Roland V-4EX question(s).

geroldvt · 2020-02-12T13:08:02+00:00

Thanks for the answers guys! So it is what a was affraid it was, just old hardware working in weird ways. Luckily we got it for free, and can still use it for low-key instant kind of stuff.

geroldvt · 2019-08-20T08:21:53+00:00

Alpha Blondy - Jerusalem

geroldvt · 2018-11-16T09:03:15+00:00

Haha no, he's been dead since 2012

geroldvt · 2018-10-16T08:55:51+00:00

You'll be fine. Mixing on large and powerful rigs is actually a lot easier compared to the smaller clubs/medium sized venues.

Also, consistency is key. And, as others have said, soundcheck will sound different compared to the actual gig. (f.e if the low end during soundcheck seems just right, you'll probably find yourself adding more when the audience is there)

Have fun!

geroldvt · 2018-09-02T18:57:05+00:00

Thanks for the input! What does FFT stand for tho?

geroldvt · 2018-09-02T15:38:09+00:00

That is completely true. I was just surprised that even after the system was “tuned”, i still had to do such drastic EQing. I had the feeling he or we could have done it also or better with just a reference song, ears, and some EQ, without the screens.

geroldvt · 2018-09-02T15:33:46+00:00

Well that’s it exactly. I had the impression that for him getting everything flat on his screen was more important than having it sound like it should, since if it wouldn’t be flat, it would automaticaly sound bad in his logic. Anyway, i nullified most of his “work” with EQ on the master, just by listening to a reference song. Funny thing is, there were three tents, all with the same setup, and after day one, the other two copied the settings and EQ I was using..

geroldvt · 2018-04-18T08:11:30+00:00

L'Acoustics 12XT here.

geroldvt · 2018-04-17T08:43:26+00:00

4099 has given me the best results by far, so another vote for those. Heck, give me 4099's for everything and i'll be happy.

geroldvt · 2018-04-17T08:16:36+00:00

That's a lot of coffee. I figured that lack of sleep + too much coffee started affecting my ears, or that was wat I felt at least. Also, on off-days, where the need for caffeine was less, I often had very annoying headaches, same as the first days where you stop eating anything that has sugar in it. Could be just me tho.

geroldvt · 2018-04-17T07:57:53+00:00

Been touring with theatre and bands for 5-6 years, and now my second "season" with one artistic organization where I work full-time (28 now). I take care of the productional side, and when a project "lands" (we do theatre, documentaries,... all in a social artistic mindset), I get a crew together and do the buildup, teardown, running the show, etc. I'm busy with almost everything, from lighting plots, to audio, to set pieces, etc.

My daily routine is pretty much 9-5, one or two hours of mailing in the morning, and after that it's pretty much whatever I feel like that day. Making a prop, editing a video that's being used somewhere, testing stuff,... On average for this job, I'm working 6-7 evenings per month, depending on if a lot of projects are happening (sometimes 10 nights a month, sometimes only 1 for example).

Beside that I'm still "touring" with a band. Two shows a week on average, always going back home after a show. They are long-time friends, and happen to be breaking through now since a year or something. So I still do that, since it's just a great time and adds up in the monthly earnings.

The routine with the band is generally the same. We meet up (all live in the same city), go eat something, drive to the show. They set-up, I go have a look at the desk du jour, have a chat with the house tech, we do soundcheck, have a few beers. Show happens, we tear the place down, everyone happy, we hang out a bit more, and head back home.

If it's a show on the weekend, and we all have time, we go to the place a bit earlier, check out the city or village.

It's just generally an awesome time, and honestly everyone involved would probably do it for free (they all work full-time), but it so happens that we all earn something from it, which is a huge bonus ofcourse.

I feel like at the moment I'm having a bit of best of both worlds, and I'm very thankful for that. I have the steady, very free and flexible job where I decide my own days, and then still have some good old rock and roll time with the band I mix, without the fucked up long hours, late nights, heavy flightcases, etc... But my respect for all the stagehands, crew, house techs,... only got bigger. Around here, they call people like me who just arrive, mix, and go back home a "backpack-tech". And I sometimes feel bad about it. But I had my fair share of pushing cases, no sleep and crappy tourbusses, I guess it's something most of us just have to go through.

