Adding Additional Inputs

[jdycus]

Just for this Sunday, we are moving our praise band over to sanctuary. We have 8 XLR jacks on stage going back to mixer, but need 10 for the praise band. How is the best way to add 2 additional channels?

[Jacb Robinson]

What about renting a couple wireless microphones for vocals then using the freed up inputs for the band?

[Brad Weber]

Obviously the best way would be to increase the number of inputs available but assuming that is not feasible...

What are the 10 sources? Any chance you could get a small mixer and submix some of the sources at the stage, then run that stage mixer output as a line input into the main mixer (outputs and inputs if stereo)?

[jdycus]

5 vocalists & 5 instruments. I do have a small 5 channel mixer, but output is 1/4" line level. All stage jacks are xlr mic level.

[waynehoskins]

The obvious solution is to increase the number of input lines and channels available in the sanctuary, because these days 8 is never anywhere near enough. Many mixers tie up 8 channels with just drumkit.

Depending on the particulars, I might be temped to submix the whole thing on stage.

[Brad Weber]

Originally Posted by jdycus

5 vocalists & 5 instruments. I do have a small 5 channel mixer, but output is 1/4" line level. All stage jacks are xlr mic level.

A XLR is simply a connector, it is not limited to being used for a microphone input, so if you can set a corresponding input on the mixer to accept line level then you should be able to run the output of a stage mixer into the corresponding XLR input on stage.

If you cannot configure one of the main mixer inputs for line level then another option is to get something like one of these for the stage mixer output,
http://www.shure.com/americas/produc...-db-attenuator
http://www.audio-technica.com/cms/el...e16/index.html
http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/LMX

The main reason I was asking what the inputs were is that if you had something like multiple microphones for a drum kit or a keyboard player with multiple keyboard outputs then it may make more sense to submix those sources at the stage than submixing vocals or some other sources.

[jdycus]

Thanks all- very helpful.

[Les]

If it's for one week do you need 5 vocalists? I try and not have 5 vocalists even if I have the inputs .

It's hard enough to find 2 people that can harmonize together let alone 5 people! You never know, it might help your sound.

[waynehoskins]

Les has an excellent point. I intentionally have a cutoff of 4 at my church, and only very rarely do we go over 3. You really need 5? Lead, a couple of backup, done.

[andrewc2]

My church is crazy, we have 5 plus a lead, so 3 women and 2 men and our worship leader makes the third man.

We just opted to purchase 5 wireless mics to avoid having to run additional cable to our stage which is over 150 ft from the booth. Plus overtime we plan on having about 7 cables ran down, 5 for input and 2 outputs. (Just bought a 40 Channel board to accommodate the expansion.

[wogster]

Originally Posted by andrewc2

My church is crazy, we have 5 plus a lead, so 3 women and 2 men and our worship leader makes the third man.

We just opted to purchase 5 wireless mics to avoid having to run additional cable to our stage which is over 150 ft from the booth. Plus overtime we plan on having about 7 cables ran down, 5 for input and 2 outputs. (Just bought a 40 Channel board to accommodate the expansion.

What might have been a cheaper solution, split the singers into Team 1 and Team 2 with 3 on each team, they alternate weeks.... Worked well in one church I went to....

[Esoteric]

I installed a system/did training for a church whos praise team was 5-7 men and 8-12 women, all individual mics. They had more vocal mics than instrument mics.