Archive for January, 2009
Venue Template File
I figured some of you who are using Venue systems might be interested to see my current default file. In order to view, all you need to do is grab the standalone editor app from the Digidesign website (2nd item in the list – 2.7.1 standalone software).
I’d be very interested to see yours as well. Just shoot me an email if you’d like to share! If you’re running on another platform but curious about Venue, this is a great way to investigate. Although I must warn you, this is exactly how I started a year ago. Fast forward a year and our old Yamaha PM1D system has been replaced. So enter at your own risk hehehe.
The matching default input list can be found here.
Wireless Instrument Learnings
Having been through another holiday extravaganza with everything that entails, I thought it would be wise to note some of our learnings on successfully integrating wireless instruments.
- The signal chain is instrument, into the wireless transmitter/receiver, then out of that receiver and into their pedals/processing, and finally to the amplifier. It is important that the wireless receiver be in close proximity to the rest of the rig since it will be passing instrument level signal in order for things to stay clean and happy.
- Getting all of a musician’s gear, including the wireless unit, on the same electrical ground is crucial to a zero noise rig. I wire each guy’s rig so it is on its own quad with their pedals or processing, amps, and wireless units. That way it is simple to troubleshoot if noise magically appears during the course of rehearsals. Often times someone inadvertently added something to that circuit and it is a quick fix to eliminate. I find that many times the ground on the wireless receiver also still needs to be lifted.
- During setup, have the artist go back and forth between the wireless unit and a cable in order to set wireless gain in the chain and make it match the hardwired setup as closely as possible. This is very important for proper signal to noise and making sure processing, pedals, and tubes respond as expected.
- A wireless electric guitar player’s best friend is the Radial Dragster. I’ve written about them before.
- A new tool that’s also indispensable when you need to remote locate a combo amp is the Radial SGI system. Goodbye noise, tone change, and interference when you need to pass a guitar level signal further than 20 feet. These are like gold come holiday time at KCC.
- It should go without saying, but allow plenty of time with each player who will be wireless to iron out issues and get their rig functioning properly. Doing this early on in the rehearsal process pays dividends later in not having to worry about it come crunch time.
- Use as little wireless as you can get away with. There is always a price to pay sonically and reliably for wireless, so if it can be done with a cable, do it.
Places to go
I am an audio geek. There, I said it. With this in mind, there are several cool online resources to stay up on what’s happening and learn new things. The first few are Digidesign specific…the others not so much.
First, and most importantly, the Digidesign User Conference is invaluable and was a factor in our decision to partner with Digi. I’m so glad the Venue has a vibrant user community. This is a daily check-in and read.
The next one might be new to some, old to others. Regardless…there’s a great resource of tips and tricks for the Venue platform that’s published by Digidesign on their site. Topics such as the events list, tap tempo, managing multitrack recordings, gain guess, etc. Really good stuff. If you want to receive these tips as a part of the live sound newsletter that’s normally published once a month by Digidesign, go to their site and sign up. There’s far more usable content than sales babble so you won’t be disappointed.
Another really great resource is the archived Webinars that Robert Scovill has been conducting the past 8 months. Each one lasts about an hour and includes a 45 minute presentation and 15 minutes of q&a. Topics include introduction to Venue, Virtual Soundcheck, Plug-Ins, Snapshots, PQ/Aviom Integration, D-Show vs. D-Show Profile, etc. A new webinar normally happens on the last Wednesday of every month. Check it out here. While these webinars definitely focus on Digidesign hardware, many of them also include just general good practice stuff from Scovi that would be beneficial to users of other platforms.
Outside of Digidesign, the best overall live audio forum I’ve ever found is the Live Audio Board over at ProSoundWeb.com. There is another board there for Church sound but I don’t find that one very inspiring. But the LAB has a huge list of contributors and is normally a pretty good read.
A new one to me that I think is flying way below the radar is a forum set up at Rat Sound’s website. If you’ve been following me for a while, you know I’m a pretty big fan of Dave Rat. The forum on their site is full of some really great content and, if you’re like me, you’ll be sucked in till you lose track of time the first few times you visit. Places to specifically check out are the Doing the Gig, Sound Questions, and Sound Business. Archives go all the way back to 2004 so you can keep yourself busy here for a while!
Broadcast Mix Part 3
So to wrap up this topic, here’s a few more learnings and such…
I mentioned we actually have two broadcast/outside world mixes. The first is the one I’ve outlined. #2 is just a slight variation. When we rolled out the new chain, we had one problem with it for the building feed – tvs, lobby speakers, hallways, etc. All of the work to create a more dynamic and organic mix really didn’t work in these places because the volume fluctuated too much. Sometimes it would be too much or too little in these spaces. The answer became creating a second mono feed that was heavily limited and squashed and only sending it to the building spots. This feed has much less ambience/audience and two stages of limiting – one individually over the music and speech mixes, then a second stage over the combined mix just before it leaves the console. The individual limiters do the majority of the work inside the element and the overall limiter acts as a brickwall to keep the difference between music and speech nearly identical for playback at low volumes. That way the feed from the auditorium is always present in these places and it sounds great for what it is.
