Mic Cues for the whole show?

[W. Guy Finley]

I'm doing sound design for a production of Assassins and I had designs of routing the mics to Qlab and do my processing there instead of on a mixer. The way it is sounding I can set a mic cue to use whatever input channel I need or multiple channels. So say Scene 1 I need channels 1-6, I can select all those channels, do effects for each channel, output for them (to the same device as I understand, to get the 12 inputs I need I'll have two digital interfaces) on one cue and I'm good to go?

Or I'm thinking if I set a mic cue for each channel then I can more easily control when they're hot or not, so say the actor on Channel 5 leaves for the rest of the scene I have a cue set to turn him off while leaving all the other channels on?

Any help appreciated or resources to steer me to in order to do this. Assassins is a really complex show and if I can have everything set up on Qlab I will be a very happy man!

--Guy

[Vincent Sanchez]

Just make sure you are very familiar with routing options Patching in a bunch of mics can be a bit tricky.

I see 2 distinct ways to do this:

1. Use a mic cue for each scene, bringing up the mics that are needed. Apply the effects to this cue. Downside is programming effects coming in and out might be trickier.

2. Setup Global Mic Cues that can be started and stopped independently. i.e. if you have 24 mics, you have 24 mic cues. At the top of the scene, you put in as many "starts" as you need for the mic channels.

I suppose it all depends on how exactly you want to apply effects.

You could also do a hybrid approach, setup the 24 independent starts, and use different mic cues when you need effects for multiple channels at once.

[micpool]

My advice would be don't do it. I don't think you can mix a musical properly, i.e line by line, on 2 inch long faders controlled with a mouse.

However using QLab to control a digital  mixing desk by MIDI cues or OSC, is practical.

OR

If you only had access to a basic analog desk with no automation, you could come out of the insert send ON EACH CHANNEL into an input on your interface into Qlab and then back out of the interface to the insert return.

That way you can use the faders and EQ on the analog desk to mix, and QLab Mic cues  to do mute automation and some special EQs and  effects automation.

If you really want to try and do it all in Qlab, then Vincent's No2 scheme is probably best, as otherwise if you have all the mics set in a cue for a scene, any Audio Effect Plugin you use is going to be universal to all channels.

You seem to be suggesting you are going to use 2 interface devices to get your input count. You can only do this using an aggregate device. Before you do this I would do a search of this google group for 'aggregate device' and take note of all the advice given in these posts.

If you use Qlab on analog desk inserts then you don't need to aggregate the devices as the input and output for each analog insert will be on the same device anyway.

And finally, whichever method you choose, if you are not doing  too much playback of effects, and your use of plug-ins is modest, you may be able to reduce the buffer sizes in preferences to reduce latency.

Good Luck!

Mic

[W. Guy Finley]

Thanks for the advice Mic I spent a lot of time on your site today looking at the plugin considerations.

I went back and forth on this for a while. Part of my consideration was the board in the house (community theatre) is an old, awful Behringer that I just really wasn't looking forward to dealing with. I figured if I used some of my gear I could do the mixing in Qlab. I considered picking up a cheap board to use that for the show but just don't have much of a need for it afterwards.

I think I'll have to look at the aggregate device suggestions and see if that will work out. Another way to skin it I suppose would be to use a multi-channel pre that I could tie in to my Focusrite Saffire Pro 40 over ADAT. I think I'd be avoiding the aggregate device issue that way.

--Guy

[Jevans]

I designed and mixed Assassins in November; I used twelve VCAs for actors + four for the band/effects. I could have done it with 8 if I only had a desk with 8 VCAs though ( I was lucky to be on a desk with 16), but it would have been a lot of annoying recalls - I got the whole show down to about 35 recalls in the end.

I've not used mic cues really in QLab, but expanding on Mic's method of routing every desk channel insert through QLab would it then be possible to change the routing matrix on the fly to simulate a VCA structure ie. have analogue channels for every wireless pack/actor with their EQ etc., route the direct outs of those channels into QLab and then insert 8 QLab outputs into, say, the groups on the desk, then setup a cuestack that changes which actor channel is routed to which group (or not) so that you can use the audio groups on the desk as if they were VCAs. Bit more complex to set up, and this would require a pretty large analogue desk though so if you've not got one already this may not be workable.

This is a bit of a bodge to say the least though - save yourself the bother and hire a desk. Even an X32 (shock, horror) is perfectly good if you don't need more than 32 channels, it's got groups/VCAs/automation etc. and is pretty inexpensive - I do have some gripes about the way it automates VCAs but that's another story. I'm about to mix Passion, another one of Sondheim's, on an X32 as we're on a tight budget. Even just a better/larger analogue desk might be easier for you to work with.

Some more general things about mixing Assassins: the individual tales or ballards of each Assassin are not that hard, the dialogue scenes aren't either but I was never totally happy with the way I mixed the end of the show before the finale, "You Can Close The New York Stock Exchange" and "Something Just Broke" - there's a lot of flicking around between different groups of chorus with random solo lines and with only a week long run I wasn't able to really learn it well enough to get it really tight, so make sure to pay attention to those bits. I also found in a small theatre that reverb didn't really work stylistically for quite a lot of it (to me, anyway), so much of the show was almost dry, except "Unworthy of Your Love", which I chucked loads on... Threre's a lot of differing musical styles in the show so the band work is quite a lot of fun too.

Sorry, slightly off topic for the list...

Thanks,

John

[W. Guy Finley]

Based on your guy's feedback I think I was going at this wrong, sounds like I would have a handful. Unfortunately I committed to some gear from that but, in the midst of my despair I found the Behringer X18 (shock, horror). This looks like exactly what I want to do where I have some flexibility with mixing with faders albeit on an iPad, but it's also giving me 18x18 via USB to my Mac. That way if I don't think the internal processing on the Behringer is cutting it I have all 18 channels available to go to Mic cues in Qlab. Think my dealer will take care of me and let me exchange. Gotta say I avoided Behringer after some bad experiences a decade ago but the X18 looks like a nice piece of kit and has the same innards as the much talked about X32.

Really appreciate the tips on the show as well John, I'm pressuring the director to drop the Something Just Broke scene (it wasn't in the original production, I hate it, and it presents mic problems).

--Guy

[micpool]

Is your show soon? Because the Behringer X18 hasnt materialised in the real world yet. Some say spring, some say october.

Mic

[W. Guy Finley]

June, will check with my guy at Sweetwater and see what the word is, I can always go XR18 if that's a problem. I'd prefer the desktop version but don't think going rack mount instead would be that big of a deal.

--Guy

[John Leonard]

It was added for the London premiere and I think the fact that you don't like it and it presents problems for you are poor reasons for pressuring the director to drop it.

Regards,

(A different) John

[Andy Lang]

On Thu, Apr 16, 2015 at 10:26 AM W. Guy Finley <wgfi...@gmail.com> wrote:

Really appreciate the tips on the show as well John, I'm pressuring the director to drop the Something Just Broke scene (it wasn't in the original production, I hate it, and it presents mic problems).

The creators of the show deemed that an important part of the show, and nobody has the legal right to alter the show without their explicit permission. That's in the contract your producer signed in order to get the rights to produce the show.

As a huge and blatant violation of the license for producing the show, that would land you all in very hot water, potentially leading to an immediate revocation of your rights to perform the show and financial penalties (above and beyond the costs of having to immediately cancel all performances).

-Andy

[W Guy Finley]

I have some replies to all of this but this has gone really OT. I’m well aware of rights limitations, my opinion on the scene goes beyond just the complexities it gives to me as a sound designer and I’ll leave it at that.

—Guy

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