Divide & Conquer

Murphy’s Audio Law #10: “The probability of having sound system failure is inversely proportional to the amount of time remaining until the performance.”

We’ve all experienced it: there were problems with load in or set-up, time is short, the system is set-up with only a few minutes to spare and of course, something works improperly or not at all. Although the first instinct might be to take a “shotgun” approach and start checking plugs, connections, cables, etc. in a random fashion (i.e. “panic”), a tried-and-true troubleshooting method will almost always find the problem with less effort and in a shorter amount of time.

The most basic troubleshooting technique (after “is it plugged in?”) is the “Divide and Conquer” method. This involves identifying the good parts of the system as well as figuring out which parts have failed. Not only can these working sections be eliminated as the cause of the problem, but they can also be used to test other parts of the system.

Let’s consider an example: a mic channel at a mixer is dead while others are operating properly. The good news here is that you can use one of the working channels to isolate the problem.

First, unplug an input connector from a working channel on the console and plug it into the dead channel. If the bad channel on the console now works, the problem must exist before the console, back toward the mic.
If it’s still dead, the problem has to be after that channel’s input (bad channel, dirty insert jack, wrong assignment, etc.) Either way, about half of the system is eliminated.

Let’s assume the first condition above – the console is OK. The remaining part of the system can be divided in half again by doing same thing at the stage end of the snake. That is, after switching the cables back to where they were on the console, plug a cable from a known working mic into the offending channel on the stage box. If the channel stays dead, the problem has to be in the snake. But if the channel comes to life, the snake is eliminated and the problem must be between the stage box and the mic (the cable and/or the mic itself). In this case, substituting either the mic cable or the mic will identify the problem.

The same technique can be used after the the console too.

One amp not responding? Take the input cable from another amp that is working (AND handling the same frequency range if its a bi-amp or tri-amp situation – DON’T TAKE A BASS FREQUENCY line and plug it in to the offending amp that’s feeding horns!). If it starts working, put things back and move back toward the console – maybe to the crossover. Try reversing the left and right signals starting at the console and moving toward the amps. When the problem switches from one side to the other, you’ve found the problem point in the line.

As said before, the tendency, especially under pressure, is to start substituting cables or wiggling connections in a random manner. Although you might just get lucky and hit on the defective component, it’s very easy to put yourself into an endless circle, trying this and that, without really getting a handle on where the problem lies. This is especially true if a section has more than one defective component.

Practice an organized troubleshooting method and you’ll “Divide and Conquer” your problem every time.

New workflow for reviewing mixes

I wrote a couple weeks ago about the importance of reviewing your mixes and all the things you can learn from this discipline. Up until recently, my workflow to accomplish this involved physical media – either burning a CD at FOH or grabbing a copy of the service DVD after the fact. My favorite way to review is to listen in the car after a service since I have a 30 minute drive each way, hence the CDs. The problem with this workflow is obvious – literally at least 50 CDs from old services cluttering up my car, keeping the blank CD stockpile ready to go, etc. I’ve messed around off and on with recording to a computer and somehow dumping to my iPod/iPhone but never settled on a workflow that was simple and fast enough to surpass the simplicity of CDs. Until now.

Enter Wiretap Studio. I bought the MacHeist bundle for the first time this year and this little gem is one of the apps that came in the package. What this program does is allow you to record audio from just about anywhere on your Mac – skype, streaming audio, line input, etc. It has a really handy library where it keeps track of everything you record and besides basic file editing, once media is in the library, you have lots of options of what to do with it…everything from dumping the raw file to the desktop, straight export to an idisk or iPod, bluetooth transfers. Essentially you name it.

Now, I connect into the line in on my laptop from a console output with the same feed that’s being sent to video world. Record in Wiretap and it spits it out into the Wiretap library. I created storage folders in the library for rehearsals, services, favorite elements, and misc. I like this because it keeps all of these board tapes separate from my iTunes library on the same machine unless a particular clip is strong enough to warrant importing into iTunes and promoting to my regular music library.

But Wiretap is only half the equation. I still need to get the files to my iPhone so I can listen on the drive. In the past, this has been the most complicated part of the equation because my iPhone media library wasn’t paired with the library. I’d messed around with converting my recordings into podcasts which could be sync’d to the phone independent of the rest of my media, but this was clunky and took too long. Enter FileMagnet. This cool little app lets you transfer files via wifi back and forth to an iPhone and play media natively inside the app on the phone without having to add to the phone’s iTunes library. Now I have two media “libraries” on my phone – iTunes and the files transfered with FileMagnet.

The result is a really solid workflow that makes reviewing my mixes SO much easier and neater. Record in Wiretap – export to desktop – drag into FileMagnet – wifi sync with phone.

I don’t know if this would be helpful for anyone else but I think its pretty cool.

Stop what you’re doing and read these!

Although I’ve never met him, I’ve learned so much from reading Dave Rat’s thoughts over the past few years on his blog (there’s a link in my blogroll if you have never read his stuff) and on various forums that I consider him an audio mentor. He released an article for ProSoundWeb last week on when hearing starts to drift and how to avoid being “EQ Oblivious”. It’s really great stuff to think about. All of us in audio or music in general have to be concerned with the longevity of our hearing. Good thoughts here.

Along the way reading this article, I ran across a few others that he’s written over the past year for PSW that are all must-reads as well. Check them out:

When Hearing Starts to Drift, How to Avoid Becoming “EQ Oblivious”

Dynamics Versus Compressed

Sometimes Sound is About Time

D-Show 2.8.1 Thoughts

Along with the release of the SC48 this week from Digidesign, I’m also excited to see version 2.8.1 of the D-Show software shipping soon. There are some welcome new features that I’m looking forward to!

