mike257

4 hours ago, warwickhunt said:

Does anyone ( @mike257 ) know what the standard procedure is if a band rocks up with a racked 16 ch splitter and X32 and wants / needs the 5 vocal mics and drums routed through our system... in a 20-30 min turnaround?   

Bands routinely turn up to festivals using their own FOH and/or monitor rigs, backline, lighting packages etc and throw it on in 30 minute turnarounds. It's pretty standard.  We had a 30 minute changeover at Glasto on Friday and in that time they cleared off the previous band, and we put in a backdrop, 3.5m LED tall set-piece flown from the roof, our own risers, half a trucks worth of lights on the floor and all of our own audio kit (consoles, cabling, mics etc). We got it all off again in about 4 minutes afterwards. Festival crews are well used to these sorts of shenanigans. 

The key is the preparation and communication - which starts way before the gig when you advance your tech spec and start a conversation with the audio provider about what you're bringing and what you need from them. 

If you do that - by the time you load in to the show you'll have already given the techs there enough advance warning that between you you'll have a rough idea of how you're going to tackle it. You'll probably have dropped your rack in place earlier in the show, got it powered up, already scanned for clear frequencies for your IEMs, have a loom/individual cables ready to connect your system to theirs - the more you can do in advance of the 20/30 minute changeover, the smoother it'll be. 

If you don't do this and just rock up 10 minutes before your changeover and say "can you plug this in?", you'll likely not be met with enthusiasm, but if you've properly advanced it you'll generally find techs will be plenty accomodating and happy to find a solution that works for all involved. 

17 hours ago, SteveXFR said:

My oldest offspring is working in a back stage bar somewhere at Glastonbury. I haven't been for several years but the lineup looks unusually appealing this year.

I'll be at Gary Numan's warmup show of Friday night. Really looking forward to that. We've got a few big warmup shows in town this year.

Cheese & Grain? I'm there tonight!

1 hour ago, SteveXFR said:

 

She's currently at Bath Spa Uni on the commercial music course and absolutely loving it. Loads of playing, recording, production as well as a bit of business and all that stuff. She's in five bands now so loads of gigs.

That's awesome news! Made up to get that update. 

5 hours ago, cybertect said:

A family outing to see Wet Leg at Brixton Academy on Saturday night; it's been fun watching them learning how to make a bigger show since the early days.

 

The new album is going to be a belter - I should watch out for Davina McCall to be a single.

 

I sold a few photos recently and spent the proceeds on a new camera that's small enough not to bother security at gigs....

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

That's my mate Dave in the background there 🤣 he's an excellent bassist when he's not busy being a top tier roadie!

On 18/05/2025 at 22:19, Sean said:

What post-Jamiroquai should we be listening to? He really dropped off the radar. Well as far as I could see.

He did about 5 years as Mark Ronson's musical director and bassist, mid 2000s to early 2010s, so he's on all the live stuff from when the Version album blew up. 

He hasn't seen me yet, but I've just spotted @VTypeV4 in the wild, and doing a bloody marvellous job of making Spear Of Destiny sound great!

Just realised I've fully slacked off on our tour updates Matt!

Managed to squeeze in a few bits this year. Spent a month in the US across January/February back in multitasking TM/tech/iPad monitors mode.....

Squeezed in some TV action while we were out there.....

And then since we got home, I've been doing various bits of dep cover for other bands, some TM, some FOH. Everything I've mixed this year has been some flavour of Allen & Heath, from SQ5 to the big S7000 (apart from a rogue M32 on Saturday)

The best update to this thread though, is that @VTypeV4 and I might finally do a show together this week! I'm I'm Scarborough on Saturday mixing monitors for Hooky and Spear Of Destiny are on the bill, so I'm guessing that means you're there too Matt?

14 hours ago, itu said:

A straightforward solution: buy a loudness meter.

 

Not so straightforward issues are that the space, and placement of the meter affect levels a lot. Any colourization from the surroundings may give awkward levels.

 

Professionals make the first test with RTA to get rid of the unwanted colouring. Then the level can be easily matched with a relatively simple meter. No need to buy a B&K.

