Any way to "create" extra Aux Sends?
Our Classic Rock Trio played a gig last Saturday at a private function. We're fortunate in that our bass player' wife was a sound Tech out on the road with various bands back in the day and really knows her stuff. Old school analog mixer but weaning her slowly into the SAC way of doing things.
We were setting up the board and she contemplated being able to run a few more Aux sends than the 6 available. Back in the day you'd return back with an unused channel strip.
I can think of a few ways to accomplish this in SAC.....anyone care to comment on their preferences?
Re: Any way to "create" extra Aux Sends?
Use one of the 24 mixers tapped post fader.
KUI
Re: Any way to "create" extra Aux Sends?
Don't know if this works in SAC or not.. but there is a free "Bus Extension" plug-in that adds 8 additional aux send/returns in the 3rd party plug-ins page on the SAW studio website.
http://www.sawstudio.com/links_plug_ins.htm
On the other hand, I'm guessing that whatever was being considered for the extra Aux sends has more to do with thinking about the mixing console as a traditional single entity analog board rather than a digital one with the flexibility of 25 fully integrated consoles.
Re: Any way to "create" extra Aux Sends?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
KUI
Use one of the 24 mixers tapped post fader.
KUI
Was hoping to be able to access the faders from the Main FOH mixer...but yea...I see that that will work.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
cgrafx
Don't know if this works in SAC or not.. but there is a free "Bus Extension" plug-in that adds 8 additional aux send/returns in the 3rd party plug-ins page on the SAW studio website.
http://www.sawstudio.com/links_plug_ins.htm
On the other hand, I'm guessing that whatever was being considered for the extra Aux sends has more to do with thinking about the mixing console as a traditional single entity analog board rather than a digital one with the flexibility of 25 fully integrated consoles.
I think the Buss extension is for SAWStudio only.....and your right....the request was coming from the Sound Tech's analog approach.
Re: Any way to "create" extra Aux Sends?
Why the need for more auxes... are you trying to do monitor mixes on the auxes as you would be used to on other consoles... Use the Monitor mixers for that and save the 6 stereo auxes for effects... hard to imagine a real need for more than 6 stereo aux effects sends... thats like 12 normal console auxes.
But... a monitor mixer can be used as an amazingly powerful aux bus... tap it post fader... use the main faders on the moniotr mixer as sends... take the master out 1 and assign it back to the same device outs as the main FOH out... now you have aux sends with eq and dynamics... pretty powerful... and accessing the sends is a mouse click or few keystrokes away... like flipping the page on a typical digital console.
Bob L
Re: Any way to "create" extra Aux Sends?
No.....the tech was not trying to do monitor mixes from the FOH. She liked the idea of having the FX return faders available from the FOH mixer. With Vocal and guitar reverbs and delays, along with several different snare and Tom reverbs....it could go over the 6 Returns. I realize that a lot of that could be put on the individual channel.... the tech just liked the control available from a dedicated return. If it arises again...I'll just grab a few unused FOH input channels, duplicate the signal, add FX and chop out the "Dry" / source signal.
Re: Any way to "create" extra Aux Sends?
Jeff...
For individual channel reverbs you could also use submaster outputs, providing you don't need to group the channels and reverbs in question into submasters.
Re: Any way to "create" extra Aux Sends?
If you have any unused ADAT I/O ports you could also just use an output as an aux send, albeit with just an on/off switch rather than a variable control. Then hook up a short ADAT cable to loop it back into SAC on an input with the effect. Yeah, that means extra latency on those effects, but most effects are going to have some sort of pre delay or the like anyway, so a few extra ms of delay right off the bat shouldn't be all that big of a deal, especially for stuff like a reverb, etc..
But personally I would just use (and have done this in the past with heavy effect shows) a dedicated monitor console for extra sends and returns. Just set up an F-Key and it's really fast to get there, tweak and get back. Set up scene recalls to turn things on and off, set levels, etc...
I typically use Monitor Mixer 1 for that task when I need to do so. That way on all the other monitor consoles (2-24), I can tap their returns either from FOH or Monitor Mixer 1.
Re: Any way to "create" extra Aux Sends?
Generally when I want to do that, I use the AUXs re-order the channels so that the AUX is wherever it is convenient to use it. That turns out to be almost exactly the same thing as returning to a channel.
But I've never wanted to use more than six different effects at once in a show. I'll use 3 at most... a vocal effect, a snare/percussion effect, and maybe something different for the lead singer. In general I want my whole group to sound like they're in the same room, so having drastically different effects on each instrument gets weird.
splitting the signal and putting the effect directly on the 2nd channel works well, though. I used to do that a lot on analog boards when I wanted a short delay on the lead vocalist... split the signal, and put the delay on the 2nd channel's insert. Using submixes for this works too.
Re: Any way to "create" extra Aux Sends?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Bob L
hard to imagine a real need for more than 6 stereo aux effects sends... thats like 12 normal console auxes.
No, it isn't. In live sound mixing, 12 "normal console aux sends" are far superior to 6 "stereo" aux send, which are typically just a distraction from the music, or a just a big PITA to figure out unnecessary and unintuitive Left and Right panning when the heat is on and a performance is going on the stage.
Soundguy