Corrections/clarifications - 1. I was really bad with the naming of this tech, I should have called it “Audio over CAT5E.” It’s confusing, to me included, because it also works over CAT6A, which is what we were using. 2. We do travel with a FOH now, (shoutout to Sean Richards), and he prefers this approach for the time being vs Dante/digital routes. One, traveling with our own mixer is an extra bag/extra weight, and two, even if we were traveling with one, all we can afford now is an X32. Which is fine, but it’s silly to be playing clubs with like a Digico house console and set up a X32 next to it. We’re considering a Dante/digital setup soon, however, but the ol’ X32 route isn’t really for us as is. 3. There are a lot of people who are giving some great info in the comments. Go check it out! 4. While I know this set up is unconventional, all I can say is that we’ve done about 30 shows with this idea, and it’s worked/made our lives simpler/cheaper/better based on the realities of touring in 2024 and the logistical/budget restraints we’ve had.
@@AdamNeely I’ve been in that situation, Adam. It sounds silly on paper, but if one act has their entire setup on an X32, it is not silly at all. Who would want those first 2 or 3 shows, doing the unnecessary transition to the Digico. We do what needs to be done.
There's an even better name for this: It's standardized as AES72. There's an actual standard, with different classifications for the pinouts so that this stuff is interoperable between different vendors.
Don't worry, there will always be someone nitpicking ;-). On Dante I would also be cautios. With digital you have one more layer of complexity to screw up the whole thing. If you destroy a CAT5e cable on the road you go literally to the next computer store and buy a new one. Or you carry a crimping tool and a bunch of connectors with you to fix stuff, which might give you some peace of mind. In an analog wiring system you can track down errors with simple tools like multi meters or connection testers where with digital a corrupt firmware can ruin your day. If anything I would consider creating a custom cable harness inside your stage box to bring the connection to the correct places so everything gets easier to patch on stage. If the setup is always the same it's maybe the most affordable way to pay someone creating custom cables in an hour or two instead of investing into a digital rig.
@@m.a.6478 I don’t see it at all the way you describe! Give me a simple (they’re always simple) boot problem anyday over hours of scrutinizing knobs and still KNOWING it’s impossible to get it right. Analog is for my mics and speakers. For every other part of the process, I don’t even want to hear about it. The depth of hardware issues for a fully digital system is about one thousandth that of racks filled with analog gear. I’ve designed, built, and used both within my Artisan Mobile truck so I have a real-world comparison. In the period of about one week, I removed two 24 tracks, Dolby SR, a 56 channel Amek console, and racks filled with fine analog processors. In their place went my AVID Control 24, and a portable 96 channel Pro Tools system running on macOS. I had been using the PT system for a few years for difficult locations so I knew it very well. In the passage of a few weeks, I looked back in the warehouse at all the heavy metal with approximately 500 trimpots and just said “wtf took you so long!?!??!” My tape supplier called to see if I was ok. Just the 24 pair cables that tied all that stuff together, the EDAC patchbays, constitute a few towers of large transparent bins in a storage space. That was about 25 years ago and I’ll never look back.
@@artysanmobile I certainly don't want to say analog gear is superior in every respect. I mean the mixer Adam uses is a digital mixer and that's totally fine. I mean the signal distribution on stage and to FOH has a limited number of signal paths and the distance is fairly short. If you want to go full digital you add a considerable number of active components to the system. These reduce your mean time between failures (MTBF) and increase the number of failure modes compared to a fully passive solution consisting of breakout boxes for RJ45 connections. It's always a tradeoff between running discrete wires vs. multiplexing signals into a single connection. Both have their benefits and drawbacks.
A couple comments from a pro AVL installer and FOH engineer. 1. You don’t actually need to know how to solder to terminate a PowerCon connector. For the male ends, there are 3 labeled screw terminals on the inside, and as long as you know which colours in your power cable are live, neutral, and ground (easily found on google), it takes about 90 seconds with some wire strippers and a precision screwdriver to put a powercon end on a cable. The panel-mount terminals sometimes require spade terminals or soldering though. 2. You can save a lot of money by buying your own ethercon connectors and making your own cables. Learning how to terminate RJ45 is fairly easy, especially with passthrough connectors being so widely adopted and reliable nowadays. You don’t even need to solder the shield wire anymore, most shielded RJ45 connectors have a little half-circle crimp terminal on the back of the connector that you can just wrap the shield wire around underneath. Premade shielded ethercon is super overpriced imho. You can even use premade shielded cables and just put your own ethercon barrels on, as long as you can easily remove the strain relief on the premade connector.
Spot on comment. Also wondering what you think about ground issues from FOH or accidental double phantom powering issues considering the catracks don't seem to have an isolated split. Seems like a recipe for disaster, but maybe I'm missing something. When he mentioned the weight of the catracks, I thought to myself, yes of course the catracks are lighter, there's no transformers!
