Ben Langfeld Posted August 12, 2006 Share Posted August 12, 2006 If the band is as such and is not seen by the audience, one would wonder why a pre-recorded mix is not more suitable. Are you serious?! Only the sh*ttest (sorry) musicals use a pre-recorded band, and when used this is a hugely obvious sonic factor. Notre Dame De Paris anyone? AWFUL show, completely recorded band and backing vocals. NASTY solution, pre-rec bands. I can't for the life of me work out what the difference would be. Surely with the band locked up behind screens, it's not going to be as "live" as live music is supposed to be. And the music will be the same every night.... And the audience won't even know there's a band there, because they can't see them. Seems rather purist to me..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lifeisacabaret Posted August 12, 2006 Author Share Posted August 12, 2006 Its not purist, its theatre. In the VAST majority of musicals at every level, the band is live. If the music is prerecorded, then it will be a very stale feel to the performance. Not too mention that most musicals are not just song- scene- song- theres interchanges, massively fast transitions and huge dynamic ranges. Actors cant, and shouldnt, repeat the same performance every night, and they certainly shouldnt do so to fit with a pre-rec backing track. And believe me, the whole feel of the performance will be different, and better, with a live band. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IanG Posted August 13, 2006 Share Posted August 13, 2006 As for mute vs fader, with Yamaha mixers I never use the mute button anymore (well, very rarely anyway) and just programme in fades nothing (well, infinity, but you know what I mean) anywhere I need them. FYI, it can be as instant as you want, but I've come to prefer using a quick fade up/down rather than an instant change for most transitions. Most cues aren't so tight as to need to be an instant switch, and a fade smooths the edges if a performer gets it wrong or something. Dunno if anybody else does this, but it works for me. Bob, I'm interested in your approach - I've been using an 01V96 on musicals/pantos for a couple of years and have found it almost "liberating" in terms of the options it opens up functinality wise. However, this years panto is the first where I intend to pre-program the desk with scenes, as I won't be opping the show. My intention was to program only the mutes leaving the sound op the ability to tweak the levels for each night's performance without the desk recalling a specific level for each scene. Your method seems more visually representative but I'm not sure about recalling a scene which fades up to a pre-determined level. How does it work for you? Ian Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bobbsy Posted August 13, 2006 Share Posted August 13, 2006 Well, all I can say is that it works very well for me. Basically, I use the fader itself like a mute, programming it to be moved up or down as required. As mackerr said in an earlier post, if you programme in a fade with a zero duration, this is just like using the mute button because the actual audio transition is instant even if the physical fader move may be a fraction of a second behind due to the ballistics of the hardware. For fade ups, I would make the preset level one at the bottom of the range where I expect the vocalist to be...I don't know about you, but this mirrors how I work with a manual analogue board anyway--I tend to have a "starting point" that I know is safe from the point of view of hearing the vocal but not likely to "blast in" given natural variations by the performers. However, as mentioned above, I've also found that in general I'm more pleased with results if, instead of a zero duration fade up/down, I programme in a short duration (.5 sec to 1 sec) fade. If all is well, this isn't noticed but if the performer is doing something silly (singing along to somebody else, throwing in a line he forgot five minutes before, that sort of thing) then the problem is "smoothed over" compared to a hard switch. Once the faders are up, then mixing becomes a standard manual practice by ear. The advantage I find to this is that the op (or me if I'm running the show myself) gets a good visual representation of what channels are active at a given time rather then picking out "Jeff vocal" from a sea of open faders. To some extent this mirrors a way I used to work in analogue...even there I'd often use the mute buttons less (given a small board without sufficient mute groups) rather than hit buttons on already-up faders. One final aside: on a scene that, for example, starts with one or two lead vocals then has another two or three come in later, I'll often set the "secondary" vocal faders to move up a few dB above the "mute" setting, again so I have a visual cue as to which channels I have to bring up farther when they start to sing. Of course, this could also be done with another mid-song present scene...but l like doing it "hands on" sometimes. Hope this makes sense and is helpful. Bob Edited to correct an unfortunate, potentially libellous, typo in mackerr's name. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bruce Posted August 13, 2006 Share Posted August 13, 2006 Hi, Sorry for hijacking this thread - well, it's not really a "hijack", more of a "unscheduled diversion...", basically on the same theme.. I've got roped in to a small local production later this year. Audio sources are likely to be 8x radio mics, 4x floats, a couple of Sm58s, and a stereo mix from the band. I've got access to 2 very different mixers. One is a Mackie 1604pro - I know my way around that one fairly well. The other is a Yamaha Promix01 - one of their earlier digital offerings - with which I'm not very familiar. Any thoughts on which would be best? In this application, one of the big benefits of the yamaha is the onboard fx and compression, whereas on the mackie that would have to be outboard. The advantage of the mackie is familiarity. All comments and real-world experiences welcome! