Building a band system to isolate IEM mixing from venue / engineer

[warwickhunt]

Following on from a couple of gigs where we have arrived to find an engineer either hasn't the facility or time to give us a good IEM mix, we're going down the route of looking to buy/build a mixer system whereby we feed all our instrument and vocal sources in to 'our' digital mixer, to give us max control of our IEM mix/feed and then we take 16 thru/outs to give the engineer control for FOH...  does that make sense?  The idea is that we simply set and (almost) forget our individual IEM mixes and the setting is rolled out the same at each gig (small tweaks can be made by each member to their mix).

 

What is the regular/usual way to do this?  I've probably omitted to mention vital info but please fire away with questions/suggestions.

 

The band is a 6 piece (inc x2 guitars, x2 keys, bass, sax and 5 vocals... one of the guitars is stereo and both are Helix) with no backline and everyone using IEM.  We were probably looking at a rackmounted Soundcraft Ui24 with 2 x 8 channel splitters and 16 'tails' to feed the FOH.  Initial thought was that the tails would just be x16 M/F XLR 10m leads but I'm thinking a custom made 16 xlr 10m loom makes more sense.

[Acebassmusic]

I'm interested in the possibilities and options of such a system. 👍 I'm assuming from your numbers above:

2 guitars (one in stereo) = 3 chan

2 keys (both in stereo) = 4 chan

bass = 1 chan

sax = 1 chan

5 vocal channels

drums = ? chan

 

That's 14 channels without any drums through the system. Is that enough as a sound engineer could easily use 6 mics / channels on a kit? Would you be mic'ing the kit or leave that to the engineer using house mics? I'm assuming you would be providing all the cabling between instruments and your mixer / splitters? Would this include from the drum mics?

I'm not sure I would use a 10m loom from the splitter to FOH. I'd just use bulkhead connectors on the rack unit and let the sound engineer do the connecting from there to their stage box (just like they would if mic'ing up).

 

Edited February 13 by Acebassmusic

[warwickhunt]

@Acebassmusic yes re. channels/instruments.  Drums we would expect the engineer to mic and put through FOH desk and give us a stereo feed back into our mixer for us to mix to our own needs; hence the 16 channels.  

 

Yes we connect ourselves to our interface/splitter.

 

I see what you mean about the in-house engineer should be expected to connect us to an onstage box, so we shouldn't need to go to the expense of creating a loom!  

[Kirky]

This is what I've done for our band. Most of our gigs are using our own PA, but I've included a splitter in the rack so we just use our own IEM mix and there's tails for FOH.   

Edited February 13 by Kirky

[warwickhunt]

@Kirky "tails for FOH" - what do you supply and do you always need to supply them?  

[warwickhunt]

Any experience with the Behringer X32 as the core of this set up?

[Kirky]

1 hour ago, warwickhunt said:

@Kirky "tails for FOH" - what do you supply and do you always need to supply them?  

I hope I've understood the question...we have 16 channels (vox x 4, bass, guitar, stereo keys, and the rest is drums.   Our mics/instruments go into the 2 x Art S8 splitters, and I have a 16 channel loom that goes into the house PA.  We only play 2 venues where we do  this, the rest of the time I don't bring the loom and we just use our PA (X18, tucked into the rack) for FOH.  Whilst I built it, and it works for us, I don't understand much of what goes on FoH. 

Edited February 13 by Kirky

[warwickhunt]

29 minutes ago, Kirky said:

I hope I've understood the question...we have 16 channels (vox x 4, bass, guitar, stereo keys, and the rest is drums.   Our mics/instruments go into the 2 x Art S8 splitters, and I have a 16 channel loom that goes into the house PA.  We only play 2 venues where we do  this, the rest of the time I don't bring the loom and we just use our PA (X18, tucked into the rack) for FOH.  Whilst I built it, and it works for us, I don't understand much of what goes on FoH. 

 

Yes understood.    

 

[BigRedX]

No drums?

[warwickhunt]

8 minutes ago, BigRedX said:

No drums?

 

Being debated as to how best to do this.  

 

If we mic and feed into our own mixer we'd need to be setting up all of the mics ourselves and it could take 6 channels for drums.  Alternatively, could we leave the drums to be mic'd by a venue into their system and then feed our mixer with a stereo feed from them, which we then mix into our individual IEM mixes.  

 

How do others do it?

 

[BigRedX]

In order to be able to do a complete IEM mix for the band the drums are going to need to be in it. At the very least you'll want an "ambient" mic for the whole drum kit, but if your drummer is on IEMs too that might want something better, so you may end up having to use your own drum mics (and stands) for the kit and include those channels in the splitter for the FoH.

[warwickhunt]

That was our thinking but re mic whole kit (6 mics as he has them) but we'd start to head toward where we'd need more than 16 inputs... which we don't really want.  

[Phil Starr]

16 hours ago, warwickhunt said:

Following on from a couple of gigs where we have arrived to find an engineer either hasn't the facility or time to give us a good IEM mix, we're going down the route of looking to buy/build a mixer system whereby we feed all our instrument and vocal sources in to 'our' digital mixer, to give us max control of our IEM mix/feed and then we take 16 thru/outs to give the engineer control for FOH...  does that make sense?  The idea is that we simply set and (almost) forget our individual IEM mixes and the setting is rolled out the same at each gig (small tweaks can be made by each member to their mix).

