Question-- and opinions on routing and concept

[Scott Fahy]

Doing some thinking on an idea I have for monitors... Here's the concept

On occasion one of our normal BGV singer will be given a short solo in the middle of a song, of course when that happens all of the band guys want me to bring it up in their mix. There is no way I can dial 7 mixes quickly enough and using snapshots is difficult as many times this happens without prior warning from the worship leader. So here's the idea...

USER Assign in the MATRIX section each of the 8 BGV's, have the level set at full but turned off. OUTPUT of Matrix to a trim plug in, RETURN back into a channel, set up the feed to each band member based on their preference, pop the compressor on. When vocalist number 4 does a solo, jump to MATRIX section, turn on there feed and band guys happy. My question is how much time offset will there be and will it make any difference??

Thanks

Scott

[Kenmillerjr]

If I understand what you are doing properly, I would be concerned about a phasing issue; since you are mixing two of the same signals together?

Here are two options for you to consider:

1) When I do monitors, I run all the mixes with a pre-fader pickoff. The exception being vocals. I run the gains hotter and only have the fader up halfway, as opposed to the others at nominal. When the solo happens, I push the vocalist's fader up. This will give more in each mix.

2) Secondly, if you have independent gain from FOH/b-cast, you could just boost the gain a little. You just have to remember to bring it back down after the solo.

These are the two options I would consider.

[Scott Fahy]

The band guys get such a small amount of all of the vocals, some get none of the BGV's in their mix (as in you can barely hear them) so the soloist level should be far enough above to eliminate any phasing issues. And realistically not sure if the band guys would care, they just need a reference from the vocalist. I suppose I could route the BGV's as a group into a time adjuster and return to a stereo channel or FX return to line things up... my concern would be if the 3 or 7 sample delay would impact the bands timing... I don't think it would but until you try it you'll never know

[Brent Lind]

I think that solution is way overcomplicated.
Why not run monitors post-fade and just give it a boost to every mix? One of the many reasons to run monitor mixes post fade.

Or slightly more complicated but offering more control, patch another instance of the bgv vocals in question, have it set up for solo levels and keep the fader down until a solo hits, fade up (channel fader) and when you hit unity you are at the predetermined solo levels in each monitor mix.

[Brent Lind]

Or....

You could write a snapshot that sets the monitor levels for a solo and assign that snapshot to an event linked to a function key.

But for my money, I'd go with the aforementioned method of calling up another instance of the channel, strictly for solos. Doesn't burn up any matrices or any of that, no phasing issues, just one fader to grab (just don't forget to jump out of flip mode!).

[Scott Fahy]

I like the second idea Brent... the reason I came up with the more complicated idea was there are times when I won't have enough open/unused channels to double patch all of the vocals (8). The post fade thing would only work for the band guys that get a BGV blend as a starting point. Thanks for the suggestions.

[Brent Lind]

Cool man, good luck.

One more thought, and I'm sure you know this, but it never hurts to add a little info. Regarding the lack of channels to double up everything, remember that this does not require an open preamp, just an input strip. My tour rigs are usually just 48 channel (single stage rack) setups, but I usually configure the desk with 80 or more channels for just this kind of utility stuff.

In any case, I'm sure you'll come up with a good approach. Cheers.

[Scott Fahy]

add more info???? what--- I thought we all were well versed in mind reading....:)

[Kenmillerjr]

Brent:

Man, being able to adjust the channel count is awesome! Makes my life so much easier!

[Tiginbna]

Here are a couple of ways I would/could do it.
1. Write a snapshot to adjust the vocal for that part of that song only.
2. Run said vocal "post fade" to those mixes for this song/section only and assign that channel to a VCA, then use the VCA as a "volume boost" for this song/section only.

Hope it helps