Splitters

[KingRazor]

So we have an interesting setup for sound at my church.

We use a digital board with a pair of digital snakes. The gain knob on the board controls the output at the snake, so the outputs from the snake are all post-gain.

This makes it so every time we adjust the gain at the board, it changes the volume in everyone's ears/wedges.

I just recently realized that there could be an easy way around this: splitters.

Right now our wired vocal mics hook up straight to the digital snakes, but if there was a splitter that had one send to the snake and one send to the IEM board on stage.

The question is, what should I be looking for to accomplish this?

Something like this?

ART S8 | Sweetwater.com

What about for instruments like keyboards?

[KingRazor]

Worst case scenario, we would need splitters for all of the following:

12 wired mics (two vocal, two guitar amp mics, eight drum mics)
4 wireless mics
1 bass (it's already going through a DI, so I think we already have the signal for it split)
2 keyboards (also have DI boxes, may not need additional splitting, I need to double check our setup)

[musicman7722]

We use a poor man snake with 16 channels. One goes to our IEM misxer onstage and the other to a Digital FOH mixer. They are around $300.00 We never have gain or channel issues. Mine came from here. Our FOH engineer loves this company.

Poor Man's Splitter Snakes

[WayneP]

What musicman said. We used one of these splitter snakes at our church and it worked fine. You could probably get by with a 16-channel model by setting up a couple of extra "ambient" mics for the drums dedicated to the monitor mix. There’s no need for multi-mic, per-drum mixing for monitors.

Regards,
Wayne A. Pflughaupt



Administrator, Pedulla Club #45
Administrator, Tobias Club
Big Cabs Club #23
My Rig: Stage and FOH Friendly

[fokof]

With the setup you have it's the best way to do it.
Except if you need preamps for your monitoring purpose.

What's important in isolated splitters are transformers.

I made one myself , 12 channels with Neutrik trany (good , not the best) the whole project cost me 500$

The ART looks nice , it won't break the bank but I don't know if they are any good.


One thought : If your band /setup is fix or doesn't move much you shouldn't play with the trim at all.

[KingRazor]

Originally Posted by fokof

One thought : If your band /setup is fix or doesn't move much you shouldn't play with the trim at all.

It is basically impossible to mix with our board without making gain adjustments.

[4Mal]

I own the ART for live recording use. I like it. As it is passive, you loose input gain so your channel input gains need to run hotter than usual but it is transformer isolated so it very quiet. Get one from American Musical Supply and use their 45 day return plan to evaluate it would be my suggestion.

[KingRazor]

Do you guys think there would be any problem simply using some of these: XLR(cannon)female to 2 XLR male y splitter adapter 10cm | eBay ?

The digital snakes have mic preamps and so does the IEM board. So no shortage of mic preamps.

[WayneP]

It’s functionally the same thing as the splitter snake musicman linked; 16 of them will set you back nearly $200. Just keep in mind that if you end up having to replace your existing mic cables with a slew of longer ones in order to use them, it might be cheaper to buy the splitter snake.

Regards,
Wayne A. Pflughaupt



Administrator, Pedulla Club #45
Administrator, Tobias Club
Big Cabs Club #23
My Rig: Stage and FOH Friendly

[fokof]

KingRazor , you say you have a digital snake , what is it ?

Not possible to split from there ?

[KingRazor]

Originally Posted by fokof

KingRazor , you say you have a digital snake , what is it ?

Not possible to split from there ?

Actually that's what we're doing right now.

The problem is that whenever I adjust the gain at the board, it will affect the signals going out from the snake. We want a solution that will allow the sound man to adjust gain from the board without affecting monitor sends.

[Balog]

You don't have pre-gain monitor sends on each channel? I am trained on an old analog board, but I'm used to each channel having a master gain then a monitor send, then a fader controlling the feed to the mains. I'm confused about what you're changing and why. Can you lay out the signal path a little more clearly?