I have found that the position of each set of ambience/audience mics is very important. The ideal position I’ve found for everything up on the stage is as close to stage level as possible. At one point I tried putting the shotguns way up in the air near the PA cabinets and this was a problem in two ways. First, there was more PA bleed then I liked. Second, because they were so high, I felt like the immediacy of the audience energy was lost. I also tried putting them on very short stands and just placing them on the far ends of the stage deck. This was my favorite position actually, but it was a pain because cables to the mics had to pass over traffic paths. Also, because the mics were so accessible, I found them inadvertently moving over the course of a weekend if anyone bumped one or kids played with them. The final landing point attached to the bottom of our side screens ended up being a good compromise because it kept the position nice and low but still put them out of the way enough where we don’t have to mess with cables and their aim will remain consistent.
I think we’re still making minor adjustments to the mix week to week as we continue to adjust for the best balance between the direct source and the ambience/audience mics. Since this chain needs to be a set and forget thing, there are some times when it would be nice to have a bit more presence from the crowd, such as during the worship in the sample I posted in Part 2. But where we’ve arrived at works for so much of what we do that I think we’re going to choose to compromise in a place that works pretty well for the far majority of what we do. It would be really nice one day to have a separate position with someone mixing strictly for broadcast, but until that day ever comes, I’m pretty pleased with what we’ve landed on.
So there you have it. Questions, feel free to ask away! There are more samples of the new chain on my website. The only clip not recorded through this chain is the Christmas 2007 opener.
Broadcast Mix Part 2
Here’s the process we now take to create the mix…
We now use three sets of ambience/audience mics, each with a different purpose for capturing the room. Inspired by some great discussion on the Digidesign User Forum, my implementation is…
- Mics #1 are a set of shotgun mics (purchased for this project) on the outside corners of our stage, mounted just under our side screens, pointed out into the room. These are the primary audience pickup source because so much of the audience’s energy is directed towards the stage that these do a great job of capturing without adding too much PA to the mix.
- Mics #2 are a set of Crown PCCs placed on the lip of the stage at the 1/3 and 2/3 lines from left to right. These combine with the shotguns to provide some presence and immediacy to the signal since another set of shotguns wouldn’t be acceptable aesthetically in these positions.
- Mics #3 are a pair of Shure SM81s hung from the first catwalk, almost at the half way point of the room, also on the 1/3 and 2/3 lines to the stage. These mics serve almost entirely the purpose of room ambience – making the mix sound like it is happening in the auditorium rather than happening in a dead studio.
- We may still look to add an additional set or two but I’m stuck because adding them will mean needing to deal with delay times between those mics and the rest currently in place. Two of my current three sets are directly in line with the PA so there’s little issue there. The delay induced by the third set certainly does some phase stuff to the mix but the added space it puts in the mix when the speaker is up is worth the compromise to me. So we’ve dodged the bullet to this point and I’d like to avoid having to go there with more mics. This is one of the only limitations of creating the broadcast mix inside the Venue rather than in an outboard mixer/processor. There is no way to have the degree of time alignment control that would be needed in the broadcast feed without making other more significant sacrifices.
All channels on the console are split up into one of three main bus paths – master L/R is music, center is speech, and subgroup 7/8 for standalone playback sources. These three paths are then combined in the matrixes to feed the PA and outside world. Our PA processing is also set up for speech and music, so there is a stereo music matrix (with playback included in it) and a mono speech matrix that feed the PA. On the video side, music, speech, and playback are combined with the three sets of ambience/audience mics in a stereo matrix. A nice Massey mastering limiter, phoenix cranesong, and 7 band EQ for any trouble spots are put over that mix as a whole and the finished result is what you hear below.
According to Smaart, music averages at 88-95 dB in the auditorium, speech and videos run 68-75 dB. That equals an average 20 dB natural difference that feels right in the main auditorium. In the processing of audio for video, I am actually adding back 6 dB cumulatively to speech, making the speech/music difference 14 dB rather than 20 dB and this is really important. Too little added back makes speech too low compared to music, so you have to turn it up. But too much added does the reverse – turn it down when the speaker comes up.
That is why playback has to be split up from music in the broadcast matrix. If playback is lumped in with the band, it comes out too low on video compared to speech because playback is in that lower dynamic range in the room. But if playback were lumped in with speech directly instead, it would be in mono and receive all kinds of undesirable processing in the speech world that isn’t desired. So…on the PA side, playback and music are each sent to the music PA matrix at equal volume. But on the video side, playback is sent to the matrix at the same level as speech but through its own path. So if speech and playback were sent to the matrix at 100% level, music is sent at 90% level.
Here’s a sample of the finished result of worship from our New Community service last night…
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In my next post I’ll outline the final steps necessary to fine tune for building feeds vs. broadcast.
