Building a band system to isolate IEM mixing from venue / engineer

[warwickhunt]

20 minutes ago, mike257 said:

 

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. 

 

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

 

[mike257]

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.....

 

[JPJ]

Don’t forget, if you go Behringer you have the option of using Ultranet for your monitor mixes saving all those aux outs for other uses. Yes it means more outlay to buy the P16 personal mixers but it gives each band member a physical control of their IEM stereo mix. 
 

Edited April 15 by JPJ

[warwickhunt]

12 minutes ago, JPJ said:

Don’t forget, if you go Behringer you have the option of using Ultranet for your monitor mixes saving all those aux outs for other uses. Yes it means more outlay to buy the P16 personal mixers but it gives each band member a physical control of their IEM stereo mix. 
 

 

If using the Behringer solely as a mixer for us to access our own mixes for live use I'm not sure how/why/where/when we'd need to use the Aux outs for anything else... or would we?  

 

Is the P16 necessary for personal mixing if we can do it on the Aux of the X32 rack?  

[Kirky]

The P16 allows each band member to manage their own IEM mixes, rather than relying on whoever looked after the mixer.  You can do it via an app/devices, but it's easier using the physical knobs on the P16.  In our band (using an X18) two of us use P16s and the other three rely on the mix from the Aux outs.   

[warwickhunt]

4 minutes ago, Kirky said:

The P16 allows each band member to manage their own IEM mixes, rather than relying on whoever looked after the mixer.  You can do it via an app/devices, but it's easier using the physical knobs on the P16.  In our band (using an X18) two of us use P16s and the other three rely on the mix from the Aux outs.   

 

...but all 6 of us could just use an app on our Android or Apple phone direct to the X32?

[Kirky]

32 minutes ago, warwickhunt said:

..but all 6 of us could just use an app on our Android or Apple phone direct to the X32

Yes, correct.   The other advantage of the P16 is it's stereo, and doesn't use any of the Auxes.  But all 6 of you could use the Auxes, apps, and wired or wireless in mono without any additional expense (assuming you have the devices you need). 

[warwickhunt]

I like the look of the P16 but tbh the expense is extravagance.  The X32 is ours, solely for our use as a means to get our own monitor mix without relying on engineers; it will likely be set once at a tech rehearsal and then just tweaked at different gigs via the app.

[warwickhunt]

Resurrection time...  After experiences at a festival yesterday we are absolutely going for this.  

 

X32 Rack                                                   £677

MS8000                                                     £114 (pair) 

6U case                                                     £100

18 short XLR/XLR loom (splitters > X32) £39

3m 16 XLR/XLR (splitter > FOH)              £60

Total                                                          £990

 

My only reservations are: getting PA engineers to mic/supply us feeds of the drums to our Splitter > X32, positioning of the unit so that we can run feeds from X32 to our 'individual' IE transmitters (we all play in other bands so it is not practicable to rack all 6 transmitters).  

[Phil Starr]

Probably a good provision if you are doing enough of this type of event to justify the expense. I've had several episodes of the monitors being perfect at sound check only to be given someone elses feed during the gig, there's only so much 'can I have a bit more of this and a bit less of that' you can do, especially when you know at least one other band member is wondering why my bass and vocals are dominating their mix. It's reall tough to concentrate and play well when your mix has failed. Probably worse for the poor sod who gets my vocals

 

I'm surprised nobody yet has offered the chance to mix your own monitors via a phone app at the smaller multi band events. IEM's are no longer really cutting edge technology and the apps can usually be locked so you don't have access to FOH. I've mixed these events myself in the past and with 10 min changeovers it can be hell to get everything done and not every band is co-operative or even knows what it is doing. Passing on the extra job of setting up monitors sounds great to me. I could always just feed them FOH if they eff up.

 

On the subject of drums how about the Yamaha EAD10 here It's a load of expense but I've seen drummers use it to mic up their kits and It works OK compared to many people's version of mic'ing a kit.

[JPJ]

1 hour ago, warwickhunt said:

Resurrection time...  After experiences at a festival yesterday we are absolutely going for this.  

 

X32 Rack                                                   £677

MS8000                                                     £114 (pair) 

6U case                                                     £100

18 short XLR/XLR loom (splitters > X32) £39

3m 16 XLR/XLR (splitter > FOH)              £60

Total                                                          £990

 

My only reservations are: getting PA engineers to mic/supply us feeds of the drums to our Splitter > X32, positioning of the unit so that we can run feeds from X32 to our 'individual' IE transmitters (we all play in other bands so it is not practicable to rack all 6 transmitters).  

If you are going with the MS8000 then you could save on the X32 rack and go with an X-Air XR18 which is currently retailing for an unbelievable £359

[warwickhunt]

In my head I'm wondering about some form of ambient mic near the kit @Phil Starr

 

What are we losing by going the XR18 @JPJ as opposed to X32?

 

[Phil Starr]

An ambient mic would certainly work and be cheaper but you'd probably have to compromise with how the drums sounded in the monitors. Given my experiences i'd rather have single mic drums than some of the IEM feeds I've experienced. The EAD10 is two ambient mics and the kick drum via a trigger and all the eq etc is sorted for you. Even at an ordinary gig it will probably give you as good as/better than you''d get with a 3 mic set up done in a rush. Talking to drummers they are marmite, some won't touch them and some swear by them.

 

 

[JPJ]

A few more inputs (if you add a stage box) as the x32 has er 32 channels available whereas the XR18 has 16 plus the usual stereo channel hence the ‘18’. You will have a lot more routing options in the x32 but with it a much steeper learning curve. Same with effects, but if you are only using the desk for IEM’s that shouldn’t be an issue.