I will say, I find the approach Adam took for power to be a good one. It would be much harder for the locking connectors you saw to come undone in travel than a spade crimp or a screw terminal. Unless the power cables in the rack were very well relived of strain, you risk something coming apart and having live, exposed wires in the rack. I know there are boots for PC etc… and I’m not saying it’s a significant likelihood of failure… but I find Adam’s approach here to be less likely to fail and less likely to be dangerous if it should
On error proofing: I will always remember an instructor's quote from many years ago, "if you think you can make something foolproof, you have greatly underestimated fools."
@@jasonclark1149 Both of these are from Mark Twain. Yours is more like the original but both get the idea across. Mark Twain has many quips that seem to apply to life and as I get older the more they apply.
I remember seeing a comment on foolproofing from an engineer that went something along the lines of "you're not trying to build a floor that one person can walk across, you're trying to build a floor that one idiot can drop a fridge on."
Just saw Sungazer in Santa Fe, NM. everyone go see them for your own good. You don’t understand the level of skill Adam has until you see him live. The same goes for Shawn Crowder. One of the better nights of my life. Also I met Adam after the show (hey Adam) and he is genuine and humble. The encore in f#minor was ridiculous. The tempo and the sax… seriously unreal.
Feel like I commented on the previous iteration of this rig but here I am again: Every independent band should be doing this, it's so worth it to have your monitoring consistent from night to night (although there's also inconsistent ambience from room to room which is another unforseen issue that you don't know until you've tried a rig like this). I'm building a studio with analog audio over ethernet right now, so this is right up my alley ;)
It’s great unless you’re playing small cap venues where the sound guy is some rando off the street and gets annoyed when you ask them to repatch your drum mics in because they expect a 10 minute changeover
I totally get this obsession. I had a few shows where I was so rushed to get things going that I messed up some things, and the show suffered for it. It was then that I decided that there's no over-planning for the stage. Take your time, set up correctly, and make sure it's all PERFECT, so that you do a good show, and the people paying get a good show.
Amazing. The drummer in my band sent this to me, we've been working on our IEM rack for just over a year. Didn’t expect a personal philosophical revelation out of an IEM video, but here we are! Cheers to Adam!
I solidly understand about 40% of your gear videos (really just the IEM videos, tbh), but they are still so fascinating and TEACH ME SO MUCH, even if I don't understand what language you're speaking sometimes. Please don't feel afraid to make more gear vids!
I've been trying to catch the band for years, but things never seemed to line up. Finally had a chance to attend the show in San Francisco a few weeks ago. Such an amazing performance. Thanks for the great music and content!
Our band lives in the Behringer/Midas ecosystem. We bring our own mics and have the SD8 and SD16 digital stage boxes, and each member has their own P16 personal mix station. We have a 100FT ethercon cable we run between stage and FOH (if the venue doesn’t have any available) and we give the audio engineer (if we dont have our own) the M32R console on a keyboard stand, or they can mix from an iPad. These days most engineers know the X32/M32 consoles, and our touring session already has all of the DSP settings dialed in, so it doesn’t take a new engineer long to get a good mix up and running. And our ear mixes are always right where we left them. The beauty of digital consoles.
@@insolace Absolutely correct. I’m not looking to impress anyone, including myself, by reinventing the wheel daily. Whatever makes music more readily available and/or better makes me happy. My transition to music production entirely in the box followed those same rules. If an idea is just rattling my mind, I flip on the server, the DAW hardware and the computer and in minutes I’m choosing the file I must hear in the exact state it was the last time I heard it. For many years I had from 2-4 major projects all on the burner, with impending deadlines somewhere in the near future and I would have lost my mind without my fully realized in-the-box solution. I’m not missing a thing about 2” tape, aligning 48 tracks plus NR, setting knobs to match, 80 patchcords…. Even just the thought of it makes me feel a little bit sick.
You can't imagine how inspiring this video was for me, and how much it clarifies fme so many doubts and stress I have been through, sincere applause for you on making this video, best regards from Mexico City where you have a new fan.
This is the sweet spot in the Venn diagram that is me: electrical engineer (I know how to solder ;-) ) + musician + member of the FOH body of the student music company. Would love to be there when you soundcheck (April 1st in Utrecht, maybe?)
As a sound guy, thank you. Some bands have tried bringing in their own IEM racks and most of them do a great job, but once in a while they don’t know what they’re doing and make my job very very difficult. Rehearsals are good for your gear! Practice practice practice the boring stuff and the venue will be happy to have you back!
As a former stage tech, this is a really cool solution. Well thought out. A good solution to a common problem, but one which doesn't completely re-invent the wheel (some solutions can be quite... unique.). I recommend to all musicians to do your stuff as analog as possible. Oh how many times I have worked with relatively small bands which travel with crazy digital setups with dante going here and digital snakes etc. It usually creates more issues for everybody than it solves. Going as much analog as possible ensures that no matter what issue you hit, you WILL be able to get everything up and running without too much fuzz. And this is especially important if you do not travel with your own crew...
