Okay, the gig is over and the gear's back in the trailer. What a night!!! Thanks for the MOJO Wynnd, I appreciate it. I think it rubbed, because the night was awesome. I have to say, if you're going to use the DL32R for a big show, you'll have your hands full. Preparation & planning are key to a satisfactory outcome.
First, a bit about the venue.
http://www.lestercentre.ca/pages/Tour.html . It has been my privilege to be called upon time and time again to engineer their shows. Since being built in 1987, we've done countless theatrical productions; Oliver, Fiddler on the Roof, Jesus Christ Superstar and just recently, Les Miserables. We've also done various musical productions and tribute shows. I had the pleasure of working with Long John Baldry on this stage. Now there's a guy who was in the thick of things during the sixties. I had a chance to talk to him in the green room after the show and he shared a story about John & Yoko with me, over a bottle of scotch of coarse. Anyway, I'm famous for digressing so I better get to the point. Twice a year all the musicians in the area contribute to a fund raising show. The stipulation is, all the proceeds go back into the theatre to buy sound & lighting equipment.
For this British Invasion event we were featuring 8 musical groups with 31 musicians in total. During the changes, we had a British MC offering British trivia and a group of 4 actors doing Monty Python skits. My I/O list is as follows.
1-kick(SURE BETA52)
2-snare(SHURE SM57)
3-hat(AKG C430)
4-hi Tom(Sennheiser E604)
5-low Tom(Sennheiser E604)
6-floor Tom(Sennheiser E604)
7-over left(AKG C430)
8-over right(AKG C430)
9-Congas(AKG S1000)
10-Bass(G.K. running direct)
11-E. Guitar 1(SHURE SM57)
12-E. Guitar 2(SHURE SM57)
13-Acc. Guitar 1(RADIAL DI)
14-Acc. Guitar 2(RADIAL DI)
15-Acc. Guitar 3(TAYLOR ES SYSTEM no DI needed, can be plugged direct to mic in)
16-Grand Piano (yes they have a grand piano, but I could only afford to give it one line AKG S1000)
17-E. Hammond(RADIAL DI)
18-E. Keyboard(RADIAL DI)
19-Extra Keyboard backing tracks at drum position
20-Vox 1(BETA58)
21-Vox 2(BETA58)
22-Vox 3(BETA58)
23-Vox 4(BETA58)
24-BG Vox 1(BETA58)
25-BG Vox 2(BETA58)
26-BG Vox 3(BETA58)
27-Piano Vox(BETA58)
28-Drum Vox(BETA58)
29-MC(BETA58 w/SLX radio)
30-actors submix from VLZ mixer(4-AKG HC577 headsets w/SLX radios)
31-Lexicon MPX500(used for vocal reverb and flanger effects)
32-TC Helicon VoiceWorks( for vocal doubling & octave unison)
Return 1-2 (intermission music, Monty Python, Dr. Who & James Bond Themes on thumb drive)
Rev 1 (Drums)
Rev 2 (Various Instr.)
Delay (Vocal and Guitar)
AUX1- mon. Vox1(all monitors are JBL PRX)
AUX2- mon. Vox2
AUX3- mon. Vox3
AUX4- mon. BGs (2mons. 1mix)
AUX5- mon. Drums(JBL EON G2)
AUX6- mon. Piano(JBL EON G2)
AUX7&8- IEM for drummer.(he brought his own custom 4way earpieces and iPad)
AUX9- used to route headsets thru the house center cluster
AUX11- Lexicon send
AUX12- TC Helicon send
AUX13&14- Main LR
Monitor LR- My IEMs for soloing at any position in the house
The outboard effects units were controlled using RTP-MIDI via WIFI thru an iconnectMIDI4+ interface and an iPad mini. Everything was running thru a dlink router using static IP addys. I walked everywhere in the house & lobby and couldn't get it to drop a signal. I finally got out of range in the parking lot, but as soon as I was in range it connected and re synced. One thing I would suggest to anyone is to make sure the routers SSID is invisible. Otherwise you may get hundreds of smartphones pinging your network constantly.
Sound checks were strait forward with a significant portion devoted to monitor mixes. One thing I love, is being able to walk up to a mic and ring out its monitor. I can't tell you how much time this one thing saves. By the time the musicians showed up I had all the primary mixes so hot that a lot of them had to be turned down. At the end of the show a lot of the musicians commented on the monitors, so I guess I must've done something right. The drummer with the IEMs was in heaven. I gave him access to a password protected mix of his AUX. I used extensive use of the channel safes to carry mixes forward into new snapshots, rather than starting from default for each. This really streamlined the process and only minor tweaks were necessary in the main mix, and adjustments to the monitor mixes were a function of the needs of the performers. With the addition of each snapshot the show evolved until all that was left to do was label & colour code all the ins/outs. Then I started assigning VCA & SUBs as necessary. I finalized all the muting for each snapshot & created an "ALL BUT MC" mute group. Lastly I created all my view groups. With all my homework done, the gig went exceptionally smooth.
There were a couple of things that bothered me about the DL. It would be great if you could insert channels into a set, or copy & paste channels to a different position. There is nothing more frustrating than manually moving 13 channels up one position because you need to add another accoustic guitar next to the others. Also the mute groups get saved so you can have a different set with each snapshot, but the state of the mute groups is global. So if you have group A active, it will stay active into the next snapshot even if you didn't save it that way. My biggest peeves, were with the backing tracks playback and multi-track page. It's felt like whoever designed it had never played a backing track in their life.
Where do I begin...It has no MP3 codec! You have to convert everything to 48khz wavs. It has no directory structure, so you cannot organize your files! The transport controls are tiny! The file list will not stay put when you leave the page, and you have to leave the page to do other things like adjust the level of whatever you're playing. It needs a level control on the frigging page. Every time you open the page, it jumps to the file that's playing and not the one that you carefully cued up to play next. Everything is stored alphabetically, so the only way you can order the tracks are by giving them numbers and you have to use a computer to do that too. All I can say is the whole playback system design looks like an afterthought. Two words spring to mind...BUSH LEAGUE.
All in all, the mixer is pretty formidable, and it's a welcome addition to my stable. I hope someone comes out with a control surface for this soon. If not, the act of mixing live will make you busier than a one legged man in an ass kicking contest. I've done some nightmare gigs, but this wasn't one. We rocked everything from Beatles to Queen for 550+ and they love every minute. Cheers!!!
