New Kit - Suggestions please

[dominicgross]

Firstly, I think your school are silly. AKG 414's are awsom mikes for recording and live, you need to know how to use them well.

 

As far as DI's go - it stands for Direct Inject, and is normally used to plug a guitar straight into a mixer. I belive they balance the signal (correct me if I'm wrong).

 

As far as input from VHS and laptop, the hum may be caused by any number of things, low quality cables are proberly the culprit: We use a rather nice BSS EQ to fix this to a certain extent.

 

Myself and our head of music (former studio manager at abby road) have spent the last 3 years edjucating the school sound wise and have finally won. (We have now built a Pro 32 track harddisk studio with some of the sexiest gear around.)

As the live sound goes this has been more of a challenge (which we have now won in wonderful style with a loverly new rig :) )

 

But keep on it, read books and never stop fighting the powers.

 

appologies for spelling, its been a long day.

[James]

OK - to follow up..

 

Our desk is fairly poor to start with - a 12 channel seck with 8 groups (I still dont know who these people are - have they evolved into another well known company??)

 

well the Spirit brand made by Soundcraft....

 

but I suppose it does do its job

 

Why is it poor - Not a recognisable name? to noisy? not enough auxes? scratchy faders? could a good cleanup help?

 

The amps aer pretty new (Peavey CS800X and similar CS600) along with the speakers (Peavey Hisys).

 

how are you running them and what Hisys do you have?

 

We have no DIs (maybe we should) and our mics are OK - We have 2 AT 1452's (Radio Handheld) and a couple of SM58s. We dont do many bands, but when we do we can borrow from the Music dept. which have just purchased a new Yamaha AW4416 along with lots of mics (inc. 3 Sennheiser e855, 2 beyer Opus 83, 1 AKG D112 (if thats the Kick Drum one), 2 AKG C414 B-ULS) for their new 'recording studio' - except none of the teachers know how to work the stuff!!!!!!!

 

D112 - big round egg shaped kick mic!

It's not uncomon for someone in your position to be frustrated with teachers not understanding how to use kit.

It's a good idea to cultivate a good working relationship with music, particularly if they will let you use their mics. However I've never found a school that didn't have a problem with mics going for a walk, Is there anything you are doing about that?

 

We have a new Sony MD Player which is not top of the range, but again does its job.

 

Maybe a CD Writer would be good - but why not use MD???? For us I see that as a waste of money.

 

Exactly - As I was saying - there is no need to buy extra frilly toys if you don't have a need for them - As for the MD, Again it doesn't matter, as long as it dorks acceptably.

 

But we have no outboard like an fx unit. I know they may take a little training, but would it be worth it. i.e. does it make a huge difference to output/quality/'niceness' (I cant think of the right word).

 

Well cheap FX units, Zoom, Behringer etc... do sound, well cheep. They do put FX on vocals.

 

I often use "silly" effects for theatrical reasons on specials in panto - occationaly I use a delay to give the impression of someone talking down the bottom of a well (suprising how often I have to do this in panto...) For music I use Yamaha SPX 990, basic but it will use most of your budget. Is it worth it?

 

We do occasionally have VHS videos in hall going onto LCD projector via PA for sound, which introduces a hum. Would a DI sort this out??

 

And if I want to run sound effects from my laptop, do I need a DI between that and the PA to avoid hum???

 

If the VHS or laptop is next to the sound desk then hum is unlikly to be induced due to cable lengths and so balencing is unlikly to make that much difference. If you have hum already then it is likly to be due to the pin 1 problem or the fact that VHS is horrible. Have you tried a different - known good VHS deck and tape to confirm that it is the connection between the deck and desl

 

If you want to run sound effects from your laptop then have a look into the M-Audio Quattro USB card - perfect for your use and much better than the on board sound anyway...

 

Good Luck again... :)

 

edit -

 

Oh and cable doesn't cause hum - whilst cabling issues can make hum worse - to say that hum is induced on an unbalanced connection is probably not the best advice (darn it - I don't want to turn into FW here)

 

An example

 

I popped into an event on Friday last week to be greated by huge hum from the PA - there wasn't a balenced connection between the amps and the desk and the noise induced on the 30m of cable wasn't supressed. Replacing the cord from the stagebox to the amp succeded in supressing all the hum. Beccause of the length of the cable I checked that first

 

I hope this makes sence.