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bobbsy Posted August 13, 2006 Share Posted August 13, 2006 Not an easy call, bruce. I'm not a huge fan of either mixer. (I'll put my hand up here and admit to being a committed Mackie basher!). However, on balance I think I'd come down about 60/40 in favour of going with the Mackie. The Promix 01 is a very early digital board and the UI is not nearly as user friendly as more modern ones, particularly in a live enviroment. Where things like the O1V96 and DM1000 give you extra knobs allowing you to make main adjustments like EQ in a manner similar to an analogue board, with the ProMix you're stuck with doing everything via menus and the large encoder knob. This can be acceptable in a studio situation but is far from ideal when working live. Two other ProMix quibbles I have are the mic preamps (which are an area where, to my ears, later boards have had major improvements) and quite a few horror stories about reliability, often involving the aforementioned large encoder knob which is key to everything. That said, I'm not a fan of Mackie mic preamps either! So, unless your only access to the effects and dynamics processing is by using the Yammy, I think this might be the exeption to my rule...a place where I prefer a Mackie to a Yamaha digital! Bob Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lifeisacabaret Posted August 13, 2006 Author Share Posted August 13, 2006 Hmm... I have a bass guitar and guitar to mic up. They will each have their own monitor mixes through wedges. Do I mic their cabs, take a line out from their cabs, or just straight DI into the snake? My preference would be straight DI- theyll be enclosed in the wings, and I dont want any weird noises being heard by the cast and conflicting with their monitors. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bobbsy Posted August 13, 2006 Share Posted August 13, 2006 There are several issues to considier on that one, lifeisacabaret. With a bass guitar I will quite likely take that one on a DI. Sometimes I also mic the cabinet and mix the two, other times just the DI is enough. However, to do a pure DI you need to make sure: A) your system is capable of delivering a suitable bass sound and B) you provide monitoring for the bass guitarist which is there constantly, unaffected by the rest of the mix. Electric guitar is very different. The amp/cabinet is an integral part of the sound. Typically I would either mic the cab or take a line out or both. I also sometimes DI the guitar as well so I have flexibility in the mix but this option can go if channels are short. My previous comments on monitoring apply if you end up with a DI only. Bob Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lifeisacabaret Posted August 13, 2006 Author Share Posted August 13, 2006 Channels will most likely be short, so im thinking taking a line out from both cabs, and giving them each a wedge with their sound most prominent (although less so than if they were purely DI'd). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dbuckley Posted August 13, 2006 Share Posted August 13, 2006 If you want to create a sort of fake VCA you can bring over 4 groups from the 01v and have a boys lead, girls lead, boys chorus, girls chorus... I was going to suggest it the other way round :) bring stuff over on groups from the GL to the 01v, so you can automate the subgroups on the GL, for the benefit of the FOH feed. It never occured to me to do it that way round... The other possibly troublesome thing is monitor mixes. If you do the subgroup suggestion carefully in terms of picking what goes on each group, then you have the basis of the monitor mixs on subgroups from the GL. Use the matrix to generate as much of the monitor mix as possible, and then with clever patch leads put a smaller number of auxes into unused matrix channels (use the group inserts, take the out to the 01v, and the in from an aux feed). You can bring over needed stuff ftom the 01v from the omni outs into spare channels on the GL. The GL2400 is a great desk to be "stuck with", in that it in no way sucks. There are better desks, but not without spending more money (which in this case isn't your concern), and if you're gonna be stuck with an affordable desk, any GL is a good thing to be stuck with. Bottom line - there are a lot of possibilities here, a GL2400 and an 01v is a lot of mixing capability, and even though no-one I've ever known prefers to use two desks when one will do, two (or more) desks can be made to work really effectively, especially if you can make the total to sound like more than the sum of the parts. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ben Langfeld Posted August 13, 2006 Share Posted August 13, 2006 It strikes me that you might as well just hire an M7CL or PM5D and have all these problems over and done with. Spending just a little bit more money suddenly makes your life a hell of a lot easier. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lifeisacabaret Posted August 13, 2006 Author Share Posted August 13, 2006 Im assuming youre joking. O1V, £140 a week ex vatM7CL, £600 a week ex vatPM5D, £950 a week ex vat Currently my only sound expenditure (as I have explained here) is the O1V for the submixes. I hardly think £400- £700 is a 'little more money'. NB- prices from Orbital. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ben Langfeld Posted August 14, 2006 Share Posted August 14, 2006 Apologies, I figured that having enough money for a venue where you can fit a 5 piece band off-stage, along with a vocal booth, meant there was probably also enough money available for your choice of desk. My mistake. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lifeisacabaret Posted August 14, 2006 Author Share Posted August 14, 2006 Theres no need to be so narky. Did I ever mention that I was paying for the Venue? No. This is my final year dissertation, and the production is in aid of Cancer Research UK. The venue has virtually all the sound and lx equipment I need, and budget is small because frankly, its all on me and university will omly contribute the standard dissertation budget of £250. Im already contributing ALOT of my own money. Clearly you dont have anything constructive to say- everyone else on this thread has been really helpful, and havent given any narky comments. Now to the rest of you:-) Right....acoustic shielding for the band...good idea? If so, in what configuration/arrangements? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ben Langfeld Posted August 14, 2006 Share Posted August 14, 2006 I've offered constructive suggestions, and you've assumed I know as much about your event as you do. There's no "narky"ness to it. Clearly you only want suggestions that you agree with and can't handle someone suggesting something that is inappropriate, but only so if you know the details. If you have any more immature remarks for me, I'd prefer them via PM thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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