Options for Auxes

[Pete Alcock]

I'm still on my desk refurbishment project (ML3000) and am about to put all the PCBs back in the frame. On the channels, there is the option to set the prefade auxes to:

1. Pre-insert, pre-eq
   
2. Post-insert, pre-eq
   
3. Post-insert, post eq
   

Given that I normally do live bands and mix monitors from FOH, option 3. above would seem to be sensible. A vocalist for example would hear in the monitors their sound with a bit of compression (insert), together with whatever eq I'd added. Curiously the default from A&H is option 1. above(?). What would you have?

 

The other thing is you can select the auxes to be muted with the channel mute or not, with not being the factory setting. This seems odd. Personally if I see someone on stage about to unplug a condensor mic I dive for the mute button and want it to preserve my wedges as well as my FOH speakers.

 

Opinions welcome and valued.

 

Pete.

[mackerr]

Given that I normally do live bands and mix monitors from FOH, option 3. above would seem to be sensible. A vocalist for example would hear in the monitors their sound with a bit of compression (insert), together with whatever eq I'd added. Curiously the default from A&H is option 1. above(?). What would you have?

 

The other thing is you can select the auxes to be muted with the channel mute or not, with not being the factory setting. This seems odd. Personally if I see someone on stage about to unplug a condensor mic I dive for the mute button and want it to preserve my wedges as well as my FOH speakers.

 

I would want the mutes to mute the auxes, but I think the pre everything pickoff point is the way to go. You do not want to compress the mons and make the singer think they have to push harder. The FOH eq has no relation to the sound in the mons either, but it is nice to have eq for mons. The best solution is to split the important inputs into 2 channels each so you can have 1 for FOH and 1 for mons with separate eq and processing.

 

Mac

[dbuckley]

Option 3 advised so for non-vocals you get something about right sounding through the wedges.

 

For vocal now I always recommend a split and use one channel for FOH, and a second for wedge feed. Option 3 then is still best, with the sligfht wiggle you need to disengage the channel output assign soit goes nowhere other than auxs.

[Russ83]

<snip>

The other thing is you can select the auxes to be muted with the channel mute or not, with not being the factory setting. This seems odd. Personally if I see someone on stage about to unplug a condensor mic I dive for the mute button and want it to preserve my wedges as well as my FOH speakers.

Strange that on the GL2400 the mute does act on the auxs and there is not way of changing it. I certainly prefer it that way for the same reason you mention above. I wonder why they changed?

[ghance]

1. Pre Pre

[savage1]

Another vote for option 1. Best to keep FOH eq separate from monitor EQ.

[Wilflet]

Id say 3.

If you go pre then youve got no channel eqs on monitors, when the band then want say the drums more punchy on stage you've nothing you can do other than the graphs (at which point they'll say the guitar is too muddy or somthing).

If your post post then the gate and channel eq you've already put on the drum will probably already be closer to what they want.

[Matt Pengelly]

I agree with this:

 

Id say 3.

If you go pre then youve got no channel eqs on monitors, when the band then want say the drums more punchy on stage you've nothing you can do other than the graphs (at which point they'll say the guitar is too muddy or somthing).

If your post post then the gate and channel eq you've already put on the drum will probably already be closer to what they want.

[stevefez]

I agree with this:

As do I. Another vote for 3.

Especially:

Given that I (you) normally do live bands and mix monitors from FOH

[J Pearce]

For a simple multipurpose desk auxes from just before the fader works well.

 

Post EQ, pre insert would be nice to have so that you could have EQ in mons but non-compressed, but on the other hand I always want my inserts pre EQ, so that gets a bit awkward...

 

The ML3k I spent many hours behind at uni certainly had auxes post mute and I'm almost certain they were post EQ too.

