VCA Control for Individual and Groups of Faders at Same Time

[burnum]

I will be mixing a musical, and have a question about VCAs. My concern is with fast-paced songs that have a majority of single lines, with some group lines.

Let's say I have the ensemble: Tom, Dick, Harry, Sally.

I would like VCA control like so:
1: Dick, Harry, Sally
2: Tom
3: Dick
4: Harry

So when Tom, Dicky, and Harry have individual lines, I can have only their mic up. When Dick, Harry, Sally sing their line together, I can bring up just one VCA.

The problem is that when channels are assigned to multiple VCAs, the VCAs cancel each other out. So unless VCAs 3 & 4 are also up, Dick & Harry's mics will be out when I bring up VCA 1. Similar problem in reverse: if VCA 1 is down, and I bring up VCA 4: Harry still won't be heard.

Is there anyway to setup the venue so that VCA mixing of the channels is additive rather than subtractive?

OR

Does anyone have a suggestion for another routing that still lets me have group and individual control of channels from my output bank? Thanks!

[mariojorgeandrade]

Hi.
Why don't you create a snapshot for each part?
With only mutes for the individual channels scoped?
Then you would still have group and individual control
at the VCAs and everything else would stay the same,
e.g., if you have made some eq changes on a particular day, etc,
it wouldn't be recalled each time you recalled (...) a snapshot, unless
you wanted it to be.
If it's a real fader riding situation and you just can't get you hands out of the VCAs, then create an event and use a footswitch to recall the snapshots.
"Think Digital"!
I hope it helps.
Good luck!
Regards,
MJ

[Jeff W.]

Using subgroups would do what your looking for. One thing to watch out for though is if you have two subgroups with the same source going to both, you will get a 3db increase in level on the output.

[Jason Stygar]

Originally Posted by Jeff W.

Using subgroups would do what your looking for. One thing to watch out for though is if you have two subgroups with the same source going to both, you will get a 3db increase in level on the output.

so just add more compression!

[Roland Clarke]

I think what you are trying to do is mixing!

All joking aside, if you asign those faders to a vca or group, by double clicking the group select button you should get "group spill" if you are using the right version of the Venue software. In your scenario, I don't see much need for the Dick, Sally, Harry, VCA, you really only need to be riding the solo's on the individual mic's, ducking the others is INHO, going to yield little benefit, but with four mics, two hands, this is perfectly possible without resorting to complex VCA assignment.