Live Mixing Problems...

MiXit-G

New member
I've been asked to mix for a band at a venue with a decent front of house but i think the way the system is patched is a bit spastic.

I dont quite understand the ins and outs of that side of things but they have sub bins and mid/high bins on top crossedover by a berhi and through a compressor, management has changed and previosly all the system was used for is doof. (everything is RCA!)

Anyway we did a sound check last night place was empty and has a concrete floor.
I could not get a decent kik (sm57) sound before getting oinky feedback i tried to pull out all the suspect freq but still volume and oomph suffered.

And the vocals sound #$%!.
What type of reverb is good on live vox? hall, room, club...

DI bass and guitar sounds great.(the only things)


Do you think its the room?
 
MiXit-G said:
crossedover by a berhi and through a compressor,
?? A compressor at the amps output ?
Lose that immediately. If the amps don't have an internal limiter there not worth being powered up.
Try to find a real X-over.

Anyway we did a sound check last night place was empty and has a concrete floor.
I could not get a decent kik (sm57) sound before getting oinky feedback i tried to pull out all the suspect freq but still volume and oomph suffered.

And the vocals sound #$%!.
What type of reverb is good on live vox? hall, room, club...

DI bass and guitar sounds great.(the only things)

Do you think its the room?
Empty rooms will sound different than filled ones. You'll hear it in the reverb time.
Couldn't you find another mic for the kick ? I never heard one be used with success on a kick (especially live).

It seems that all miced sources don't sound good and all DI's sound ok.

What's the FOH console and racks ? (please don't mention the B... word)

;)


Herwig
 
It a soundcraft fx16 i think with the built in reverb engine, thats the only effect available.
No other racks.

what are you saying about the compressor??

The signal from the main outs of the console go into a EQ then into either the compressor or the crossover(could be the other way a round) where should the compressor be in the signal chain?(this gear is in a seperate room and i cant adjust the comp settings because it grilled off)

Since there is only one 2 channel comp i assume the best place would be the main buss out.

What do you mean not worth being powered up, i think the crossover has a limiter?

They a hiring a kik mic like i told em, should help.
 
> what are you saying about the compressor??
There is absolutely no need to compress the signal going to the speakers. If you need a compressor it is on individual signals (like kick, bass, vocals, ...).
Strange that you wouldn't have access to it...

> They a hiring a kik mic like i told em, should help.
That's a minimum.

Looking at the material you have to work with... good luck!


Herwig
 
Bypass the EQ and Compressor. You may be fighting with them in trying to get the sound you want. If the compressor is going to be on then just set it to limit the output and not for overall compression.

I'd agree that 57's are not the mic of choice for a big rock kick sound.
 
I might try that thanks Tex.

Its a 4 week residency so by the end of it i should have it down ok.
 
TexRoadkill said:
Bypass the EQ and Compressor. You may be fighting with them in trying to get the sound you want. If the compressor is going to be on then just set it to limit the output and not for overall compression.

I'd agree that 57's are not the mic of choice for a big rock kick sound.

Tex!!! He is a reverb box of a room. That EQ is going to be a MUST!!!

MIXit:

First, be aware that when you sound check, you will hear the high frequencies MUCH better in the empty room than a full room. One of the problems that I have at one of the clubs I work at is that the bands will come in early and sound check, and it will sound way overly bright, and usually we are fighting feedback. This of course makes them think "does this guy know what he's doing?". Of course, once the room fills up, and they start playing, I don't need to adjust a single thing and it sound right, and there isn't anything close to feedback problems. People in the room gobble up all those excess high frequencies and it is good!

Like recording problems, there are no easy, "do it by the numbers" solutions to live sound problems. The problems in a poor acoustic environment are many, and little things like temperature and humidity can change it VERY quickly. Like in recording, your experience level dictates often the end results. But, even somebody with little live sound experience has a chance at making it sound okay if they have the time each night to work out the problems, and they go about solving the problems in a systematic way.

I am up early today and don't have to be to work for about 11 hours, and working in big ol' box rooms with bad acoustics and less than desirable sound systems are very fresh in my mind. So, your gain today, cause I will type on this stuff till I run out of coffee. Deal? ;)

TUNING THE ROOM

Like I stated earlier, the room is going to sound very different empty than with people in it. The more people in it, the more high frequency absorption youi will have. This is a huge factor you have to take into account when you set the FOH (front of house...the speakers that the audience hears) EQ. What is going to sound good in an empty room during sound check will not sound the same with a room full of people. People absorb sound, mostly frequencies let's say about 400Hz and above, with them drastically absorbing 2Khz and above.

