Donnie Frank
09-27-2015, 09:15 AM
Good morning fellow SAC-heads;
My small, 8-channel SAC rig is comprised of a Dell 700m + RME Multiface setup. The Multiface connects to the laptop via a PCMCIA card. I've used this setup for several smaller shows with great success. For those not in-the-know, the Multiface has 8 line-level inputs and 8 balanced outputs - all 1/4" jacks. If one has a powerful enough P.A., one can actually gain up these line inputs enough to work with microphones. It's not the best way to run SAC, but it works. The Multiface also dons Light Pipe ports.
As some of you may or may not know, my main gig is drumming. One of my bands had been contracted for an outdoor show Saturday morning, Sept. 26th. They needed a band and a sound system. So for this particular show I did something I normally refuse to do; mix while performing. As a drummer I can't really walk out front and hear the band. So I loathe trying to mix while drumming. It can be done, but it's not my favorite way to perform. But in this particular instance they waved enough cash under my nose that I agree to do both. Essentially my sound company was going to be paid as a separate entity from my drumming. So the money was really good - essentially making most of my mortgage payment in a single day.
The Saturday show started @ 8:30 AM. Since I was performing Friday and Saturday nights, the only way I could pull this off would be to either take the field @ 6:AM or set up the P.A. Friday afternoon. The client said that the tents were being set up Friday morning, and therefore agreed to allow me to take the stage @ noon on Friday. One of the guys in the band agreed to help me set up. Perfect.
This particular ensemble is essentially an 9-channel band:
Kick
Snare
Bass
Acoustic Guitar
Electric Guitar
4 Vox
Speaker setup:
Mains: K12 (x2) (Mono)
Center fill: K12 (in-line with Mains)
Monitor Wedges: K10's (x2) and one K12 (I normally use a K8 for myself, but I could hear myself good enough through the other mixes, so I just didn't set it up)
Subs: JBL SRX718s (x4) powered by QSC PLX3602's (x2) in bridge mode (probably an overkill - I could have gotten away with 3 subs, maybe even 2)
http://drummerdonnie.com/sound/Pictures/2015-9-26_DH&G_AirportShow/BandFull-1.jpg_Small.jpg
So I figured "what the hell." For this show I decided I would experiment with hooking up an ADA8000 to my Multiface, thereby not only adding mic pre's, but also expanding my rig to 16 channels. In my living room weeks ahead of the show, this seemed to work just fine. Unfortunately 2 nights before the show I made the horrid mistake of testing my spare PCMCIA card. For some reason this caused all manner of SAC problems that I won't get into here. Trading back to the original PCMCIA card didn't make things any better. Eventually I sort of got a handle on the issue enough that I thought I could count on this system for Saturday's show. I did a complete shut down and start up several times with perfect success. Okay...the problem is fixed. I don't know how or why, but it's fixed.
Friday morning came and I loaded up my truck. Our guitar player, Vaughn, agreed to caravan with me to the show and help me set up. What a nice guy!
I ran through my list and got to the bottom; Spare console. <sigh>.... I honestly wasn't going to bring one. My whole truck was loaded. Vaughn was due any minute. My SAC rig had worked flawlessly for 1/2 dozen power cycles. I grit my teeth, unloaded part of my truck and made room for my A&H MixWizard rig. Vaughn showed up and we went.
Once we arrived, priority 1 was to test the SAC rig. We got all set up and I got an error. Crap. I shut down SAC, restarted my computer and everything seemed to work fine. I line checked all the mic's and monitors, etc. Everything worked great. I told Vaughn of my problems, so, in front of him, rebooted the entire system just to make sure it was all going to work. SAC, the RME card, the Multiface, the ADA8K all worked flawlessly through 2 complete power cycles. Okay. We're good. Worth mentioning is, sans the subwoofers, I was using all active speakers for mains and monitors. Also worth mentioning is that I'm a huge purporter of colored cables. I unloaded the MixWizard and placed it behind the stage.
The next morning I arrived on location @ 7:15, but wasn't allowed in until 7:30. I set up my drums and booted up my SAC rig. Errors. I rebooted. More errors. Then I noticed the Multiface was powered down. But it was plugged in! Hmmmm... I pulled the power plug out of the Multiface and plugged it back in. It powered up for about 5 seconds then shut down. As any of you can imagine, I tried to isolate the issue. As far as I can tell, I was looking at some sort of weird power supply failure anomaly. Bottom line; It was 8:15, the band was set up and I had no audio. I told the band and my GF, "Time to punt!"
