First gig with QU-24 coming up

[PeteParticipant]

On Saturday 19th March I have my first public gig with the QU-24. My band is a six piece 60s, 70s, 80s covers band. I have 5 singers. The saxophonist also plays flute and the keyboard player has 3 keyboards. We will have about 300 people. The gig is in a bar in South Charlotte NC.

I am really looking forward to it. I have spent hours with the QU-24 and find it totally logical. I have all the EQs (mostly from the Libraries), FX and Monitor Mixes set up roughly as I want them and I have assigned the four DCAs to Drums, Instruments, Vocal Mics and the 6 Monitor Mixes. I have tested everything six ways from Sunday as best I can using just about every speaker I have connected to something on the QU-24.

Now if any of you folk live in the Charlotte NC area and know your way around the QU mixers I would welcome you help on my first outing since screwing up a gig is not on my agenda. I do this as a hobby I’m retired, so I can hardly be called a professional audio engineer however I have been at this for several decades on and off. I am willing to discuss with anyone who cares to respond. I hope someone does…

[Anonymous]

Good luck Pete.
Have a plan B
Keep plan B simple

kind regards

NZdave

[cornelius78Participant]

Curious as to why you’re using a DCA for monitors. I know it’s a convenient way of adjusting the level of all the monitor mixes at once to make the whole stage louder or quieter, but how often do you need to do this during a set? Have you considered instead using it for FX sends\returns or splitting the instruments into gtrs\keys etc? It might make your workflow easier.

I think it’s worth ensuring you’ve got a multi-track recording ready to go. You that way you can record your band essentially straight off the preamps, and later on if something sounds wrong you’ll be able to determine if it was something to do with the musician or the desk. It’ll also mean you can play it back later do a virtual sound check, and perhaps fine-tune your eq/comps/fx, and get them sounding even better for next time.

Finally, ensure you make use of the custom layer. eg if your keys are in stereo and their faders are linked you can just have the left channel’s fader viable. The spare faders can then be used for fx\dcas\subgroup masters. This way when you’re mixing you won’t have to do as much layer switching, allowing you to make changes more quickly.

PS, don’t forget the softkeys. Having them pre-programmed for mute groups, tap tempos, scene changes etc can also mean less looking through menus in the heat of the moment.

Good luck with it.

[GCumbeeParticipant]

In a perfect world all those library presets would be a starting point. So, the fact is you should make them that. The libraries don’t know what your mics are or the acoustics of the venue or the tone of the singer’s voice or the sound of the instrument or how it’s played. They are an opinion based on one or two people in a general setting. So plan B is to be ready to scrap most of plan A and adjust to suit. Of course all this depends on your knowledge of music and how things should sound. Again it is more about opinions. Line up 5 people to run the board and I guarantee you it will sound 5 different ways.

[[XAP]BobParticipant]

Line up 5 people to run the board and I guarantee you it will sound 5 different ways.

I suggest it’s more likely to sound six different ways…

[GCumbeeParticipant]

Funny I was going to say that. Really. And I decided not to. Figured no one would get it. :).

[Dick ReesParticipant]

Agree about presets. They might work in theory, but unless your gig is in a club named “Theory” they will be skewed. Starting from flat is going to be much closer to right than loading guesstimates from a library. But at least running through the setup procedure gets you familiar with the board.

The only thing I might pre-load would be vocal comps set as limiters. These can be taken in/out with a button push or two and threshold adjusted quickly as needed.

[PeteParticipant]

@nzdave,Thank you. I always have a Plan B. I think that I was born having a Plan B. This particular Plan B is to take along an old Mackie 4 mic channel analog mixer + a 50ft 8 x 4 snake in the car. I shall lay the snake alongside the dSnake cable. If it all falls apart I will put the 4 x SM58s through the Mackie and re-cable the mains and sub with 3 XLR re-plugs from the dSnake AB168 to the analog snake. The keys, guitar and bass will play through their own amps. The drummer will also have no mics so he’s just gonna have to play louder. He does that anyway. He’s a drummer, right?

[PeteParticipant]

@cornelius78, I am using a DCA on all 6 monitor channels so I can easily drop all the levels between songs and if the “More Me” syndrome starts to cause ANY kind of feedback I can again drop all the monitor levels whilst I sort it out. Obviously I can adjust any of the individual Mix outs but this give me one fader to control all the monitor level at once. That way I do not lose my balance.

I do not like over loud monitors on stage so backing them off at the end of each song is a good way to help stop the monitors slowly creeping up over the evening.

[PeteParticipant]

@gcumbee, You are, of course right. The libraries are no more than a starting point but, I had to start somewhere and the built in libraries seemed a good place. Each mic, voice, venue and audio engineer is different. As soon as my drummer starts his sound check on his kick, the settings will be modified. This is clear.

By the end of the evening I shall be surprised if any channel has not been changed. Staying with the drummer for a moment, he plays louder as the evening wears on so all my gate and compression settings ALWYS need to be continuously changed and when he take lead vocals for a song his drumming quietens down.

It’s the classic waterbed analogy: Push it down in one place and it comes up everywhere else but, not equally.

[PeteParticipant]

@[XAP]Bob & @gcumbee, Errr, yeah, at least.

[PeteParticipant]

@Dick Rees, I pretty much agree with you. I have a scene saved which does put everything back to flat. Theory is like the old military axiom that “No battle plan ever survives contact with the enemy.” Again, in this case it is just a starting point that I have chosen. Settings will certainly change at the sound check, probably all of them.

This one of the many reasons I started this thread to see if anyone was in my area and wished to come along to the gig. I won’t talk commercial stuff in the forums but, I would help whomever came out.

I know what I’m doing behind a desk and I have a fair handle on the QU-24. It would just be nice to have a second opinion handy. I only have one hard rule about mixing and that is: No drinks near my surface. Apart from that, every gig is different.

[Dick ReesParticipant]

Rule #1:

Do no harm…

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