5 day corporate event

[Wink0r]

The shows we play have the volume increasing over the course of the evening. The Pictures Band (at wedding receptions or corporate functions) usually starts out playing dinner music and progressively ramps it up to hard-thumping hip-hop and current dance hits.

This can work fine if the band is well controlled and plays at a reasonable stage volume. In many smaller venue situations, where the pa is more reinforcement than primary sound source, changing the master levels requires a re-mix anyway because the relationships all change. It happens outdoors, too, if you drop the volume as in noise ordinance/complaint time.

[RandyHyde]

Am I the only one who doesn't touch my main faders once the show has started?

When you do festivals with several different acts, you'll wind up adjusting the mains quite a bit.

Also, we run delay stacks at larger shows, so we're often making adjustments to balance FOH mains with the delay stacks (typically bringing FOH mains down to stop blasting people in the front row and letting delays stacks do their thing with the back of the venue).

Even when working with a single act, we generally start off quiet and bring the house volume up as people's ears get deadened during the show.
Cheers,
Randy Hyde

[Bob L]

If I find myself in this situation, for the few times that I increase a FOH master fader x db... it's pretty simple to just flip to the monitor console that chases it and raise that master the same x db...

And once the latch thru consoles option is finally in... then this becomes a non-issue anyway.

So I really think the monitor sub mixer idea is a very useful concept and should not be so quickly discounted... and it can be applied to many other situations as well.

Bob L

[Alex]

Using the monitor mix for subs is something I encounter with many Eng's using Ls9's, It would very powerful in SAC, currently we just buss to sub grp 2 and plug-in a filter that suits the need, but having all the mixer features to use in the sub mix with no need to flip between mixes for level control would be great.

Look forward to that.

[dbarrow]

Using the monitor mix for subs is something I encounter with many Eng's using Ls9's, It would very powerful in SAC, currently we just buss to sub grp 2 and plug-in a filter that suits the need, but having all the mixer features to use in the sub mix with no need to flip between mixes for level control would be great.

Look forward to that.

How would you access those features without switching views or mixers? How do you do it on an LS9? Don't you have to switch over to the monitor mixer page?

[operationwhat]

Great!!! And what preamps or converters did you use? Were they stock or pimped behringers or something else?

thanx!

[RBIngraham]

How would you access those features without switching views or mixers? How do you do it on an LS9? Don't you have to switch over to the monitor mixer page?

No in SAC you would have to switch views to the monitor mixer and navigate away from your FOH mix, which is why I have never bothered with this technique. I just do as Alex suggested, and set up two outputs, and channels I want in the sub are assigned to it and those that I don't want are not. You can easily control the balance between sub and hi/mid by adjusting the levels of the two outputs and you can latch them so they move together if you like to move your master output levels during a show, which I actually never do.

On an LS9, you could set up a Mix Buss to be the feed to the sub and then you would just press that send button twice, this would put it into Sends on Fader mode, you move the faders to bring the channels you want into the sub at various levels. Hit the home button to get back out of that. But again, I think that is a waste of time and too much work for a simple sub feed. I personally just let all the instruments minus vocals to go to the sub. If you've done your low cuts correctly on the inputs it simply doesn't matter. Then I use matrix outputs for all my main system feeds on the LS9. The stereo buss becomes my band/orch main mix, the mono buss becomes my vocal master. Both of those are feed to matrix outputs which allow for dialing in various outputs, like left main, right main, center, subs, nearfill, surround, etc... This way I can adjust those feeds as I like for vocals and music separately.

[RandyHyde]

If I find myself in this situation, for the few times that I increase a FOH master fader x db... it's pretty simple to just flip to the monitor console that chases it and raise that master the same x db...

When you've got an expert SAC user that has set up and is using this option, perhaps. When you've got a crew of sound engineers cycling through your system, less so. When you've got a guest engineer who has never before used SAC, they'll quickly be asking you why the low-end didn't come up when they raise the volume. I know, I started out trying to use a monitor board for the aux-fed subs and ran into these problems.

OTOH, monitor boards seem to be perfect for delay stacks. Largely because you want to adjust their (master) levels independently. I set the input channels all to 0 dB, grab the inputs from post-fader (FOH), and then make tweaks to things that need to be boosted out at the delay station (usually backline, as the amps don't carry that far). Works great.

And once the latch thru consoles option is finally in... then this becomes a non-issue anyway.

Yes, I am looking forward to that feature.

So I really think the monitor sub mixer idea is a very useful concept and should not be so quickly discounted... and it can be applied to many other situations as well.

Bob L

No doubt it's useful for many situations. Just doesn't work well in mine in the current implementation.

Because of SAC's built-in effects and plugin support, there really isn't a tremendous need for a large number of aux sends and returns (at least, in my shows). So using up one Aux send for subs is not a problem at all. It's also something that is fairly standard in the industry, so visiting sound engineers are very comfortable with the concept and don't need a whole lot of training on it.
Cheers,
Randy Hyde

[soundchicken]

...why the low-end didn't come up when they raise the volume. I know, I started out trying to use a monitor board for the aux-fed subs and ran into these problems...

It's sounding like this is going to be remedied with a latch through mixers option Bob is adding in.

[keithsplace]

No, your not the only one. I hardly ever touch the masters after an initial brush up. I run two mains, tops and a sub master side by side.
I usually will start with both at -5 to 0 and brush up or down the one that may need adjusting. I will sometimes lock them but usually never need to touch them. I also set a livelizer on both mains.