I ripped out all the cables and handed Patti (my GF) all my SAC stuff...control surface...AD/DA rack...laptop...everything. I grabbed the MixWizard and proceeded to hook up all the cables.
So what makes this post so interesting and informative? Because I was using active wedges, instead of running speaker cables to each station, I naturally ran XLR cables. Joking around with Vaughn during set up, I matched the colors of the mic (send) and monitor (return) cables. I noted, "See how pretty this is???" And we laughed.
Well during the panic switch out, this actually saved my bacon. With nothing more than a pile of cables sitting at the MixWizard, I was able to look at the microphones, see the colored cable, and accurately plug that cable into the MixWizard. But even better I remember that I had matched the return cable colors. So I was able to plug those in quickly, too!
Needless to say, I had the entire rig set up, FOH checked and monitor mixes set up in 25 minutes. From the very first song all mixes were 90% there. Because Vaughn was wireless, he could go out front and advise me. I proceeded to tweak the FOH and monitor mixes over the next 2 songs. By the third song everything was set.
http://drummerdonnie.com/sound/Pictures/2015-9-26_DH&G_AirportShow/Me_Small.jpg
I guess the point of this whole story is that, what started off as a joke actually turned out to be an awesome tool. I've always been a firm purporter of using colored mic cables. But you can bet that from now on monitor return cables will match.
Worth mentioning... While I felt really bad that I had "screwed the pooch" and fully expected to be chastised for making us start 15 minutes late, I was actually given kudos for having a "plan B," making an executive decision to "punt," and being able to execute that plan B in a professional manner.
When I have time this week I think I'm going to revisit that laptop and completely install fresh copy of Windows XP and SAC. I had honestly used that laptop for years as my "road laptop," so it has all manner of software installed. I'm going to assume that there was some kind of weird software issue combined with a possibly-flawed power supply. I plan on making the old 700m a fully-dedicated SAC rig. I'll know if this is going to work in a couple days. I will report my findings.
The show was a charity "jet pull" out at the Albuquerque Sunport. Fun gig.
http://drummerdonnie.com/sound/Pictures/2015-9-26_DH&G_AirportShow/Event_Small.jpg
My small, 8-channel SAC rig is comprised of a Dell 700m + RME Multiface setup. The Multiface connects to the laptop via a PCMCIA card. I've used this setup for several smaller shows with great success. For those not in-the-know, the Multiface has 8 line-level inputs and 8 balanced outputs - all 1/4" jacks. If one has a powerful enough P.A., one can actually gain up these line inputs enough to work with microphones. It's not the best way to run SAC, but it works. The Multiface also dons Light Pipe ports.
As some of you may or may not know, my main gig is drumming. One of my bands had been contracted for an outdoor show Saturday morning, Sept. 26th. They needed a band and a sound system. So for this particular show I did something I normally refuse to do; mix while performing. As a drummer I can't really walk out front and hear the band. So I loathe trying to mix while drumming. It can be done, but it's not my favorite way to perform. But in this particular instance they waved enough cash under my nose that I agree to do both. Essentially my sound company was going to be paid as a separate entity from my drumming. So the money was really good - essentially making most of my mortgage payment in a single day.
The Saturday show started @ 8:30 AM. Since I was performing Friday and Saturday nights, the only way I could pull this off would be to either take the field @ 6:AM or set up the P.A. Friday afternoon. The client said that the tents were being set up Friday morning, and therefore agreed to allow me to take the stage @ noon on Friday. One of the guys in the band agreed to help me set up. Perfect.
This particular ensemble is essentially an 9-channel band:
Kick
Snare
Bass
Acoustic Guitar
Electric Guitar
4 Vox
Speaker setup:
Mains: K12 (x2) (Mono)
Center fill: K12 (in-line with Mains)
Monitor Wedges: K10's (x2) and one K12 (I normally use a K8 for myself, but I could hear myself good enough through the other mixes, so I just didn't set it up)
Subs: JBL SRX718s (x4) powered by QSC PLX3602's (x2) in bridge mode (probably an overkill - I could have gotten away with 3 subs, maybe even 2)
http://drummerdonnie.com/sound/Pictures/2015-9-26_DH&G_AirportShow/BandFull-1.jpg_Small.jpg
So I figured "what the hell." For this show I decided I would experiment with hooking up an ADA8000 to my Multiface, thereby not only adding mic pre's, but also expanding my rig to 16 channels. In my living room weeks ahead of the show, this seemed to work just fine. Unfortunately 2 nights before the show I made the horrid mistake of testing my spare PCMCIA card. For some reason this caused all manner of SAC problems that I won't get into here. Trading back to the original PCMCIA card didn't make things any better. Eventually I sort of got a handle on the issue enough that I thought I could count on this system for Saturday's show. I did a complete shut down and start up several times with perfect success. Okay...the problem is fixed. I don't know how or why, but it's fixed.