 

James

[DSA]

It could well be a poor VHS. It is quite old.....

 

(I'll look into that!)

 

That 'M-Audio Quattro USB card' looks good, but please explain how its used (short and sweetly).

 

Is it like a way of putting mics into my laptop to record. If so do I need some special software?????

 

Is it easy to use? (+software)

 

What could it be used for? e.g. just sound fx, or recording concerts?? or cd playback??

 

Sorry if these are just stupid questions, but I have never never worked with anything like this.

 

Good Price, though!

 

David

 

P.S. I will find out the exact Speakers we have - can't quite remember at the moment.

 

The left master output from the desk goes into channel A on the CS800X amp and the right to channel B (via 1/4 inch jack cables - but only about 3m long). The o/p on the amp (Jack to XLR cables) go into an XLR speaker patch in the lighting box and on down through the speaker cables in the wall to the speakers. (they actually come out at a patch board (XLR) SR which is pached by mic cable into another patch board which is connected to 'speaker' sockets by the speakers). The cables from the sockets are XLR to Speakon which interface with the speakers themselves --- what a mouthful! If you know a better way of hooking up the amp please say - I dont understand all the connectors on the back, but I know that that setup works!!!

[Peter Russell]

Our desk is fairly poor to start with - a 12 channel seck with 8 groups (I still dont know who these people are - have they evolved into another well known company??)

Seck was absorbed by Soundcraft (in the late eighties I think) at the time they were one of a few company's that produced small "budget" mixers. We used to have one at college that still worked fine, it's only bug was that all of the outputs were wired pin 3 hot so we had an output loom that swapped the pins round.

 

A quick thought on your hum that is induced by the vhs, is it plugged into the same mains as your sound desk and amps, if not then that may be the source of your hum and not the cables..

HTH, Peter

[James]

That 'M-Audio Quattro USB card' looks good, but please explain how its used (short and sweetly).

 

Is it like a way of putting mics into my laptop to record. If so do I need some special software?????

 

Well you could feed 4 busses from your desk to give a quick easy 4 track, you can play 4 independently routed sound effects silmoutaniously, you could get some mic preamps to give a standalone recording rig

 

you could play cd's or whatever you liked from the laptop through it.

 

have a look at the manual here

[DSA]

So (going back to one of my previous posts) if I want to record my choir, not really needing any more than 2-4 mics, I could get a good recording through that, not requiring a desk then. Do I still need 'mixer' software for the laptop? Are preamps expensive? should I just use a simple mixer - whats the difference?? Can it provide phantom power for condensors?? What software do you reccomend?

 

Oh, and whats a 'bus'???? (is it like aux 1?)

 

David

[James]

It doesn't look like this unit will power condensors thought it appears that there is an add on extra you can get.

 

I'm sure you can find a nice, well cheap quad mic pre from anyone with Behringer probable the cheapest ...

 

A bus is another name for a discreet output of a sound desk - in other words you could have an aux bus, or a stereo bus or a group.

 

I would sugest for now you get yourself the smallest spirit/mackie/behringer that you can with 5 group outs - run those into your 4 inputs on your sound and have lots of fun re-mixing. This will sound perfectly fine to start with and will be cheaper than pre amps.

 

As for software - that's a different thread entirely.

 

I personaly use Cubasis, Goldwave, Wavelab and soundforge. If your laptop is a mac then you can do a lot worse than Pro Tools Free - if a PC then don't touch PTF with a barge pole.

 

Good Luck

[andy_s]

Loads of people have given you loads of advice about kit, so I won't add to that, but I would recommend a great book about live sound mixing, which describes each bit of the chain and what it does, and gives hints on how to work it. It's called (appropriately enough) "Live Sound Mixing", by Duncan R Fry, and it's available to buy through the PLASA website. It doesn't have much to say about sound effects, but if you wanted a book about that, you could try John A. Leonard's book "Theatre Sound" - I think it's still in print - published by A & C Black, London.

[DSA]

Thanks Andy, I'll have a look!!

 

David

[James]

And on the subzect of books - the Yamaha book is also a realy good read...

 

You might want to look at the books thread in the training forum here

 

James