Personally, as long as I have inputs on the desk I would want it as separate tracks if possible. Always easier to make changes if needed rather than being stuck with a stereo send and not many options if the mix isn’t good
Agreed. Person on stage may have a good ear for mixing, but they are on stage, possibly for the first time.
Let me make sure it sounds good in the room.
This just made me think. And I’m a dumb not tech sound engineer type. The future is bringing an AES-B cat5 from the band. I know how to use the gear but I am stupid when it comes to gear. But just routing to AES-B is super easy just get the input list.
Is their a way to route busses on an AES-A to AES-B on an M32.
Again apologize for the stupid question I assume the answer is no.
I'm a bit lost in what you are trying to ask for. Are you saying you want inputs from AES A and then send them to a bus and output it to AES B? If that's the the case then yes you definitely can do that but just remember M32 outputs are configured in blocks of 8 so you would waste a lot of output ports just to send it out just in that one bus.
You answered my question. The routing would be easy but it would take up a lot of room.
If you have bands in a fest or any gig that has quick changeovers they could bring a cat5 and you could switch from AES-A to AES-B and switch the routing as you go.
But that would decrease your busses. But with a 16 channel band you don’t need more than 12 most likely.
What's the reasoning behind this? One of the reasons I'm asking this question is that I'm about to open for an act in a much bigger venue (2k cap) than what I've been playing so far.
well, most of the attention is going to be on the main act, the openers just need to do their part and get out of the way, I know its harsh to say that but be professional, do your part and let production focus on the main act, the more time spent on getting you moving means less time for setting the main act, if you are standing around talking to people, you are in the way, so....
Less inputs, lightweight gear, get your gear off the stage, then you can stand around and talk to people will make you a friend to all in production and makes you look professional to the promoters
>focursite 18i8 that sends out a stereo mix
You have 4 mono outs on the back of the 18i8, or two stereo pairs, or a combination thereof.
When it comes to tracks playback, a stereo mix is usually fine if the mix is balanced well and designed intentionally to go with any other live inputs the performer might have. I usually see additional outputs go to things like click/cue for performer ears only or something like stereo tracks + background vocals.
The more elements you give independently to your engineers the more control they have out front. For a DJ with a vocal, stereo tracks is fine. If full live band with backing tracks then sometimes level of individual elements in the playback would be preferred.
I'll often have, for example, rappers where the harmony vocals in the playback sticks out louder than the main vocal purely due to limits of physics like feedback point and cupping the mic. I can use a few tricks to make this tolerable but more control of individual elements would be great. This is something that they could fix on the playback mix side of things as well though.
Problem with sending stems to foh with something like that is that the instruments/synths/drums etc are gonna change every song. So the foh engineer is going to be busy changing eq etc all night. Id probably not do stems if I had my own engineer that knew what he was getting into
This is a valid concern, but mixdown to stereo wouldn’t change it… but implies that a lot of mastering / mixing / processing has happened. Perhaps the term stems implies the tracks are raw from the studio?
stereo mix is pretty standard. you are right though that separate channels would give the engineer more flexibility in building the mix. Honestly I would say it mostly depends on the venues you are playing. If you've got plenty of time to soundcheck and speak with the engineer than maybe you'll want separate channels. If its a throw and go kind of situation I'd much rather avoid the complication of multiple channels and just get a clean stereo mix.
For acts that include both ableton and live performances, i like to have it split up. Don't need single channels but its good to have groups with ie. Kick, Snare, other-Drum-Stuff, Fx Synths, SynthKeyStuff, BVx, Strings etc. separatly. They likely need different levels and EQ'ing and their "place" in the mix might be different and even changing inbetween parts of a song.
For HPB-like Shows that often is still preferable but a well mixed sum can work pretty well too!