I am a working electrical engineer and I learned a lot from this video. You applied your expertise in video editing and presenting information to so clearly describe the requirements, the design, the process, and the results in a way that I look forward to incorporating into my work. Engineering is a hat that fits you well
I've been watching and learning from your channel for years now. I've taken away so much from them that have aided me as a musician. But man, I don't think I've ever felt more connected to another musician on the internet than when you described your final thoughts and need for respite while onstage - sparking an obsession to build an error-proof rig and relieve the trauma of pre-show fuckery. Felt this in my soul, dude lol.
That was great. Having just done a 3 band tour where all of us were sharing the same IEM rig running off of a Behringer XR18, i can definitely see how this system is an improvement!
For anyone considering using the 25-pin modular snakes, I used them in the drum corps setting and the prospect of those tiny pins getting bent in a rushed patching scenario was a hell that no one should consider putting themselves through.
I have been trying to decide between DB25 and audio over ethernet and I think you've sold it to me. The number of times I've had to straighten the pins on 5 pin DMX is too many and DMX is supposed to be repatched frequently. DB25 is more of an install solution and I don't want half of the band anywhere near it!
DB25 suck if they will be routinely mated/unmated by mere mortals; the pins bend easily and if you try to bend them back, they break. The connection cycle rating for RJ45 is around 1,300, IIRC. For some owners 1300 might be 2 years of rated life, for others 1300 cycles could exceed their personal lifetime. Another fragile connector that should be avoided if routinely connection cycled is the ELCO/Edac. Breaking a pin means shipping the cable off to a technician, or investing $400 in tools, followed by investing in a whole new set of pins, heat shrink/Hellerman sleeves, and hours of your life after you discover you can't just crimp on a new pin and have the wire reach.
@raygunsforronnie847 fantastic advice! As someone who has only had experience of multi pin connectors in installs it makes sense why all touring systems use those giant circular multi pin things that weigh about as much as a small dog.
@@fuzzylogickben There are several circular connectors, the more forgiving of handling and easier repairs come from Link in Italy. Whirlwind W4 are difficult to field repair.
If you want a connector in the same form factor that isn't as fragile, then I'd suggest the Centronics Connector. It also has a significantly less annoying locking mechanism and the pins are further spaced apart which makes them easier to solder.
for those of you doing this, audio over cat5*, ethernet isnt the cabling it's a packet switching protocol in network gear, I know its a seemingly stupid technicality but for anyone buying gear search that term, if you search ethernet you'll wind up with dante and similar tech, which is awesome (and a sometimes better, if more expensive solution) but not at all the same thing
Yeah, "analog ... over ethernet" was breaking my brain, until I watched and found out he just meant the cables. Ethernet is a computer networking protocol.
@@forrcaho Though if it _was_ actual ethernet, you wouldn't have to stay with copper at all really -- just put in some SFP transcievers and turn the entire stage snake into a single 2mm diameter run of optical fiber. (Unfortunately, I don't think there'd be any economical way to keep it fully in the analog domain with fiber -- not that it's impossible, but you're looking at VERY expensive custom transceiver hardware instead of cheap standardized SFP modules.)
it could be more expensive but a Dante/AVB rig would be the next step for him. just one case for the rig, one more for the foh splitter and a long ass cat 6 cable
@@AJMansfield1 Yeah, insisting on analog audio when you are going for 32 freaking channels (with so few players) seems very strange. At some point in the signal chain (both for the IEM and FOH), there will be A/D converters anyhow.
I’m a house engineer. I’ve seen some awesome IEM rigs that make everyone’s day easier and achieve great results. I’ve also seen hack job IEM rigs from well intentioned musicians who didn’t fully understand how the rig needs to be set up. The best configuration imo is to have an analog split in the rack with a set of tails that go to me. I’ll patch the tails of your snake into my stagebox one to one, and patch the stage into your IEM rig. DONT FORGET THE TAILS I only have so many XLRs and there are probably other bands playing too!
This is exactly how we do it. I have an 8 channel snake with 6 labelled channels. FOH mics up the drums. It's so easy and fast. We do need a mic on the kit somewhere to get some rhythm though but that's on us! I'm not sure what you mean "stage into the IEM rig" though.
@@martinvannostrand8488 I see - this is not such a clean set up if you have multiple bands that have to change out quick. As long as it's the headlining band I guess where the split just becomes the stage box.