[projectMalamute]

Originally Posted by Balog

You don't have pre-gain monitor sends on each channel? I am trained on an old analog board, but I'm used to each channel having a master gain then a monitor send, then a fader controlling the feed to the mains. I'm confused about what you're changing and why. Can you lay out the signal path a little more clearly?

That's exactly what he has. He appears to be in the habit of fiddling with the micamp mid set.

I would suggest having some discipline and getting the gain staging figured out but dude appears to be mostly interested in throwing money at his problems. This is not the first time we have seen this.

[KingRazor]

Originally Posted by Balog

You don't have pre-gain monitor sends on each channel? I am trained on an old analog board, but I'm used to each channel having a master gain then a monitor send, then a fader controlling the feed to the mains. I'm confused about what you're changing and why. Can you lay out the signal path a little more clearly?

The monitor sends cannot be pre-gain. The gain knob on the board affects the sensitivity at the snake, so it affects the volume of that channel everywhere.

[KingRazor]

Originally Posted by projectMalamute

That's exactly what he has. He appears to be in the habit of fiddling with the micamp mid set.

I would suggest having some discipline and getting the gain staging figured out but dude appears to be mostly interested in throwing money at his problems. This is not the first time we have seen this.

Umm, excuse me? You obviously don't understand my situation at all. Don't talk about me like I'm some sort of stubborn idiot when you don't even know the facts. I find this post extremely offensive.

I'll try to spell it out for you:

The Roland M-400 Digital mixer Roland Systems Group U.S. - Product: M-400 and the S-1608 digital snakes Roland Systems Group U.S. - Product: S-1608 act as one unit. When you adjust the main channel input gain knob on the board, it affects the gain level everywhere for that channel everywhere in the system. The channels cannot be set to pre-gain. If you want to ask why, send Roland Systems Group an email, I'm not the one who designed it.

You absolutely cannot mix with this board without adjusting the gain. When you turn up the fader from unity to +10, it isn't always enough to give you the volume you need. Or, sometimes the signal will be hotter than usual and you wind up having to turn the gain down to avoid clipping.

Every person at my church that uses that board is aware of this and we all adjust the gain on the board every service because that's how this board was designed.

What I'm looking for is a solution that will allow us to have a pre-gain send to the monitors so that my routine gain adjustments don't affect everyone's in-ears. Some mic-splitters would do the trick.

[Balog]

Originally Posted by KingRazor

The monitor sends cannot be pre-gain. The gain knob on the board affects the sensitivity at the snake, so it affects the volume of that channel everywhere.

Right, that's how all boards are isn't it?

Sounds check, X instrument plays. Adjust gain to proper levels, adjust monitor mixes as needed. Boom, done. Move on to next instrument. Adjust monitor mixes as need after full band starts up.

I really don't see the problem here.

[KingRazor]

Originally Posted by Balog

Right, that's how all boards are isn't it?

Sounds check, X instrument plays. Adjust gain to proper levels, adjust monitor mixes as needed. Boom, done. Move on to next instrument. Adjust monitor mixes as need after full band starts up.

I really don't see the problem here.

I often have to adjust gain during the songs.

On our old Mackie I almost never touched the gain knobs. The faders gave me all the volume boost/cut that I needed. But on this board even if I max out the fader I don't always get enough volume. On the other hand, I can't set the gain too high or it'll clip.

[Balog]

Originally Posted by KingRazor

I often have to adjust gain during the songs.

On our old Mackie I almost never touched the gain knobs. The faders gave me all the volume boost/cut that I needed. But on this board even if I max out the fader I don't always get enough volume. On the other hand, I can't set the gain too high or it'll clip.

Either the band sucks and can't maintain semi-stable levels within a song, or you're doing it wrong. Either way fancy tech won't help.

[projectMalamute]

Originally Posted by Balog

you're doing it wrong. fancy tech won't help.

fyp

[KingRazor]

Anyone here is more than welcome to try mixing for a band using this board without adjusting the gain.

I didn't come here to ask whether or not I should get a splitter, I just wanted to know what was out there.

Now I do. Thank you to those who provided valuable input.