I Ran sound for this show back in 2012. This song definitely stuck out as the most difficult song to mix. you Kicked this songs ass!!! keep up the Good work!!!
Francois- great question. I do all the mixing to eliminate phasing between actor's mics. Although gates help keep mics under control the dynamic range of musical theatre is so great that gates become more trouble than they're worth. It's actually easier to just do line by line mixing which is one mic at a time.
wow this is awesome....my theater back home just had the tour of legally blonde in on friday after a 2 week tech...I myself am getting ready to be the A1 on my school's production of A Chorus Line. very cool video.
As said... nice work, man! balance and dynamics... not the gear, it's the man with the ears. The comment earlier about you being busy every millisecond on the faders, there's no better way. THATS the job. Just spent the week turning the config of a Soundcraft expression inside out to suit my idea of layout. Loving the 21st Century! Come April I do a yearly show that maxes out a limping YAMAHA PM3500-52. I usually have the DHA real-time-reactive automation system to help (Dual Human Assistant) to get through that one.
Wow, very impressive man! You have great control and are totally locked in with the performance. Great work and thanks for recording this! Very fun and informative to watch. Nice board you get to work on too :).
Funny this video showed up in my feed. 58k views! Well done man! Miss working with you! I totally credit you and Tim for starting my career! Miss theatrical work in general!
Watching this and might send a link to the other members in production, as part on why I need a console with DCA's for this show instead of our old LS9 :) And gives me a bit heads up on the show I am about to do.
Completely forgot it, placed my own "fader view" with the same song, showing my take on line mixing (only second time I have used that approach at the time) ruclips.net/video/MGw-fe8fbZQ/видео.html
I've mixed a couple of musicals on as Soundcraft... They are quiet annoying with scene recall and sometimes can take half a second to recall... Caught me off guard in tech rehearsals...
You're not alone, I have had delayed recalls with this console. I found that clearing the internal HD (or at least deleting some shows) made a bit of a difference.
vi soundcraft as i remeber was a linux system,yamaha also.looks like windows does the job well,but what console is windows?The mighty studer,and digidesin I think.these things did basic command jobs well
Sam, I use a Vi1000 for theatre mixing. I know the standard is to use for VCAs everything but on the Vi series, the capability of being able to reassign faders per cue is very powerful to me so if only one mic would we assigned to VCA, I have been using a practice of simply assigning that fader to the main bank of 8. Is there any reason that this is a bad practice? We move from show to show pretty quickly and it is a little faster to program than reassigning the VCAs constantly to me. It also keeps it simple and I can quickly see if I am only really using 2 or 3 faders or whatever the case is.
Sam, love your videos. I'm going into tech for a production of Legally Blonde in just a couple days, and I'm really feeling the limitations of this theatre company's gear. We've got an LS9-32, which has been great for every other production I've done here, but on a show like Blonde, with such quick changes between different groups of vocalists, I'm really feeling the lack of DCAs. Can I ask how you'd recommend approaching the building of scene presents for this show on a board without DCA's? My thought is to create ensemble mixes on a few auxes (one for men, one for women, one for Delta Nus), and use the LS9's "scene focus" function to have my scenes only recall which channels are getting sent to those ensemble auxes for each scene. Then I'd have the aux masters for those groups on my custom fader layer. Does this sound like an appropriate approach to you?
scbret - I've used a LS9-16 for small events and always wondered how difficult it would be to use one for a full scale musical production! Glad to hear it's a LS9-32 at least. Back in my analogue days I'd use the groups for control and reassign actors in each group on the fly. I also labeled my faders (literally taped the faders) with numbers and mark my script with numbers so it's easier to find people. I think the plan you have come up with will work fine. On the bus setup page you can make mix's groups instead of auxes by selecting "fixed". Good luck on your show!!
Fantastic work! This is a great example how theatre sound should be. It's by far the most demanding sound discipline where the operators performance is just as important as the cast. Can you tell me your approach to using compression/limiting in this scenario? Thanks, Lewis
This is fantastic. I have a burning question that is really irritating me. Sometimes I go to theatres and look at the sound desk and see there are several computer monitors around the console, one with QLAB running off a Mac; and others that are showing the levels of the mix although I believe that these monitors are external and not part of the mixing desk. How is this setup achieved? Where does this secondary computer come into play? Is the show being mixed on a computer and the console acting simply as a midi controller to the computer? Or something different? Please enlighten me - thanks very much
The theatre I work at has 2 PCs in addition to the Vi6 console. One PC is running SMAART which allows me to see sound pressure levels and the overall response of the room. I am also running SHURE WORKBENCH to monitor all 30 wireless mics' battery life, RF strength and audio level. The second PC is running SCS (Show Cue System), cue stack software used to recall sound effects. The Vi6 console is actually a control surface with all audio ins and outs going through the local rack, so in a way the show is being mixed on a computer. Great question, I get it a lot from audience members when they see the 3 computer screens in addition to the 5 already on the console.