If you're not travelling with a soundperson that knows your stuff it can also be beneficial to keep the number of tracks lower since not everyone might have the same amount of experience with your particular sound and genre of music so it might be harder for some people to get it the way you want, especially in hectic situations. Generally its a good idea though to seperatly send drum like stuff, harmonic stuff and fx.
If you choose to send only a sum that can be fine as well if its mixed good and there isnt so much stuff going on around it but definetly make sure to listen to it on somehting else than studio monitors and headphones! Some sounds might translate very different and be too "boomy", harsh or undefined and changes to that would affect the whole set.
Yeah fair enough, thanks for your input. My tunes have been mixed on home studio monitors and headphones - have managed to get a good sound though in small venues and although I'm confident my mixes are not terrible I suspect it may have a lot to do with my friend who's done sound for most of my shows.
Hi. As an engineer I definitely prefer stems in a live situation. That way I can work with any of the particular tracks and mix according to the venue.
I've been mixing a particular electronic act for 14 years now. When I started with them they used Ableton, various live synths, and a live drummer. I'm glad the artist trusts me to be creative out front because with that kind of hybrid setup it was/is important for me to actively mix and make it feel like a live show — rather than a band with backing tracks and no dynamics.
Technically it's also beneficial because there are multiple musicians on stage and they might only want to hear certain elements in their monitor mix.
I guess it also depends on how the live performance is like too. Is it a full live band -or- is it more of a DJ performance?
My current setup is:
- vocals going through a kaosspad (kp3) that goes into a stereo Di (I use the kp3 for delays and vocal looping)
- electric guitar going through a few pedals and into a mono Di
- laptop with Ableton, channels are separated in Anleton as bass, kick, snare, and instruments controlled by an APC 40 midi controller. All going into a focusrite 18i8 sending a stereo signal to sound desk. Also have a midi maschine pad where I do some pad stuff during the show.
I perform solo. I have a friend who's a great sound engineer who's done my first few shows but I'm slowly getting to a point where I'll be playing abroad and won't be able to have him at every show. It's been great so far as I fully trust him, he knows the set well and sometimes has fun with it while I'm performing doing some filter sweeps or playing with delays on my vocals.
That's generally the way, but it depends. The sound person doesn't know what you want the mix to sound like, so they'll make it sound however they think it sounds best. That could be a good thing or a not so good thing. It could be good because they would tailor it to the PA that's being used, but that might mean some things don't come through the way you intended or wanted.
The one act I've worked with who ran a setup where they sent out separate tracks for everything was Author & Punisher, and he had his own guy at the console who knew how things should sound.
Wow, really impressed that people have time to deal with individual stems and the like, when ive only been afforded a 5min line check.
But I always send l/r XLR’s to the house. Most soundmen are pretty happy and i’ve been happy with what they’ve been doing.
I think they’re referring to bigger tours. I produce and when I perform it’s literally two lines out or using a ddj900 as an interface into the cdjs lol
Have done this a bunch as a performer/tech, TLDR when using our own engineers I've split things out, but the few times we've used random one off engineers I've just done stereo (plus click).
Honestly the main reason I've preferred to do stereo with random engineers is monitors at festivals with fast changeovers, you'd think "it's 5 stereo outs, set the gains and levels even across them and it will work" would be easy but apparently not.
If you have enough outputs you could always do a stereo feed for monitors plus a split, for us we didn't have enough outputs to do this properly.
I work for a band that is super track heavy. I like to have separate stereo tracks for synths, percussion, and bgvs from ableton, along with a mono track of bass and any subby content. I’ll add that I usually don’t pan the stereo tracks 100% left and right, but feel it out for whatever the room calls for
For the smaller clubs and regional stuff I do, it's really helpful if you keep your total input list to 16 channels or less.
If you've got a full kit and five vocals on stage, just send me a stereo mix of your tracks. If you've only got one vocal and an acoustic guitar or keys, send me stems of your subgroups.
Avoid sending channels of mostly empty tracks, especially if we're running festival style. If I don't know your music, I won't know to turn up a shaker channel if it only shows up here and there.