You’re more than welcome to come and have a play with my XR18 if you want before you commit to the x32? 

[warwickhunt]

2 hours ago, JPJ said:

A few more inputs (if you add a stage box) as the x32 has er 32 channels available whereas the XR18 has 16 plus the usual stereo channel hence the ‘18’. You will have a lot more routing options in the x32 but with it a much steeper learning curve. Same with effects, but if you are only using the desk for IEM’s that shouldn’t be an issue.

You’re more than welcome to come and have a play with my XR18 if you want before you commit to the x32? 

 

The messages coming through to me from the band are that we'll be buying the X32 Rack.   

[JPJ]

3 minutes ago, warwickhunt said:

 

The messages coming through to me from the band are that we'll be buying the X32 Rack.   

It does give you the option of using AES50 for a digital split if the FOH is also using an x32 product. 

[warwickhunt]

9 minutes ago, JPJ said:

It does give you the option of using AES50 for a digital split if the FOH is also using an x32 product. 

 

Never mind that I'm already considering that in a 20 minute change over (+ line check), we're not going to have time to route 5 vocal mics and the drum mics via our system... could be £1200-£1500 for something that a lot of these gigs are just not going to be able to accommodate.

 

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?   

[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. 

[Al Krow]

If you set your A&H CQ monitor feeds on pre fade won't that give your IEM mixes isolation from whatever the sound engineer is doing with the FoH mix, and problem sorted? Or am I missing something obvious?

[warwickhunt]

5 minutes ago, Al Krow said:

If you set your A&H CQ monitor feeds on pre fade won't that give your IEM mixes isolation from whatever the sound engineer is doing with the FoH mix, and problem sorted? Or am I missing something obvious?

 

@Al Krow It's actually going to be an X32 Rack but we'll have a splitter in front of it; 1 feed to 'our' X32 to mix as we see fit and a 2nd feed (dry) to the FOH.  

 

@mike257 Sadly we've done a few (fake) festivals/theatre gigs lately where even the basics of giving us a rough FOH mix to our IEM (relayed in a tech spec to organisation/engineers month before) has been abysmal.  I get that they have 6 bands in 9 hours to go through but little point in asking us for a tech spec if we get told 'Sorry, can't give you IE feeds.  You'll need to have what we can give you in the monitors... Oh and can you start your set 'now' (this being when 2 members haven't had a line check and all of our gear is DI no backline)!"  It is a tough job but we can't keep turning up to get 2nd rate foldback mixes when we've individually spent thousands on modellers and IE systems.     

 

 

[Al Krow]

1 hour ago, warwickhunt said:

 

@Al Krow It's actually going to be an X32 Rack but we'll have a splitter in front of it; 1 feed to 'our' X32 to mix as we see fit and a 2nd feed (dry) to the FOH.  

 

 

Sure thing. I thought you also had a A&H CQ12, but I might have got that wrong? And was thinking that you would have an easy option using that.

[warwickhunt]

6 minutes ago, Al Krow said:

 

Sure thing. I thought you also had a A&H CQ12, but I might have got that wrong? And was thinking that you would have an easy option using that.

 

You are 100% correct but this particular band wants a self contained unit, added to which my CQ is a 12... which is tight for channels.  

[Phil Starr]

11 hours ago, warwickhunt said:

@mike257 Sadly we've done a few (fake) festivals/theatre gigs lately where even the basics of giving us a rough FOH mix to our IEM (relayed in a tech spec to organisation/engineers month before) has been abysmal.  I get that they have 6 bands in 9 hours to go through but little point in asking us for a tech spec if we get told 'Sorry, can't give you IE feeds.  You'll need to have what we can give you in the monitors... Oh and can you start your set 'now' (this being when 2 members haven't had a line check and all of our gear is DI no backline)!"  It is a tough job but we can't keep turning up to get 2nd rate foldback mixes when we've individually spent thousands on modellers and IE systems.   

What @mike257 describes sounds like heaven, probably in more ways thatn one. For most of us the 'Festival' is a beer festival, a charity event or an overgrown village fete which has grown from one local band using their own PA to a multi band event with a hired in PA. Often the PA has been set up by a hire firm but the organisers have saved money by not hiring a sound engineer. Typically you come across a couple of blokes who have no idea of how the PA was set up and are scared to touch anything. They'll spend 20 mins plugging things in at random and line checking then huddle down by the desk with no sound check staring at all the scary knobs whose function eludes them. @warwickhunts  'can you start your set know' sounds very familiar.

[warwickhunt]

12 minutes ago, Phil Starr said:

What @mike257 describes sounds like heaven, probably in more ways thatn one. For most of us the 'Festival' is a beer festival, a charity event or an overgrown village fete which has grown from one local band using their own PA to a multi band event with a hired in PA. Often the PA has been set up by a hire firm but the organisers have saved money by not hiring a sound engineer. Typically you come across a couple of blokes who have no idea of how the PA was set up and are scared to touch anything. They'll spend 20 mins plugging things in at random and line checking then huddle down by the desk with no sound check staring at all the scary knobs whose function eludes them. @warwickhunts  'can you start your set know' sounds very familiar.

 

Our most recent one at the weekend was 2 days, 3 stages, 30 bands, 10,000 people... and 20 minute turnarounds!    

[Chienmortbb]

I wonder whether the X32 rack is overkill for your needs. As has been suggested, there will be a steep learning curve and many features that you do not need. 
 

Why not go for a CQ20. You already know the basic CQ philosophy. The only limitation as far as I can see it 6 six outs. That is only a problem if everyone wants a separate stereo mix.