Exactly the same, and by far most nights we have 3-4 bands and 15-20 minute set changes. In those nights this rig would be a bit of a nightmare as it is built for their own mics.. and i'm not going to start changing the whole mic setup in the middle of the night just for one band. This system will be next to the house main box with tons of wires and breakout boxes in a pile... Pretty much all IEMs are analog splitter, i get the snake tail and just like you: I DON'T have enough XLR to double everything, that snake tail comes from the band or we will go with the wedges. With good color coding and marking a "standard" IEM rig changes from one to another in 2-3 minutes. The worst nights are when there are 3 IEM racks on stage, the chaos and the amount of cables is just ridiculous... It is too bad it is a bit unsolvable problem since there are no standards for IEM racks, everyone builds their own... I have been thinking that i might ask if we could get splitters on the house routing, ready to go so that we can do it in reverse: i give the band the split, they do whatever they want with it.... Would make things a lot easier but.. as you can guess it is shoestring budget...
I want to say I really appreciate you doing videos like this, even though I imagine the "viewer market" for stuff this niche isn't as large as some of the other subjects you cover. I am currently planning a tour for next summer and constantly weighing different set up options and calculating what I should invest in and how to have the best results and reliability for the precious resources I have to put into this. Thanks!
It's cool to see someone else doing this. Usually when you talk about this type of solution on sound engineering forums, the majority of the people are skeptical. I've been using the SoundTools CAT boxes and CAT racks for the last year or so, and it seems to be holding up. By using "turnaround" XLR cables, I've been able to convert one audio channel on each CAT box to be a return for monitoring. So an output on the mixer gets patched with a female-female XLR cable to the CAT rack, and then a male-male XLR cable on the musician side gets patched to a wedge. With this setup, each member of the band gets a CAT box with a vocal input, two instrument inputs, and a return channel for their aux mix. I'm using a Behringer X32 Rack mixer, so I currently use their 8-channel SD8 digital stage box on the floor next to the drumkit with a digital AES connection to the X32. However, the two CAT racks I have still have two unused 4-channel etherCON inputs that I could rely on if I wanted to drop two CAT boxes over by the drums and rack the SD8 in with the mixer (the X32 Rack only has 16 physical inputs on it). We haven't used the split capability yet because we don't play too many gigs where we'd bring our mixer without also running FOH ourselves. But it's nice that all of the boxes and racks have etherCON outputs to allow us to split it when we evolve to that level. The cool thing about the SoundTools CAT boxes is that they also have their own etherCON output that would allow you to split right at where the musician plugs in if you want. That's the best thing about this system. It's very flexible and can grow and adapt to different approaches. One interesting product SoundTools offers are the "Sound Tails". It's an all in one cable that has etherCON on one side and 4 XLRs on the other. Since it's not a breakout box that you supply your own cable to, it seems like it would be quicker and have one fewer failure point. The downside is it's a finite length, so you must have your split etherCON outputs within 60" of the FOH mixer inputs. For etherCON cables, SoundTools offers a few different choices. They are expensive, but In Dave Rat I Trust. They have a line specifically called "SuperCAT Sound" that they've optimized for this 4-channel analog audio thing. I've just been using their regular "SuperCAT" cables so far without issues though. They cost a bit less, but are still not what I'd call cheap. 25' cables to get from the CAT boxes to our mixer rack have been enough for us on the stages we play.
It has problems. It is not at all designed for quick set changes where you do not have your own mics but every band uses the house mics. Then this IEM rig becomes a pile of wires and breakout boxes. Every single proper IEM rig i've worked with has been done with analog splitter that the house mics are patched in, and i get a snake tail that goes to FoH. So, for this to really work it should still have the analog XLR splitters...
15:36 I feel this so hard right now. I've been working on building my IEM Rack and and trying to play shows at the same time. I kept running into issues with my rack and its been so busy and stressful. I finally had a chance to test my rig last night and it worked for the most part. Im having trouble with imbalance LR on the mix and don't know how to fix it. But im just glad I can hear myself and the band now. Our album release show is In a month and I am looking forward to using this rig. Thank you Adam for making the videos and doing the research to make things like this accessible. If you ever come to Nebraska with Sungazer and need a funk band to open for ya, The Groove Lagoon and I would be honored. Love your work magic Bass man
Those Van Gogh exhibits were amazing! I’m so glad I got to catch the one in Miami for my bday last year lol I’m defo gonna be sending this video to some friends in bands, the timing is perfect
Nice man! This is pretty brilliant. I remember you mentioning this, and it’s cool to see how it’s set up. I’m working on a video of something similar with the Behringer X32 rack with the Midas 4816 O as the splitter. I use an S16 as our stage box, which connects to the X32 with a single ethercon cable and sends 16 inputs and 8 outputs over that one cable. Then the Midas connects via a single Cat5 cable and then we have 16 channels of labeled tails to give to FOH. It’s super fast and really efficient. Although some limitations are: the S16 is heavier than those breakout boxes and has its own 2u case (same with the Midas splitter)…. I believe this can only be done with 16 channels…. And the split happens pre fader/eq/comp/etc… but post gain. Going into Allen and Heath boards in particular has been troublesome since they don’t have PADs on most of their mixers for some dumb reason. But we have a scene saved with the gain set down by 10db specifically for that. But it’s been incredibly consistent, more “compact” than light weight, but still decent, and is relatively error proof. I just hope more companies start to integrate the audio over Cat 5 setup for splits. It’s so much cleaner and easier.
