Saving Individual Mixes

[JayParticipant]

Here’s my scenario:

• Church Band
• Multiple musicians & many band formations
• Several sound techs – some need it kept simple
• Monitors are always stage right to left in order on the console (ie. stage right person is mix 1, etc…) for ease on Sunday morning

I know I can save scenes on the QU and to my understanding, scenes save everything. What I’d love is if my band consisted of, Larry, Kristin, Randy, and Jared – I could recall Larry’s in-ear mix and assign it to whatever mix position he’s at, and so on. It should be noted also that the instruments and vocals are always patched in the same way from week to week.

I don’t think this console does what I want it to, but are there any brilliant suggestions on how I could get close, instead of starting from scratch on the in-ear mixes each week?

Thanks!
Jay

[Lee7Participant]

If you save a mix it also save’s all auxiliary mixes too, so if you set your monitor mixes for all band members these will be re-callable at a push of a button. I assume this is what you’re asking?

🙂

[JayParticipant]

Sort of. My issues is that the person at mix 1 this week, might be at mix 4 another week (we rotate around depending on the band formation that week). The things that stay the same are 1. where the instruments and vocals are patched into the board and 2. the mix positions on the stage.

So one week we might have:
Mix 1: Jordy
Mix 2: Kristin
Mix 3: Randy
Mix 4: Jared

Then the next week we have:
Mix 1: Jordy
Mix 2: Rosi
Mix 3: Kristin
Mix 4: Randy
Mix 5: Jared

You see my conundrum? I want band members mixes preserved, even though they may or may not be on the same mix next time. Again, I don’t think this is doable with this desk. Just looking to see if anyone else had a viable workaround.

Thanks.

[TomParticipant]

Jay,

About the only way I can think of doing what you want is to create scenes of each of the various mix arrangements that you typically use. I don’t think there is a way to save a specific mix and just recall that mix. I think this would be a great feature to have.

[JayParticipant]

Thanks, Tom. That’s what I figured. I have 100 scenes to play with, and I can make the actual LR mix “safe” from scene recalls. What I might do is have a “Power Up” scene that the user can select first, which gets us to sound checking ready with the house mix. Then they can recall the band variation from another scene that won’t touch the LR settings.

Thoughts on that?

[TomParticipant]

Exactly what I was thinking….using safes to prevent things you don’t want to change seems like a good approach.

[GCumbeeParticipant]

To be honest I have never done a show where things are the same from week to week. That is what sound checks are for. You can use a template to get you in the ballpark but having worked with musicians and singers in studio and live I know how they change. Are rarely the same from week to week or day to day. That said. I would try to keep them in the same locations for one. It is just making things more difficult. Or do as suggested and create a starting point. I guarantee you will be making changes. Do you save those changes or do you not and go back to the template each time? With the GLD you can move things around so you could name Auxes for each person and save those. Move them around on the console. Not so on the QU. Just some random thoughts.

[JayParticipant]

@gcumbee, I agree with everything you’re saying. Per my original post, I have musicians that play different instruments from week to week so keeping them in the same position in our case isn’t possible.

I’ve been on the tech side and musician side my whole life so I get what you’re saying about things changing. Personally I like starting at zero weekly and quickly passing instruments around – it doesn’t take much time. My problem stems from sound techs (again, this is church, not bonaroo) that are volunteers and may only be on once a month. Giving them a hand at recalling a musicians preferred mix as a starting point is all I’m after. Sounds like this desk isn’t the best one for what I want but it’s what I’ve got.

Thanks for the great feedback!

[DetonatorParticipant]

Jay –

My solution to this ongoing situation is to think of the mix per PERFORMER, not mix bus number or stage position. Unless you need a library of dozens of mixes for large numbers of rotating band members, name the mixes and change the wedge position to follow the performer. You won’t necessarily see mixes 1-4 reading from left to right, but you will label the mix channels with the performers name, and mix #1, for instance, will always be Jordy no matter where the wedge is on stage.

Cheers,

-Tim Tyler

[JayParticipant]

Actually @detonator, that might work out best since I do have a few performers that are almost always in the band. To help my techs, I could make name tag magnets to be placed beside the mix buttons for easy access to that musician’s mix. Then for the musicians that are only on sometimes, it will be easy to tweak whatever mix they end up on to suit them.

I think a combination of this solution and the one @tom suggested might work.

Thanks for your thoughts! I’m getting closer.

[GCumbeeParticipant]

Not to be the killjoy but I am betting whatever you do it will still change depending on the band setup, barometric pressure, temperature, humidity, time of month 🙂 and a host of other things. They will never go week after week with the same mix. Trust me. :). I wish it was that easy.

[JayParticipant]

@gcumbee, you’re absolutely, 100%, without a shadow of a doubt, correct. I’m looking for helpful ideas outside of my own realm of thought in spite of those truths.

[HawkParticipant]

just swap cables, man.

[GCumbeeParticipant]

I realize I am being more critical than helpful. I just could not think of a real practical way of doing it. Or as effective as what you are wanting. That is why we push consistency to our customers. Keep it simple.

[robbocurryParticipant]

What Hawk said – why not just switch the mix output cables?!
Did I read somewhere that v1.5 was going to have patchable/assignable outputs or was that a dream? That would be the 21st century way of doing what Hawk said and will probably take much more effort and be more prone to error;)
I apologise in advance if I’ve missed the concept of what you want to do!

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