Friday morning came and I loaded up my truck. Our guitar player, Vaughn, agreed to caravan with me to the show and help me set up. What a nice guy!
I ran through my list and got to the bottom; Spare console. <sigh>.... I honestly wasn't going to bring one. My whole truck was loaded. Vaughn was due any minute. My SAC rig had worked flawlessly for 1/2 dozen power cycles. I grit my teeth, unloaded part of my truck and made room for my A&H MixWizard rig. Vaughn showed up and we went.
Once we arrived, priority 1 was to test the SAC rig. We got all set up and I got an error. Crap. I shut down SAC, restarted my computer and everything seemed to work fine. I line checked all the mic's and monitors, etc. Everything worked great. I told Vaughn of my problems, so, in front of him, rebooted the entire system just to make sure it was all going to work. SAC, the RME card, the Multiface, the ADA8K all worked flawlessly through 2 complete power cycles. Okay. We're good. Worth mentioning is, sans the subwoofers, I was using all active speakers for mains and monitors. Also worth mentioning is that I'm a huge purporter of colored cables. I unloaded the MixWizard and placed it behind the stage.
The next morning I arrived on location @ 7:15, but wasn't allowed in until 7:30. I set up my drums and booted up my SAC rig. Errors. I rebooted. More errors. Then I noticed the Multiface was powered down. But it was plugged in! Hmmmm... I pulled the power plug out of the Multiface and plugged it back in. It powered up for about 5 seconds then shut down. As any of you can imagine, I tried to isolate the issue. As far as I can tell, I was looking at some sort of weird power supply failure anomaly. Bottom line; It was 8:15, the band was set up and I had no audio. I told the band and my GF, "Time to punt!"
I ripped out all the cables and handed Patti (my GF) all my SAC stuff...control surface...AD/DA rack...laptop...everything. I grabbed the MixWizard and proceeded to hook up all the cables.
So what makes this post so interesting and informative? Because I was using active wedges, instead of running speaker cables to each station, I naturally ran XLR cables. Joking around with Vaughn during set up, I matched the colors of the mic (send) and monitor (return) cables. I noted, "See how pretty this is???" And we laughed.
Well during the panic switch out, this actually saved my bacon. With nothing more than a pile of cables sitting at the MixWizard, I was able to look at the microphones, see the colored cable, and accurately plug that cable into the MixWizard. But even better I remember that I had matched the return cable colors. So I was able to plug those in quickly, too!
Needless to say, I had the entire rig set up, FOH checked and monitor mixes set up in 25 minutes. From the very first song all mixes were 90% there. Because Vaughn was wireless, he could go out front and advise me. I proceeded to tweak the FOH and monitor mixes over the next 2 songs. By the third song everything was set.
http://drummerdonnie.com/sound/Pictures/2015-9-26_DH&G_AirportShow/Me_Small.jpg
I guess the point of this whole story is that, what started off as a joke actually turned out to be an awesome tool. I've always been a firm purporter of using colored mic cables. But you can bet that from now on monitor return cables will match.
Worth mentioning... While I felt really bad that I had "screwed the pooch" and fully expected to be chastised for making us start 15 minutes late, I was actually given kudos for having a "plan B," making an executive decision to "punt," and being able to execute that plan B in a professional manner.
When I have time this week I think I'm going to revisit that laptop and completely install fresh copy of Windows XP and SAC. I had honestly used that laptop for years as my "road laptop," so it has all manner of software installed. I'm going to assume that there was some kind of weird software issue combined with a possibly-flawed power supply. I plan on making the old 700m a fully-dedicated SAC rig. I'll know if this is going to work in a couple days. I will report my findings.
The show was a charity "jet pull" out at the Albuquerque Sunport. Fun gig.
http://drummerdonnie.com/sound/Pictures/2015-9-26_DH&G_AirportShow/Event_Small.jpg