Without a ton of experience mixing in these "reverb chambers", it will be hard to guess how to set the eq. But you need to get started somewhere.

Before you did into the eq, the outputs of the crossover should be set properly. This is probably the easiest part of doing anything to the system. Here is what I would do to assure that the crossover output drives are set right.

Set the FOH EQ to flat. Don't just hit the bypass switch, put all the bands to flat. On most graphic eq's, that is every slider set to the middle of the sliders range. Be aware that a few companies make "cut only " graphic eq's, which means that the sliders to have "boost" to them. In a "cut only" eq, "flat" is the slider all the way to the top. "Cut only" eq's are fairly rare. Rane made a model of eq that could go between "cut/boost" and "cut only" with the flip of a switch. Don't remember that model, and I ain't gonna go look it up. Anyway....

With the eq set to flat, go make sure that all the FOH amps are turned up all the way. Yes, the amps should have their input volume all the way up! The crossover has an output drive control for each band which will be used to balance between the low and highs of the system. This assures that the full volume potential of each amp is available on the system, and unless the system was poorly design in the power requirements, the amps for the low's will be MUCH more powerful than the amps for the high's.

On the crossover, make sure that the Low and High outputs are turned down all the way. Set the input of the crossover to "Unity", or "0" (zero), or whatever the unity input volume is supposed to be. Having used maybe 40 or 50 different crossovers in my life, I cannot tell you how that manufacture determines the input Unity level. Some have a Unity level plus more level, and some, Unity is "all the way up". Look the unit over and see which it is. If it just has numbers from 0-10, either 7 or 10 is going to be unity. If the manual for it is around, read up! It will usually say. But more than likely, it will have a marking for Unity level.

Now, run a CD of your choice through the console. If you have to use an input channel on the console, make sure that you have the input set for Line Level. Check to see that the CD channel on the console on the output meters of the console are hovering at least around 0 on the meters (unity gain). You might want to go as high as +3 for average levels.

Back at the crossover, turn up the Low output volume a little bit to assure that it is working. If all is well, turn up the Low output to a little under Unity, or 0, or whatever is the unity level of the output.

Go take a listen to the bass speakers in the middle of the room. You are listening for distortion. More than likely, it sounds fine. Try turning up the CD channel on the mixer another 3 dB and listen for distortion. None? Cool. Distortion? Something is wrong. But at least now you know about the loudest your bass is going to get. I won't get into too much trouble shooting because without knowing all the components in the system, and HEARING the system in the room, it would be a long process of discovering what the problem might be. If 3dB of boost is cool, try another 3dB boost of the CD channel on the mixer. No distortion? Cool, you know you have at least +6dB of headroom in your low end.

Now, bring the CD channel back to unity, and go back to the crossover and turn up the "high" output a little bit. Go listen in the middle of the room. Keep turning up the high output on the crossover until you have a good blend in the sound. DO NOT exceed "unity" on the output of the crossover though!!! You might find that the "high" output is much lower than the "low" output on the crossover. This just usually means that the "high" amp is possibly overpowering the speakers. Not a bad thing per se. The high output volume on the crossover being lower than the low output could mean a lot of different things. Don't sweat it though.

Where the problem might be though is if the low's on the system are too much when the high output on the crossover is set at unity. I have seldom seen this problem, but if that is the case, in this big ol' reverb box, you are going to have problems!!! You are going to need even more highs once the room fills up with people, and you wont' have them.

Okay, does the system sound "okay" after the crossover output tweeks? If so, you are ready to start setting the FOH EQ for fine adjustments to the sound to compensate for room acoustics and flaws in the speaker design.

This is where things get tricky I am afraid. Like I stated earlier, the room will have a LOT more high's with nobody in it than with a room full of people. If you are unfamiliar with the difference in this room, you can only GUESS what the difference is going to be. Also, if the band is going to sound check in the empty room, they will complain that the high's are too much, and you will probably battle feedback problems in high end. You have two choices at this point:

1 - You can explain to the band that the high frequencies will get absorbed when people fill up the room, and those problems will go away (this usually will satisfy good musicians that have played a lot of big rooms..they probably already know that and will not sweat you about it...)