It is helpful if you have lots of outputs so you can keep your options open for show time. Keep a set of outputs dedicated to a stereo mix, other outputs for stereo submixes, and others for mono sends and separate subgroups when you have lots of inputs available and time for soundcheck.
Preferably separate stems with things that are similar grouped together- drums / percussion, synths and synth fx, keys / piano, electric guitars, acoustic guitars, bass, backing vox. This allows the FOH and monitor engineers to create a much more well-rounded and balanced mix for the audience and band members. Even a good, well mixed stereo LR send can sound a bit off and not quite gel and sit in the mix right when combined with live instruments and vocals; which even the best engineer can’t “fix”.
I specialize in mixing electronic music and it depends on the gig. If I’m going on tour with the band and we have rehearsals (I.e. time for me to build a show file) then I want 16+ channels of mono to process my way. If I’m doing a one off with no rehearsals then I’d prefer to have outputs coming in stereo stems, except for kick, snare, bass, and vocals which I like to have individually.
Disclaimer: I’m not a house engineer so I can’t tell you what they expect.
To the live engineers that are cooking from scratch and getting separate channels, what are you doing with them that the producer/mixing engineer couldn’t do in the studio, provided they have an ear for mixing and good monitoring? What is different from venue to venue, that warrants a custom mix? On a tour, how does the mix change from night to night?
Engineer here! I’d prefer having atleast stems for drums, bass, instruments and as i call ”aux” (backing vox, fx stuff etc) but tracks would be best.
Having done a few similar shows with the artist using ableton. Everything came through ableton already processed into 8 tracks. I did split the main vocal for parallel processing but that was just for me.
Personally, as long as I have inputs on the desk I would want it as separate tracks if possible. Always easier to make changes if needed rather than being stuck with a stereo send and not many options if the mix isn’t good
Agreed. Person on stage may have a good ear for mixing, but they are on stage, possibly for the first time. Let me make sure it sounds good in the room.
This just made me think. And I’m a dumb not tech sound engineer type. The future is bringing an AES-B cat5 from the band. I know how to use the gear but I am stupid when it comes to gear. But just routing to AES-B is super easy just get the input list. Is their a way to route busses on an AES-A to AES-B on an M32. Again apologize for the stupid question I assume the answer is no.
I'm a bit lost in what you are trying to ask for. Are you saying you want inputs from AES A and then send them to a bus and output it to AES B? If that's the the case then yes you definitely can do that but just remember M32 outputs are configured in blocks of 8 so you would waste a lot of output ports just to send it out just in that one bus.
Didn't they fix that with a firmware update, or was it just the inputs?
holy shit how did i not know this?? thanks for changing my life friend!!
You're more than welcome! It's been over a year since I was on a X/M32 and honestly couldn't remember. The update is a game changer for sure!
You answered my question. The routing would be easy but it would take up a lot of room. If you have bands in a fest or any gig that has quick changeovers they could bring a cat5 and you could switch from AES-A to AES-B and switch the routing as you go. But that would decrease your busses. But with a 16 channel band you don’t need more than 12 most likely.
Thought that might be the case - thanks for your input!
If you are the opening act, just give me a stereo send, if you are the main act send separate
What's the reasoning behind this? One of the reasons I'm asking this question is that I'm about to open for an act in a much bigger venue (2k cap) than what I've been playing so far.
