Vinyl Player live effect on LS9

[Dj Dunc]

Hi all

 

In a musical coming up, In the opening scene a vinyl is put on, which gradually fades into a live band. My initial thoughts on this are to add some form of effect on the LS9 to change the sound.

 

Initial thoughts are the LS9 may not be able to add the kind of audio lo-fi sound to the live audio, so I can probably cue that from a sound effect from the laptop to simulate the record scratching, however the band will still need to be EQ'd etc. If I did add an effect / effects onto the LS9 can I fade it out, or would I have to hit the bypass button (which is not ideal)

 

many thanks

 

Dunc

[Andrew C]

LoFi? Bear in mind that a perfect LP is better than a perfect CD!

 

That said, I know what you mean. I'd record some hiss and crackle onto MD/CD/whatever and play that over the beginning of the piece; fade out on cue.

[themadhippy]

route your fx returns back through a channel or 2 and fade them as required,if you route them to 16 and 32,or 32 -64 ,link the faders you only loose 1 channel strip on the top layer

[Dj Dunc]

Thanks guys, exactly what I was thinking in terms of the LP hiss / crackle. As to the FX returns, I completely forgot that I could do that on the desk. I really need to brush up on my knowledge, as Ive hardly used it. Still need to sort the effects on the LS9 in terms of settings though.

 

Dunc

[mackerr]

In a musical coming up, In the opening scene a vinyl is put on, which gradually fades into a live band. My initial thoughts on this are to add some form of effect on the LS9 to change the sound.

 

Are you actually playing the SFX from the turntable? I would assume the music would be played from where ever the rest of your effects are played from, and you would produce it with the scratchy sound you are looking for. That is exactly how we started "A Boy and His Soul", a play that was pretty much about playing old vinyl records which opened with the actor putting on a favorite record that then moved from a practical speaker in the record player to the main playback speakers, a pair of CQ2s. All playback was from QLab. Using QLab allowed us to have an extra track that was the scratching so we could easily adjust the level in the theater.

 

Mac

[Dj Dunc]

Sorry Mac I should have been a little clearer. The show is The Drowsy Chaperone. The music is played entirely live, however the actor on stage puts a record on the turntable and sets it off. There is no sound coming from the record player. I need to know how to make the band sound like it is coming from the record player.

 

HOWEVER.

 

You raise a good point that I will look into, to see if they want the bands sound coming from the record player area. I suspect that as its a studio show, the bands own amplification will be too loud to make the effect work anyway.

 

many thanks

 

Duncan

[dbuckley]

The classic way to simulate this is to use high and low pass filters to bandwidth limit the audio to what a single six inch naff speaker delivers, and then wind the knobs both ways as record player transitions to real life.

 

I guess you could add a crackle (and even a needle drop) as an effect for good measure

[Bobbsy]

I've only had to do this on music playback (as opposed to live) so I'm think out loud here, but...

 

If I had to do this, I'd start from the premise that, as with any sound effect, you have to give the listeners what they think they need rather than strive for accuracy. In this case, that'll mean exaggerated needle drop and crackle and probably some low fi EQ.

 

Therefore, I'd start the cue with a needle drop and crackle effect, then cue the MD to start playing--if timing is critical I could use a click track but, likely, just saying "start playing 2 seconds after the needle drop" would be close enough. If at all possible, I'd locate a special speaker someplace on the same general axis as the on-stage record player and route the band sound through that with suitable EQ to make it sound "small box-ish" at the start with record crackle mixed in. Probably as the number progressed I'd do a gradual mix to place the band through the normal FOH system and ditch the special and the effect.

 

Clearly this can only work if there isn't a lot of spill from the band to drown out the special effect. If so, then just the needle drop and pre-music crackle are probably enough to give the impression anyhow.

 

Hope this helps,

 

Bob