2 - You can make the band "happy" during sound check, even though you know that it will be too bassy once they start playing with a room full of people and try to adjust the eq with a full room (this is the approach you takes with candy ass primadonna's who don't know their ass from a hole in the ground and are far more concerned with having their ego's appeased than doing what is right for the sound!!!....oops...:) did I just say that? well, you might never imagine yourself thinking such a thing until you do night after night of bad performers..;))

To initially set the FOH EQ, you are looking mostly to compensate for problems with the speakers themselves. If you are dealing with stuff like JBL, Yorkville, Yamaha, or any "custom" looking brands, etc...speaker boxes, there ARE going to be problems with them. If you are lucky and have some EAW, or EV MT series stuff, there will be little problems with the speakers cabinets themselves usually.

I don't usually use a CD anymore for setting the initial eq curve. CD's sound too good. :)

I whip out a good ol' Shure SM-58 for this. Set your preamp gain for optimal level, do around a 6dB cut on the low shelf eq on the channel it is running through (to make up for the proximity effect of the mic..on a 58, you will almost ALWAYS to a 4-6dB cut on the low shelf eq on the channel...that is almost a low in live sound....just about any experienced soundman will attest to this). Turn up the mic and walk to the middle of the room with it and just talk at a normal volume and listen. Make sure that you say words that cover many constanents. C's, S's, P's, and B's and K's in particular, all problems. Oh, keep the mic pointed AWAY from the FOH speakers!!! :) Take a good listen. Do you hear anythng on the verge of feedback? Do certain constanents "jump out" and sound bad in the upper mids or lower mids? These are the things you are listening for at this point.

To find these on the graphic, take a guess. I can tell you from experience that most of your "cuts" will be in the 160-315Hz range, and the 2.5-6.3KHz range for these speaker design/driver problems. Also, make a note of where the "crossover points" are on the crossover. Let's say it is a 2 way speaker system (maybe a 15" and horn) setup. The crossover point will usually be between 1-3KHz. The reason I point this out is that certain speaker box designs call for a 12dB cut at the crossover point, while others require a 18dB cut. The crossover itself supplies this cut. But, a little unknown fact to some, most JBL speaker design require a 18dB cut at the crossover point, and most crossover only supply a 12dB cut!!! In effect, using a crossover with a 12dB on a box/driver design that requires 18dB of cut will mean that the crossover point is 6dB louder than it should be!!! While I would much prefer to have the crossover take care of this, the crossover might not be capable of 18dB of cut at the crossover point, thus, you will need to do about a 4-6dB cut on the eq to compensate. I use "compensate" loosely because the eq band is a bell curve, while a crossover users a high pass/low pass design to accomplish the cut at the crossover point, which is far more effective. I would explain more, but no time right now. :) So, pay attention to the crossover points too. If the system sound is sort of "hot" at those points, do a little cut on the eq at those points, and possible a little cut on the band above and below the crossover point too, like if the crossover point is 2kHz, you would cut about 4-6dB of 2KHz, and maybe 2-3dB of 3Khz and 1.6KHz on the eq.

If you have problems finding the "hot spots" on the system, go to the eq, and boost up a band while repeating the constanent that causes it until you hear an increase. There! You found it. Cut that band maybe 3dB to start. You might end up doing more later, but start at 3dB.

Once you have all the "hot spots" carved out, do some more talking on the system. Talk loudly. It would actually be better to "sing" into the mic, because then you are replicating "real life". Talking and singing on a mic are two different things. While talking, the system might sound a bit "boomy", while singing, it might sound a bit "harsh". You want it to sound good while singing. Whio give a shit what the singer says between songs right? :D

At this point, if the system sounds a bit heavy in the high frequencies, that is great!!!! You are in an empty room, and it SHOULD sound a bit bright.

Now, what you are listening for is overall "intelligibility" of the system. Can you make out what you are saying? Possibly, your voice sound a bit "muddy"? If so, look to the 300-600Hz range. 500Hz has a way of making a voice hard to understand, but it is a band that offer a lot of "power" to the voice too. Don't cut too much of it out, but don't be afraid to take a little out to help make the voice more intelligible.

About low end. Since you will be putting bass guitar and kick drum through the system, don't let the vocal mic test dictate too much of what you will do to the frequencies between 40-250Hz on the system. That is what you have the eq on the channel for! Now, this doesn't mean that the low doesn't have a "resonant frequency" that you need to be mindful off. This "resonant" frequency is caused by the structure itself, not usually the sound system (ALTHOUGH, sub boxes can have their own resonant frequency too....). The space below the stage contributes to it. Space below the main floor of the room contributes to it. The walls contribute to it. ANYTHING in the structure can contribute to it. The "vocal mic test" isn't usually the best way to find this resonant frequency of the room.

