Front of the House Gear Talk by Seasplash
Now this is going to be our last gear talk. Just announcing this already, we will continue this blog with a post about latest news in the world of instruments. So we will give you here some expertise about some instruments like guitars and stuff. And by the way, if there is someone who wants an opinion about an instrument or has a question, just write an email at info@seasplash.ch
Coming back to our rig talk. Since the early years, we've been working with analog stuff by Yamaha. Yamaha proved, at least in our work, the stability and quality their gear has because within almost 10 years we never had any problems or defects with the gear. That's why Yamaha has been a solid and economically priced label to work with.
Getting back to the real issue here, our FOH rig is actually quiet simple. We use a analog Yamaha MG24/FX mixing console (16 mono Inputs, 4 Stereo Imputs, 4 Busses, 2 Effect-Busses, 6 Aux, 1 Mono-Master, 1 Stereo-Master) that goes into a 31 graphic EQ of dbx, which in turn runs into a Yamaha P-5000 Series amp. Amplified, the signal goes either into two Yamaha 215 CV speakers (those for greater gigs) or into two little 112 CV speakers. Both types are built solid and sound incredible.
Having described the signal routing, we'll show you more specific how we manage the mixing parts. Yes you heard right, we mix our shows by ourselfs because we haven't found the right man yet who knows mixing better than we do. However, each channel on the console is occupied. You'll find a Input-List bellow. The majorety of channels has inserted a compressor, limiter, gate or expander. The label and types we use for the effect processors differ, but most we use Behringer compressors / limiters. In our experience, you only need to limit the peaks of the channels to make a clear sound but keeping the dynamic of it, so a solid working limiter is all you need. Behringer does its job there. Now following the channels chain on the mixing console, we equalize every channel carefully. Since the MG24 has got a 3 band eq with a frequency pointer for mids in addition, we only cut bass frequencies out and find by turning up the gain knob and searching with the mid knob the worst frequency and gain it slowly down. A tip, cut out every bass frequencies below (100 - 120 Hz) in a live mix for each signal which isn't going into subwoofers. Therefore, make the crossover between subwoofer and top frequencies between a bass frequency you don't need. We actually cross about 90 Hz.
In our experience (without a separate mixing console for monitoring and without a mixer) adjusting the monitors for each member is the worst part about mixing. Sometimes, flexibility is needed to make the monitoring right, sometimes, you need more monitors but have no aux-chanel left and so on. We learned to work with 6 Aux-channels to monitor our stuff (also listed bellow). Fyi, all our monitor channels are leaving the console after the fader level. This has the advantage not to edit again the monitor signal that goes out.
Now, what's really great about the MG24 is its effect-processor. We have two busses to send for each channel an effect, where again, we can adjust the channel signal with the effect. The two effect we use the most, are reverb and delay (sometimes we use distortion for vocals). With the effect-busses we can adjust the volume of the effects right away. Besides, we can also adjust the level of any effect on the aux-channels. That's pretty cool, because Michel for example loves when he hears his voice coming with some reverb or delay.
Our philosophy in mixing is, make everything as easy as you can and prepare adjustments well to be fast making them. So, we actually summarize drums and instruments on two stereo subgroubs (which are also inserted with compressors / limiters). Therefore, only the voices are going directly into the stereo-master-fader. If adjustments have to be done, we only need to move 6 faders instead of 20.
What makes our FOH gear in addition professional, is the fact that we are able to click out the speaker - amp system and click in into another speaker system. Depending on the location and the equipment of the location, we can set up our own whole FOH rig or only bring the mixing console with the racks and click in, adjust the signal of each channels (because the mics work more or less the same) and adjust the EQ-processor suitable for the room. That's all.
Once again, we hope you enjoyed reading our rig talk and hope to see you soon back on this site.
Stay tuned and keep rockin'
Seasplash
Input-List
1. Michel Vocs (compressor - reverb - delay - stereo)
2. Julien Vocs (compressor - reverb - stereo)
3. Talk Box (compressor - reverb - sub 1-2)
4. Mesa Michel (limiter - sub 1-2)
5. Line6 Michel (sub 1-2)
6. Mesa Julien (limiter - sub 1-2)
7. Randall Julien (sub 1-2)
8. Acoustic Guitar - DI 2 (compressor - reverb - sub 1-2)
9. Acoustic Guitar - DI 2 (compressor - reverb - sub 1-2)
10. Bass Guitar - DI (compressor - limiter - reverb - sub 1-2)
11. Kick (gate - compressor - limiter - reverb - sub 3-4)
12. SN Top (compressor - limiter - reverb - sub 3-4)
13. SN Bottom (gate - limiter - reverb - sub 3-4)
14. Mid-Tom right (gate - reverb - sub 3-4)
15. Mid-Tom left (gate - reverb - sub 3-4)
16. Floor Toms (gate - reverb - sub 3-4)
17./18. Overheads (gate - sub 3-4)
19./20. High-Hat / Ride (sub 3-4)
21./22. Stage-Piano - DI (limiter - reverb - sub 1-2)
23./24. Aux-Input (stereo)
Aux-List
1. In-Ear left (reverb - delay)
2. In-Ear right (reverb - delay)
3. Drum Monitor
4. Vocs Monitor Michel (reverb - delay)
5. Guitar Monitor Michel
6. Spare output
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