I wouldn't suggest anyone buy a loudness meter as some sort of gauge for your performance volume. It'll give you more bad info than good, and steer you in the wrong direction if you don't know how to interpret it. 

Cheap decibel meters aren't accurately calibrated, and they show a peak value. Proper loudness motoring takes in to account that music is a dynamic source and measures with averages over a particular timescale (often a 15 minute average, but usually no less than 5). 

If you stand at the back of a pub with a cheap meter you'll see all sorts of shocking big numbers pop up when the dynamics are up or the drummer throws a big hit in - if the untrained person holding it tells you "you got up to 112dB!" and then you're moderating what you do based on that, you're chasing your tail because that momentary peak means nothing in terms of genuine perceived loudness in the room. 

On 01/05/2025 at 21:18, ossyrocks said:

If I were going into a project like this, I would want to make sure it was a success, and therefore I would not want to cut any corners, otherwise it might end up a waste of money.

 

For me, there are two people who come to mind, Dan Whitelock-Jones in Liverpool, and Martin Garton in Edenfield. Both could build you what you want and it be a very high quality amp.

 

The Ceriatone amps are actually very good (I've had 5 of them), and you could always order the kit without transformers and source better ones elsewhere. So that's an option, but I doubt either DWJ or Martin would build it for you. Nick at Ceriatone would build it though, and ship it without the transformers which you could get added here. Many options.

 

Rob

I was coming here to suggest Dan too, this is right in his wheelhouse and I'd have the utmost confidence in his work, both in the design and the standard of construction. He's the real deal. 

On 10/04/2025 at 14:24, TheLowDown said:

Yes I quite like TC but haven't heard them for a few years. There's also Air, Zero 7, and Goldfrapp who were all over the scene about 20 years ago but never hear anything of them now.

Air have just done a massive sellout tour last year celebrating the anniversary of the Moon Safari album - an awesome show by all accounts. 

38 minutes ago, SteveXFR said:

Is this really worth £45,000?

You'd think something this expensive would have a bit in the description about how amazing it is.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/156897867275?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=lzb7hzhfthw&sssrc=4429486&ssuid=9V8HKDKxT8C&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY

 

It's been typed in the "Condition Details" instead of the item description. Took me a minute to spot it too, not the usual place you'd look for this info. 

30 minutes ago, hiram.k.hackenbacker said:

He wouldn’t hear that through his IEM’s.

I know, I was being facetious. 

As far as I knew, they'd had him on an electric kit for some time now. 

Maybe he's just sick of that thumpy sound of sticks hitting rubber pads behind him 🤷

1 hour ago, warwickhunt said:

 

I was literally just Googling this to see if those jack outs could do the same as the XLRs. 

 

Been a while, but I was pretty confident you can route any output to them, and it looks like Mixing Station says yes.....

1 minute ago, warwickhunt said:

 

That is pretty much the angle I am coming from as the system we put together is just for us to have control of the IEM mix, as opposed to being reliant on (harassed) multi-band event engineers or in-house engineers who are just not familiar with the band.  

 

I'm pushing for us to have pairs/stereo outs for the IE.  However, the X32 is the front runner and it can't do 6 stereo (or pairs) of outs; the other lads in the band don't think it is a deal breaker so maybe I'll just ask if I can have stereo even if they don't!    

You can actually bodge this with the X32 Rack, now that I think about it. 

It has eight XLR outputs, but it also has six "Aux" outputs on jacks, and I'm pretty sure you can still route the mix bus outputs to them, giving you 14 outs total. 

1 hour ago, Chienmortbb said:

Are you just speaking of the IEM mix here? I have always been of the opinion that, in most venues, a stereo front of house mix is only worthwhile at the mixing position and everywhere else is missing something to a degree. 

Very much talking about IEMs here. 

Stereo in FOH is something you have to be pretty careful with! 

1 hour ago, warwickhunt said:

 

This might sound obvious but if we are all mono, I'm assuming you are talking about we (individually) mix/pan our soundscape to match the stage positions, as opposed to panning stereo effects etc?

Yes, absolutely that.

