Splitters

[Balog]

You mentioned this is for a church, so here are a couple Scriptures to think about"

Prov 1:5 Let the wise hear and increase in learning,
***and the one who understands obtain guidance
1:7b fools despise wisdom and instruction.

 

[KingRazor]

You mentioned this is for a church, so here are a couple Scriptures to think about"

Prov 1:5 Let the wise hear and increase in learning,
***and the one who understands obtain guidance
1:7b fools despise wisdom and instruction.

I wouldn't call insulting me and calling my worship team incompetent to be "wise instruction".

If I get some splitters, I'll be able to adjust the gain at the board all I want and it won't bother the people on stage. That way they can control their monitor mix and I can focus on making them sound good in the room.

I don't know why that would be a waste of money. Sure, it's not completely necessary, as we've been getting by with our current setup. But why just get by?

You guys can say all you want that I shouldn't be adjusting the gain levels but I simply cannot mix effectively without doing that. Neither can anyone else on the sound team.

And I absolutely do not like distortion coming out of the mains or going into people's IEMs, so if a signal is too hot, I'm going to turn down the gain.

There are some instruments where I hardly ever adjust the gain, like the keys, synth, bass, background vocals, really the only things I adjust the gain on at all are lead vocals and guitars.

The guitarists have an assortment of effects pedals that all have varying volume levels and they don't always do a good job of making them all even beforehand.

I also very rarely adjust gain during the actual worship service, I usually have that all set beforehand. Sometimes those guitar players like to surprise me though.

When I get there, we immediately start rehearsal and work through the song set, which is when I set everything. We don't do a line check beforehand or anything, we jump right in. So while I'm making those adjustments, sometimes it affects the IEMs. That's when we have to stop and fix the monitors. Then we get going again.

Having a pre-gain send to the monitors would eliminate a lot of the hassle we go through during rehearsal. It would mean the band was completely in control of their monitor mix and nothing I did would affect it.

And that is why I believe it would be beneficial for my church if we got some splitters.

 

[fokof]

I work very often with two digital boards , and with these there is always one that control the gain , usually , It's the monitor board that would have the control over the gain.

Once the gain is set (Good gain structure) you should not play with it anymore. There is plenty of other ways to play with gain : Fader ,EQ, comp , bus , etc..... once the gain structure is set.



The tip is you don't want a A/D to clip , so when you soundcheck , you ask the guys for their maximum level and set the gain accordingly.
Afterward , if they play softer and you need more gain , use the fader., the comp out , the EQ out etc....

 

[KingRazor]

The tip is you don't want a A/D to clip , so when you soundcheck , you ask the guys for their maximum level and set the gain accordingly.
Afterward , if they play softer and you need more gain , use the fader., the comp out , the EQ out etc....

I wish it was that simple. During the second song the guitar's volume is perfect, next song starts suddenly it's so quiet I have to turn the gain up. Then in the next song it's too loud and I have to turn it down.

More often than not, the fader doesn't give enough boost for that.

Sure, it would be ideal if that didn't happen, but it does.

As I've said before, this wasn't a problem with our old board. I hardly ever touched the gain knobs on that board. The fader always provided more than enough cut/boost.

On this one I get all the cut I need, but not always enough boost. But I have to be careful not to turn the gain up too high or else the channel will clip.

 

[Never_grew_up]

I'm also having trouble grasping the need to mix by manipulating the gain rather than the faders, but there may be something I'm missing. If your guitarist uses a lot of different pedals and/or presets, he/she may need to go through them and make sure the output level is more consistant so you don't have to ride the gain levels so much.
Other than that, it looks like if you use the REAC splitter you can send the signal to multiple locations and have independent control at each location:
Invalid Link Removed
You could also use the M-48 personal mixers so each person could create their own monitor mix but that's a lot more gear and $ to add into the equation.

One thing to be careful of if you use the poor man's splitter is to make sure that only 1 board is supplying phantom power (if you use phantom power). If both boards have phantom power on you could cook a condensor mic or the preamps in 1 or both boards. That's an advantage the transformer-based splitters have is that the 2 mixers are electrically isolated from each other but Y-cable types aren't.

