Pro Sound Web: Experienced audio people have the ability to mix while keeping their eyes on the stage and the crowd. They know that they need to continually watch their musicians for visual cues in order to catch any trouble early and to verify that the people on stage are able to connect with each other.
3 comments:
One of the best channel layouts I've used was on a soundcraft ghost I used for choral performances. 32 channels split to two halves of the board with subs and masters in the middle of the board. I was able to layout the 15 sm58's on the left and all the band mics on the right. That board was huge, clunky and annoying as hell to move around but will always be my favorite sound board to mix on. It was the easiest for me to organize and mix from. My favorite organization trick though was rainbow coloring the 58's from left to right, even though I had to repeat the colors 3 times i was able to look ahead see the middle yellow and my hand was able to go directly to that channel.
This was interesting, and makes some good and informative points about efficient channel layouts, but how useful is it really? I suppose that depends of the situation.
At a club or professional tour, a standard layout is important. If the engineer gets hit by a bus, any other engineer can step up and mix the board. This is not the rationale the article gives. The article indicates that a standardized board layout is essential so the engineer can keep his or her eyes on the audience. An engineer familiar with the system is going to develop muscle memory for the system regardless of how the board is channeled. If another engineer steps up the booth to run the show, even if the channels are assigned in a standard order, the faders and encoders are going to be spaced differently than any other board. And in any case, the board channels should always be labeled. I'm not saying that the board shouldn’t be arranged in a logical order, because it should. It’s simply more efficient that way.
Articles like this tend to irritate me. Lighting designers come up with their own channel hookup, draftsmen arrange their own pallets, and every computer user in the world has their own desktop icon arrangement. Unless it is a completely shared environment, why should an engineer set up their mix board any way except the most efficient way for them, as long as the job gets done?
Channel layouts are intrinsic to mixing a good show. While this article seems to focus more on input configurations as a primary component in your console layout, the way the console is specifically laid out is also very important. For me personally I like to have my bus section closer to the middle of the console due to the fact that I tend to mix off of VCA assignments (especially in theatre) rather than directly off input faders. The benefit I feel of having this in the middle is if you want to make a specific adjustment to a channel you do not have to reach across the board its all right there. My favorite consoles that i have worked on that have this layout are the DiGiCo SD7 and the Soundcraft Vi6. Both of these consoles have a good feel to them and allow for clean setups. On the other hand I feel that the Avid VENUE D-Show system is very poorly laid out and makes it difficult to mix a clean show.
Post a Comment