Allen & Heath input channels don’t feature a pad because you can imagine it like they start with the pad in. Instead of you having to engage the pad, the input gain range just includes that range the pad would cover on every channel It’s a “but this goes up to 11” kind of scenario
That 4816-O splitter completely hosed me the one and only time I tried to make it work, FWIW. To be fair, it was at a divey venue where we were certainly the first band to ever attempt to bring our own IEM rig, but since the signal wasn't a true split it (in conjunction with the divey venue's questionable sound setup) resulted in a terminal amount of noise we weren't able to fix in the time we had before we had to bail out of using it. I'm sure there's a way to make it work but it wasn't worth the risk to me - sold it and got a set of S8's.
I'm so grateful for our avocado toast, coffee and aviation laws for musicians, especially as a West Aussie! I was lucky enough to make it to your Perth show and was blown away to see WA on the schedule. See you next time!
Great video - love laying out the considered approach. I cannot recommend enough getting molded, custom in-ears. Ideally laser measured. You dont know what you are missing until you have tried it. Its life changing. We went with UE but there are other options but its worth testing.
Thanks for the video, and many others I haven't commented on. I've enjoyed seeing your progress as you adapt your rigs over time. The quirks section got my attention, because it hightlighted what I experienced myself a couple years ago while searching for a proper splitting solution. The solution that worked for us was to go digital, using the 24Ao by MOTU. Our 6U rack includes a 16x8 rack mixer/stage box (MOTU B16), some wireless units and a heaphone amp (drum IEMs and backups for wireless units). If we're self-mixing, that's all we need. We have a couple spare outputs on the stage box that cover the Mains. If we're playing a proper venue with a sound person, we place the 24Ao rack next to the venue's stage box, patch to 2m tails (picked this for weight concerns, since the box can be anywhere my ethernet cable will reach) and we're ready to go. We keep the 24Ao in a 3U rack, with the breakout cables 3 x (DB25 to 8MXLR) permanently attached with strain relief and labeled for rapid, error-free setup. We looked into all the different technologies (Dante, Waves Grid, AVB). We chose AVB for its idiot-proof self-configuration. Plug in stuff and it works. We didn't get hung up on what well-funded venues were buying, because we knew if we could deliver analog signals via xlr we'd be good to go anywhere. Another great benefit is we can push a virtual soundcheck to the FOH, looping a performance in our DAW and sending to the FOH. "Fader flip" from DAW to live sources is as simple as selecting a routing preset. We could always do this in a closed system, like our old Allen and Heath Qu16, but pushing recorded signals to FOH using traditional analog splitters is not possible. There are several videos online that showcase the 24Ao with StudioLive hardware. I can verify it works beautifully and will save you significant weight in splitters and multi-pair audio cable.
I remember meeting Dave Rat at Coachella in the late 00s when he was just working on the original "cat snake", amazing how mainstream it's become for something that was a solution to a specific problem. They used to have to cut and cover foot deep trenches in the polo field for the FOH run.
make your own network cables. Easy and dirt cheap. You can add ethercon connectors to any network cable, you can even add or remove the 'con' part after the RJ45 is crimped on.
This is brilliant. I am using power over ethernet to drive my pedalboard from my guitar synthesizer but this is a holistic whole band solution that could be used to create "studio-like" recordings of live gigs in addition to the traditional sound reinforcement aspect. Bravo!
As a touring drummer on ears (that, apart from setting my own mix, has nothing to do with the setup of the whole thing) who has never been interested in this kinda stuff, I was amazed to be super enthralled by this. Awesome setup, can see how this would be a breeze in those highly stressful, second-band-on-the-bill, 15-minute changeovers! Love it!
In some cases (depending on the technical rider and your requirements)... Depending on the FOH console (Avid ones for example), your Presonus console can communicate AVB via network cable, becoming the stage box directly without requiring the analog split (reducing weight and space). And if you place an external AVB-compatible network card (or dongle) to the laptop, you can integrate backing tracks, metronome, control signals, visuals, etc. through the same AVB network, handling additional digital tracks, with their due processing without affecting the physical/analog channel count.