From experience, big rooms will have a resonant frequency somewhere between 60-90Hz, and will usually have a little problem an octave higher than that. Once you find this frequency, you should cut that band on the eq about 4-6dB, and the band an octave higher than it about half that. What is a real bitch is when you have the dual problem of a resonant frequency that is the same as the resonant frequency of a speaker box!!!! OUCH!!! Or if the speaker box res. freq. is an octave higher than the rooms. Do what you can.

LISTEN to the result of your cuts on the eq. If in doubt, put a eq band back to flat and see if there IS in fact a difference. A little trick for finding "hot spots" is to sort of make a "ticking" sound through the mic starting as high in pitch as you can and "sweeping" lower. Listen for balance.

Basically, after a couple or few try's at the system like this, you should have a system that is good enough to start out with for a show. You haven't cut out too much volume in the system. If you are cutting a crap load of frequencies on the FOH EQ to make the system sound balanced, then the volume you used to set the eq was too loud, or, in the case of a really big room, you let the horrible acoustics make you cut stuff that you wouldn't need to cut with a full room. Remember, while doing this initial eq set, if it all sound horrible, the empty room is probably 90% of the problem. In the initial set, you are ONLY looking for inbalances in the sound system, NOT to make up for reverberant acoustics!

Do your sound check as best as you can. Just get through it. Sound checks in empty rooms is like jacking off to practice making babies. It is fun for sure! But it isn't going to make a baby. :) In a big reverberant room, what it sounds like during sound check will resemble little of what it will sound like with a room full of people.

A couple things to look out for.

a - Watch the kick drum mic. If you are getting a low end feedback on it in a big room, the kick drum might be a little too "live" for such a big room. DEADEN that kick drum!!! In big rooms, and very dead kick drum will still sound HUGE when it runs through the PA

b- DO NOT let guitar players play with reverb on their sound!!! Same with Keyboard players. Explain to them that ANY reverb they have on their sound will make them sound muddy out front. If they insist with playing with reverb on their sound, well, good luck friend. It WILL sound like shit in a big room.

c - Try to get the bass player as far away from their speaker box as possible on the stage! The bigger the room, the longer the reverb time of the low end in the room, and bass players will keep turning up the low end on their rig to make it sound "right" to them on stage. The problem is, in the room, the low end of the bass guitar will KILL YOU AND YOUR MIX!!! Experienced bass players will be aware of this problem and already have compensated in their stage sound. If you don't have such a player, do your best to explain the problem to them and try to have them put more "mids" in their sound so that they can hear themselves better on stage. Remember, in a big room, lower frequencies will sound much louder 30-40 away from a speaker than right in front of it!

WHEN THE BAND STARTS

Keep the instruments a little low in the mix to start out. Remember, the average Joe/Joette listening listens to the SINGER! They don't have the same appreciation for "real musicians" as us "real musicians" do. :) Be advised too that most bands will play much quieter during sound check than they do when they perform in front of their many potential girlfriends in the crowd.

MAKE ADJUSTMENTS SLOWLY!!! If there is a major problem such as something is feeding back really bad, of course try to figure out what it is and turn it down as quickly as possible. But, if for instance, the guitars are just blasting, DON'T turn it down really fast. EASE it down. If the vocals are not loud enough, EASE them up. In the case of the vocals, a sudden increase in volume might cause immediate feedback. Bring it up slowly and LISTEN.

Ignore girlfriends that tell you to turn up their "honey" during the first song. You can say two things to them:

1 - "Sure, I will get to that".

or

2 - "Would you like to mix"?

I personally like 2 better, and it is usually met with a stern "Errrrr, NO!". But 1 might work better if you follow it will an imaginary "tweek" to them and ask them "how is that?". They will at least go away to listen which buys you time to work uninterrupted.

If one of the band's "bud's" is complaining, and after they choose yes to option 2 above, kick his ass. :)

No matter how good you might be mixing live sound, when you mix in a club, you will get people coming up to try to "help" you. It can be the most nerve racking experience, and you will have to put up with it and find ways to get those people out of your hair. It is very annoying when those complaints start 30 seconds into the first song!!! :D

DON'T MAKE CRUCIAL MIXING DECISIONS FROM YOUR MIX POSITION UNLESS YOU HAVE A PRIME SPOT IN THE ROOM!!!!