 

What is the regular/usual way to do this?  I've probably omitted to mention vital info but please fire away with questions/suggestions.

 

The band is a 6 piece (inc x2 guitars, x2 keys, bass, sax and 5 vocals... one of the guitars is stereo and both are Helix) with no backline and everyone using IEM.  We were probably looking at a rackmounted Soundcraft Ui24 with 2 x 8 channel splitters and 16 'tails' to feed the FOH.  Initial thought was that the tails would just be x16 M/F XLR 10m leads but I'm thinking a custom made 16 xlr 10m loom makes more sense.

If you are using an x32 then this looks like a great way to go. Never having used one (and apologies if this is a false steer) the behringer offers a digital snake/ultranet system with loads of add ons to send individual channels to a DAW or their personal monitoring system and I'd be looking to see if that might be utilised too. If you can send 32 channels to a DAW you ought to be able to send them to FOH.

 

I almost always find provided PA's a problem. It's usually at an event where there are multiple bands and only the headline act gets much co-operation from underskilled techs who are reluctant to change a system they don't fully understand because it has been hired in and set up by the hire company. You may of course find that the better ones already have split the feed between FOH and the stage monitors. I suspect whatever you do will involve some negotiation but most should cope with the simple 2x8 splitters you propose and the loom gives and extra option. I'd love to see their little faces when you suggest unplugging 5 mics and 6 instrument feeds, some of them stereo and relying on someone elses snake for the FOH sound

 

 

 

 

[mike257]

Loads of touring bands out and about with systems like this, many based around the X32 rack, although the M32C, Wing Rack, Yamaha TF Rack are also options, as is the new Allen & Heath SQ Rack, which is (IMO) the far superior piece of kit, but also a chunk more expensive. 

 

The big thing to think about is making it as quick, simple and easy to implement as possible. You're asking house engineers to tie in to their system, and to patch stage inputs via your rack, so everything should be clearly and accurately labelled, and you should absolutely provide tails from your splitter outputs to tie in to their system. 

 

You can get cheap 8 way splitters, but then you're running a bunch of additional XLR cables out of them within your rack. Most pro-built systems have a rack panel for all of your inputs with a set of internal tails within the rack for patching to your monitor kit, and a multipin output connector for attaching external tails to patch to FOH, like in the below pic (made by the brilliant Jake at SA Touring)

 

 

This is more costly than the off-the-shelf 8 way units, but takes up less space, needs less external cable and connectors, and will be built to a much more robust standard. 

 

Of the rack mixers mentioned, the only ones to give you enough outputs for everyone to run stereo IEMs are the SQ Rack (12 XLR outputs) or a Midas M32C (1u rack mount mixer brain) with a Behringer S32/Midas DL32 stagerack (16 XLR outputs).  You could also add additional stageboxes to an X32 rack but it'd take up more space and be more costly than the M32C and stagebox option. 

 

Whatever you go with, get the internal wiring nice and tidy and secure, and clearly label all of the inputs and outputs (on the rack panels and on your tails) with the channel number and name so it's easy for any engineer to patch through. 

 

Also, if you're getting multiple wireless IEM systems, absolutely budget for an antenna combiner (or two - each combiner can usually link four transmitters so won't run all six off one of them) and a decent paddle or helical antenna so that you're not running an antenna farm out the back of your rack. It's best practice for working with multiple sources of radio transmission and avoids issues with multiple adjacent antennas. 

 

You ideally want a single power connection to run the whole rack from too - it's easy to get hold of Neutrik D type connectors and pre-punched rack panels to take them, so you could bring out your power (Powercon), antenna (BNC), network and USB connections neatly on to a 1U panel for quick access instead of reaching around inside the rack in a dark corner of a stage.

 

I would absolutely suggest giving your tails as a loom rather than individual cables. It's much neater and more manageable, and looms are available off the shelf in 8 way and 16 way from from various suppliers (if you didn't go down the multipin route mentioned above). If you're sharing bills with other bands, doing festival spots etc, the whole thing needs to be able to go in fast and come out even faster so everything should be approached with that in mind. 

 

The other critical thing here is to include clear information in your tech spec and make sure it's communicated when you're advancing your shows with a promoter. Most reputable venues should be able to easily accommodate what you're asking for (including sending a return/submix of drums if needed) but will be much better equipped to help you if they know in advance what you're expecting from them. Be clear about what you're providing and what you need from them, and everyone will have a smoother day with less surprises. 

 

Edited Thursday at 21:55 by mike257

[warwickhunt]

Very comprehensive answer @mike257.  I'll need to digest and relay some of that to the lads.  

 

Consideration in choices has got to be budget but we don't want to save £10's of pounds for the sake of quality but if the difference between set ups was heading toward 50% more than a budget system...  

 

On an absolute budget I could ask the lads to get their own DI/splitters for their instrument(s) and vocals and send one feed to a CQ12 desk that I already own (maybe a stereo drum feed supplied by the in-house engineer), that could be pre mixed by us and the second feed from individual DI/splitters goes to FOH.  Not ideal BUT we own most of the gear (feeds could be sent from Helix or keys aux feeds etc so no need for individual splitters).  However, the consensus is for a Behringer X32 with a pair of 8 ch splitters (16 x 0.5m interconnects with a 16 ch 'snake loom' out).