Unfortunately AVB from PreSonus is NOT compatible with other AVB networks without an external AVB box, one of the downsides in general to AVB in our current audio universe. ‘Milan’ compliant AVB is slowly growing to accommodate more brands, but as of today just being AVB is not going to make a PreSonus talk to anything other than a PreSonus. Same deal with MOTU, who also use AVB, but again using their own protocol. However, I am curious about what you said about Apple Laptops being AVB compliant out of the box, the idea being that one could connect a playback laptop directly with a Network cable instead of going through an interface. I’m going to have to research that one a bit. But end of the day; speaking as a FOH engineer, as much as I dream of the day when all these desks and DAWs speak each other, almost none of them do and you certainly can’t take out an IEM rig like this and hand someone a Network cable and expect to plug into a house setup expecting it to work. That scenario would currently only occur on about 2% of your shows, if that.
@@raygunsforronnie847 … So explain to me what the problem is? I don’t know why this should bother anyone. Unless it is horribly wrong the worst thing that could happen would be a tiny addition of noise. But my gain staging is way more likely to be better than the house guy’s as I am using the same mics on the same gear with the same band night after night and as an electrical engineer my understanding of gain staging is likely way better.
@@imakenoise I can't give you an injection of the 45 years of live, professional audio experience I've got, but if I'm your FOH mixerperson of the day, help me do the best possible job for your band. If you insist on getting your way because you're also an EE, your dismissive treatment of those whose job is to help present you will not get the results you feel entitled to.
Way cool rig! I just changed from an XR18 to a Presonus 24R. We use splitter snakes, making things heavy- and kind of funky for festivals because we kind of foist this stuff on the crews there. Your rig is way cool, but yeah... that's pretty expensive, but seriously well thought out and light and small. Very cool, Sir!
It's not audio over Ethernet, it's audio using Cat 5 cables. Ethernet is a digital networking protocol, all you are doing is using cheaper cables than conventional XLR cables which has both advantages and disadvantages. Most likely most musicians won't care about the nomenclature but it's important and this channel is very technical.
Yeah, this got me very confused. I through it was something like Dante, but no, it's just using a different cable and connector (that isn't even strictly ethernet...)
Lots of interesting concepts here, but many things that could make the system easier to use. Spending a few hours learning to solder XLR cables (which is one of the easiest type of connectors to solder) would save a lot of weigth on connectors, and save the connectors themself. Running a soldered patch from the back of the panel to its destinations saves a pair of connectors, thats both adding weight, complexity and a failure point. Having your split outputs be out of order is basicly asking for trouble. If instead of using the cat racks you couls get ethercons with IDC punches, with some 8pair or 12 pair analog multis punched directly out for for FOH split, and then custom wires going to your presonus. That would allow your output tales to be simply just 1-1 from 1-32 but the monitor ends going directly into your preferred channels on the presonus. There is a very easy way to make a very similar setup that is substantially lighter and cheaper, by not being scared of the soldering iron or IDC punches. I have a x32/S16 setup that Im waiting for some parts on, will make a video soon to show how Im solving a lot of similar issues in a much better and more cost efficient way.
This is actually interesting to see this kind of thing deployed. In the professional lighting world we use this exact same ethernet breakout box trick to move DMX universes around with 4 universe boxes. Additionally for larger rigs we use 8 universe cable and breakout boxes with a circular locking connector colloquially known as CPC connectors. The cable for these larger ones is literally 2 x CAT5 lines fused together at the factory. The many points of failure and also similarly convoluted signal routing means we have to do extensive labeling and paperwork to ensure that the correct signal ends up in the correct location.
I commend the effort put into this setup! Have you considered bringing a sound engineer on tour with you? I know it would cost a lot but it would be invaluable. A good sound engineer who understands the band is essentially another band member. Not only would it help the mental load of all of these tech issues, but they would also help shape your sound as a band. Don't think of sound engineers as a last thought or a means to an end but rather a part of who the band is.
I work with software engineers. This really sounds like 'developer environments' and 'build tools' - i.e. investing a reasonably large amount of time in setup that makes doing your job more seamless and ultimately better.
Thank you so much for sharing this with us! This is a brilliant setup and it'll be such a helpful thing to build for a band who's gearing up to start bigger touring runs
I love this setup, very clean! Though I have had show-stopping issues with Presonus StudioLive rack mixers, so I’m wary of them. I took this even further in our band’s setup - we’re putting audio, MIDI, sometimes DC power down Cat cables for our IEM rig. Makes setup a breeze, even though we’ve got some pretty complex routing. Though we don’t use half of the channels you guys do. But everyone does live loop in sync, so there’s that.
