather than to mix - and DCA/VCA to control groups of inputs over which I want simultaneous and identical manual control of level.

In musical theatre mixing, DCA group members are assigned by console automation recall to allow the operator to keep the "busy" channels under his fingers regardless of what the channel numbers are.  Perhaps DCAs will be assigned as Male Lead, Female Lead, Soloist 1, Soloist 2, Ensemble, SFX, EFX, Orch.  Some songs might have multiple automation recalls, changing the inputs assigned to first 4 DCAs as different characters sing their parts.

However you wish to use groups/mix buses and DCAs is up to you.  So long as you don't do things that create other issues who's to say it's wrong?
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Tim McCulloch

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Re: Subgroup and VCA Mixing Workflow
« Reply #4 on: March 21, 2018, 04:35:15 PM »

Hello!
I've been mixing on smaller format consoles (X32/M32/Si Series) for a while now and have used VCAs all the time. Sometimes I also do basic mixdowns of live recordings for demo purposes in my DAW and started to like using groups for all sorts of parallel processing or using a big instrument group as a quick way to make some space in the mix for vocals with eq and so on.
This year I'm going to go on a few bigger weekend tours with a band I've mixed for about a year now and we as our tech crew decided to go for an SD9 for this purpose.
We have about 35-40 input channels and four Vocal IEM Mixes along with several Aux busses that feed a personal monitoring system for the musicians onstage.
As we have more Groups and Auxes available on the console than we normally need, I would like to implement parts of the workflow I use in my daw into my live mixing, to have some more options for processing channels together.
We have two days to prep the console before we meet with the band but I'd like to have the basic stuff figured out beforehand.
Now one thing I can't really get my head around, is how you would best use VCAs and subgroups together, mixing live. I've looked at a lot of YouTube videos where pro mixers go over their channel processing and a lot of them seem to use bus processing. But how would you assign channels to VCAs then.
For example using my drum channels, I would route them to a drums group (with some eq and a little compression) and a parallel group, which gets smashed and sent to a big verb. I can then mix those together in the LR Bus.
With only VCAs I would have a Kick/Snare and an Overall Drums VCA so I can mix these accordingly. There would be no parallel processing and no overall treatment of the drums. If I were to do this with Group processing applied it wouldn't work as I would be constantly pushing the compressor too hard or not at all, deping on how I'd set my VCAs. This would make the whole group thing useless as it wouldn't work. But if I would assign the groups to my VCA, then for example sending my snare of to a post fader aux for reverb would be hard. Everytime I'd turn the drums down, the reverb would still have the same level.
Is there some way I can work all of this out in a logical way to get the best of VCAs and Groups together.
I know I'll probably have to change my workflow up a bit but I'm fine with that, as long as I find a solution that works.
I'm just interested if and how you guys are mixing  with both subgroups and VCAs. I'm hoping to get some ideas and input to kind of piece together a workflow of my own.

Thanks in advance!
Lauritz

Some other thoughts....

With VCAs and providing IEM mixes from FOH... Uh... No.  At least with the X-M32 there is no way to change the "VCA pick-off" where it changes the Channel level internally.  IIRC it affects both Pre & Post bus sends, so it's after the AD converter and direct output sends and before everything else.

Edit correction - VCA on X-M32 affect "non-pre" sends only.

« Last Edit: March 21, 2018, 10:45:12 PM by Tim McCulloch »
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Russell Ault

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Re: Subgroup and VCA Mixing Workflow
« Reply #5 on: March 21, 2018, 04:51:49 PM »

With VCAs and providing IEM mixes from FOH... Uh... No.  At least with the X-M32 there is no way to change the "VCA pick-off" where it changes the Channel level internally.  IIRC it affects both Pre & Post bus sends, so it's after the AD converter and direct output sends and before everything else.

I'm always wary of disagreeing with Tim, but this hasn't been my experience at all: I'm 98% sure that the DCAs on an XM32 work at the point of the fader (as on most other consoles), so pre-fader (post-EQ, etc.) sends should be unaffected by DCA assignments. I'll double-check this tonight when I sit down at my console.