1. VCA & Group Spill is something I think I will use all the time. I had a chance to play with this on the SC48 demo I saw a few weeks ago and since I like to layout my console fully utilizing the 4 fader banks, this is another very intuitive way to access things that might not be at immediate reach. This feature temporarily brings channels assigned to a VCA or group immediately to the top of the console. Double-tap the Select button for a given VCA or group and the contents “spill” across the console’s input faders from right to left. Super cool!
2. Copy and Paste Plug-In Settings. This one should have been there from the start on the desk. You could always get around it using the plug-in library, but this is a welcome addition!
3. Channel pan is now included in the snapshot crossfade. Previously the pans would snap which was less than ideal. I don’t scope pans very often but glad it will be a smoother transition.
4. Cue on Mains Fader. I have a set of monitors at FOH that I use quite often to cue things up, see what a player is adding to the mix at any given time, etc. We also don’t use our main fader for anything – the PA is fed off the matrixes pre of that fader so it is pretty well useless. 2.8.1 lets you assign that fader to control the monitor level (leaving the mains level unaffected). Now when I want to supplement what I’m hearing with my monitors or cue something up, I can use that fader instead of having to reach to the top of the desk to twist the monitor knob. Not a big thing but still cool.

I know that not everyone is happy with Digidesign’s policy of charging for software updates. This upgrade is $149 list. My take on this is that a significant drawing point to Digidesign is the fact that, as an audio console company, they update their consoles frequently. If paying a modest fee means that I see updates at least once a year with good, usable feature improvements, I’m more than willing to contribute. The alternative is what I experienced with Y*!@#$%A where some updates were free, but they were largely bug fixes or it was years between major feature updates. For what its worth, those are my $0.02.

I can’t wait to get my hands on 2.8.1 once it is released!

First Look: Digidesign SC48

Exciting news introduced yesterday, the Digidesign SC48! I had a chance to take a demo for a test drive a few weeks ago since we are going to be strongly considering replacing some M7CLs with this console. If you’ve missed the details, the SC48 is essentially a D-Show Mix Rack/Profile system without the rack; everything is built into the console. It’s insanely small – 16 channel faders and 8 master faders. 48 in, 16 out is the standard config although you can expand the outputs to 32. It includes two mix cards with the capacity for 20 plug-ins in the rack (rather than 100 in the full-blown D-Show systems). Included as standard is ECX laptop control of the system and a firewire connection (Protools 8 LE also comes with the console) for 18 channels of I/O to a laptop or desktop for recording. There’s even an included shelf that fits perfectly on the left side of the desk for the laptop to sit in close proximity to the control surface. Price point is in the neighborhood of a M7CL.

I’m excited about this console for a few reasons:

• To the best of my knowledge Digidesign is the first and only company to create a range of live mixing consoles based on the same software with interchangeable file standards. In our multi-campus model, this is HUGE. The new SC48 means engineers at Kensington would only have to learn one software and it would be consistent whether they are mixing at a portable campus on a 48×16 system or at one of our permanent locations with i/o that could easily exceed 96×32 or more. Also means that our guys can build preset libraries of their favorite settings and travel with them from room to room with perfect translation.
• It should be no surprise, since Digidesign is first and foremost a software company, but the D-Show platform is the most powerful, well thought out, and intuitive digital audio platform I’ve ever worked on. The snapshot automation system is the standard every other console should be patterned after and the native use of plug-ins takes mixing to an entirely different stratosphere.
• I love that the SC48 carries on the same small footprint of the Profile with 24 faders (16 input/8 output). I love mixing on the Profile so much because everything is directly in front of you and instantly available and the SC48 feels great for 48 inputs.
• A new feature in v2.8 of the software makes the 16 channel faders really useful. Digidesign has modeled a feature after the Midas “pop groups”…double tap the select on a VCA fader and up to 16 of the faders assigned to that VCA populate immediately to the left of the master section. Regardless of whichever bank the drum channels are on, doubletap the VCA and they pop up to the top bank and are available for immediate control. As I play with a potential channel layout for our campus scenario, this feature is huge!

There are a couple weaknesses in the initial release…

• Initially, there is no on-board accommodation for an external stage rack or digital snake. Analog only inputs into the SC48. If you want to use a digital snake (such as the Whirlwind E-Snake we use currently at several campuses), there is no way to integrate gain control of those external preamps into the console. BIG weakness. C’mon Digi!
• I’m sad that there is no PQ control on board. The SC48 is not the only system to be missing PQ – the Mix Rack system also has no provision for PQ. If you’ve been following my thoughts since we installed our Venue system last Summer, you know that I think PQ rocks! I understand in a package of the SC48′s size, some things have to be left out. I just wish there was an expansion option to add PQ control.

Overall, this console rocks! Kensington owns four Yamaha M7CLs but I can’t imagine that lasting for much longer. Changing from a PM1D to the D-Show was the single best decision I’ve made for audio at the Troy campus and I have a feeling we’ll be saying the same thing soon about the SC48. Yamaha consoles are reliable, steady workhorses and are certainly a capable tool. But Digidesign’s software puts them in an entirely different league. It is intuitive, so powerful, and now compatible among multiple levels of systems. The Venue becomes far more transparent than any other desk I’ve used, allowing the engineer to focus on mixing while the technology supports that task, rather than being a slave to the workflow of the software.

We have a demo coming in the next few weeks so a few of our campus engineers can spend some time on the SC48. I’ll let you know how that goes.