***** With this setup I'm actually firing sound effect cues from the sfx PC and board cues from the console. I have used MIDI in the past to connect the console and Show Cue System, and used the board to fire all cues and change patches of outboard gear. I like the setup, but I find on some shows it's easier to have the 2 systems separate especially if I have a lot of console snapshots and very few sound effects.
Sam Johnson at my theater we run a CL5, mix cues are all part of centralogic, qlab fires sound fx/projector cues from a mac, and then another computer can pull up to 64 audio channels from the network to record in nuendo if we so wish. that might be the third monitor you were wondering about.
Awesome Video! I was wondering. I didn't see a VoxVerb or BandVerb stick, nor did i see you reach for other faders off screen. Are you automating VoxVerb or is it on the whole time (hard to hear on cam mic)? Can anyone else elaborate on the lack of need for a verb fader?
+Dan Axe I used to assign my verb send to a VCA and ride it during the performance, but I have since started automating the reverb and only using a VCA when I want to control the verb release. Typically the programming lets me focus on other aspects of the show.
Hey man, i've mixed Cabaret with the Vi6 for 2 years here in Brazil. And i have a question, when i closed the vcas in a "hard mode" (very fast and hard) like you do a lot of times during the video, the faders raises back to 0db and come back to closed again by itself. Very weird but happened to me a lot of times! Did you understand what i mean? hope so! i also have a video on youtube very similar to this, mixing for CATS, take a look : CATS SP - Mixing Broadway CATS best wishes Gabriel
At times like 3:00, when you hit a button (I am assuming it is changing scenes or something), what are the channels that are changing and why? Also how do you have the channels setup that you are riding the faders the whole song. Are they subgroups or just channels assigned to that section?
+David H this is a large community theatre in Grand Rapids Michigan. I started as a volunteer at 13 and worked my way up to being an employee in charge of all audio for the theatre. I had the good fortune to have great mentors who taught me the techniques. They then went on to tour with broadway and would constantly bring back things they learned. This industry really is the people you know and the experience you have.
What are "area mics"? are those like choir or floor mics? I'm using some for a production of Heathers we're starting next week, but I intend to assign choir or floor mics based on blocking, e.g. if the whole ensemble is stage left, then just choir mic 4, if they're behind the center set piece, floor mics 1 and 2.
Sure is. Dialogue is even more difficult because singing at least has a rhythm to follow. Mixing like this creates a cleaner sound since everyone on stage is a moving omni directional microphone.
ALL refers to a group with all the ensemble in it, OS Singing is an area offstage where actors sing, we use this area when we need more voices but don't want more actors on stage. Area mics hang above the stage and capture the entire playing area, I use those to help blend voices when everyone sings and for overall balance.
+englishmanlv I appreciate your concern, but I assure you the distortion is from the mic on the camera and not the show itself. In future videos I recorded a feed from the board instead of using the on camera mic. I was disappointed with the sound quality on the video, the show was amazing to mix.
You take hands on mixing to the next level. Quite impressive that one person can do all this. You are the music director's dream.
I Ran sound for this show back in 2012. This song definitely stuck out as the most difficult song to mix. you Kicked this songs ass!!! keep up the Good work!!!
Sounds like a great mix!
But on a side note... Dat no Condom Sign
Francois- great question. I do all the mixing to eliminate phasing between actor's mics. Although gates help keep mics under control the dynamic range of musical theatre is so great that gates become more trouble than they're worth. It's actually easier to just do line by line mixing which is one mic at a time.
i realize I am kinda off topic but does anybody know of a good site to stream new series online?
@Ahmad Davis Flixportal :D
wow this is awesome....my theater back home just had the tour of legally blonde in on friday after a 2 week tech...I myself am getting ready to be the A1 on my school's production of A Chorus Line. very cool video.
Really well done on riding vivian's mic on those louder parts! When we did legally blonde we found it quite difficult to get her to set well.
please make more sound mixing videos
As said... nice work, man! balance and dynamics... not the gear, it's the man with the ears. The comment earlier about you being busy every millisecond on the faders, there's no better way. THATS the job. Just spent the week turning the config of a Soundcraft expression inside out to suit my idea of layout. Loving the 21st Century! Come April I do a yearly show that maxes out a limping YAMAHA PM3500-52. I usually have the DHA real-time-reactive automation system to help (Dual Human Assistant) to get through that one.
