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[Scott Helmke]

Honestly it's a little disappointing in some ways to *not* be surrounded by racks at FOH, on the other hand there's nothing more embarrassing than missing something onstage because you're on your knees with a flashlight trying to tweak that #8 graphic EQ.

On the other hand this *is* show business, at FOH as well as on stage.

[Al Rettich]

Recently was providing consoles for an opening act. The headliner rolls in with an Avid S6L, nice desk. but I noticed his waves super rack was almost full. During soundcheck I saw he had four plug ins on his HI-HAT channel. Seriously?? Maybe I'm old, but why plug ins on the hi hat channel?

I cut my teeth on analog consoles with outboard racks. Comps, gates, and FX was limited (certainly not enough for every channel) so you had to get things right at the source with proper instrument tuning and mic selection/placement.

Along came digital consoles and I started to see guys insert everything everywhere because it was there and you could. More and more often, I was hearing lifeless mixes with the dynamics completely squashed out of them. Eventually, that trend diminished to a degree and things were utilized more sensibly.

Fast forward to Waves and the like, and now I see a tendency to insert a plug-in on EVERY FREAKING THING before even listening to the source flat. When watching engineers mic instruments, they're all willy-nilly with mic selection and placement, and could care less about whether the drums are tuned nicely, or the guitar/bass sounds good at the amp because you can just "Fix It With A Plug-in." Drives me insane. And then, heaven forbid the Waves rig goes down...the show can't possibly go on because the dude is absolutely incapable of pulling a mix together without his plug-ins.

There was a show that used to happen around here for years where we provided PA. The last few years it happened, the headliner was the same group (well liked, local ties, etc). Their FOH guy was always great and had an excellent mix whether it was on one of our consoles or he brought his own. The final year, he was travelling with a Waves rig and his own console (same he'd brought the year prior). He spent an enormous amount of time and effort telling me about how great it was having a Waves rig now and how much easier it was to get a good mix. Soundcheck started, and then the show...and holy crap...one of the worst mixes I've ever heard. Sounded like a poorly engineered recording running through a clamped down compressor.

As much as I get the warm fuzzies on the rare occasion I get to drive an analog console with an outboard rack, I'm not suggesting we go back to that for most applications. I certainly don't miss moving them around. But I'm firmly in the camp that you should start with a good source and use things like Waves to polish where needed.

[Patrick Tracy]

I like having options, but it seems odd to start out with them all active. I start my mixes with level and a bit of eq, maybe compressors with the thresholds set high so they do little or nothing until I want them to. If it needs more, I'll do my best, but I consider it the performer's job to give me something in the ballpark. I don't perform miracles.

[Scott Helmke]

I like having options, but it seems odd to start out with them all active.

Maybe it comes from the Avid desks, where you have to go into Config Mode to add a plugin?  I remember keeping a few extra EQs and such instantiated in case I needed something all of a sudden.

[Bob Faulkner]

Boy, I don't know about that one.  Yeah, on the analog board, you have physical knobs you can see, but then you have to know where the outboard for each channel is and trace it back and forth.  Then, when you need to swap bands and reset to a known starting point, you've got to touch every individual channel.

On the lowly X32, you can use the app to view everything on one single screen and not touch anything and see EVERYTHING at once. (ok, to see everything, you may need to run a couple instances of the app, but whatever)

For multi-festivals, prepping a plot list beforehand becomes super easy, and loading the scene takes seconds.

The only way I could think the analog system would be faster is if you get thrown behind a digital console that you have zero experience on.  Even then, I'd think it might be a pretty close race.

I see what you are saying about knowing where each outboard goes... my response was referencing my analog gear and outboard; I know where each insert goes for each channel on my Soundcraft GB8/24 (12 channels of gates, 6 channels of compression - usually placed on sub-groups, and 4 effects channels, outboard EQ).  If you have ever used an analog console on an outdoor event during the daytime, it's rather easy (and very quick) to make changes on the console and any setting on the outboard.  I do prefer digital for most events, but analog is hard to beat for outdoor, daytime events.

[Tim McCulloch]

Maybe it comes from the Avid desks, where you have to go into Config Mode to add a plugin?  I remember keeping a few extra EQs and such instantiated in case I needed something all of a sudden.

