Need help building my inear rack with p16i

[Ethereal Thorn]

I'm in process of building a in ear rack I currently have a 16 space skb shock mount rack a Behringer ada 8000 mic pre a powerplay xl pro 4 channel stereo headphone amp,p16I distributer and 1 p16m personal mixer at the moment. I'm getting uber confused on what direction to go to get this all setup and running. My band need 6 stereo in ear mixes we want to run a hard wired in ear monitor setup for now and eventually move to wireless all while sending a split signal to front of house so the can have our own seperate mixes. We also are planning on getting a x32 rack to be the core of our setup but we need to get something up and running with the pieces we have for now if we can without wasting money so if we purchase anything to make this work I'd like to be able to still utilize it in the setup when we get the x32 rack. I see the p16i uses two adat inputs would I be able to get signal to and from both the p16i and x32rack using two of the ada8000 pre's and a pair of behringer ms8000 splitters? I am still unsure what All I need to wire all of this stuff or how allot of it works especially regarding splitters and how or where i need to wire it. Any help will be well appreciated thanks in advance.

 

[Ethereal Thorn]

Just bought my 2nd behringer ada 8000 mic pre and my adat cables. I'm going to run them to the p16I distributer a 4 channel headphone amp and 1 p16m mixer to test. I'm still trying to figure out what else I'll need for this rig including cabling and other devices needed. I eventually want a x32 rack to add to the mix so I can control my mix via phone or ipad but if we are running the p16m mixers it will be kind of pointless I guess. I still am unsure if I'll need a splitter like a art s8 if I'm linking these via adat any thoughts?

 

[musicman7722]

I have tried to answer you here. i even googled all the products but can't get a handle on what you hoppe to accomplish with this gear. If you can just get the mixer and be done with all of this stuff.

 

[Ethereal Thorn]

Ok I think I've got it figured to tied us over until we can buy a x32 or x18 mixer. We are going to run the two ada8000 mic pre amps into the p16i distributer via adat optical cables then run the outputs from our 1 p16m mixer into the headphone amp and run a shared mix until we can get more of the p16m's and then we will buy the mixer and adat card later im still unsure of if we will need the spliters to run a independant mix from the front of house though

 

[Scottkarch]

I've tried a couple times to look at the hardware and see what you are trying to do, or what you can do.

From what I can tell.. you will be getting 1 shared mix for all members of the band. Look at this drawing... Does this look like what you're doing?

If so, it looks like an incredibly complicated way to get a singel shared monitor mix for everyone without any advantages I can see other than the ability to add more of the powerplay boxes for multiple individual IEM mixes.

My band is using a Mackie DL1608, so that's what I'm using here. There are tons of options. You can get them used for around $400. We only use 8 channels so we only have one splitter. We plug into the splitter, splitter goes to
1) Our Mixer
2) FOH for gigs with a house PA

We do not have stereo IEMs, we each have our own mono mix. I'd argue an individual mono mix you can customize will beat a stereo shared mix >99% of the time.

 

[monkeyland]

Yeah I think you should skip all of that other stuff and go right to the x32 rack or something similar.

With the rack you can also mix front of house when needed.

 

[Scottkarch]

Ok I think I've got it figured to tied us over until we can buy a x32 or x18 mixer. We are going to run the two ada8000 mic pre amps into the p16i distributer via adat optical cables then run the outputs from our 1 p16m mixer into the headphone amp and run a shared mix until we can get more of the p16m's and then we will buy the mixer and adat card later im still unsure of if we will need the spliters to run a independant mix from the front of house though

It looks like you'll need a 16 channel splitter ( like just about all of us do ) so you can give FOH your signal as well as using it for your IEMs.

The advantage of going with a mixer vs what you are doing, is that a mixer can actually be your band mixer as well for when you are not provided FOH. IEM+FOH or just IEM, but your IEM setup will be the same night after night once your'e done.

 

[musicman7722]

I went from the Mackie DL1608 to the Behringer XR16r and just now upgraded to the Mackie DL32r. Nice rigs all and any one will do what you want but for stereo monitors you need two aux outs per user. But you probably know that

 

[Robb Fesig]

@Ethereal Thorn
Did you get this figured out?
Are you looking to use the ADA8000s as a pass through with connections to a mixer and have the ADAT connection to the P16I for outputting to P16Ms?

 

[Ethereal Thorn]

Just tested the setup last night we are going to need splitters but everything else is working perfect. We are running both ada8000 mic pres into the P16I distributer via adat and a 8 channel behringer headphone amp fed into the outputs of one p16m personal mixer for one shared stereo mix until we each buy our own personal mixers. We may need a di to boost line level sources too I'm still looking into this as I haven't had time to test it yet. We also are looking into a steinberg ur824 interface to run with this we just need to find out if it can process audio via adat and run backing tracks off the ipad at the same time. If this all works it will be a considerably more affordable option then the x32rack and adat card the other bennefit will be saved rack space.

 

[Robb Fesig]

You'd get the same functionality from an XR18 (16 inputs to Ultranet) with the benefits of also having a 6 AUX sends and 16 track recording and mixing when you need it for around $499.

 

[Ethereal Thorn]

We need more outputs then the xr16 or xr18 offers plus we wouldnt be able to connect our mic pres to it as it doesnt use adat. I'm trying to use what I already own. We will need atleast 16 inputs and 16 outputs for our drums and full band mix with backing tracks and click track. We will be doing stereo in ears for all 6 members.

