Mixing audio live

[Dave Horoschak]

Is there a way to adjust individual track audio levels live using hot keys?  I'm in a situation where I'm mixing different live mics each night along with tracks from QLab.  I'm trying to avoid needing a bigger interface for all of the outputs from QLab (and the associated input channels on the console).  If I can tweak levels of a few tracks in QLab on-the-fly using hot keys, I'll only need the stereo output.  Is this possible?

Note that I have several cues (songs).  Each has a collection of tracks.  I would want to adjust the level of the same track in each using the same hotkey combination for each cue.

 - Dave

[micpool]

There probably is....

To suggest something I would need to know,exactly how your songs and tracks are structured. Are the tracks child cues of a fire all children song group, or are you using multitrack wavs.

The easiest thing, probably, is if you post an example workspace with a few songs, just the workspace, no audio needed.

Best Regards

Mic

[Dave Horoschak]

They are all stereo or mono wav files in child cues that fire simultaneously. 

I have the source content so I can reformat it any way that makes this easiest to do.

I can post a workspace later when I get home. 

 - Dave 

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[Dave Horoschak]

Workspace attached.

[micpool]

OK That's quite straightforward.

Here's your workspace with the neccesaries

It's pretty self explanatory. You need to number each child track cue as shown.

The Hotkeys send OSC messages with wildcards which adjust ALL the tracks with that prefix +2.5dB or -2.5dB

If you save the workspace those levels will be written permanently, so if you want to preserve your original levels, either do each gig in a copy, or don't save.

If you had QLab 4 you could have had  a really cool pop out control panel, which would show how much gain adjustment had been applied to each track type.

Mic

[micpool]

Whoops 

cue LV3 should have  been numbered LV2

revised workspace attached

Mic

[Dave Horoschak]

I actually have QLab 4.  I need to update this workspace.  How would I improve it in that case?

[micpool]

QLab 4 version attached.

When it opens it auto runs a cue to set the offset values displayed in the cart view (gray carts) to 0 

The rest of the cart Buttons are start cues which target cues in a separate list. These cues contain a network cue to send an OSC message which sets the levels of the relevant track in ALL cues +2.5 or -2.5dB, and a script which updates the offset values displayed in the  cart view.

One case it can't deal with is when individual tracks hit their maximum limits. The offsets merely calculate the offset based on the carts fired, not on the actual dB values of the individual cue sliders.

As usual, test thoroughly before deployment to check it does exactly what you are expecting.

Mic

[Gunther J. Kibelkstis]

So:

If you use digital console, I believe that using midi in QLAB to control the faders, switches on / off etc will be the most efficient means.

[micpool]

On Monday, January 15, 2018 at 2:18:41 PM UTC, Gunther J. Kibelkstis wrote:
> So:
> If you use digital console, I believe that using midi in QLAB to control the faders, switches on / off etc will be the most efficient means.

Possibly, but it wouldn’t address Dave’s wish to only use a stereo interface and 2 console channels for QLab as in his original question.


> Em domingo, 14 de janeiro de 2018 18:28:04 UTC-2, Dave Horoschak escreveu.

[Rich Walsh]

Instead of scripts & Memo Cues, you could stick an absolute fade (with no target) in the Cue Cart for each type, number it accordingly and then use an OSC query to update its name from the level that’s been set as a result of the hotkeys:

/cue/M0/name "#/cue/M0/level/0/0#"

A Fade Cue with number M0 will have its name changed to match its current master level. You could even go with this if you need the prefix string:

/cue/M0/name "Music #/cue/M0/level/0/0#"

If you’re absolutely guaranteed to always have an Audio Cue of a known number – eg: “M1” – you could use that as the cue that stores the level, and not an arbitrary Fade Cue. You could then have Memo Cues in the cart, which might be neater.

Rich

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<Mixercues sample workspace.qlab4>

[micpool]

I may have misunderstood you, but this method still seems to have  the same problem with maximum levels.  Let's say cue M1 has a starting level of +5  and M2 has a starting level of -50. What level would your M0 cue start at? And what happens when the M0 fader reaches maximum but other cues can still be increased in level by  the Music up cart.

You also still need a method of triggering cart M0 each time a level change cart is triggered.

On Monday, January 15, 2018 at 2:59:51 PM UTC, Rich Walsh wrote:

Instead of scripts & Memo Cues, you could stick an absolute fade (with no target) in the Cue Cart for each type, number it accordingly and then use an OSC query to update its name from the level that’s been set as a result of the hotkeys:

/cue/M0/name "#/cue/M0/level/0/0#"

A Fade Cue with number M0 will have its name changed to match its current master level. You could even go with this if you need the prefix string:

/cue/M0/name "Music #/cue/M0/level/0/0#"

If you’re absolutely guaranteed to always have an Audio Cue of a known number – eg: “M1” – you could use that as the cue that stores the level, and not an arbitrary Fade Cue. You could then have Memo Cues in the cart, which might be neater.

Rich

On 15 Jan 2018, at 12:50, micpool <m...@micpool.com> wrote:

QLab 4 version attached.

[Rich Walsh]

I’ve assumed (in a hurry) that all the cues addressed by M* (etc) have the same master levels, as otherwise it’s going to be tricky knowing where you’re at. This could easily be achieved with trim, or some of the other crosspoints/sliders.

You’d need to send the OSC to update the titles at the same time as the one to change levels, so replacing the Script Cues in the groups. I thought it was marginally more elegant than trying to set a ceiling on the scripted addition of values, but hadn’t considered the cues all being at different levels.

You could of course have OSC cues with duration running to constantly monitor the levels, but a panic would mess that up.

Rich

[micpool]

I think the best way of achieving this in a fully developed solution would be (assuming only 1 group is playing at a time, which is reasonable if it is backing tracks)  to determine which group cue is playing, in the usual applescript way, and then only deal with the real levels of the children of that cue, putting the actual master slider level of each track (child) for that cue into the cart memo cues and updating them with each level change.

Without doing that, apart from the issue of going over the maximum (or under the minimum), just showing the relative level of the tracks of the same instrument to the starting point will probably work well enough, and is pretty analogous to what you would have if all the instruments were sent to separate channels of a physical mixer, and the overall level of each instrument adjusted with the mixer fader.

Mic

[Dave Horoschak]

Thanks everyone for your help and thoughts.  This is working very well for me.  These recent details are helpful but not really necessary in my case.

As Mic originally suspected, I'm not really "mixing" the way you would mix a regular live show.  All I'm trying to do is balance relative levels with some trim control to compensate for day-to-day variation in PAs, singer level, microphones, etc.  Since all of the cues/tracks for each song are starting off properly level-matched relative to each other, any adjustments that I make are needed across all songs.  Once that's set it stays pretty consistent for the whole show unless something unusual happens.  Using this setup as a subtle trim/balance adjustment is working great.  Most changes are only +/- 6dB, so I'm not at risk of hitting top or bottom limits.  If I was really trying to mix multiple tracks live, of course I would be looking at a different solution.

 - Dave