Even if every input to the desk is a mono source, having the ability to pan each source across the stereo field makes an enormous difference to the clarity of your mix - lots of it is down to psychoacoustics and how the brain perceives and prioritises sounds based on direction. Going from a mono mix to a stereo one can make an enormous difference in mix clarity. 

I'm a monitor engineer by trade, so plenty of first hand experience of the difference it makes - and don't even start me nerding out on 3D immersive processing for IEMs, that's a whole different level of game changing!

1 hour ago, warwickhunt said:

 

Cheers @mike257 I think we are ditching the stereo IE mix, which takes away the headache of outputs.  Inputs - we can 'likely' manage on 16 inputs.  

In that case, you'd fit in to the X32 Rack by itself. You'd also fit in to cheaper options like the XR18, with the caveat that they leave you no possibility for future expansion, whereas with the X32 Rack, you can at least add the stagebox in future should your needs change. 

I'd strongly suggest going stereo for your IEMs when you can, though. It really does make a significant difference. 

1 hour ago, warwickhunt said:

Quick resurrection of this thread as my head is done in by recent band discussions.  LOL  

 

We are a 6 piece INXS tribute band (info for context) consisting of: drummer, vocalist (main), bass, guitar, keys/guitar, sax.  However, 5 of us do vocals (inc main vocal) and the keys (he uses 1 at the moment but would like to use 2) + guitars 'may' need to be stereo.

 

x5 vocals

x1 bass

x2 guitars (poss stereo)

x1 (poss 2) keys (poss stereo)

x1 sax

Drums (mic'd kit + sample pad)

 

By my reckoning the bare minimum (if drums just use 3 mics and a single feed for the pad) inputs we need is 14 (with 1 keys) BUT if we go more drum mics, stereo on 2 sets of keys and stereo on both guitars (Helix) we are looking at 21 channels. 

 

What are our options for affordable (sub £1000) interfaces/desks, that will allow us to do our own mixes?  This is purely for use as a unit for us to take to venues/festivals and get us a consistent IE mix without being reliant on engineers who are dealing with enough without have to mix 5 picky band members + a chilled bassist?  We need to budget for rackmount splitters in a case and snakes/looms but not for individual IE transmitters as we all already own those for use with other/previous bands.

 

Cheers folks any info gratefully received and processed.

Options are fairly limited for that amount of inputs/outputs on a low budget. 

The only thing I'd suggest in that price bracket would be the Behringer X32 Rack, with an additional Behringer S16 stagebox to give you 32 inputs, 16 outputs, which probably comes in at just under £1k.

This gives you enough inputs for everything you need now, plus spare capacity for any changing requirements in future, and 16 XLR outputs. The mixer has a total of 16 buses to be used for monitor mixes, subgroups, effects sends, so you could use 12 buses for 6 stereo IEM mixes, and have four spare for effects sends. 

Not my first choice of system, but my recommended choice at sub £1k prices. It's a very common choice for touring bands who can't quite stretch to a monitor engineer yet and are carrying a self contained rig.  I'm not sure there's anything else in that price bracket that you can get enough outputs from to run stereo IEMs - and you absolutely want to run them stereo wherever possible, it's a huge difference. 

I'm 17 gigs deep in this year's schedule, and have about 80 in the diary between now and the end of November - which is a slow year compared to the last few!

Unfortunately, none of them with a bass round my neck - all with my tour manager, sound engineer or guitar tech hats on - but some cracking stuff in the diary, a few bucket list things in there for me so very much looking forward to it all. 

Nice mix of touring and festivals, including lots of time in Europe and short stints in both the US and Aus/NZ. 

Bass playing in 2025 has so far been limited to annoying the dog playing along to Spotify in the living room!

Going from your current speakers to a pair of 8 inch Altos would be a significant downgrade that I wouldn't recommend. 

12 hours ago, Burns-bass said:

Most touring acts, especially those playing festivals, will have people to do this stuff for them. Ticking boxes and moving gear is pretty tedious stuff. Probably a bureaucratic mess up rather than something more malicious.

They do (I'm one of the people that does the stuff) and there's only one right way of doing it, and if you're doing it wrong, you're almost certainly doing that knowingly. 

