How to mix for 2 bands ?

[BigYinUK]

Later this year, I'm putting on a party....... We are going to be having 2 bands, both rock and a disco (yuk). As one of them is going to be my band, I/we'll be supplying the PA, lights etc.

 

As its my hobby and I want to do it anyway, I'll be running the whole show, including setting the PA up and checking all goes well in the soundcheck for both bands. Engineering for my own band and mixing is something I've done many times but what I've not tried to do is mix 2 bands on the same rig with my own band billing and me playing (not mixing).

 

What's the best way to soundcheck two bands, a mixer with loads of channels (it'll be analogue) or how ? We'll obviously be sharing foh and foldback and we'll use the other band's noisey to mix whilst we're on. Time shouldn't be an issue as we'll be soundchecking in the afternoon and the show won't start until the evening.

 

I'll be hiring in the foh as the room is quite big 200-250. Should I hire in a BIG mixer ?. I'm sure someone will suggest hiring in the whole PA including engineer(s) but my budget won't stretch to that unfortunately.

 

So how best to do this ?

 

Oh, and please be gentle with me as I'm only an amateur/hobbyist not a pro.

[J Pearce]

The options are independent channels for each band (often drums are shared), or lots of paper telling you where each switch and knob were for each band (often called recall sheets).

Bands could have independent multicore channels (repatch between bands at stage) or shared multicore channels (repatch between bands at FOH).

 

No doubt someone will also mention digital desks, most of which can save a 'scene', so before each band you can just recall their settings with the click of a button (or 4).

[SoLiEn]

this is where digital comes into its own, storing the different eq's as states/sets. you cold do it using a big desk or you could using a digital camera photo both sets of EQ and faders and match accordingly

 

just my two penneth worth.

[themadhippy]

option 1)traditional, method paper pen and pencil,sketch out the front pannel of the desk showen all all the controls ,sound check the last band first when theve finished mark the position of all the controls on your sketch,then sound check the first band,you can then leave the desk alone as its already set for the first band,when theve finished muteall the channels and reset it as showen on your drawing

2)modern method, use a digital desk that can store all the settings and just recall each as needed

[StevieR]

To be honest, for a standard band with drums, bass, couple of guitars and 2-3 vocals, you will probably find that the only major differences between the bands will be playing level and monitor preferences - unless you are being really picky.

 

So, just use your existing mixer and share all the mics/channels. You can then use a quick mark-up sheet to note that monitor/pre-map differences between the bands.

 

Now, I have no idea what size of mixer you already have but, as you are moving into a larger room, you will probably be looking to mic up the whole band - bass, drums and all. So, just ensure you have enough channels to play with for this.

 

Steve

[J Pearce]

I should add that for most modern (medium-large scale) desks recall sheets are available from the manufacturer.

 

Click for example (pdf)

[Rob_Beech]

As others have said there are various ways of doing it, and it depends on the bands preferences and how picky they are. there are bands who will refuse to use the same channels as another band on the same bill and this is where you start getting through lots of them with an analogue board.

 

Where are you based? a local hire company who has a digital board might be willing to do a deal if you get FOH racks and stacks from there also. This would save alot of hassle, it dos mean that everyone who would be using it would need to know how to use it.

 

If you can share channels (maybe with the exception of the lead vocals), if you get a desk with lots of aux you ca swap these for bands and say use aux 1-4 for the first band and 5-8 for the second band. It all depends on how many mixes each band needs. The ML3000 Jon links to has 8 aux but the newer GL2800 has 10 meaning you could have your effects aswell. The Gl2800 appears to e very very popular and a common desk amongst hire stock of lots of companies. if you MUST use separate channels and digital is not an option. and you don' have time to repatch channels an multicores if heaven forbid yours isn't on some form of multipin, then you can always hire a passive splitter. a 32 channel desk will get 2 lots of 16 in (if they are all mono and yo don't need any for anything else) an you can just switch between the 2 banks for both bands. or have 2 desks, although this starts to take up a bit of time.

 

On budget friendly shows I'll sometimes run monitors for a support band from FOH and the main act will use the monitor board, but this isn't helpful in your case.

 

So, you need to work out how many channels each band needs. if you are sharing backline an rum kits then this is great for channel sharing. if there are 2 backlines and 2 drumkits being set up then you may aswell go a bit further an mic them up separately gear permitting to allow a quicker changeover.

[mervaka]

you said yuk about the rock band, right? B-)

 

cue sheets are your friend. to be honest though I'd just stick with whats been said about swapping the XLRs of important channels over into a second bank on the back of the desk. simple and effective!

[digisound]

I often have many different bands on an evening and I try where possible to use other inputs to help the monitor engineer, but this is not always possible.

 

For your situation I would say if your hiring a desk to try and get something like the LS9/M7CL where possible or and 01v96(depending how many channels you want to use) as that would solve your problems and also save you having to get outboard gear.