In the Profile/SC48, the plugins needed to be "instantiated" in the plug in racks and the plugs needed to be active (the equivalent of powered on), although they could be in bypass, or you're need to do a soft boot of the desk for the Profile software to recompile the plugin racks.  I kept some extra 7 band parametric EQs and extra comps in the racks.

[Chris Grimshaw]

I’m old.  My first tour was thirty five years ago.  Back then every house engineer I worked with always told me that you start at the source.  Get it right, and it gets easier.  I’ve been noticing a large increase in outboard gear on tours lately.  I’m not saying the engineers are bad, because they’re not.  I would love an interview with one of those engineers that carries racks of outboard gear to go through and explain why so much outboard? There are other engineers that have extremely little if any outboard gear. 

Any thoughts on this?

I was born in the 1990s. My first mixer was a 50w McGregor mixer-amp. Later, I had a pair of Samick 8-channel desks. I ran those until they had fewer than 8 working channels between them, and then moved to a Behringer with some outboard.
I also worked on a few MixWiz desks, and a couple of large-format A&H analogue desks with racks of GEQs/comps/gates/FX.

Particularly when I was running my own PA, on a student's budget (basically zero, after this week's alcohol consumption is paid for), careful thought was required before purchasing/using any given outboard.


These days, I'm running digital desks, but still find myself in the analogue mindset of only using the processing that's actually needed. I only tend to use gates as a problem-solver, and might only use a compressor on 10-20% of my input channels. Digital desks have given us more flexibility with EQ, and for that I am grateful.


In terms of getting it right at the source, my typical soundcheck would involve listening to the source as it is, and then cuing the mic's feed to have a listen. If the source sounds good, I reposition mics (if needed) to get the mic feed sounding like the source.
I'm fortunate that I usually end up working with good musicians who care about their sound, so the sources usually sound good.

Of course, some mics are more coloured than others. I tend to pick mics that are smooth/flat, unless there's a source that specifically "needs" something else. Even so, I'd rather EQ a "flat" mic to get the desired effect, rather than picking a particular mic that has that one sound baked-in.
The past couple of years have been expensive in mics (5x Austrian Audio OC818, a couple of Schoeps, and a few Sennheiser e965s), but very little processing is needed to get truly excellent sound. For the nice mics, my typical channel processing is: HPF.

Bands love the sound, and the speedy soundchecks.


Chris

[Patrick Tracy]

Maybe it comes from the Avid desks, where you have to go into Config Mode to add a plugin?  I remember keeping a few extra EQs and such instantiated in case I needed something all of a sudden.

Sure, I did something like that on my old analog club system. I had compressors inserted on every channel, not bypassed but with the thresholds up all the way. If I needed it, I just rolled the threshold down. The key is "If I needed it..."

[Craig Hauber]

I do prefer digital for most events, but analog is hard to beat for outdoor, daytime events.

Maybe if you are stepping up to the desk, mixing your act and leaving.
But if you have to set it up and strike it after there are no advantages.  It took a 4 stout crewmembers just to lift the monitor board up onto the racks.  More for the FOH board if you couldn't use the tipper.
Effects/insert racks took up a lot of crew hours onsite just patching and re-patching all day -even with ramlatch or mass doghouse looms.

[brian maddox]

Maybe if you are stepping up to the desk, mixing your act and leaving.
But if you have to set it up and strike it after there are no advantages.  It took a 4 stout crewmembers just to lift the monitor board up onto the racks.  More for the FOH board if you couldn't use the tipper.
Effects/insert racks took up a lot of crew hours onsite just patching and re-patching all day -even with ramlatch or mass doghouse looms.

My analog days our A rig was PM4K FOH and PM4kM at monitors. FOH was a minimum 6 person lift. I tried it with less once or twice and people got hurt, so I put my foot down and if that desk went out, we had a minimum of 6 audio crew. The Monitor desk was HEAVIER, mostly due to its more robust case, and while it could be done with 6, to put it up on the racks really needed 8 people.

The Easy-Tilt wasn't a thing yet. And then even then it was only useful maybe half the time. At least we weren't picking the desk up from the floor anymore....

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