I love watching you mix like this, it must take a lot of skill. Its certainly a method i would consider to use
Wow, very impressive man! You have great control and are totally locked in with the performance. Great work and thanks for recording this! Very fun and informative to watch. Nice board you get to work on too :).
Funny this video showed up in my feed. 58k views! Well done man! Miss working with you! I totally credit you and Tim for starting my career! Miss theatrical work in general!
More of these videos please!
Done lights for this show it is truly loud. Mix sounds great
Watching this and might send a link to the other members in production, as part on why I need a console with DCA's for this show instead of our old LS9 :)
And gives me a bit heads up on the show I am about to do.
Funny you mention it. I am going into tech week for Legally Blonde in two days. On an LS9. Just shoot me.
Completely forgot it, placed my own "fader view" with the same song, showing my take on line mixing (only second time I have used that approach at the time)
ruclips.net/video/MGw-fe8fbZQ/видео.html
I've mixed a couple of musicals on as Soundcraft... They are quiet annoying with scene recall and sometimes can take half a second to recall... Caught me off guard in tech rehearsals...
You're not alone, I have had delayed recalls with this console. I found that clearing the internal HD (or at least deleting some shows) made a bit of a difference.
+Sam Johnson Its worse on the yamaha CL5... I have to make sure I'm anticipating my cues or they get missed.
i find the Allen & Heath ilive a great desk to mix on for theatre and live work
vi soundcraft as i remeber was a linux system,yamaha also.looks like windows does the job well,but what console is windows?The mighty studer,and digidesin I think.these things did basic command jobs well
Can you replace the HD with an SSD?
Questo è un fonico porco diaz! voglio diventare bravo cosììììì! Cavalcare i fader è la cosa più bella del mondo!
Sam, I use a Vi1000 for theatre mixing. I know the standard is to use for VCAs everything but on the Vi series, the capability of being able to reassign faders per cue is very powerful to me so if only one mic would we assigned to VCA, I have been using a practice of simply assigning that fader to the main bank of 8. Is there any reason that this is a bad practice? We move from show to show pretty quickly and it is a little faster to program than reassigning the VCAs constantly to me. It also keeps it simple and I can quickly see if I am only really using 2 or 3 faders or whatever the case is.
Sam, love your videos. I'm going into tech for a production of Legally Blonde in just a couple days, and I'm really feeling the limitations of this theatre company's gear. We've got an LS9-32, which has been great for every other production I've done here, but on a show like Blonde, with such quick changes between different groups of vocalists, I'm really feeling the lack of DCAs.
Can I ask how you'd recommend approaching the building of scene presents for this show on a board without DCA's? My thought is to create ensemble mixes on a few auxes (one for men, one for women, one for Delta Nus), and use the LS9's "scene focus" function to have my scenes only recall which channels are getting sent to those ensemble auxes for each scene. Then I'd have the aux masters for those groups on my custom fader layer. Does this sound like an appropriate approach to you?
scbret - I've used a LS9-16 for small events and always wondered how difficult it would be to use one for a full scale musical production! Glad to hear it's a LS9-32 at least. Back in my analogue days I'd use the groups for control and reassign actors in each group on the fly. I also labeled my faders (literally taped the faders) with numbers and mark my script with numbers so it's easier to find people. I think the plan you have come up with will work fine. On the bus setup page you can make mix's groups instead of auxes by selecting "fixed". Good luck on your show!!
guys anyone here have LEGALLY BLONDE PIT ORCHESTRA RECORDING?????? PLEASE!
I would love to see one of these videos with captured sound. Just a recorded mix bus
Fantastic work! This is a great example how theatre sound should be. It's by far the most demanding sound discipline where the operators performance is just as important as the cast. Can you tell me your approach to using compression/limiting in this scenario? Thanks, Lewis
This is really cool!!!!
Doing this show in March, wont be nearly as good mixing tho lol
Solid gain structure, what wireless mics did you have?
Are you using DCA's to control the ensmble? and how many wireless actor packs are you working with? this is great stuff
nice one!
This is fantastic. I have a burning question that is really irritating me. Sometimes I go to theatres and look at the sound desk and see there are several computer monitors around the console, one with QLAB running off a Mac; and others that are showing the levels of the mix although I believe that these monitors are external and not part of the mixing desk. How is this setup achieved? Where does this secondary computer come into play? Is the show being mixed on a computer and the console acting simply as a midi controller to the computer? Or something different?
Please enlighten me - thanks very much
The theatre I work at has 2 PCs in addition to the Vi6 console. One PC is running SMAART which allows me to see sound pressure levels and the overall response of the room. I am also running SHURE WORKBENCH to monitor all 30 wireless mics' battery life, RF strength and audio level. The second PC is running SCS (Show Cue System), cue stack software used to recall sound effects. The Vi6 console is actually a control surface with all audio ins and outs going through the local rack, so in a way the show is being mixed on a computer. Great question, I get it a lot from audience members when they see the 3 computer screens in addition to the 5 already on the console.
