Ryan Teasnob
Member
I'm hoping someone can tell me what kind of mixer I saw this past week as I was acting as "the sound guy" for a medieval festival. I had to leave before this band was done, so I couldn't ask them. Plus, they are from Belarus, so communicating tech stuff was hard. Anyway...
A band called Stary Olsa was playing in our small medieval tavern. They play medieval instruments - bagpipe, cittern, large (like kick-drum size) 2-sided drum, hand drum, penny whistle and 2 vocalists. When setting up for sound check, they pulled out a portable mixer the size and shape of a shoe box. The put clip-on mics on all their instruments and used our 2 SM8s for the vocalists and penny whistle player. They plugged our mics into their mixer, along with their other mics, and then sent the output of their mixer into a single channel strip of our powered mixer - a Nady SPM-6300 with 150 watts/4 ohms per side. Our speakers were 8 ohm Peavey's with 400 watt program nominal.
What was most fascinating about the whole thing was that their setup was wireless (wi-fi)! They spent about 30 minutes taking level checks for each instrument. They had a guy in the audience with his smart phone, adjusting levels and other parameters (EQ, and probably other stuff). When they were all done, they sounded astoundingly tight and well mixed and LOUD (in a good way).
the most confusing thing about it was that about half the instruments didn't need any amplification (bag pipe massive drum). In fact it seemed to me to be kind of silly to put a mic on a drum that massive and loud. But that's what they did. In the end, the sound was so tight and well mixed that it seemed to defy logic. How could a bag pipe and massive loud drum be perfectly mixed with a vocalist and penny whistle? In theory it seems like they would have had to turn up those quieter sound sources by a LOT to allow them to be heard alongside the loudest instruments. But when we tried (on other artists in the week) to just get the vocals and guitars to be audible, we could only turn it up so much before we got feedback problems. I just am left scratching my head at how they managed to get so much volume with zero feedback.
Anyway, does what I describe sound familiar to anyone? the shoe box sized and shaped portable mixer with wireless control capability from a smart phone? I'd love to do something like that for next year's festival.
A band called Stary Olsa was playing in our small medieval tavern. They play medieval instruments - bagpipe, cittern, large (like kick-drum size) 2-sided drum, hand drum, penny whistle and 2 vocalists. When setting up for sound check, they pulled out a portable mixer the size and shape of a shoe box. The put clip-on mics on all their instruments and used our 2 SM8s for the vocalists and penny whistle player. They plugged our mics into their mixer, along with their other mics, and then sent the output of their mixer into a single channel strip of our powered mixer - a Nady SPM-6300 with 150 watts/4 ohms per side. Our speakers were 8 ohm Peavey's with 400 watt program nominal.
What was most fascinating about the whole thing was that their setup was wireless (wi-fi)! They spent about 30 minutes taking level checks for each instrument. They had a guy in the audience with his smart phone, adjusting levels and other parameters (EQ, and probably other stuff). When they were all done, they sounded astoundingly tight and well mixed and LOUD (in a good way).
the most confusing thing about it was that about half the instruments didn't need any amplification (bag pipe massive drum). In fact it seemed to me to be kind of silly to put a mic on a drum that massive and loud. But that's what they did. In the end, the sound was so tight and well mixed that it seemed to defy logic. How could a bag pipe and massive loud drum be perfectly mixed with a vocalist and penny whistle? In theory it seems like they would have had to turn up those quieter sound sources by a LOT to allow them to be heard alongside the loudest instruments. But when we tried (on other artists in the week) to just get the vocals and guitars to be audible, we could only turn it up so much before we got feedback problems. I just am left scratching my head at how they managed to get so much volume with zero feedback.
Anyway, does what I describe sound familiar to anyone? the shoe box sized and shaped portable mixer with wireless control capability from a smart phone? I'd love to do something like that for next year's festival.