 

[Robb Fesig]

Yep, I understand not wanting to buy new stuff if you already own it. I wasn't trying to make it look like a waste of time and effort, sorry if it came off as such.

I tried a similar configuration initially, and found the complications too much to deal with at game time. I hope it all works better for you though.

 

[Ethereal Thorn]

The only purchases left for our setup to be fully functioning besides more p16m personal mixers will be a pair of behringer ms8000 or Art S8 spliters and possibly a 8 channel behringer Di. the steinberg ur824 interface or x32 rack are just to add eq effects and ipad for backing tracks and control. So really in effect this whole setup has only cost me maybe $500 total so far and most of it was aquired thru trades so actually only $130 out of pocket. The splitters and Di will be $300 another power conditioner is like $62 I'm still well under $1k for a full stereo in ear rack for 6 members thats quite affordable.

 

[Ethereal Thorn]

I've tried a couple times to look at the hardware and see what you are trying to do, or what you can do.

From what I can tell.. you will be getting 1 shared mix for all members of the band. Look at this drawing... Does this look like what you're doing?

View attachment 2819086

If so, it looks like an incredibly complicated way to get a singel shared monitor mix for everyone without any advantages I can see other than the ability to add more of the powerplay boxes for multiple individual IEM mixes.

My band is using a Mackie DL1608, so that's what I'm using here. There are tons of options. You can get them used for around $400. We only use 8 channels so we only have one splitter. We plug into the splitter, splitter goes to
1) Our Mixer
2) FOH for gigs with a house PA

We do not have stereo IEMs, we each have our own mono mix. I'd argue an individual mono mix you can customize will beat a stereo shared mix >99% of the time.

View attachment 2819091

We are only using the headphone amp temporarily When we get more of the p16m personal mixers the headphone amp will be taken out of the rack and just used in our recording studio if everything goes as planned we won't have any of our gear wasted or sitting unused. So this setup is abit over complicated for one stereo mix atm but it will be perfect as we get more of the p16m mixers and remove the headphone amp.

 

[DirtDog]

I've tried a couple times to look at the hardware and see what you are trying to do, or what you can do.

From what I can tell.. you will be getting 1 shared mix for all members of the band. Look at this drawing... Does this look like what you're doing?

View attachment 2819086

If so, it looks like an incredibly complicated way to get a singel shared monitor mix for everyone without any advantages I can see other than the ability to add more of the powerplay boxes for multiple individual IEM mixes.

My band is using a Mackie DL1608, so that's what I'm using here. There are tons of options. You can get them used for around $400. We only use 8 channels so we only have one splitter. We plug into the splitter, splitter goes to
1) Our Mixer
2) FOH for gigs with a house PA

We do not have stereo IEMs, we each have our own mono mix. I'd argue an individual mono mix you can customize will beat a stereo shared mix >99% of the time.

View attachment 2819091

We're using Scott's option 2, minus the splitter for individual mono mixes for the same reason as above.

I run each of the AUX outs from the DL1608 into separate channels on the ART HeadAmpPro (6 channel). Tweak individual AUX mixes for each performer on the DL1608, then let them control the "more band <-> more me" and overall volume on the ART since I also run the main outs into the main inputs on the headphone amp. Wired connection to each guy's IEMS.

Dead simple for the guys to use and only takes one rack space.

I used the PM16 in another band (each performer had one). Honestly I spent more time dicking around with my personal monitor mix than I did performing. It's always going to be a battle between "perfection" and "good enough" when the guys have too much control over their own mix.

With the current DL1608 setup, I considered having each guy control their own mix with their own wireless device connected to the board, but even that was too much hassle for them.

 

[Scottkarch]

yup.. .as with anything you can get obsessed or take things too far. You sould stop tinkering somewhere around "good enough" but stop trying to get to "perfect"...... with anything. I tinker more than the guys in my band and they each have an ipad running within arms reach. After sound check, they won't tweak anything unless a drastic change is needed.

 

[Ethereal Thorn]

Ok updates I found a killer deal on a behringer x18 mixer so my whole aproach is going to be different just getting a pair of ms8000 behringer splitters, a p16d distributer,and a 8 channel di for the drum triggers. going to sell the p16i distributer and the ada8000 mic pres as we are no longer using a analog board.

 

[Robb Fesig]

Ok updates I found a killer deal on a behringer x18 mixer so my whole aproach is going to be different just getting a pair of ms8000 behringer splitters, a p16d distributer,and a 8 channel di for the drum triggers. going to sell the p16i distributer and the ada8000 mic pres as we are no longer using a analog board.

Glad to see you came 'round
If you need any help with configuring it, PM me. I've got almost the exact same set up.

 

[Ethereal Thorn]

Just figured out how to use the headphone out on the mixer for our drummers in ears so he don't need to buy a p16m mixer. So now we just need 3 more p16m mixers the two spliters and di a 2nd power conditioner and two 8 channel cable fantails for the front of house. I'm pretty sure I have all the other cables I need ready. I just bought a skb velcro shelf so I can mount the x18 in my slant top mixer rack case. We currently are using the ipad for backing tracks synced into the usb out on the x18 and we use a 2nd tablet and our phones to control it.we may add a behringer xtouch as a failsafe to control with it later.