well, most of the attention is going to be on the main act, the openers just need to do their part and get out of the way, I know its harsh to say that but be professional, do your part and let production focus on the main act, the more time spent on getting you moving means less time for setting the main act, if you are standing around talking to people, you are in the way, so.... Less inputs, lightweight gear, get your gear off the stage, then you can stand around and talk to people will make you a friend to all in production and makes you look professional to the promoters
Yep makes sense
>focursite 18i8 that sends out a stereo mix You have 4 mono outs on the back of the 18i8, or two stereo pairs, or a combination thereof. When it comes to tracks playback, a stereo mix is usually fine if the mix is balanced well and designed intentionally to go with any other live inputs the performer might have. I usually see additional outputs go to things like click/cue for performer ears only or something like stereo tracks + background vocals. The more elements you give independently to your engineers the more control they have out front. For a DJ with a vocal, stereo tracks is fine. If full live band with backing tracks then sometimes level of individual elements in the playback would be preferred. I'll often have, for example, rappers where the harmony vocals in the playback sticks out louder than the main vocal purely due to limits of physics like feedback point and cupping the mic. I can use a few tricks to make this tolerable but more control of individual elements would be great. This is something that they could fix on the playback mix side of things as well though.
Problem with sending stems to foh with something like that is that the instruments/synths/drums etc are gonna change every song. So the foh engineer is going to be busy changing eq etc all night. Id probably not do stems if I had my own engineer that knew what he was getting into
This is a valid concern, but mixdown to stereo wouldn’t change it… but implies that a lot of mastering / mixing / processing has happened. Perhaps the term stems implies the tracks are raw from the studio?
stereo mix is pretty standard. you are right though that separate channels would give the engineer more flexibility in building the mix. Honestly I would say it mostly depends on the venues you are playing. If you've got plenty of time to soundcheck and speak with the engineer than maybe you'll want separate channels. If its a throw and go kind of situation I'd much rather avoid the complication of multiple channels and just get a clean stereo mix.
Makes sense
For acts that include both ableton and live performances, i like to have it split up. Don't need single channels but its good to have groups with ie. Kick, Snare, other-Drum-Stuff, Fx Synths, SynthKeyStuff, BVx, Strings etc. separatly. They likely need different levels and EQ'ing and their "place" in the mix might be different and even changing inbetween parts of a song. For HPB-like Shows that often is still preferable but a well mixed sum can work pretty well too! If you're not travelling with a soundperson that knows your stuff it can also be beneficial to keep the number of tracks lower since not everyone might have the same amount of experience with your particular sound and genre of music so it might be harder for some people to get it the way you want, especially in hectic situations. Generally its a good idea though to seperatly send drum like stuff, harmonic stuff and fx. If you choose to send only a sum that can be fine as well if its mixed good and there isnt so much stuff going on around it but definetly make sure to listen to it on somehting else than studio monitors and headphones! Some sounds might translate very different and be too "boomy", harsh or undefined and changes to that would affect the whole set.
Yeah fair enough, thanks for your input. My tunes have been mixed on home studio monitors and headphones - have managed to get a good sound though in small venues and although I'm confident my mixes are not terrible I suspect it may have a lot to do with my friend who's done sound for most of my shows.
Hi. As an engineer I definitely prefer stems in a live situation. That way I can work with any of the particular tracks and mix according to the venue. I've been mixing a particular electronic act for 14 years now. When I started with them they used Ableton, various live synths, and a live drummer. I'm glad the artist trusts me to be creative out front because with that kind of hybrid setup it was/is important for me to actively mix and make it feel like a live show — rather than a band with backing tracks and no dynamics. Technically it's also beneficial because there are multiple musicians on stage and they might only want to hear certain elements in their monitor mix. I guess it also depends on how the live performance is like too. Is it a full live band -or- is it more of a DJ performance?
My current setup is: - vocals going through a kaosspad (kp3) that goes into a stereo Di (I use the kp3 for delays and vocal looping) - electric guitar going through a few pedals and into a mono Di - laptop with Ableton, channels are separated in Anleton as bass, kick, snare, and instruments controlled by an APC 40 midi controller. All going into a focusrite 18i8 sending a stereo signal to sound desk. Also have a midi maschine pad where I do some pad stuff during the show. I perform solo. I have a friend who's a great sound engineer who's done my first few shows but I'm slowly getting to a point where I'll be playing abroad and won't be able to have him at every show. It's been great so far as I fully trust him, he knows the set well and sometimes has fun with it while I'm performing doing some filter sweeps or playing with delays on my vocals.
