Dealing with Unfamiliar Mixing Desks
Engineers who tour without production have mixed blessings. If the P.A. system at a particular venue is terrible, they don’t have to live with it for long. If the system at a venue is wonderful, they get it only for one show. Sometimes we can advance our favorite console, and sometimes we get whatever has been installed in the room. Other times, the result may be whatever gear that’s available from the inventory of the sound company providing the P.A.
The cool thing about console du jour is that you get to test drive a lot of different desks. Working on different mixing systems certainly deepens one’s understanding of audio and makes for two distinctly different points of view: “I love the fact that I’m not boxed into using the same thing every night” and “I don’t like the mystery of using an unfamiliar desk.”
No doubt, mixing on any desk requires a certain number of hours before you become comfortable, and indeed an engineer’s comfort level on a particular desk is often related to the amount of times it has passed under their hands. But what do you do when you have no choice but to mix on a desk that you have very little experience using, or have never used before?
Just Deal With It
I recently worked two gigs with unfamiliar desks. The process and results were very different. The first was the BMO Harris Pavilion at Milwaukee Summerfest. We were smack in the middle of the bill and there was no way we’d get a sound check. Throw and go. Guerrilla audio. Grab and growl. Call it whatever you like. I’d be mixing on a DiGiCo SD5, a wonderful desk with which I am barely familiar. I’ve mixed on a few other DiGiCo models such as the SD7 and SD8 — but not often enough to be confident and comfortable. My FOH systems engineer for the day was Jeff Schauer, and P.A. was provided by Clearwing Productions. I’d have about 40 minutes for changeover (a bit more than usual) but no access to the desk prior to that. I had a DiGiCo scene generated from a previous gig, but I wasn’t sure if my particular file would load on the SD5.
Jeff came to my rescue. He offered the option of either trying to load my file or letting him create a new file for me based on his previous work with the desk over the past days, at that venue, with that mic package. See where I’m going here? On another desk, I might have just built my own file from scratch, but I don’t have the chops on the SD5 to do it quickly. Jeff was able to build a file for me so I could walk in his footsteps, so to speak. The process brought to mind some important points.
Seven Rules for Mystery Console Survival
1. Don’t Tempt Fate: Loading your own file initially sounds like a good idea, but what if your output routing is configured differently from the P.A. you are using that day? You risk wasting time re-assigning the outputs (though many desks can ‘safe’ the outputs when loading a file). Worse things might happen if your file was created with a different software rev than the console is currently running.
2. Let the Systems Techs Do Their Gig: Jeff was able to soft patch and create a fader layer that displayed my inputs but hid the other “festival’ inputs that I wasn’t using. One of the beautiful things about digital desks is that channel numbers are not locked to channel position on the desk (i.e., input 15 can be mapped to fader ten). When you’re not familiar with a mixing console, seeing less is more.
The console worksurface had two fewer faders than I needed to see all of my stage inputs on one layer. Jeff put the two overhead mics on a second layer along with the CD playback I use for show cues, suggesting that once I had set the overhead channels, I wouldn’t need to babysit them much. He was right.
3. Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff: “Oh my, the delay on the lead vocal is 250 mS instead of 265.” Forget it. You don’t have time to obsess over finesse. Here’s a better idea: make sure that channels aren’t being routed to unwanted effects — like a snare drum feeding a multi-tap delay with a lot of feedback. Fun!
4. Focus on the Most Important Points: Are the inputs coming up where they are supposed to be? Are your channels labeled? Taking the time to label channels can save a lot of grief once the show starts. Where are the channel preamp gain controls? (Hopefully, you know where the faders are located. If not, call me and I’ll tell you). Can you hear everything, or — for that matter — anything?
5. Prioritize: Once you’ve addressed the previous points, go for the high-pass filters, and make sure they’re turned on for all channels. You can dial them in as you go. Then turn on the compressors for the vocal channels, bass, kick and snare. Set the threshold high to avoid compression until you see signal and have dialed in the gain setting. You don’t want to accidentally crush a lead vocal, making it inaudible or make the mic squeal when the singing stops.
6. Turn on the gates for the drums and set the thresholds LOW. Why, you ask? So that the gates are open. When you’re checking channels, you don’t want a tight gate to fool you into thinking there’s no signal. Once you know the signal is present, you can dial the threshold up to a point where the gate is… um… gating.
7. Don’t Let Your Ego Get in the Way: If something sounds wrong, ask for help. It could be an easy fix, or an issue with the venue acoustics that the systems tech has already sniffed out.
Act II: The Avid S6L
My first show on the Avid S6L was a lot less hectic, but again, having the assistance of a great audio tech made all the difference. This time it was Nick Sidman at the Peppermill Concert Hall in Wendover, NV. Not only was there a sound check, but I even had time to make an impression in the chair. After loading a file from the Avid VENUE (the files are compatible), Nick checked the input routing to make sure nothing was cross-patched, and then configured the outputs to match the house requirements. Nice and calm. Nick gave me a quick tutorial on the S6L, showing me the basics of the S6L before sound check started.
He also revealed the location of a very important button (no, not the suck button): the Home button, for those occasions where you get lost deep into the dark recesses of those murky pages with reverb pre-delay times or bus routings to the compressor’s key input. See Fig. 1. Yikes. There’s no place like home, there’s no place like home. Press the Home button and BAM!! — you’re back in Kansas. Okay with you, Toto?
Special thanks to Jeff and Nick for making my life a little easier.
Steve “Woody” La Cerra is the tour manager and Front of House engineer for Blue Öyster Cult.
