Board/Snake Channel Limitations

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Ed Dixon

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The wiring at church has about 20+ lines run under the floor from the front stage area to the back where the board is located. We have a 32 channel board. With various instruments and vocal mikes connected, plus tape, CD, and other external gear, we are now short of channels. We need to connect 1 or more additional instrument lines from the front area.

What we are considering is using a small mixer at stage or the board area for some of the vocal mikes. Basically run a number of the vocal mikes into a single mixer and then use a single channel to connect to the board. That would free up a number of cables and channels for other purposes.

At the stage area there are 4 identical vocal mikes hung from the ceiling for the choir area. There are also another 7 vocal mics used by one set of people at the right side of the stage. There are 3 or more other vocal mics on the left side of the stage.

Most all of the vocal mikes are set up the same way with the same level. One option is to place the mixer near the stage, and use a single snake run back to the board (which frees up more snake channels). The other choice is to place the small mixer at the board.

Interested in the comments of others as to any experience that have with this solution, or other solution approaches.

Ed
 
An Alesis Studio 12R ought to be a good choice. I had one for several years until I went digital. It rackmounts which was good for me but may be less good for you -- but it'll sit on a counter too. Just velcro it in place. It has 8 XLR input w phantom power and RCA ins which would free up a couple of inputs on the big one.
 
Thoughts as to whether to place at board or at stage? Stage frees up snake runs. Board puts all controls at one place.

Ed
 
I'm confused how putting the little mixer at the board will accomplish anything. If it's at the board, then why not just plug whatever the extra mic or instrument is to the board itself? But i might be misunderstanding something.
 
Maddrummer- he is trying to free up some channels on the Larger mixer. Basically the small mixers channels will be sent as a sub mix to one or two channels on the bigger mixer if I understand correctly. If it were me, I would have the mixer near the other board so the controls are right there for adjustments. Either way should work but having all of the controls in one area would be ideal in my opinion.
 
I swear I don't read so goood. I thought he had a 32 channel board with only 20 lines to it and needed a way to get more than 20 signals through those lines by sub mixing before the lines. Sorry and thanks.
 
maddrummer that is true, however there are also a stack of existing wireless mics that connect to the board as well as things like VCR, CD, tape, etc.

The end result is that all channels are in use today. It's not yet completely clear how many runs actually exist as there are outlets at the stage not part of the snake that appear to have some wiring of their own. It's not exactly clear where the other ends are located...

Ed
 
I am sure someone will say I am recommending something really bad here, but if done right this works very well. When I was at Berklee, I was a work study student in the Performance Center (the large hall there). When we had large big bands in there, we would sometimes run out of channels, particularly when we were also doing live recordings down in the studios (there were only 24 lines going down to the studios). They had found that, with some DYNAMIC mics (never with condensers) you could use a Y cable to connect two of the same mic, on the same instrument, to the same channel without harm to anything. We mostly used it on horns, so we would only have two channels of bones, instead of four (for instance). You might try something like this. It works fine with RE-20s, SM 57s, and Beyer M88s. Other mics, I have not tried, so I don't know.


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Interesting idea I had not thought of trying. Not sure of the brand, but all regular (non wireless) vocal mics today are dynamic and same model.

The 4 mics hung from ceiling for choir area seem most appropriate for a separate mixer, as these are not used at all during the contemporary service. That alone would free up 3 channels and 3 cable runs with the mixer on stage.

Ed
 
I think the simplest thing is to run a submix or two, as has been suggested. Put a small mixer on the stage and run a couple of vocal submixes through it. Use the stereo output to give you two submixes instead of one; you start with, say, four vocal mics, free up two lines and still retain some control at the stage. Using a mixer at the stage end gives you a preamp for every mic without worrying about which is which. A little Yamaha mixer might be the ticket.
 
That was kind of my thought too. The board guy already has his hands/space full. Since we need more of both, the mixer at stage seems to address that well.

I have an existing powererd 10 channel board I think we will use for an initial test. It can put out unpowered signals as well. Then based on how that goes, we can decide on what to buy.

Ed
 
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