 

[KingRazor]

One thing to be careful of if you use the poor man's splitter is to make sure that only 1 board is supplying phantom power (if you use phantom power). If both boards have phantom power on you could cook a condensor mic or the preamps in 1 or both boards. That's an advantage the transformer-based splitters have is that the 2 mixers are electrically isolated from each other but Y-cable types aren't.

Good tip, thanks for that.

And, again, it's not like I'm not using the faders, they just don't always give me enough boost.

If you had all your gain levels set and you were mixing for a worship service, and then in the second or third song the guitarist switches to an effect that is way too quiet, and when you max out the fader it still isn't loud enough, what would you do?

 

[Nev375]

Good tip, thanks for that.

And, again, it's not like I'm not using the faders, they just don't always give me enough boost.

If you had all your gain levels set and you were mixing for a worship service, and then in the second or third song the guitarist switches to an effect that is way too quiet, and when you max out the fader it still isn't loud enough, what would you do?

Slap the guitarist.

 

[KingRazor]

Slap the guitarist.

lol that's good.

But no, seriously, what would you guys do in the situation?

 

[Nev375]

I was trying to hint that the problem is on the guitarists end. His own levels apparently are not set correctly going from sound to sound. Either that, or you got a very weird microphone problem.

So slap that turkey! Show him what's up!

 

[cycler]

I would leave the guitarists signal where it was and live with the low volume, give him a recording and tell him to get his act together. You might also get the old board back, it sounds like it worked fine until someone(s) got GAS.

 

[KingRazor]

I would leave the guitarists signal where it was and live with the low volume, give him a recording and tell him to get his act together. You might also get the old board back, it sounds like it worked fine until someone(s) got GAS.

See, I'm not going to sacrifice the quality of the overall sound just to try to teach one of the band members a lesson. That's just prideful.

I've told him before to try to set his volumes even beforehand, but it doesn't always stick.

And since it was the leaders of the church that decided to go with the new board, it's staying. I'm not one of those leaders, so I don't have any say in that.

 

[Nev375]

See, I'm not going to sacrifice the quality of the overall sound just to try to teach one of the band members a lesson. That's just prideful.

I've told him before to try to set his volumes even beforehand, but it doesn't always stick.

And since it was the leaders of the church that decided to go with the new board, it's staying. I'm not one of those leaders, so I don't have any say in that.

All kidding aside, all you can do is keep asking the guitarist to set his levels. Just remind him after every performance that the new board is not as forgiving as the old one in terms of gain adjustment and if he wants to be heard when he switches sounds he needs to level them.

One other thought, could he be one of those guitarists that like a lot of low end on their louder settings? The extra low end could be driving the signal harder. If so, get him to roll off his lows as an experiment and then have him switch back and forth.

I don't think there's any pride involved at all when it comes to educating a person to sound their best. ...or to be their best.

 

[projectMalamute]

More often than not, the fader doesn't give enough boost for that.

A fader is a passive device. In the case of a digital board it's an emulation of a passive device, but it works the same way.

There is no 'boost' at the fader. Usually a gain stage right before it leading in to the summing bus, but the fader goes from -infinity to unity. That's what faders do. You have all the range of adjustment you could possibly need, all the way down to silence.

The fact that you are talking about 'boosting' at the fader (and the nature of your 10 million other threads about running an exceedingly complex and ill configured setup) leads me to believe you have an incomplete grasp of the signal chain and proper gain staging.

 

[fokof]

If you had all your gain levels set and you were mixing for a worship service, and then in the second or third song the guitarist switches to an effect that is way too quiet, and when you max out the fader it still isn't loud enough, what would you do?

Maybe the guitarist wants to be real soft and be way back in the mix.

As a soundman , you have to respect that.
One word: " Dynamics"



It's a guitarist problem , not a monitoring board problem.
You should show the Guitarist some cues on gain structure instead of investing mucho $$ and have the same problem all over again.

