LS9-16 Questions

[DirkD]

Hello everyone. I found this fantastic site while researchinig some questions I have about the LS9 at my local church.

Firstly, I'm trying to improve the quality of our service recordings. We're taking mics and instruments post fade to a recording mix, and adding to that mix a couple of condenser mics that are suspended over the main congragation area. Mics used for speech only are set a 0db for for the record mix, instruments and singers are set at -20db. This is really to stop any one instrument or vocalist overpowering the recording, but the result is that the recording contains very little of the band although purse speech such as a sermon is very good. The make up of the band changes from service to service. Recording itself is to the LS9 memory stick. The recordings are very much fire and forget - the volunteer sound operators wouldnt be able to manage adjusting the recording mix during a service.

Is there a better way of doing this or do we just have to accept that this is the best we can do ?

Second. We have a pair of condenser mics over the choir to boost the volume of the small choir into the church. The setup is as follows ;

Choir mic channels -> Choir Mix -> ST LR -> Matrix
Everything else -> PA Mix -> ST LR -> Matrix

The Matrix distributes to the speakers in the various zones in the church. Now, I'd like to be able control or cut the Choir mix to the speakers in the area where the choir sit to avoid feedback and. But the current setup doesnt allow this. We control the level of both choir mics using the Mix fader from the custom fader layer. Also, these mics also feed the recording mix, so even with the Mix fader down, the two mic channel faders are up and permanently contributing to the recording. I'd like to be able to control that too.

So, I cant send input channels to the Matrix, so I'm thinking instead of sendind the choir mix via ST LR, I'll go direct to the matrix. I'll link the two mic channels and bring one onto the custom fader layer in place of the mix fader and control the levels from the input channel instead of the mix.

Are there any problems with doing this or is there a better way? I can see that those two mics would be outsode the control of the Stereo Master.

Aplogies for the long first post

[Mikey]

Welcome!

If it were me I would send all of the mics you'd like in the rec. mix to an aux pre-fader. This would allow you to call that mix up with sends on fader and actually mix your recording. I realize this would also mean you would have to have one or two free auxes.

[withoutfear]

I second that suggestions.
This is how I am feeding several speakers through out our foyer and mothers room. I just use an aux send and it works great. However i don't record at the console, i record into a computer. It's just easier for me as far as editing goes. It's already there come Monday morning, no need to drag it in from a flash drive.it's just easier for me. Give it a shot!

[waynehoskins]

I'd use some number of groups and build matrixes from those to feed places other than FOH, but that's just the old-school mixer in me. If your gain structure is right and you have appropriate dynamics processing, you can get a good broadcast mix from matrixes. I'm doing that right now on a show that's in rehearsal.

[daver2]

Firstly, Welcome to CMN.

It sounds like your setup requirements are similar to ours.

As other people have said (so I am thirding or fourthing it) use a pre-fade mix for the recording. You can then setup a recording mix completely independently of the main mix. You should then be able to get them both sounding as you want (i.e. playing with the faders for the main mix will not affect what is on the recording). It does mean, however, that you will have to keep an ear on the recording as well.

As Wayne has already said, you need to construct some mixes to contain (for our example) drums, instruments, vocalists and speech and then matrix mix those groups to feed the speakers. You can then adjust the amount of vocalists sent to each zone independently. Lookup FIXED and VARI mixes in the LS9 manual. There is a fairly lengthy thread on CMN somewhere that describes these in detail.

As you say, you can't take input channels directly to the matrix mixers. What I did when we setup our system was to write down exactly what I wanted to do, and then go through the manual and identify all of the information I needed to be able to configure the LS9 to do what I wanted.

If you want, I can PM you our documentation to show you our setup if that will help?

Dave

[DirkD]

Thanks for all your replies.

I think as far as recording goes what I'm hearing is what I already suspected and that is that to improve mix we're going to have to monitor/mix the recording during the service. I can understand using a pre-fade mix for recording so that it's unaffected by changes to the main mix, but doesn't that mean that you have problems with for example the preacher who is wearing a radio mic (and perhaps not given the gift of a singing voice ) coming though loud on the recording mix ?

As far as our general set up goes, we only have one PA Mix - all our speech channels,vocalists and instruments feed this mix. This single mix is sent to the Stereo L/R and then to Matrix, so I can see that by breaking it down into individual Mixs I could have different balances in each zone which makes sense. But I'd have to route straight to the Matrix from the Mixs, bypassing the Stereo L/R which acts as the Master fader for the FOH. Is that usual ?

[DirkD]

Originally Posted by daver2

Firstly, Welcome to CMN.
If you want, I can PM you our documentation to show you our setup if that will help?

