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Author Topic: SD-9 + "Musical". Monitor sends  (Read 1415 times)

Miguel Dahl

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SD-9 + "Musical". Monitor sends
« on: September 22, 2021, 02:15:23 PM »

I've recently been thrown into, at least for rehearsals, doing a sort of musical. I've never done a musical with a live band before, only canned music. I've done it differen't ways because I never really utilized the desk to its full potential.

My question is about the pre/post/etc thing for singers aux sends to the band.

If I do pre, they're on all the time for that snapshot, even if the singer isn't singing at the moment. If I do post then you know, levels in the musicians ears and wedges can go up or down..

Is this viable:

Send the singers' group bus to the musicians? Pre fader?

I have never tried this before. But in my mind it will work like this:

Since I only have live mics up (controlled by CG), going into the group bus, the musicians will only get live mics.

All relative levels is done on the channels, but If I need some more oompfh of the whole bunch of singers in general, I can push the singers group fader which will bump them up out front, while the musicians still hear a consistent level.

So I believe this would work out as being post fader each input channel (only live mics), but pre fader the group output (consistent levels).

Maybe a better option is to send the mics to yet another singers' group buried down in some layer, which then goes to the musicians, if this send is post insert and post EQ and what not at the group level, as those parameters can change from night to night (different venues). If sending to yet another group I could comp it more, so the musicians wouldn't get the big dynamics between talking, singing and shouting.

Is this viable, anything I've overlooked which can screw things up for me? Or does anyone have any other input to how this can be done?



« Last Edit: September 22, 2021, 02:43:29 PM by Miguel Dahl »
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Mac Kerr

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Re: SD-9 + "Musical". Monitor sends
« Reply #1 on: September 22, 2021, 04:11:57 PM »

I've recently been thrown into, at least for rehearsals, doing a sort of musical. I've never done a musical with a live band before, only canned music. I've done it differen't ways because I never really utilized the desk to its full potential.

My question is about the pre/post/etc thing for singers aux sends to the band.

If I do pre, they're on all the time for that snapshot, even if the singer isn't singing at the moment. If I do post then you know, levels in the musicians ears and wedges can go up or down..


Is this viable:

Send the singers' group bus to the musicians? Pre fader?

If they are prefade the musicians will here them talking offstage. If they go up or down from being post fade, there is probably a reason you changed their level. The musicians probably need to hear that.

Mac
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Dave Bednarski

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Re: SD-9 + "Musical". Monitor sends
« Reply #2 on: September 22, 2021, 04:19:10 PM »

I think you can get there a few ways on the SD series.  You can send a group into an aux send pre-mute, pre-fader, post-fader same as an input channel.  You could also route a group back into an input channel and do whatever with it similarly - everything below works the same, it just happens to be an internal source vs. a mic pre (you have digital trim though).  Depending on the channel count of your show and workflow you can just double up inputs for monitor sends vs show.
« Last Edit: September 22, 2021, 04:21:12 PM by Dave Bednarski »
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Miguel Dahl

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Re: SD-9 + "Musical". Monitor sends
« Reply #3 on: September 22, 2021, 04:28:56 PM »

If they are prefade the musicians will here them talking offstage. If they go up or down from being post fade, there is probably a reason you changed their level. The musicians probably need to hear that.

Mac

Even though it's the group which is pre-fade? I'm talking about the group. Not sending anything pre-fade directly from the input channels. If I pull down an input channel fader (which feeds the group), that channel wouldn't feed the group any more. The group is what I'm sending from..?
« Last Edit: September 22, 2021, 04:52:53 PM by Miguel Dahl »
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Miguel Dahl

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Re: SD-9 + "Musical". Monitor sends
« Reply #4 on: September 22, 2021, 04:34:17 PM »

I think you can get there a few ways on the SD series.  You can send a group into an aux send pre-mute, pre-fader, post-fader same as an input channel.  You could also route a group back into an input channel and do whatever with it similarly - everything below works the same, it just happens to be an internal source vs. a mic pre (you have digital trim though).  Depending on the channel count of your show and workflow you can just double up inputs for monitor sends vs show.

Yeah one can solve this in a plethora of ways on a SD. There's a lot of diferent possibillities. It's not like a CL or QL for instance.  That's why it can be somwhat confusing in what is the best/simplest way to solve it how I described it.
« Last Edit: September 22, 2021, 04:36:56 PM by Miguel Dahl »
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Russell Ault

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Re: SD-9 + "Musical". Monitor sends
« Reply #5 on: September 24, 2021, 01:05:14 AM »

Even though it's the group which is pre-fade? I'm talking about the group. Not sending anything pre-fade directly from the input channels. If I pull down an input channel fader (which feeds the group), that channel wouldn't feed the group any more. The group is what I'm sending from..?

