dont do it!

You need a surface to be able to throw faders up in a hurry and to create mixes on the fly you cannot do this on a computer.

Once you have a show up and running i would be ok moving over to running the show on laptop provided there were no huge changes.

When you have to set things up in a hurry you will take 5times longer doing it via a laptop.

Get the iLive T80 with the IDR32, if you cant afford it yet get yourself the mixrack first and have a go without the surface, i am confident that unless you have unlimited soundcheck and setup time each gig, you will soon find yourself needing a surface.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Joe90

…I’m considering the iDR-32 being controlled by a PC for the console….I would be interested to know if any users are mixing this way and their experiences or any pitfalls to watch out for…

---

I’m using an iDR-32 with the Editor. Mine is a loud guitar rock band with 20+ inputs, two stereo playbacks, three internal and two internal FX, four monitor mixes, a stereo recording mix and LR+Subs. At the same time I’m singing lead, playing guitar and punching lighting cues on a footboard. My ADHD is quite well-fed by my environment [}]

I don’t even own a surface; I’m doing it all on a Dell XPS M1210 with a 12″ display. I’ve some skill with a mouse [] which I think gives me a big leg up. But I will agree that a notebook with a 17″ display would allow me to lay out the Editor windows in a more usable fashion.

Off the top of my head, the things that I’ve been missing the most are push-button control of delay tap tempo and effects mutes. I get by with my D-Two, Rev500 and my homebrew switcher with two channels of input muting. I also use a footswitch to do tap tempo on the D-Two. If I had a surface I could accomplish the same tricks with the soft switches and I wouldn’t have 3RU worth of effects gear cluttering up my iDR ATA rack. But then again, those switches wouldn’t be footswitches, so the solution wouldn’t be workable in my situation.

Another thing that I’ve been missing is the lack of audio inputs at front-of-house for playback, talkback and whatever-else-back. No big deal, whenever I’m not mixing from the side of the stage, I just pull a 6-channel copper snake along with my FOH power drop. If I had a surface I’d have A-to-Ds at FOH and I could send them to the stage on CAT5.

The final niggle for today is that the Editor doesn’t let you PFL the sidechain signal. With the surface, you have the ability to listen to the key.

It’s all golden with my 6RU baby []

quote:

---

Originally posted by grahamwhite

@timtrace Are you mixing the same show every single time or are you doing PA hire’s / engineering different bands each time?

---

Mostly my band.

Before the first show with iLive, I spent a lot of time familiarizing myself with the Editor, offline and online. As Murphy would have it, I did something stupid at the venue and I had to recreate the entire show at soundcheck. It took me about 45 minutes to rebuild everything and complete the soundcheck. Fortunately we’d prepared ourselves with an early load-in.

For my part I’d be very comfortable if I had to dial in a new setup with another band, but then again, I fancy myself a technology expert (and I introduced that caveat in my prior post).

As for the OP, it sounds like he and I are in similar situations.

But no way would I expect a visiting BE to walk in cold on the Editor. Well, maybe if I didn’t like the guy. []

Hi Gary.
There is a related news story on our site – https://www.ilive-digital.com/news_story.asp?view=538 – Steve, the engineer on that show has also recently run FOH for Alphabeat using just laptop on their recent tour.

I use various combinations of racks and surfaces for my shows and am using my laptop now for an increasing number whether FOH, monitors or both. For me the advantages hugely outweigh the compromise in not being able to grab a handful of faders. I was initially more concerned about the reliability of a laptop running Windows, and usually add a PL-10 remote configured as a get-out-of-jail backup. That said my laptop has proved pretty solid. I have been pleasantly surprised to find how easy it has been to manage shows without sound check or with multiple acts. Careful planning of the Editor layout and channel organisation before the show makes a big difference. I use a ‘Festival Plot’ user show I created as a starting point for the shows I do.

Here are a few notes which you may find useful…

You may find it easier or quicker to use a touch tablet rather than mouse. Mine is a Toshiba Portege with stylus, but there are others available now. How nice it would be to get a touch Mac though! Consider the weight if you are wanting a big screen. My laptop screen folds flat and I can choose landscape or portrait view, easy to carry around. It’s good to be able to dim the screen for operation under show conditions. Editor provides an option to change the background colour.

Use the Custom Strips to ‘design’ a suitable layout. You can put gaps between strips, for example inputs and masters, by dragging a channel there and then dragging it out of the window. That leaves a gap. I usually create 3 Custom Strip layers – ‘Monitors’ (inputs and wedge/IEM masters), ‘FOH’ (inputs, FX, some DCAs and main masters), and ‘Setup’ (CD, vocal inputs, all masters, DCAs). The Setup layer is used for getting the PA running and ringing out the vocal mics in the monitors before sound check.

The DCAs can give you that missing ‘hand’ on multiple faders. I put an FX DCA next to the FX masters to quickly mute or reduce FX between songs. For a small show my others are typically DRUMS, BK/LN (guitars, bass etc), DI (acoustics, anything that may go pop when the talent pulls the plug!), VOX and CD (walk-in playback).

For my less than perfect eyes I find it helps to colour the channels in a way which makes them quick to find on the Editor screen, for example drums green, bass blue, guitars green separates those groups of instruments nicely.

A good screen layout for ringing out the monitors is to open the RTA top left (Edit menu/Meters/RTA), Custom layer with inputs and monitor masters bottom, then select the GEQ for that monitor putting it top right just below the RTA display. Select PAFL for the monitor you are working with. Now select Mix for the vocal mic channel. The monitor master fader becomes the send from that vocal mic to that monitor. Raise the master (send) fader until you start to hear the ringing. The RTA displays the dominant frequency helping you identify it and therefore pull it back in the GEQ.

There are plenty more tips but I don’t want to ramble on too much. I’m sure other forum folk can add their methods and tricks here too. We are working on some exciting updates to Editor for the forthcoming V1.6 release due in a month or so. These are aimed at making the job of mixing on the fly even easier.
Let us know if you want any more information on this application.
Regards,
Carey