Bazz339 Posted November 29, 2015 Share Posted November 29, 2015 Had a play with a Soundcraft Ui 16 Tablet/Mobile controlled rack mounted mixer, an amazing piece of kit especially for the money. It was nice to have the opportunity to use something like that for a small local pub gig. One thing that I would have liked would have been the ability to PFL/SOLO via the headphone socket on the tablet. Can any of this style of mixer do this? Mackie ? Behringer X16? Can this one and we missed it on the limited time my colleague had to play with it during the week? Is it feasible over wifi? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GR1 Posted November 29, 2015 Share Posted November 29, 2015 I don't think it's possible with WiFi. You would need to use an in ear wireless system the same as you would for on stage foldback or monitors. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sam.spoons Posted November 29, 2015 Share Posted November 29, 2015 I can't see a reason why it shouldn't be possible over wifi, we stream audio, video and damn near everything else at home but I'm not aware of a current digital mixer that offers the featuer. The Mackie DL and Berry X32 ranges don't for sure. So, as GR1 says, you need a separate IEM, driven by the headphone socket to achieve this (in fact I'm just about to buy one myself for that exact reason). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dosxuk Posted November 29, 2015 Share Posted November 29, 2015 The main issue would be latency. Getting a robust, digital, low latency audio feed over wifi is actually incredibly difficult. Bluetooth is designed to do it from scratch while playing nicely with consumer kit, but the latency is still to high for monitoring. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bazz339 Posted November 29, 2015 Author Share Posted November 29, 2015 Even with high latency it would be better than nothing. The situation I had last night was 1 feedback which I thought was off the bass and wasn't. 2 Vox mix ceased to function due to pulled lead. PFL might have helped get to the source of the problems quicker. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sam.spoons Posted November 29, 2015 Share Posted November 29, 2015 Nobody has stuck their head above the parapet with wireless IEMs yet, saying than neither 2.4GHz wifi or bluetooth (also 2.4GHz BTW but a different protocol) are usable at the moment (though with Line6 wireless mics claiming a latency of just 1.5ms it's hard to see why). For monitoring a mix or soloing a channel though even 5-6ms (and likely quite a lot more) would be pretty much undetectable being equivalent to being a couple of metres further from the stage. To put it in perspective, for a singer 1.5ms is the difference between hearing yourself in a floor monitor and hearing yourself in a mic stand mounted mini-monitor (or stepping back ½ a metre towards the drum kit). For the moment a budget wireless IEM set would probably be the way to go. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
timsabre Posted November 29, 2015 Share Posted November 29, 2015 dosx is right, the latency over wifi would be unworkable.There is a complicated protocol stack involved in wifi which makes the latency very unpredictable. You don't notice it when streaming audio as obviously you can't tell how far behind the source you are, but it can be over a second if lots of wifi stuff is going on (like in a room full of phones). The bluetooth stack is much simpler. Devices such as the Line 6 2.4Ghz equipment have their own protocol so can minimise the delay. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sam.spoons Posted November 29, 2015 Share Posted November 29, 2015 Is that the cause of dropouts/'buffering' delays when streaming video? Also I don't usually notice any latency when controlling the desk from an iPad (admittedly it would have to be an order of magnitude or two greater than that which would bugger up live audio before it became an issue, or even noticeable). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
S&L Posted November 30, 2015 Share Posted November 30, 2015 Sam is spot on with IEM's - that's the way this is usually done. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
timsabre Posted November 30, 2015 Share Posted November 30, 2015 Is that the cause of dropouts/'buffering' delays when streaming video? Also I don't usually notice any latency when controlling the desk from an iPad (admittedly it would have to be an order of magnitude or two greater than that which would bugger up live audio before it became an issue, or even noticeable). When you're controlling the desk you are just sending the odd packet here and there. Audio is a continuous stream of packets which can arrive at the destination in any order (some packets might collide and have to retry later) so the receiver can be running quite a bit behind as it assembles all the packets in the correct order for playout. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarkBarl Posted November 30, 2015 Share Posted November 30, 2015 As previously stated, the expectation from manufacturers is that IEMs would be used for this. I know that the Mackie DL range also let you delay the output of the headphone port so that it will sound natural at the back of the room. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bazz339 Posted November 30, 2015 Author Share Posted November 30, 2015 If latency is the only problem then it is one I could live with that for simple live set ups/gigs, I don't know about other people but if I am using cans on a live gig it is usually to confirm presence/absence of audio and quality e.g. tone, is there any distortion, is it present at the destination I think it should be going to or absent from one I think it should not be going to, latency would irritating but not be a great problem there IMHO. fair enough to use IEMs for more critical situations, maybe bluetooth might be the answer for smaller gigs rooms. Infra red heaphones might be another small gig option. Engineers already have to deal with time discrepancies using PFL/SOLO and engineered latency when mixing from a distance covered by delayed loudspeakers. I am talking about engineer monitoring, not performer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarkPAman Posted November 30, 2015 Share Posted November 30, 2015 Anybody got any of these, or similar (non Bluetooth) wireless headphones? I'm wondering if they'd be up to the job. How loud do they go? Like Bazz, I'm not looking to try to mix on them, just use for confirming what's there & problem solving. edit - Forgot the link Click Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bazz339 Posted November 30, 2015 Author Share Posted November 30, 2015 As previously stated, the expectation from manufacturers is that IEMs would be used for this. I know that the Mackie DL range also let you delay the output of the headphone port so that it will sound natural at the back of the room. People are going to be reluctant to buy a desk at say £600 then have to spend say £200 more so basic monitoring can be easily achieved. The price point, size and convenience of these desks means they are in pub gig territory with facilities and control that could only be dreamed on pro desks not that many years ago. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sam.spoons Posted November 30, 2015 Share Posted November 30, 2015 My experience of bluetooth headphones was when I tried a pair for late night (post gig) tv watching and the latency made them totally unusable. The wireless FM or infra-red cans wouldn't have any latency but, as you surmise, probably won't get loud enough. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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