More times than not, the sound board is located where it is convientent to install it, or is the most out of the way , NOT where you can actually hear what is going on! You might "off axix", or in a corner in the back of the room. What you hear at mix position resembles LITTLE to what you would hear in the middle of the crowd. You need to make trips to the middle of the crowd until you KNOW what the difference between the two spots are.

If you are hearing a frequency that is about ready to go into full feedback, here is a great way to find it without messing up the whole eq curve while guessing:

Make a good guess at what frequency is about to feedback or IS feeding back.

Go to the eq, note where the position of the slider is, then quickly turn that slider up then back down 3 or 4 times VERY QUICKLY. If that is the right band, you will hear a little "squawk" of feedback. Turn that slider down 2-4dB lower than it was originally set at. There! You found the feedback frequency and turned it down.

If you guessed wrongly, put that slider back to where it was (you DID note where it was right?). Try another band, turning it up and down quickly 3 or 4 times (turn it up 3-4dB).

When you find the right frequency, you should hear it "jump out" every time you turn it up. Do it quickly because you don't want feedback to continue for more than just an instance.

Experienced bands will hear you doing this and not freakout, and will note that you know what you are doing. Inexperienced bands might freakout a bit. Don't YOU freakout no matter what though. Solve the problem in a calm and professional manner.

MONITORS AND THE DEAF MUSICIAN

About the only way stage monitors will effect your FOH sound is that bass radiates in all directions. Thus, you will probably note that you will get a lot of 160-400Hz coming back at your from the stage monitors. The louder those monitors are, the more your hear. This can be very frustrating.

DON'T cut out those frequencies on the monitor eq's to compensate for this. Singers NEED that frequency range to make their voice sound full to themselves. You might just need to turn down a little bit of those frequencies ON THE CONSOLE EQ for the singers mics to compensate. I always try to mix for the 2/3 of the room closest to the stage. The sides and back of the room will have to suffer. In a less than sold out venue, this might encourage people to move closer to the stage. :)

Often, and especially with weak singers, you will drive the monitors to the point of no more volume being available before feedback, but they will want more. Your best bet here is to:

a - Ask the band to turn down a little on stage (yeah right! ;))

b- Do the "imaginary tweek" his monitor. Turn it up just a tad after he asks, then turn it back down. Few bad singers will notice that you turned it back down. Really!

If you have one of those singers that goes from a whisper to a scream, and they complain that they can't hear themselves when they sing softly, well, you will have problems there. In 15 years of doing live sound work professionally, I haven't found any other solution except to compress the hell out of them and try to bring up their low volume as loud as you can. Of course, when they sing loud, it will sound nasty because of all the gain reduction the compressor is doing, but what else can you do?

I can assure you of this. Make the band happy on stage with their monitors and it could sound HORRIBLE to the audience but the band will think you are "da bomb". This is an interesting counter productive concept, but it is true with about 75% of the bands out there. Sometimes, you will be lucky and get a band that says "We don't care what it sounds like on stage just as long as it sound killer to the audience". Man, you hit pay dirt then, but this is a rarity!!! Take it when you get it and give them suggestions on how to help you. Mostly though, you will not get this from a band. :(

Well, I could write all day about different scenario's in doing live sound and what I have done to solve them, but the truth is, the solutions are seldomly "normal". They are different from band to band, and sound system to sound system, and room to room, so little more could I write that would help.

Try to remember a few things:

No matter how bad a night might be, remember that your whole career is not defined from one night. Maybe to that one band you might be a schmuck, but be honest with them. If you couldn't get a good handle on how to mix them and make them happy on stage, tell them that in a positive manner. You might be surprised with their response. Also be realistic about your experience level. If you don't have a lot of experience doing live sound, you WILL have some very tough moments and/or nights. LEARN FROM THEM.

Don't overreact to ANYTHING. Move swiftly, but with purpose. Try not to look confused. :)

ALWAYS try to give the band what they think they need on stage if it is possible. If it is not, try to explain why it isn't, and blame the crappy room or crappy sound system for that not being possible. The only drawback of this is when they say something like "Well, we could do that last time we played here", or "This other sound guy could do that". It is mostly bullshit, but when they throw something like that at you, you can say something like "Well, I guess I haven't figured out how to do that yet", or "I am not that other soundguy". TRY not to be snide while saying things like this. ;)

STAY BY THE SOUND BOARD. Trust me, I just got my chops busted a few nights ago because I went to the bathroom and while gone, and faulty mic cable came disconnected to the mic. Totally not my fault, but the band was pissed because I wasn't RIGHT THERE to fix the problem.