However, doing "that stuff" requires participation from all the people you're getting a visa for - the artists and crew have to personally fill out paperwork, visit the US Embassy in London for a visa interview and submit their passports for the visa to be added. A band that started touring the US in the late 70s/early 80s will know this and will absolutely know if they haven't done it. The visa is physically stuck inside your passport, and has a clear expiry date. 

If they've travelled without the correct visa, they've done it knowingly and it's on them and their team, really. 

2 hours ago, SteveXFR said:

If this was due to their political views, that really is disgusting, especially with Trump and his goons going on about free speech all the time.

All of this is moot if the visas were wrong 🤷

7 hours ago, baldwinbass said:

"they said I didn’t have the right visa for entry"

All the chatter I'm seeing on socials and forums seems to be focusing on the very speculative idea that they were rejected for their political views, and conveniently ignoring this point here. 

Going to the US to work, in any context, requires the correct visas, and a band that have been around as long as them will be well aware of it. They're expensive and time consuming to obtain, but they're a reality of touring out there. I hold an O2 visa linked to the O1 visa held by an artist I work for - even with that I can only enter to work for that specific artist and nobody else. 

If you visit the US and work (and playing a show counts as work) without the correct visas you are working illegally and if caught you're liable to be deported, banned from the country for 5-10 years, and ineligible for the ESTA programme (tourist visa waiver) permanently. 

If they've rocked up to the border without the correct visas to work, that will absolutely be the primary reason they've been denied entry, and it's on the band and their team for not having their paperwork lined up. US immigration don't muck about, even more so under the current administration, and I'd not be taking any chances going over without watertight paperwork. 

1 minute ago, SuperSeagull said:

Nice. The A&H apps inc one which is highly simplified and locked to a few basic functions but will look at that app as well. 

I know A&H have a Custom Control app for some of their consoles but don't know if it's available for QU. 

With the Mixing Station custom layouts, you get a grid and can draw on/reposition/resize any controls you want, wherever you want, and you have options to limit how they operate too. Definitely worth having a little play with it.

On 18/03/2025 at 07:10, SuperSeagull said:

A further update for those who kindly gave me advice on this. After lots of research, chatting to install companies, other churches and a generous donation from a member of the church who recently passed, I settled on using a local company TSPro who have done loads of church installs and both my boys used to work for on Saturdays back when they were (much!) younger.

 

Going in this week is a system based around an A&H Qu16 desk, A&H stage box, EV speakers, Sennheiser wireless mics plus a three screen video system with wireless streaming. I’m adding some gear I was able to source more cheaply from Thomann - e835 mics, K&M stands, Alto powered monitors and a few other bits and pieces. Ready for a try out next Sunday, two days before I start my first round of chemo so hopefully all works well if I’m not able to be around quite as much. Hugely impressed by what I’ve seen of the Qu16 so far - easy to set and recall scenes, run via an iPad - lots for me to learn. We’ve also been able to afford (thanks to the bequest) to replace all the old wooden chairs with fabric padded ones which I think will help with the acoustics. 

Glad to hear you've got a solution you're happy with. 

I did an install some years ago for a local community centre with similar use cases. Majority of events involved one or two hand-held radio mics, a playback source on a 3.5mm jack, or a laptop hooked up to a projector. 

I put a Behringer XR18 in, but the big winner was building them a custom layout on Mixing Station. I made a fairly idiot-proof basic scene with some generic "safe" EQ settings, then set the app up to automatically boot in to a customs layout that only gave access to a fader and a mute button for each of the main input sources (Mic 1, Mic 2, HDMI, 3.5mm, and a stereo XLR hookup at the back of the room for visiting mixers on larger events), a fader that brought up reverb on the mics, a master fader, and a big red "reset to defaults" button that reloaded my scene in case something had gone awry. This meant the least skilled volunteer could operate the system for 95% of their requirements. The full interface was a couple of button presses away for an experienced op to use if required. 

You could do a similar thing tailored to your use case for any desk supported by Mixing Station (Behringer XR, X32; Allen & Heath CQ, QU, SQ; various others) and just give volunteers the tablet to use.