Setup for "Generic" Band

[KenParticipant]

I have a recurring event for a client where we are providing the setup for a new band each week. This is an outdoor, municipal event that runs weekly for 6 weeks. We will provide all the general input (mics, DI, etc) for the bands and the PA. I’d like to preconfigure my input channels with basic eq/compression based on the mic/instrument for the band setup.

Can anyone give some tips and suggestions on preparing for this. I’m more accustomed to having more time with the band to adjust the mix, however I think this is a quick setup. Anything I can do to pre-prepare would be great however I’m a bit leary of just making too many assumptions.

Thanks in advance!

— KC

[BarryjamParticipant]

I have a feeling you know most/all of this, but it is here for others who might hope that the mixer scenes can be as simple as recall a scene called rock band, jazz band, etc.

Even though you are also providing the DIs and Mics and you will already know to use initial settings like Phantom power, initial panning on bass, drums and keys, effects settings, no compression (but maybe limiters) to monitors, HP filters on virtually everything, blah blah blah, every band will differ on…

1) How hard the drummer hits
2) What is the volume and tone of the bass and guitar amps, if they have any!
3) Different volumes for singers/horn players with different mic techniques and different gain/pan depending on lead vs. background duties
4) Different gains coming from keyboards
5) Different number of aux needed for monitors and are these wedges or IEMs. Are you going to force bands to use only 4 mono auxes and 3 stereo auxes or are you gonna sacrifice some groups (turning them to mixes to allow additional matrix outs).
6) some band member insists on using their own mic(s) or DI. This could differ on each band.
7) is the keyboard guy wanting mono, stereo or multiple inputs for each board

So you will still have to fine tune pre-amp gain, compression, noise gates, at the very least, for each band.

My only suggestion is to first create your “generic scene” and then communicate with each band about their configuration/plot, input list desires, early in the week and create an “initial” scene for each band. I personally would not wait until the day of event. Beating a dead horse here, but an editor program that does not require connection to the mixer would be helpful.

[GigaParticipant]

I’d try very hard to have at least an hour extra for the first show !

Other than that, see if you can get your hands on a multitrack recording so you can practice (18 tracks in 24 bit, 48 kHz of exactly the same length !)

Also you can prepare ringing out your wedges (2 for drums, one for a non-singing drummer and for the opposite), get a feel for how the effects work, think what you want to do with mutegroups and dca’s.

If you remember what settings for eq, compressors and gates you tend to use when in the analog realm you at least have starting points.

If you have your basic settings in the ballpark you shouldn’t need more than one or two songs to dot the i’s.

Remember to save the show/scene at the end of the gig !

Good luck !

Giga

[titoenParticipant]

Like stated above. You are providing basically the Backline so you know what you have. I don’t know what Qu board you have. I have a QU24, so i would setup myself up the first 10 channels for Drums and the last 6 channels for Vocals. Everything else lands in the middle. 1 bass, 2 Electric Gtrs, 1 Acoustic Gtr, 2 Keys, and 2 Randoms.

I have a yearly Battle of the bands and this last year was 10 bands, 30min each. 1 band had full brass section and 2 vocals, next band had just 2x stereo keyboards, 3 Sample pads and 7 vocals. Just played around with the inputs as needed. I would recommend setting up the board for the 1st band and next week just tweek a bit and rename as you have time.

Just my $0.02.

[Dick ReesParticipant]

First, have your system tuned and ready to go with proper system processing. Driver/speaker alignment, EQ and limiting need to be optimized if you expect proper translation of audio mixing efforts to be effective. Same for your wedges.

Beyond that, knowing ahead of time the stage plot, monitor mix content per wedge and such will save time.

As far as indivdual channel processing goes, that’s on an ad hoc/as needed basis. If you have some standard settings you find yourself always using, make some presets and save them to the user library so you can load them quickly.

But the starting point I find myself using most often is…FLAT.

Good luck.

[KenParticipant]

This is all great information and suggestions! Thanks.

I have both a QU16 and QU24 .. so I’ll be using the QU24 with a stage box. I typically pre-label the stage box and pre-set the channels accordingly as well as the monitor mixes. I’m planning on loading up a full run of instruments in my DAW and send them through USB as samples to get a rough setup ..

THXS!

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