Do you find yourself adjusting the Vox groups' masters very often? If yes, then maybe pre-fade would be best (although this would be pretty strange), otherwise if it were me I'd leave it post-fade since it simplifies the signal chain's branching logic slightly (this isn't a technical thing, just a mental one). Really, as long as the inputs themselves are all post-fade sends it likely won't make much of a difference if the send from the group is pre- or post-fade.

Sending all the vocal inputs to an additional foldback group like you mentioned would work, too (although I've never had a note about the dynamic range of the vocals in the orchestra cans).

Of the options you've mentioned I really don't see any wrong answers; it really is just a matter of preference (and opinion).

-Russ
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Kevin Maxwell

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Re: SD-9 + "Musical". Monitor sends
« Reply #6 on: September 24, 2021, 09:20:39 AM »

here is a copy and paste of something I wrote a while ago that might give you another way to look at this.

I use automixers for the dialog parts and I have the singing on one subgroup and the dialog on another subgroup. The conductor gets a small monitor that sits on a mic stand and is very close to their head. And the feed comes from a matrix and they only get the vocal mics, the talking subgroup is set lower then the singing subgroup to this matrix. That way the conductor doesn’t have to do anything, the mix is right for singing and talking.

I am doing it this way for the show I am doing right now. I asked the conductor if he needed any change in his monitor and he said it was just fine as I set it. I just used the standard ratio setting I always do and I didn’t even have a chance to listen to it (too busy running cues) and he was happy.

What you will find is that most people need completely different levels when they sing and when they talk and you will find that some talk louder then they sing and some sing louder then they talk. And even if you aren’t using an automixer for a show like this you can still have a singing subgroup (for the X32 I should call it a Bus) and a talking/dialog Bus. If you make each Bus post fader variable you can tweak each output for how the person performs and by just switching between the 2 Buses you can make it easier for yourself and have more control.

And then you can feed the conductor the matrix feed as I mentioned and taper the bus feeds to it in the appropriate way, usually singing a little bit hotter then the talking.
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Miguel Dahl

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Re: SD-9 + "Musical". Monitor sends
« Reply #7 on: September 24, 2021, 02:50:08 PM »

The way I (think I) solved this today at the desk was that I made a group which is sent post fade to the band with the singing/speaking (and shouting) mics, So I have a separate group EQ and also comp going to the musicians behind the stage (of which I can still hear a decent amount of wedge-spill out front, so less energy is better)..

And, I restructured the desk to add some more channels so I split the same mics into those, so I can feed the front wedges for the singers, and only those from these channels, post fade, and tune those inputs separately solely for front wedges, which are tiny meyers, so I can shave off some more low end comparing to FOH, and also have less compression on them comparing to how I compress out front and to the musicians.

These splitted monitor channels are fader-ganged with the channels I use for FOH, so front-wedge-monitor-faders move up and down when I do something to what levels I need out front on individual microphones. The CG's are also controlling both "FOH" and "monitor" faders. So I can adjust individual mics in both FOH, musicians monitors, and singers wedges by using the "FOH-fader", while still being able to mix on the Control Groups later on when I set those up scene by scene.
« Last Edit: September 24, 2021, 03:11:10 PM by Miguel Dahl »
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Miguel Dahl

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Re: SD-9 + "Musical". Monitor sends
« Reply #8 on: September 24, 2021, 03:43:10 PM »

here is a copy and paste of something I wrote a while ago that might give you another way to look at this.

I use automixers for the dialog parts and I have the singing on one subgroup and the dialog on another subgroup. The conductor gets a small monitor that sits on a mic stand and is very close to their head. And the feed comes from a matrix and they only get the vocal mics, the talking subgroup is set lower then the singing subgroup to this matrix. That way the conductor doesn’t have to do anything, the mix is right for singing and talking.

I am doing it this way for the show I am doing right now. I asked the conductor if he needed any change in his monitor and he said it was just fine as I set it. I just used the standard ratio setting I always do and I didn’t even have a chance to listen to it (too busy running cues) and he was happy.

What you will find is that most people need completely different levels when they sing and when they talk and you will find that some talk louder then they sing and some sing louder then they talk. And even if you aren’t using an automixer for a show like this you can still have a singing subgroup (for the X32 I should call it a Bus) and a talking/dialog Bus. If you make each Bus post fader variable you can tweak each output for how the person performs and by just switching between the 2 Buses you can make it easier for yourself and have more control.

And then you can feed the conductor the matrix feed as I mentioned and taper the bus feeds to it in the appropriate way, usually singing a little bit hotter then the talking.

This is  great tip, thanks!
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Russell Ault

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Re: SD-9 + "Musical". Monitor sends
« Reply #9 on: September 24, 2021, 07:50:56 PM »

{...} wedge-spill {...}

Wedge-spill? If at all possible I'd encourage you to find a way to get the band onto cans ASAP.

-Russ
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ProSoundWeb Community

Re: SD-9 + "Musical". Monitor sends
« Reply #9 on: September 24, 2021, 07:50:56 PM »


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