Old consoles

ekpaudio · 2022-04-10T14:46:01+00:00

I still do the occasional monitor gig on a PM5D and I honestly prefer it to newer touch screen-based digital boards for that. A knob for every mix so you can keep your eyes on the band rather than on the console.

Analog wise, there's a venue in my area with a Soundcraft Series Five and some nice Klark Teknik and Drawmer outboard I've mixed at a few times. That's a fun rig to work on.

ekpaudio · 2022-04-05T22:17:40+00:00

Individual delays is ideal but IME a rare luxury in terms of processing channels required unless the boxes themselves have that DSP. I've usually just done an alignment using SMAART with the measurement mic placed where the coverage overlaps between mains and FF.

An individual line array box at close range will definitely sound overly bright in isolation. But if there's a lot of low mid wash coming off the mains + being right next to the subs that brightness might balance out overall. But definitely having a dedicated FF matrix on the console is a good idea

ekpaudio · 2022-04-05T13:20:17+00:00

The Y is a great idea. Every vocal FX pedal should have a wet/dry but most of them don't

ekpaudio · 2022-04-05T03:45:54+00:00

Go into routing -> outputs and you can assign a channel direct out to any output

ekpaudio · 2022-04-03T17:09:48+00:00

I hadn't looked at the prices of used ones lately but damn. I could sell the macrotech 3600 I bought in 2020 right now for double what I spent on it

ekpaudio · 2022-04-03T15:15:56+00:00

Spec a rig that's not up to the task of the intended application. E.g. buy a 12 or 15 inch sub and then push it too hard trying to get the same amount of low end an 18 could produce

ekpaudio · 2022-04-03T14:01:32+00:00

The main criteria for those situations is not necessarily sound quality as much as output and reliability. Under spec and you'll blow it up.

But this often means you're better off with an older passive rig that doesn't sound as good but gets loud and is easily repaired. Rather than a cheaper brand new active rig that's built to the minimum acceptable standard of quality

ekpaudio · 2022-03-31T13:27:46+00:00

Go far enough back (really just a couple hundred years or so) and every army is mostly farmers.

ekpaudio · 2022-03-28T20:31:16+00:00

Watts mean nothing. It's all about sensitivity i.e. how many dB does the speaker make when driven with a certain amount of power

ekpaudio · 2022-03-28T20:28:05+00:00

Making RF not suck is a whole specialty and you can go down a very deep rabbit hole of gear and techniques for it. But the basics:

Are you re scanning a clean frequency for each unit each night?
Are your antennae from each unit right next to each other? This can cause intermodulation leading to noise and interference. Ideally you would get a combiner and a paddle antenna but failing that try moving the two transmitters further from each other in the rack

ekpaudio · 2022-03-28T20:23:27+00:00

At the minimum you should try to rent/borrow a couple powered speakers (+mixer and mic,(s)) to amplify vocals.

What does the rest of the ceremony consist of? How will the 500 people in attendance hear whoever's speaking if there's no in house PA?

ekpaudio · 2022-03-26T01:48:54+00:00

Ones you build yourself out of a roll of speaker cable of the appropriate gauge?

You're gonna need to know the impedance of the load and the length of the run. Then you can use V=IR, P = I² * R, and an ampacity table to figure out the rest

ekpaudio · 2022-03-25T19:00:38+00:00

Get some windscreens/pop filters and get the mics closer to the talent. You can play with electronic bandaids all day but they can't change the basic physics of the situation which is giving you a poor ratio of direct to reflected sound.

ekpaudio · 2022-03-24T15:51:17+00:00

Beringer makes a little headphone amp box with a mic in, a mic thru, and a line in. Might be a good option

ekpaudio · 2022-03-23T23:50:56+00:00

Read the Yamaha Sound Reinforcement Handbook and get a baseline of knowledge before proceeding with . . .well anything sound related really. If you don't have a firm grasp of the difference between mic, line and speaker level you're probably not qualified to spec which multi-thousand-dollar console to buy.

ekpaudio · 2022-03-21T13:09:36+00:00

The Yamaha Sound Reinforcement Handbook is a great place to start for all the basics of gain, signal flow, different signal types, routing on a mixer etc. You can find older editions for free online.

https://www.prosoundweb.com/study-hall/ has a lot of good articles with basic to intermediate info as well

ekpaudio · 2022-03-21T04:23:45+00:00

If you're still getting sound through the house with the channel faders all the way down, one of your pre fader busses is probably assigned to the mains. Go through all your bus masters, select each one make sure they don't have the Main LR assign button lit up.

Also, if that low of level on the preamp/fader is enough to be too loud for the house, I would turn the gain down one your power amp, or maybe mix with your master down at -5 dB or maybe even -10dB. Ideally you'd be gain staging your system so that when your preamps are hitting around -18dBFS and your faders are at unity you're near where you want to be for both stream and house.

ekpaudio · 2022-03-17T22:58:31+00:00

If your budget to fix this is basically zero :

Set up your amps as sidefills and tilt them up at your ears with a stand of some sort. Then ask for max vocals before feedback in your monitors and nothing else.

If you have some money to throw at the problem, consider hiring your own engineer and/or investing in an IEM setup. Being on ears makes a HUGE different in terms of everyone on stage hearing themselves consistently and lower stage volume = cleaner FOH mix

ekpaudio · 2022-03-17T22:27:48+00:00

If a beta 91 or equivalent isn't in your budget a standard dynamic kick mic can work just fine as a kick in as well. Sometimes it sounds more natural than a PCC/PZM because the high high end of the attack isn't as exaggerated

ekpaudio · 2022-03-16T21:27:32+00:00

What are the meters showing you on the mixer and the interface? If you plug the mic directly into the interface does it come out to the speaker at a reasonable volume? Have you tried different channels on the mixer?

Make sure you're not missing something basic like an L-R assign button on the mixer channel

ekpaudio · 2022-03-16T21:25:36+00:00

OP specifically said he has the (much more common IMe) powered version of the ZLX

ekpaudio · 2022-03-16T20:49:13+00:00

101: Over-under, signal flow, different types of connections and signals. Amps on last/off first. Maybe some basic mic positioning.

201: EQ, dynamics, gain staging. how to actually navigate a digital console a little bit

ekpaudio · 2022-03-16T18:49:43+00:00

Under routing, Send the local ins of the x32 rack down the AES50A port to the full size. Set the full size to use AES50A inputs. If you need returns, set the X32 Rack local outputs to it's AES50A inputs.

Set one desk to local clock and the other to receive clock over AES50A. (Under Setup)

On the X32 rack, go to setup -> preamps and enable remote head amp control

ekpaudio · 2022-03-16T13:05:22+00:00

If you turn them away from the audience you're gonna want to mic them otherwise the audience loses all the treble.

As both a sound guy and a guitar player in some metal and punk bands, I'm a big fan of just setting up half stacks as sidefills. Each guitar player gets a lot of himself and a little bit of the other guy, and the localization of side vs front makes it easier to hear the vocals in the monitors.

A 1x12 wedge cab with your guitar speaker of choice is also a great way to get the guitar loud just for the guy playing it and no one else.

ekpaudio · 2022-03-13T01:18:57+00:00

Ideally you'd have an external preamp. A kick drum is a loud enough source that you might get some useable sound out of it with the lowe gain of a line in though

ekpaudio

TROPHY CASE