 

All depends how much you are willing to spend and how much of an effort you want the evening to be.

Hope this helps

 

Craig

[Kevin Ross]

+1 For recall sheets. As I tend to be an engineer travelling with a band I tend to carry a few generic recall sheets from something like a GL2800 just in case I don’t get my own channels. Most of the time I’m more than happy sharing drum channels and having my own vocal and guitar channels. Where abouts in the UK are you, if its close I could be talked into doing a walk in /desk and outboard gig for a reasonable sum of money B-)

[Bobbsy]

My first choice would be a digital mixer...probably an LS9 or M7CL because the learning curve (even if you haven't used one) is very easy....but I've been a digital evangelist of years!

 

Failing that, mark up sheets have worked well for years and would certainly do the job for you. You'll find you can download templates for such sheets from the websites of most major manufacturers.

 

As an aside, your post brings back pleasant memories. A few years back, the year I turned 50, a good friend from work celebrated the same milestone birthday a few weeks after me. I've done sound for years; he's played guitar for years. We decided that rather than admit to being old we'd hire a venue, invite all our friends, and do a show. It was a great evening!

 

Bob

[BigYinUK]

A digital desk would of course be the solution (and that's why I noted that we'll be using analogue) <_<

 

I had in my mind that writing it all down was probably going to be the only way to do it. I didn't know that was called "recall sheets", seems very handraulic :** laughs out loud **:

 

.....BTW the "yuk" was for the disco, I'd be happy to have the bands play all night but its a shared party :P

 

Thanks all for the replies, much appreciated.

[paulears]

I've read this one with interest - I think it's the first post of it's kind. Our friends who post in the lighting section have plenty of topics to comment on - with rather many relating to lower budget events that wish to use more contemporary kit and 'kind of' assume this is the norm.

 

It appears sound are ow following the same course. The OP wants to use analogue kit (maybe because of cost, but perhaps just because it's available and friendly). Digital equipment in this case would be ideal because of the instant reset capability - something very useful for making this kind of event much, much simper. The penalty is cost. £3-4 grand buys a pretty solid, quality analogue desk with 32 or so input channels. Cost for cost - digital equivalents have less inputs, making them not really a suitable alternative. The common digital offerings from Yamaha which get great reviews and recommendations are too expensive. My 32 in 12 out Yamaha desk is due for replacement - but at the moment, use won't justify the cost.

 

Using analogue, then a few extra lines in the multi to cope with mics that can't be swapped, plus a number that can work for me. I'll usually not make any changes to drum mic positions or the eq, but swap DIs with just eq and send change notes. The support won't get the same level of support - so no outboard dedicated to them - like comps/limiters etc, and they will share reverb/effects IF the headline band have some programmes that can be left alone. They also get less time for soundchecking - so although I'm happy they sound ok, I won't be spending time on small stuff, just for them.

[Bobbsy]

Okay, I'm going to bite on this one. I replaced my aging 24 channel analogue board a few years ago, partly because it was having some niggling problems and partly because I had some projects coming up that needed more inputs and outputs. After looking at everything on the market, I decided I couldn't afford NOT to go digital.

 

I bought a DM1000, but Yamaha's new model ranges have superceded this and shifted the equation even more in the direction of digital (in my opinion of course).

 

As you say, Paul, a decent quality 32 input analogue desk can be had for £3-4,000. A Yamaha LS9-32 has a street price of £5,500-5,800.

 

However, you have to remember that, within this price, you have ALL the outboard gear you could ever need, including fully parametric EQ on every channel, dynamics processing (gate and comp/lim) on every channel, several GEQs, several channels of excellent effects, delays, etc. etc. You also are getting an automated board with scene preset memories and flying faders.

 

On top of the base cost of all this, don't forget that any outboard you buy has to be racked and/or cased. You need to buy or make cable looms. To have similiar routing flexibility, you'd have to include some form of patch panel or enjoy playing in the back of a dark rack with your maglite. Once you have all this stuff, you have to lug it in and out of venues.

 

When I added up what I was getting for the money (and only included the bits I needed, not ever single dynamics processor or whatever) I decided the digital option was the more economic.

 

What I wasn't prepared for was the changes having digital made to the way I work. Between the automation and the virtual patching, I'm doing things I simply wouldn't have attempted in an analogue domain...and doing them easily.

 

I don't know why the OP specified analogue (which I had noticed...explaining why I mentioned markup sheets). If it's to do with a "friendly price" for a specific analogue board or whatever, that's fine. However, if he's paying the commercial rate, I suggest that the price of EVERYTHING be factored in. Finally, if it's a worry about learning a digital board, give the LS9 a try. If you can use analogue, you'll probably fine the LS9 even easier!

 

Bob

[themadhippy]

And just like the lampies,the hum scum can also download the off-line editors for the yammy desks from here .you need to get the studio manager as well as the relavent desk file