TRY TO HAVE FUN!!! Stay positive and use humor as much as possible when things start getting out of hand. The musicians respond much better to a soundman that is not freakin' out of a problem than one that looks angry and/or overwhelmed.

Hope some of this helps.

Ed
 
The night was a success, i followed your direction and things went smoothly.
Near the end of the night when the place was full it sounded fantastic.
I adjusted the x-overs and you were right about 400hz that was a big culprit.
I actualy used the gains on the X-over to adjust the sound as the night went on, when the room was empty i had the high gain on about -4 the as it filled i took it up to +1 (soundcheck at +1) this kept the room warm sounding through the night.

A big problem to was the FOH bins were behind and just to each side of the stage which did not help with the feedback, the best i could do was tilt them away a little.

Thanks again Ed

Just a little question, the venue owner wants me to setup the system so DJ's can do their thing in the corner and bands can mix out in front, i realize a multi-core would be i deal but at this stage he just wants the main and monitor lines.

How can i run a line to the DJ and one for a desk(2 seperate locations) into the main L/R input (FOH) and the mono line for the monitors??

Can i just split the signals?

When the band finished a DJ was waiting for his lines i had to disconnect and walk them over, this is obviously retarded.
 
No need to split any signals.

His DJ mixer either has a couple of +4 XLR outs, or a couple of -10 RCA outputs.

If +4 XLR's are available, just run a couple of lines to two channels on the mixer via the snake or whatever and make sure the preamps are set for line level, which may entail employing a PAD on the input, or the mixer might be set up for line level input simply by keeping the preamp at it's lowest setting.

If it is a -10 RCA output from his mixer, employ the use of two DI boxes and follow the above. In this case, you might need to add a little gain on the preamp.

There is absolutely NO NEED to have the DJ mixer to go into the eq's or crossover directly. One of my last house soundman jobs used the sound system as dual use like this, and what I described above is how we did it, and things worked out great!

A little trick. Have the DJ play some stuff through his mixer making SURE that he never exceeds around +3 on his output meters. Adjust the volume on the regular mixer to achieve almost the maximum volume needed for the DJ. Tell the DJ to NEVER exceed +3 on his mixer. This will assure a very clean maximum volume. DJ mixers are horrible in the headroom department, and should be ran at very moderate levels. If the guy is exceeding +3 on his outputs meters, I will almost guarantee that that output is distorting at least a little bit!

This works out very well IF the DJ WILL in fact keep his output meters at +3 or less. This could prove to be much harder to accomplish that you can imagine. If you are in doubt of him doing so, it would be a good idea to set a compressor on his two channels on the mixer to a 20:1 ratio, fast attack, medium release to protect the sound system from potential damage he might cause by running his mixer any louder than that. Doing the above (letting the house sound system supply the volume NOT his mixer) IS ALWAYS going to be a cleaner sound than letting the DJ mixer go any higher than that! Explain this to the DJ (he probably won't believe you....oh well...they are usually morons anyway....) but you can at least try! I had several DJ's trained in this, and the DJ's always sounded great. They just had to get used to paying a bit of attention to their output on their mixer, which is something they SHOULD pay attention to anyway.

Anyway, glad to hear that your night went well. Hopefully, you will have all good nights! But your great track record will soon fall. ;) They always do!!! :D

Ed
 
Thanks for the support!

Problem with the setup you mentioned is the band wont use the house mixer (cruddy 5 channel) and the DJ's somtimes bring thier own.
Which means nothing is a permanent setup.

We hired the desk and most of the mics as he is just getting things setup and does'nt really know if he wants band on a regular basis i think he is just testing the waters.

I was thinking i could use the house pa mixer, then run out to the DJ and mixing console this way?
 
MiXit-G said:


I was thinking i could use the house pa mixer, then run out to the DJ and mixing console this way?

Can you clarify what you mean in this question?

And, what is the "cruddy" 5 channel mixer?

Ed
 
I forget what make it is but i know it a rack mount style with only 5 channels maybee they used it for small gigs but it was unsuitable for us so it just sit in the storage room.

I figured i could use that to mix in the DJ and a hired band console like you said to do with a DJ mixer to overcome that problem of unplugging for each time a DJ plays after a show.
 
I would maybe skip over the "crappy" mixer for anything. Possibly run a couple "permenent" lines for the DJ to it, and then just switch between that mixer and the mixer your rent for the band nights.

Ed
 
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