 

[KingRazor]

All kidding aside, all you can do is keep asking the guitarist to set his levels. Just remind him after every performance that the new board is not as forgiving as the old one in terms of gain adjustment and if he wants to be heard when he switches sounds he needs to level them.

One other thought, could he be one of those guitarists that like a lot of low end on their louder settings? The extra low end could be driving the signal harder. If so, get him to roll off his lows as an experiment and then have him switch back and forth.

I don't think there's any pride involved at all when it comes to educating a person to sound their best. ...or to be their best.

Right, it's not prideful to approach him, but letting him sound bad and then using that to teach him a lesson seems like the wrong way to go about it.

I'll continue to talk to him about it.

I think there's a deeper problem than that with our system though. It seems the volume levels across the board seem to vary more widely than they should, I know it's not just the band.

It could simply be a combination of things. We're in a church, with no acoustic treatment. We have mains that are not EQ'd to the room (none of us really know how). We have amps on stage that can often be loud enough to interfere with the rest of the sound, and we have mics that are old, dying, weren't terribly high quality in the first place, and are lacking in head room.

To be honest, I'm surprised it has ever sounded good. Yet somehow, it does half the time.

 

[KingRazor]

Maybe the guitarist wants to be real soft and be way back in the mix.

As a soundman , you have to respect that.
One word: " Dynamics"



It's a guitarist problem , not a monitoring board problem.
You should show the Guitarist some cues on gain structure instead of investing mucho $$ and have the same problem all over again.

That's not the problem. It's not just dynamics. I don't run into that problem with the band leader/lead guitarist. I do run into that problem with the 15 year old that's only been playing guitar for about 3 or 4 years.

 

[KingRazor]

A fader is a passive device. In the case of a digital board it's an emulation of a passive device, but it works the same way.

There is no 'boost' at the fader. Usually a gain stage right before it leading in to the summing bus, but the fader goes from -infinity to unity. That's what faders do. You have all the range of adjustment you could possibly need, all the way down to silence.

The fact that you are talking about 'boosting' at the fader (and the nature of your 10 million other threads about running an exceedingly complex and ill configured setup) leads me to believe you have an incomplete grasp of the signal chain and proper gain staging.

The faders on this board go from -infinity, to unity, and then up to +10. I tend to run the faders right around unity and raise and lower it until I have the right volume. But sometimes even when I max out the fader I still don't have enough volume, which is when I increase the gain.

I usually only reduce the gain when the channel overloads.

 

[Balog]

Sounds like a combination of guitarists being stupid and wanting to get all rockstar with a ton of crappy pedals, and sound guys not knowing what they are doing. Not an insult dude, ignorance is nothing to be ashamed of unless you can't admit you don't know everything and ask for help. I mean, you admit you don't know something basic like how to eq the room, then get fussy when someone suggests maybe you don't fully grasp gain staging?

 

[Never_grew_up]

That's not the problem. It's not just dynamics. I don't run into that problem with the band leader/lead guitarist. I do run into that problem with the 15 year old that's only been playing guitar for about 3 or 4 years.

Aha! This is a new piece of information, and all the more reason to help the budding young guitarist understand his setup and how it plays into the overall sound of the band, and the overall impact it has on the worship service.

At a bare minimum you're going to drop $300+ on a poor man's splitter to accomodate a relatively rare occurance rather than use the significant equipment you already have because one young inexperienced player doesn't yet know how to control his rig. Under the heading of giving him a fish vs. teaching him to fish, this sounds like a teaching him to fish moment.

 

[MrTAteMyBalls]

Turn all the channel faders down some. Turn the MASTER fader up more....make sure your power amps are turned up so you have sufficient power. This will give you more fader headroom on each channel. Problem solved. If your master fader is already up all the way sounds like your system may be underpowered.

Honestly, before using a church budget to buy more gear, I'd have a talk with the guitarist. You have to be a good steward of the donated funds, and I dont think throwing money at this problem when there is a free solution is the best use of that money.

That said, my band uses the ART unit you posted earlier and it works great. It will do what you want it to do, and with clean sound and isolation. You would need 2 of them, though. Also, get rid of the stage amps...it'll make your life so much easier.