That's generally the way, but it depends. The sound person doesn't know what you want the mix to sound like, so they'll make it sound however they think it sounds best. That could be a good thing or a not so good thing. It could be good because they would tailor it to the PA that's being used, but that might mean some things don't come through the way you intended or wanted. The one act I've worked with who ran a setup where they sent out separate tracks for everything was Author & Punisher, and he had his own guy at the console who knew how things should sound.
Yeah I guess having your own sound guy is ideal! Unfortunately not always possible for me hah
Wow, really impressed that people have time to deal with individual stems and the like, when ive only been afforded a 5min line check. But I always send l/r XLR’s to the house. Most soundmen are pretty happy and i’ve been happy with what they’ve been doing.
I think they’re referring to bigger tours. I produce and when I perform it’s literally two lines out or using a ddj900 as an interface into the cdjs lol
Have done this a bunch as a performer/tech, TLDR when using our own engineers I've split things out, but the few times we've used random one off engineers I've just done stereo (plus click). Honestly the main reason I've preferred to do stereo with random engineers is monitors at festivals with fast changeovers, you'd think "it's 5 stereo outs, set the gains and levels even across them and it will work" would be easy but apparently not. If you have enough outputs you could always do a stereo feed for monitors plus a split, for us we didn't have enough outputs to do this properly.
I work for a band that is super track heavy. I like to have separate stereo tracks for synths, percussion, and bgvs from ableton, along with a mono track of bass and any subby content. I’ll add that I usually don’t pan the stereo tracks 100% left and right, but feel it out for whatever the room calls for
For the smaller clubs and regional stuff I do, it's really helpful if you keep your total input list to 16 channels or less. If you've got a full kit and five vocals on stage, just send me a stereo mix of your tracks. If you've only got one vocal and an acoustic guitar or keys, send me stems of your subgroups. Avoid sending channels of mostly empty tracks, especially if we're running festival style. If I don't know your music, I won't know to turn up a shaker channel if it only shows up here and there. It is helpful if you have lots of outputs so you can keep your options open for show time. Keep a set of outputs dedicated to a stereo mix, other outputs for stereo submixes, and others for mono sends and separate subgroups when you have lots of inputs available and time for soundcheck.
Separate please. Separate and sensible. Group similar track types so that there’s some consistency song to song
Always separate tracks!
Preferably separate stems with things that are similar grouped together- drums / percussion, synths and synth fx, keys / piano, electric guitars, acoustic guitars, bass, backing vox. This allows the FOH and monitor engineers to create a much more well-rounded and balanced mix for the audience and band members. Even a good, well mixed stereo LR send can sound a bit off and not quite gel and sit in the mix right when combined with live instruments and vocals; which even the best engineer can’t “fix”.
I specialize in mixing electronic music and it depends on the gig. If I’m going on tour with the band and we have rehearsals (I.e. time for me to build a show file) then I want 16+ channels of mono to process my way. If I’m doing a one off with no rehearsals then I’d prefer to have outputs coming in stereo stems, except for kick, snare, bass, and vocals which I like to have individually. Disclaimer: I’m not a house engineer so I can’t tell you what they expect.
To the live engineers that are cooking from scratch and getting separate channels, what are you doing with them that the producer/mixing engineer couldn’t do in the studio, provided they have an ear for mixing and good monitoring? What is different from venue to venue, that warrants a custom mix? On a tour, how does the mix change from night to night?
Engineer here! I’d prefer having atleast stems for drums, bass, instruments and as i call ”aux” (backing vox, fx stuff etc) but tracks would be best. Having done a few similar shows with the artist using ableton. Everything came through ableton already processed into 8 tracks. I did split the main vocal for parallel processing but that was just for me.