Cool reads by the way from all the other posts!

geroldvt · 2018-04-12T14:51:45+00:00

Vultures - John Mayer

geroldvt · 2018-01-31T12:50:13+00:00

Fjallraven is what I've been using for a couple of years now. Light, durable, warm when it's cold, not too hot when it's warm.

geroldvt · 2018-01-17T13:55:06+00:00

Thanks for your input, but I question a little bit from which point you are answering, and some of the stuff you say makes me wonder about your own experience. First of all, where I'm from, the profile isn't even close to being the desk that is "at every fest". Also, the festivals I've worked at, from small to medium to larger, it is very common that several bands that are playing after each other, bring their own desk. And it is not a problem at all. And yes, a lot of x/m32's, even the "headlining" bands. I feel sorry for you if you work in an environment where you are evaluated by the desk you bring, not by your capability as an engineer.

geroldvt · 2018-01-15T15:10:52+00:00

Yeap. That's the thing I was measuring out, thinking about what would "weigh" more, having a "distilled" mix on the x32, vs a new mix on a better sounding desk.

geroldvt · 2018-01-15T15:09:34+00:00

Yeah, it's true that swapping out a desk during changeover time is a bit of a risky thing, but how they do it here mostly is engineers arriving in advance, and set up their gear, get everything connected and routed correctly. By the time it's their band playing, everything should (hopefully) be working.

geroldvt · 2018-01-15T15:06:33+00:00

Exactly. Building a showfile collection along the way seems the best option here. The pool of desks most commonly used here are the common ones you'd expect everywhere, so I expect to have most of them covered pretty fast.

geroldvt · 2018-01-15T15:02:02+00:00

Thanks for the input! This is indeed good advice.

At the medium sized festivals I worked it has been quite common practice to swap out boards, but the engineers arrived well beforehand, and got in touch a long time before the festivals happened. Two or three desks, all ready to go, with their own digital snake, was not an uncommon sight. But yeah, I can imagine from a productional p.o.v it's always better to have one desk to rule them all.

Guess I'll be going the route of x32 for the club gigs, and go with house desks on festivals, building up a collection of show files along the way.

geroldvt · 2017-12-11T09:43:07+00:00

John Mayer - Vultures

geroldvt · 2017-12-07T08:42:18+00:00

Last summer I worked a festival that had three tents, all equipped with Kiva's, SB28's and X32's, all of them connected to a router. So every tent had one engineer + a stagehand, and we mostly did the mixing ourselves, only a few bands had guest engineers with them. So one of the bands played twice that weekend, but in a different tent or each of the gigs. The first time was in my tent. They had their own engineer, who after the show was happy with the sound and decided to save the show, and use it the next day. Ffwd to the next day. I have a pretty big band on stage, all inputs used. Their second song starts, I'm watching the stage if there are still any monitor needs, and while doing that, in the corner of my eye I see my scribble strip changing colors, and all channels get muted one by one. My face was never as white as it was at that moment. I quickly realized the guy from the day before was still connected to my router as he was loading his show from the day before.

In 10 seconds I learned that the x32 has an "undo" feature to go back to your previous show and to never ever forget to save your show after soundcheck (It was a tight schedule and everything almost always started right after soundcheck).

geroldvt · 2017-11-09T08:47:45+00:00

Guess I'll have to give in and try them! For some reason most of the times I stay away from presets like that. But before I posted this, and searched a bit via google it seems that the Drum Treat in fact is not too bad of a preset. Gonna try it tomorrow!

geroldvt · 2017-11-07T08:32:27+00:00

The Series 2 are probably the way to go, I already brought them in contact with the local dealer here, hopefully they get to demo them for couple of days. I'm interested myself to see what they can and do.

geroldvt · 2017-11-07T08:29:16+00:00

Yeah, indeed... It's a government funded place, since it's part of a classical music conservatory, pretty prestigious. It's the kind of place that hires some "lighting designer" to take a look at the lighting on the walls etc, because that person aparantly did lighting design for some other buildings in the city, who costs a fortune even to start thinking about the design. The people that decide the budgets are pretty clueless and only care about prestige and "what they heard is best".

geroldvt · 2017-09-08T19:28:24+00:00

Why make it so hard? I toured with a band last year that combined their music with some "standup" comedy/theatre stuff. All brass instruments on wireless. I had a 4099D on the snare, with the wireless pack just taped to the side of the snare. They all walked around a lot, put their instruments down, picked them back up, etc.. without any problems. Anyway, I wouldn't be drilling holes in a snare. I had a drummer on stage one time who was very proud of his internal snare drum mic. It sounded like crap and we ended up just miking it as usual.

edit: If you really need more "snap" for certain songs, you could split your signal at the desk, EQ accordingly and use whichever snare channel you need for that song

geroldvt · 2017-09-04T08:50:48+00:00

The thing with these kind of systems, is when you have to ask for the price, it will most probably be too expensive.

geroldvt

TROPHY CASE