-Russ
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Tim McCulloch

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Re: Subgroup and VCA Mixing Workflow
« Reply #6 on: March 21, 2018, 05:01:20 PM »

I'm always wary of disagreeing with Tim, but this hasn't been my experience at all: I'm 98% sure that the DCAs on an XM32 work at the point of the fader (as on most other consoles), so pre-fader (post-EQ, etc.) sends should be unaffected by DCA assignments. I'll double-check this tonight when I sit down at my console.

-Russ

Please do.  I hesitated because I haven't had to do pre-fader mixes recently so I had to "IIRC"...  I'll be on an M32 tomorrow but you can update us and I'll go back and edit my post.
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Luke Geis

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Re: Subgroup and VCA Mixing Workflow
« Reply #7 on: March 21, 2018, 05:13:24 PM »

The DCA on the X32 / M32 is in fact only related to the channel fader. So post-fader sends WILL be affected. Pre-fader sends are not affected by changes made to the DCA. If you do a post EQ / Dynamics pre-fader send, there will be no changes made due to the DCA.

One thing that comes to mind that I didn't think about was double routing of channels and sub groups. DO NOT route a channel to a DCA and then also have the sub group in which that same channel may be sent to, also on a DCA. I.E. if you send channel 1 to a DCA it should not be sent to a sub group that is also affected by a DCA. Weird things start to happen when you have a channel either double routed to multiple DCA's or have a channel sent to another mix that is also on a DCA.
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Russell Ault

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Re: Subgroup and VCA Mixing Workflow
« Reply #8 on: March 21, 2018, 05:35:55 PM »

One thing that comes to mind that I didn't think about was double routing of channels and sub groups. DO NOT route a channel to a DCA and then also have the sub group in which that same channel may be sent to, also on a DCA. I.E. if you send channel 1 to a DCA it should not be sent to a sub group that is also affected by a DCA. Weird things start to happen when you have a channel either double routed to multiple DCA's or have a channel sent to another mix that is also on a DCA.

What sorts of weird things, Luke?

I was under the impression a channel assigned to two DCAs simultaneously would simply reflect the summed value of those DCAs. For example, if I assign channel 1 to DCAs 1 and 2 and set its fader to 0, then that channel's effective fader level would be the sum of DCA 1's fader and DCA 2's fader. So, if DCA 1 is at +10 and DCA 2 is at +10, then the effective fader level will be +20 (and may well start overloading any busses it's being routed to); if DCA 1 is at +10 and DCA 2 is at -inf, then the effective fader level would be -inf (since -inf plus anything is still -inf). Certainly a good way to create confusion, especially in the heat of mixing, but I didn't think it would break anything...

-Russ
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Lauritz Leiber

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Re: Subgroup and VCA Mixing Workflow
« Reply #9 on: March 21, 2018, 05:52:45 PM »

Thanks for the input so far! Sorry for the VCA/DCA mixup, I always tend to use the wrong word ;)
Yeah the SD9 supports custom layouts of layers so that's what I would have probably done. Using subgroups and either putting those together with all the important stuff on the top layer or assigning them to DCAs and sorting it out that way.
So far so good, now the only thing that still concerns me is how do you go about effect sends then? Let's take the snare verb for example. If I set something like this up as a post fade Aux and have it return as an input on the desk. Now I turn down the sub group, then the verb would still be coming in at an unchanged level.
Would you just route this effect to the drum group as well or just ride the FX return with the drums.
Might sound like a dumb question now but I'd like to go over most of the options before starting the desk programming as time is a bit limited. I'm going to try out a few option for sure though. Just want to get some ideas and inspiration on how others manage these things.

As far as X/M32 goes: as others have said, DCAs on those desks only affect fader levels. Pre-fade sends work fine and remain unchanged by DCA movement. So IEM from FOH works fine with DCAs.

Thanks!
Lauritz
« Last Edit: March 21, 2018, 05:54:48 PM by Lauritz Leiber »
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Re: Subgroup and VCA Mixing Workflow
« Reply #9 on: March 21, 2018, 05:52:45 PM »


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