George S Dougherty wrote on Fri, 23 July 2010 06:19 |
Arnold B. Krueger wrote on Thu, 22 July 2010 17:21 |
I like the fact that monitor spill is way down and I can actually mix their instruments as low or high as I want. I can now get the tone I want because the monitor speakers are running at a much lower level.
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Oh so agreed. The FOH mix was radically different and noticeably more clear without the monitor mud the first week we switched to headphones.
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We have done our Aviom implementation in steps and took our time at each step. First was the keyboard, the player of which is also our deacon of worship and who had politicked hard for the Avioms. We worked out the 16 channel assignments with him. He was never a major source of spill because he uses a small monitor speaker that sits on top of the keyborad and is thus very close to his ears, and is off to one side.
About a month later we did the drummer. Moving him to hearphones didn't reduce spill that much because we still have to put the drums into all of the monitors. We actually added a mnnitor when we moved him onto headphones in an effort to reduce overall spill by distributing the drum into a monitor that was strategically located to dramatically reduce the average distance from the monitors to the musicans they serve. It worked out, but not dramatically.
The bass player was the first big reduction in spill and has provided the major improvement in tone in the room. Bass sound is low and thus omnidirectional. Therefore it never benefitted that much from our overall strategy of using the most directional monitors that we could afford, EV Z5-50s.
Next up: the guitar. He's been using a miced Pignose, but has asked to go back on a direct box when he gets his aviom setup.
We're using daisy chained A-Net and are disappointed to find that we have to keep the avioms at the start of the chain powered up wheteher they are being used or not, or else the signal won't pass onto the rest of the chain.
IMO, the Aviom distributors are rediculously expensive. I also look at the A16s and wonder why they have to be so expensive, as tiny as they are. Well, good things can come in small packages.
The Aviom system has produced a large increase in cabling that is underfoot. I'd like to be able to afford the Anet distributor that also handles power for that reason.