[James Remo]

I took a rig out of an audio visual company to do a live gig and had to spend an hour of the rig converting their ML3k to option 3 as I was mixing monitors from foh. If the monitors are suitably rung out and the system is fairly well set up then sharing eq between foh and stage isn't too bad, but I too would have preferred not to have the inserted dynamics going to the auxes. As it happened, after my call to their sound dept asking why the eq was post aux when I was using the desk in this manner they changed the rest of their desks to this standard, and the quality of their recordings (pretty much all they ever used their auxes for) improved. Look at what you use auxes for. Fx sends: If you have to remove a harsh tone from the sound of the mic, why would you want that tone going to an fx unit? Mix Records: Same issue. Monitor feed: Same issue. In this way I can't see much benefit in having auxes pre EQ. Maybe one of the guys who chose option one would like to expand on their choices? What benefits can you get form running auxes pre eq? I will agree that having separate eq for your monitors is a benefit, and I like the split channel idea (and will be using it) and as a preference will always run a separate board and engineer, but for the occasions when it's not financially viable....

[Rob_Beech]

When you've done your sound check and everyone is happy you go away, have a bag of chips and come back and do the show. Everyone on stage has turned up their backline or is just playing their instruments louder. You bring up the vocals but they don't quite fit in right now, so you need to make adjustments to the eq to make them sit in the mix the same as they did before. Suddenly you've altered their monitors too. Perhaps this has made things worse for them.

 

Imagine someone wanting vocals loud to cut through a moderately loud stage volume, imagine the vocal in FOH being a little bit sharp but the rest of it slotting in nicely, pull out that nastiness in FOH and that might pull out everything that's cutting through the mix and allowing the vocalist to hear him or herself.

 

Imagine that vocal also being compressed. The lifeless vocal on stage is going to sound pretty awful.

 

 

Just some thoughts.

[James Remo]

Cool. Thanks for that, like I said I'm gonna try the splitting the vocal to two channels idea next time I have to mix mons form FOH. I was having real trouble seeing the benefits from option one. Mixing mons from FOH is far from ideal as we are all aware. Thinking of a monitor desk specifically, if all the mixes were pre eq then surely you would have no tonal control over the feed from that mic to that monitor, except from any graphic inserted over the mix. I can understand that a direct out would want to be post- gain pre- anything else, but I can't see how having an aux, which is in effect just another mix, full of mic feeds with no tonal adjustment to them. I guess if you are using the best mics in the best locations with as little spill as possible then you wouldn't really nees eq on your auxes, but how often does that happen?

[Rob_Beech]

Ah but in MONITOR world, you want all your auxes POST everything. The topic focuses on FOH mixing with Monitors from FOH. For a dedicated monitor board you'd normally have all the auxes, post insert, post eq, post fade, post mute/on switch post anything else. That way you have eq per channel, you have the ability to insert dynamics and fx on it, and you can control the overall level of that channel to ALL auxes with the channel fader.

 

It's very difficult if you use multipurpose boards like an ML3000, sometimes in monitor role, sometimes FOH and sometimes doing both. It's not practical to go in and change internal jumpers for each gig (which is why we like external switches).

 

One must remember that you can still split channels even if you're just doing monitors on a dedicated monitor board. You can have a different eq and insert for the lead vocal for his or her own monitors than for the rest of the band. For example, you could split the channel into 2. You could have the vocal compressed in the rest of the wedges and side fills with an eq to suit, but leave it uncompressed and have a different eq to suit in their own wedges. You could also blend between the compressed and uncompressed channel in any of the mixes.

[J Pearce]

You bring up the vocals but they don't quite fit in right now, so you need to make adjustments to the eq to make them sit in the mix the same as they did before. Suddenly you've altered their monitors too. Perhaps this has made things worse for them.

 

I understand the problem well, but rarely find I can get a suitable sound out of the monitors without some channel EQ. I'd rather risk slightly changing the monitor sound mid gig than have a consistently awful sound from the monitors.

Of course I'd much rather just have separate monitor and FOH desks, so that each task has a brain dedicated to it, but budgets, time restraints and space often don't allow.