Strange stage monitoring issue

[Jakester]

Wahey, second post-lockdown gig last night! It's great to be back out there again. 

 

However, during our gig we experienced a really odd monitoring issue and wondered if anyone might be able to help shed any light? 

 

So it was an outdoors gig. The singer and I used IEMs - he had a wireless, I used wired as I was playing drums. 

 

Because it was outside we mic'd everything and pushed the bass though the PA via the bass amp DI straight into the desk. The amp was an Ampeg 2x10 combo. 

 

It was the same setup we used for our last gig - XR18 with the vocalist and I each getting our own monitor feed to our IEMs, with another monitor out to a wedge. It worked fine then. 

 

Last night, though, the bass was wildly high in the mix and distorting so much that it obliterated everything else in the monitor mix. 

 

So, of course, we did exactly what you would do in such a scenario - mute the incoming channel on both aux out mixes. 

 

However, despite that, we could both still hear the bass out through our monitors. I checked input gain and turned that right down too. Turned down all faders on the aux mixes too, and muted in both. 

 

It was still blasting through. I checked it wasn't being picked up from the cab by the onstage mics (and it wasn't). 

 

I've checked the signal routing etc and can't see any reason for the bass signal to be present in the aux feeds when muted, let alone completely turned down. 

 

Does anyone have any ideas? 

 

 

[Woodinblack]

By all aux feeds does that also include effects channels?

 

Having said that, my bass input has to always be right down on the input to make sure it doesn't overload (actually that was on the tc450, doesn't seem to be the same on the ABM), but my bass doesn't go through any effects, just to avoid it bleeding through  - it doesn't come out of the PA, it just goes to monitoring.

[Jakester]

Yep, it wasn't on any of the effects channels - only the backing vox were (the main vox has a TC pedal jobbie). 

 

I did think it was a gain issue - not sure whether the DI was pre/post etc from the amp, but whatever it was when muted it shouldn't have come through!

 

I'm really confused.

[Woodinblack]

Well, yes, if it was muted it shouldn't come through, so gain should be flooding the input (but nowhere else).

 

So taking it logically, you said you muted the the aux channels - did you try muting the actual input channel to make sure that the bass was coming through the channel you thought it was (caught me out once before), and also to ensure that it is not coming in another route as well, such as a microphone or something.

 

Once it is definitely coming in on only the channel you expect and you can control its levels, the meters in all the aux channels should tell you where it is getting to (and also as well as looking at the inputs in the aux channels, look at the outputs in the individual channel). 

 

If it is getting somewhere you don't expect, then there is the channel matrix that is normally just a diagonal line but if it isn't, it can confuse everything

 

 

(I have never understood why anyone would want to edit this, would just lead to major confusion!)

 

Past that, looking in the overal meters screen should tell you where it is getting to

 

[Jakester]

48 minutes ago, Woodinblack said:

 

So taking it logically, you said you muted the the aux channels - did you try muting the actual input channel to make sure that the bass was coming through the channel you thought it was (caught me out once before), and also to ensure that it is not coming in another route as well, such as a microphone or something.

 

Yep, in the end we had to simply take the bass amp out of the signal chain entirely.

 

I'm completely stumped but I think I'll just have to work through all of the inputs etc to try and work it out. Annoying. 

[MoonBassAlpha]

I find all the routing on the XR18 very confusing!