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Ok, so I’m a weekend warrior. I work with a few bands that hire me and I have one local agent that will occasionally need production and call me. Haven’t been working a ton lately, but I’ve been busy with my day job, so there’s that. Been watching a bunch of YouTube videos from touring folks walkthrough their gear and console layouts and whatnot and while that’s great, it’s not a level I’ll be at because I don’t want to leave my day job to go tour. I really don’t mix clubs and bars, just local cover bands for weddings and corporate events mostly.

I know there’s a completely different budget with touring shows, but at what point do you go from inputs mixed straight to mono or stereo, to discussing what plugins you’re using and calculating latency through the console because the artist wants their show to sound like their record?

I’m currently mixing on a Soundcraft expression, and feel I’m hitting the limitations of that board, not in channel count, but in features. Since I run monitors from FOH, I can only subgroup so many things and then it doesn’t have DCA’s, so it’s basically inputs mixed to L/R. The EQ section is a little limiting as well compared to say an X32, which I mix on for HOW stuff on Sunday’s. I also occasionally mix a more regional cover band with an M32, but their console is set up basically inputs to L/R as well however they do use the DCA’s.

So at what point do sound techs make the switch from inputs straight to L/R to what I’m calling all the fancy bells and whistles of stereo subgroups using parallel compression and dynamic EQ’s and comparing plugin chains similar to a recording studio?

David

It's not about when, it's about personal preference, musical style, skills, actual need and "hey, this console has a ton of features, let's use them all".
I haven met people who use ALL the features all the time and people who mix straight to L/R with the occasional VCA. There is no direct correlation between let's say ticket sales and the number of console features used.

Ok, so I’m a weekend warrior. I work with a few bands that hire me and I have one local agent that will occasionally need production and call me. Haven’t been working a ton lately, but I’ve been busy with my day job, so there’s that. Been watching a bunch of YouTube videos from touring folks walkthrough their gear and console layouts and whatnot and while that’s great, it’s not a level I’ll be at because I don’t want to leave my day job to go tour. I really don’t mix clubs and bars, just local cover bands for weddings and corporate events mostly.

I know there’s a completely different budget with touring shows, but at what point do you go from inputs mixed straight to mono or stereo, to discussing what plugins you’re using and calculating latency through the console because the artist wants their show to sound like their record?

I’m currently mixing on a Soundcraft expression, and feel I’m hitting the limitations of that board, not in channel count, but in features. Since I run monitors from FOH, I can only subgroup so many things and then it doesn’t have DCA’s, so it’s basically inputs mixed to L/R. The EQ section is a little limiting as well compared to say an X32, which I mix on for HOW stuff on Sunday’s. I also occasionally mix a more regional cover band with an M32, but their console is set up basically inputs to L/R as well however they do use the DCA’s.

So at what point do sound techs make the switch from inputs straight to L/R to what I’m calling all the fancy bells and whistles of stereo subgroups using parallel compression and dynamic EQ’s and comparing plugin chains similar to a recording studio?

David

Sitting here looking at my thirty+ year old analog test bench gear and thinking there must be a lot of Leader, LAG-120As floating around for cheap on Ebay and when I looked there were indeed a few but surprisingly not as cheap as I expected. I may have to list mine.

I'm not sure on how the equipment purchase times is doing now, but most places are still taking long periods of time to get equipment out to customers. Reach out to a rep and see what they say.

More data!!!

Ok, so initially we will rent PA's to spec for the venues. The Purchase is for the actual tour next year. This company is looking to become a full production company, so that is the reason for purchase, it will have its own market. There is a Tour Manager already in place and I believe I have my Monitor Engineer in place as well. I just received the contract the other day, and signing is early in May, rehearsals start first of June.

I am on the lookout for a Systems Engineer. I would prefer one that will play as an A2 as well. The early dates are going to be small enough that having a dedicated role would not hold value. I know I can sell the management on paying a retainer salary for someone who can do both as needed. I am semi responsible for finding the Audio Talent. I.E. I am not required to, but am being asked to build my team. I have one A3, and about 95% sure on my Monitor guy. So, if anyone knows a Systems Engineer that is ok with playing as an A2, please let me know, I would love to talk to them.

I have an NDA, so I can't divulge much else, but I can say that while initially things seemed weird, everything I was told has turned out true, and things are panning out as you would expect with the exception of being time crunched. 3 months of rehearsals seems tight to me, I would prefer 6+ months, especially since the mixer option has not yet been decided. My brief conversation with my Monitor Engineer suggests we are looking to the Rivage PM5.

Thank you all and keep em coming!!

Actor Terry Carter passed away, he was a trailblazer and had a vast career. RIP.

https://people.com/terry-carter-battlestar-galactica-mccloud-actor-dead-at-95-8637911

In the stand alone FSII there is a similar setting.

Are you referring to the "Audio RF Filter" setting?  The manual says that it "may help with audio dropouts" but is otherwise vague about what it does.

Hey Team,

I'm looking for a continuously-variable sine tone generator for speaker test and QC applications. 

A sine sweep can be very revealing of buzzes, rattles, port noise, driver distortion, etc.  However, the software-based sine tone generators I've met (e.g. smaart) seem to be 'stepped,' both in amplitude and frequency.  That waveform discontinuity, and resulting blast of harmonics, can be very distracting, enough to compromise any real critical listening. Chirp tone playbacks are okay, but you can't 'dwell' on a zone of interest like you can with manual control.

So, I'd like to find a simple hardware device that can generate sine tones at an arbitrary frequency and amplitude, each with a dedicated knob, and a smooth sweeping behavior as the knobs are adjusted.  Kind of like the Meyer Sound SIM hardware sine tone generator. 

Ideally, it would have a line level XLR output, and be compact, and economical.  E.g. not a lab-grade arbitrary function generator with >mHz capabilities...

A bit of googling turned up this Tenma 72-490
https://www.newark.com/tenma/72-490/compact-audio-generator/dp/09P2110 
... which seems to meet my objectives except for XLR out. 

Does anyone have a better recommendation?  Anyone used this device and have real world experience to comment upon?  Thanks!

It is the nature of digitally generated tones to have steps between discrete frequencies. In theory these steps could be made quite small I don't know that coders have been willing to make that effort.

Back in the day I had good success with customers using the sine wave output from the LofTech TS-1 for speaker testing. The analog sine wave was continuously variable.

AFAIK that SKU is no longer in production.

JR   

And use the latest firmware in the packs and transceivers. Also, PEPP^® (Pete Erskine Pizza Pan) works; just put the transceivers as high up as possible. These tidbits are for the older E1 Freespeak II: The IP transceivers do not suffer nearly as much from multipath.

The PEPP^® I use is an actual circular Pizza grate to shield the top of the E1 transciever from high RF reflections.

HERE IS THE SETTING IN ECLIPSE FOR LESS DROPOUT.  In the stand alone FSII there is a similar setting.

Nature sounds.  See more here, courtesy of our friends at the PNW Chapter of the Audio Engineering Society and Dan Mortensen.  Dugan calls it "immersive" and having enjoyed hiking and camping for decades, I'm inclined to agree.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5Ya36u1_Vg

Dan is a man of many, deep talents and one helluva nice guy whom I have had the honor to meet on numerous occasions. During Covid when they couldn’t do their annual  trip to Yosemite to document the sounds he and his crew camped a couple of nights at our Sierra Foothills place (oak/pine woodland at ~3000 ft) and apparently got quite the trove of animal sounds. It exceeded my expectations and while I could not identify some sounds I’m sure Dan et al. figured it out.

--Frank