As a stage technician I would like to recommand building your own ethercons. Yeah, the ethercon shields costs a little (in Poland it's less than 20 PLN, or less than 5 USD for an OG Neutrik and 14 PLN/less than 3$ for pretty good Adam Hall piece). Good 8P8C aka RJ45 shielded plug is about 5 PLN /1,25 $. Still it's so much cheaper to buy CAT6A cable with regular plugs and replace them with ethercons than buying etherconned CAT 6A. For example, again here in Poland, Telegartner 50m CAT 6A with regular RJ45 plugs costs about 333 PLN (or 83 USD) on thomann while etherconned CAT 6A 50m cable costs 649 PLN (137 USD). That way you can get etherconned cables for 40 USD less if getting ethercons by yourself. Also, powercons should't be soldered, they use screws just like speakons :)
Audio over ethernet has been a gamechanger for my iem setup. I have my splitter and mixer in one rack and all our transmitters in another, i connect the two using 2 ethernet cables and It makes setup and breakdown effortless!
Really cool and detailed walkthrough of your setup. I'm looking into building something similar, so I'll definitely take some cues. Regarding colored labelling, remember that that 1 in 12 men (less for women) suffer from some kind of color blindness (me included). It usually does not mean you can't distinguish red from green, but it can be hard to deal with certain nuances and particularly under difficult lighting conditions (which is common on a stage) it can be a problem. I would suggest adding text based labels as well.
there needs to be WAY more info out there on stuff like this. As technology advances, it would really be doing the world a favor for companies to be more transparent on the technicalities and features their products have instead of expecting everyone who's in audio have to just.... figure it out.
I was literally shopping for an IEM solution last night. What I'm looking for is something modular - something that can grow with me from a solo act to a full band as needed, and isn't a pain in the ass or huge investment for new band members as they come on board. Thanks for doings these!
It's said that experience is the *worst* teacher, because you get the lesson after the test. That's why it's so helpful to learn from others' experiences. Thanks for sharing!
I've been wanting to build one of these for our band, but the ethernet tech is quite pricey up front. Did consider building it myself instead of buying off the shelf components. Thanks for sharing your info. Peace and rock!
It´s a good system. Finally someone who really thinks about daily Touring Life. I´m also working with a band that´s flying all over the world but they decided to invest into a soundguy with a flyable FOH console. We doublepatch everything in the desk so the IEM mixes are independent from the FOH mix and that´s it. super fast changeover, great front of house Mix every night and no Soundchecks needed besides giving the PA a listen to the mix from last night with Virtual Soundchecks. Espacially handy with Festival shows. Sometimes (like on the next US and EU runs) we´re even bringing a split for local supports so no one has to repatch everything. The current System has two checkins inluding IEM´s, Desk, Mics and most of the cables. I know it´s hard to bring/afford another person but it´s paying off after time and you guys can focus on your music and your shows rather than discussing stuff with inhouseguys whom mainly not give a dime about your show. with over 120 shows a year it´s worth the struggle.
Great video. I’ve done videos on how I built my bands Soundcraft IEM rig but this has given me some great ideas on how to improve it, particularly with the Ethernet bits! Subbed!
7:05 This is the most important part of this video. By reducing the weight, you've given up transformer isolated split and opted for a passive split. It definitely does not fulfill the requirement of "error proof", since this introduces several drawbacks, like possibility of ground loops, signal degredation and of course introducing two stages of phantom power by accident. Also, Ethercon cables isn't a specific cable type, it only refers to the plug used. You can get Ethercon plugs for pre-terminated CAT cables of your own choosing. Or buy cables with Ethercon ports that doesn't weigh that much. However, you don't want them too thin either when they're bundled up together like the loom you showed
"Double phantom" isn't a thing so long at the standard is followed. -48V on pin 1, +48V on pins 2&3. Over the decades I've generally specified transformer splitters, but "wye" splitters tend to be fine so long as "we" have control over every connection to an input or output, and all our power comes from the same service. Any other hums or buzzes are from a failing or failed device, not a ground loop, and a transformer would not fix the noise problem. The AES finally arriving at a "Pin 1" standard helped, too, and separating the chassis ground from signal ground solved a bunch of noisess left over from 1980.
@@jeffgaz Transformers are passive devices; the last 'active' splitter I used was 30 years ago, from BSS. If you're thinking of "wye" splitters, I will tell you that my old firm had multiple wye splitters on tour with "artists you've heard of", but they aren't the Seismic/Elite Corps stuff that can be found online. And I still prefer transformer splitters for the occasional input source or mixing console that just won't play nice otherwise, but in our current world those are fewer and fewer every year, to the point were we stopped ordering transformer splits.
I love audio over Cat5! It's great for long cable runs too. I use it all the time to monitor my mics from a long distance for wilderness field recording without having to carry an extra 20lbs of balanced cable. Unexpected plus is that rodents LOVE to find and chew through xlr cables in the deep bush, but they leave Cat5 alone for some reason.
interesting take! not too much of a presonus guy anymore, but the catracks and AAoIP are a realy neat, and fairly coist effective at small scale, but the problems with using different brands is very real! those vary a lot so thx for pointing that out
Point of order from a network engineer: Shielded Cat6 is NOT just "one better" than Shielded Cat5. Cat6 is designed for fixed cabling, it has more fragile wires inside, with a plastic insert to try and bolster them. It's particularly sensitive to repeated coiling & uncoiling, and is pretty badly-suited to an on-stage and on-road life. Cat5 is designed to be the fnal link under an office desk, getting kicked and scuffed for years on end.
that doesn't make sense, how would the wires be more fragile? They still need to be the same guage as cat5 and cat5e to be compliant in current capacity for POE injection.