***** With this setup I'm actually firing sound effect cues from the sfx PC and board cues from the console. I have used MIDI in the past to connect the console and Show Cue System, and used the board to fire all cues and change patches of outboard gear. I like the setup, but I find on some shows it's easier to have the 2 systems separate especially if I have a lot of console snapshots and very few sound effects.
Sam Johnson at my theater we run a CL5, mix cues are all part of centralogic, qlab fires sound fx/projector cues from a mac, and then another computer can pull up to 64 audio channels from the network to record in nuendo if we so wish. that might be the third monitor you were wondering about.
Awesome Video! I was wondering. I didn't see a VoxVerb or BandVerb stick, nor did i see you reach for other faders off screen. Are you automating VoxVerb or is it on the whole time (hard to hear on cam mic)? Can anyone else elaborate on the lack of need for a verb fader?
+Dan Axe I used to assign my verb send to a VCA and ride it during the performance, but I have since started automating the reverb and only using a VCA when I want to control the verb release. Typically the programming lets me focus on other aspects of the show.
it's a soundcraft vi6 isn't it
Operador bom tem seu valor!
Hey man, i've mixed Cabaret with the Vi6 for 2 years here in Brazil. And i have a question, when i closed the vcas in a "hard mode" (very fast and hard) like you do a lot of times during the video, the faders raises back to 0db and come back to closed again by itself. Very weird but happened to me a lot of times! Did you understand what i mean? hope so!
i also have a video on youtube very similar to this, mixing for CATS, take a look :
CATS SP - Mixing Broadway CATS
best wishes
Gabriel
At times like 3:00, when you hit a button (I am assuming it is changing scenes or something), what are the channels that are changing and why? Also how do you have the channels setup that you are riding the faders the whole song. Are they subgroups or just channels assigned to that section?
+Dakoolguy111 Next cue that changes the subgroups as well.
@@MrNo4Name why would you do that rather than just rais them yourself?
@@NoahR-di1nu can you raise 20 faders at one time?
めっちゃカッケー
Great mixing ! Impressive !
Do you use VCA or Matrixes ? It's not obvious on the camera...
I use VCA's to mix and setting them up on the Vi6 is simple, a lot easier than some of the other boards I've mixed on.
jesus the subs are loud
Why do you use the faders instead of on/off buttons?
Wow nice video! I'm new to the musical theatre mixing and I'm curious why are you doing all the manipulation instead of putting gate? Thank's!
As a aspring theater crew how did u get this job
+David H this is a large community theatre in Grand Rapids Michigan. I started as a volunteer at 13 and worked my way up to being an employee in charge of all audio for the theatre. I had the good fortune to have great mentors who taught me the techniques. They then went on to tour with broadway and would constantly bring back things they learned. This industry really is the people you know and the experience you have.
+Sam Johnson awesome. I do lighting
What are "area mics"? are those like choir or floor mics? I'm using some for a production of Heathers we're starting next week, but I intend to assign choir or floor mics based on blocking, e.g. if the whole ensemble is stage left, then just choir mic 4, if they're behind the center set piece, floor mics 1 and 2.
Area mics could be anything from a condenser, shotgun, or hanging microphone that picks up all sound produced on the stage.
Do you always just have a static mix for the band?
how did that thing at 0:16 work? was that just a pre programmed scene? and what did those faders control?
what setting are you in on the output section so you can change what fader is what person?
Do you mark up the script for a show like Legally? If so how do you like to do it?
How long did it take you to build those snapshots?
Is it really like this...real time....all the time mixing?
Sure is. Dialogue is even more difficult because singing at least has a rhythm to follow. Mixing like this creates a cleaner sound since everyone on stage is a moving omni directional microphone.
Hi Sam - really interesting this!
Could you define what ALL, OS Singing and Area mics are please?
Great work!
ALL refers to a group with all the ensemble in it, OS Singing is an area offstage where actors sing, we use this area when we need more voices but don't want more actors on stage. Area mics hang above the stage and capture the entire playing area, I use those to help blend voices when everyone sings and for overall balance.
I like the sign that says "condoms forbidden"
showwww
I have no idea how anyone could think this sounds good??? I think it's time you took a good look at your gain structure......
+englishmanlv I appreciate your concern, but I assure you the distortion is from the mic on the camera and not the show itself. In future videos I recorded a feed from the board instead of using the on camera mic. I was disappointed with the sound quality on the video, the show was amazing to mix.
@@SamTheSoundMan It's a shame you didn't have separate mics with pads, sounds like a good show though.