Dave

Dave,

I'd appreciate that, I'd be very interested to see other set ups.

Thanks

[Arlin]

Here is what we do with our LS9-32:
Our FOH speaker system is mono, so we use the Mono Buss for FOH instead of LR.

LR is used for our recording mix, but MOST CHANNELS ARE NOT ASSIGNED DIRECTLY TO THE LR BUS.
We divide all channels in to one of 3 different categories:
1: Vocal channels (present in FOH & Record)
2: Instrumental channels (present in FOH & Record)
3: Record only channels (like ambiance mics).

Mix 9/10 Setup (Vocals submix for recording):
Configured as a Fixed Stereo Mix pair. (Could be easily changed to post fader / Vari Stereo Mix for more control)
Output is routed to LR to feed the vocal submix into the recording feed(s).

Mix 11/12 Setup (Instrumental submix for recording):
Configured as a Fixed Stereo Mix pair.(Could be easily changed to post fader / Vari Stereo Mix for more control)
Output is routed to LR to feed the instrumentsal submix into the recording feed(s).

1: Vocal channel routing
For FOH, these channels are assigned to the Mono bus.
For recording, these channels are assigned to the Mix 9/10 Fixed Stereo Mix Bus.

2: Instrumental channel routing
For FOH, these channels are assigned to the Mono bus.
For recording, these channels are assigned to the Mix 11/12 Fixed Stereo Mix Bus.

3: Record only channels routing
These channels are assigned directly to the LR bus for the recording feed(s).
They are NOT assigned to the Mono bus as they should not be amplified in FOH.

Custom fader layer setup:
We configure a user defined fader layer so that fader #31 is the Mix 9/10 (vocal submix) master fader.
Fader #32 is our ambience mics (all our ambience mics are linked together).
Mix 11/12 is always kept at unity for our purposes, so we do not assign a fader for it on our custom layer.
Also, We enable the LR - Mono link in the user preferences so the record volume and FOH master volume is linked.

In operation:
During the service/performance, the recording mix can be monitored using the LS9's headphone ouptut as it defaults to the LR mix.
Cue functions still work with the headphones too.
Most of the time, We will keep the ambiance microphones fairly low & the vocal submix master (fader #31) at unity.
But when the congregation is singing with the Prissie team, We lower the volume of the vocal submix master and increase the ambiance mic volume.
Thus, the praise team does not overpower the congregation and it sounds a lot better.
Care must be taken to lower the ambiance volume when the congregation is not participating, especially during the sermon, for instance, or the recorded mix can sound too hollow & echoey.

It can be a constant battle to keep all the sound techs cognizant of monitoring and adjusting the recorded mix, but with this configuration, we have tried to keep it as simple and straightforward as possible.
It would be best to have a complete split and a second sound console just for recording, but with our resources, this works well for us.

[bobbycito]

i would say look at what is going on is the person doing sound having to deal with monitors house and recording?? If they do it gets hard to monitor the rec feed as you are tring to keep up with the band needs and house needs as well with other zones you may need to feed. 1 thing you could look at doing is using a Matrix to feed the rec and create a group Fixed bus (this will need to be done in ST) that feed the matrix. also if you create a pre fad mix / Aux setup if you pull the fader down on a certin ch you need to remeber to pull it down on the aux as well to keep from rec unwanted things. you could also mix and match pre or post per ch so that is the pasto never shuts of is mic you don't rec pesonal talk.

[waynehoskins]

Another reason I like post-fade groups (which in Yamaha digi-speak are "fixed mixes"). Mix changes within the group track through, but you can adjust for relative differences at the group level between house mix and what you want for recording. Groups might include vocals, guitars, drums, strings, woodwinds, speech, etc. depending on what you have. Generally you will want more drums in the recording mix than the house mix, so you dial that group up more in the recording matrix.

[Tim Padrick]

Method 1: If you have enough buses left after setting up your monitor auxes, set up groups for the instruments. Use a matrix for the record mix.

Method 2: Use a pre-fade aux for the record mix, and have a second mixperson perform the mix via Studio Manager or StageMix.

[daver2]

The simple way around the 'non gifted preachers singing voice' is to implement group mutes. I have implemented four mutes as follows:

1 - Instruments.
2 - Vocalists.
3 - Speech (e.g. worship leader and preacher).
4 - Congregational microphones.

I have then placed these four mute buttons on the custom fader layer as buttons 1, 2, 3 and 4. I can then mute all of the speech microphones during the worship songs etc. The mutes generally work on the associated mix channels - but also affect the foldbacks for the musicians and vocalists as well.

I see you are in the UK. I am in Worcester; so if you are near - and have some spare time - I would be quite happy to show you around our system and talk to you about what I know.

Dave