Both Cat6 and Cat5e coming in solid and stranded wire. That's what determines the "where used" not the "why used". The "why used" is speed and bandwidth.
Wow, maybe the one Video of you I enjoyed the most xDD I’ve spend quite some time in my live thinking about musical setups (most time Electronic Music). Your end thesis is such a joyful take on this. Helped a lot to hear this :)
Taking control of our in ear monitors was one of the best decisions I've ever made. Behringer XR18, splitter strip, and a thoroughly labeled passthrough to the front, we stuck some LED's in the rack for good measure. It's consistent and as idiot proof as possible. This is for a regional cover band now, so I don't really have use for the stage boxes and stuff. We're not playing anywhere that we can't just reach the rack with XLRs. I'll definitely consider doing this when we upgrade.
Ethernet solitions are awesome. I'm from germany and i know it under the name "CATcore" (cat multicore). This is also awesome for lighting. 4 universes in one cable. It's important that you don't use regular ethernet RJ45 cables. For durability use ethercon cables, they have metal connectors and are much more resistant
Not sure if someone already mentioned it in the comments, but have you considered buying a roll of ethernet cable, the ethercon ends and just making the cables yourself? After a very quick and dirty Google search I can see there are some fairly cheap ends and the cable itself isn't expensive either. I'm not sure how difficult it is to crimp the ends of the ethercon, but if it's anything like normal RJ45s, then it's one afternoon and you should be done. This way you would get the benefit of the lighter and more pliable ethernet cables and the rugged connectors. I welcome any and all criticism and suggestions!
Not sure if someone else mentioned this, but since the Cat Rack is a passive split (essentially just Y-ing each mic line) you need to make sure to clearly communicate which position provides phantom power (FOH or monitors, pick only one) or else you risk damaging your condenser mics!
A coworker who was a former roadie once told me, "You have to do it perfectly 100% of the time. Because that one time you don't, might have been Stephen Tyler's microphone."
One more thing to keep in mind, Dirt/debris. The male and female Ethercon ports are basically designed to collect dust/dirt/debris. The first time you try to plug in an ethercon cable with any debris in it (even a grain of sand), that's potentially a ruined connector and 4 lost channels of audio. I would suggest either buying (Seetronic CNAC-FDP) or making covers for all of your cables and jacks. I learned this one the hard way and it nuked one of our breakout boxes.
Great work. We're doing it pretty much the same HOWEVER we rely on normal multicores with Harting multi-pin jacks. Its super error proof and it' always just one wire/jack that needs to be patched in between two components. But you're right, this stuff is heavy. Those angled XLR patches you use look super light too btw?! Never seen those before.
Been running this setup using Whirlwind's Catdusa for the 6-piece I FOH for! Saves so much effort! You specify to get STP cables, but I would go a step further and recommend full EtherCON cables for durability and ease of setup
I had no idea that you were coming to Australia. Glad you guys made it here, maybe next time. Your ad for givewell sounds the most useful ad I've heard so far. We're sick of donating to corps.
Great video. I'm going to pursue some of these ideas. A couple of things: 1) Passive mic splitting concerns me. The potential for ground loops and noise is always there if signals are not split via isolation transformers. I'm wondering if you ran into any noise or hum issues? Also, do you let the FoH add phantom power to those channels that need it or do you do that in the Presonus? Because in a passive, non-transformer split, only one side should be adding phantom. 2) The best shielded ethernet cable that I've found is the Elite Core PROCAT5E. Not only is it very high quality and easy to work with, it lies flat on stage just like mic cables. Cheap ethernet cable sucks. It either coils on stage like a snake and you have to tape it all down, which wastes time, and/or it bunches and knots up. The Elite Core lies flat and is very flexible, just like mic cables. 3) Definitely learn to solder. You'll save thousands of dollars on cabling over the course of your career. It isn't that hard. Lots of great tutorials on YT. i saved a ton making my own Ethercon cables with the Elite Core wire. And those don't even require soldering. You just need the right crimper and a tester. But I also make all my own mic and instrument cables. I have cables that are probably older than you that I made when I was in my teens that still work flawlessly.
Pro tip: in low / odd-colored light situations where color coding can be difficult to see, tiny zip ties can be leveraged, 1 tie for input 1, 2 ties for input 2 etc. you can count them w your eyes AND fingers. Clear shrink wrapping your labeling can also help whatever labels you do use last longer.
We just ended up with a very similar rig in Inherit The Ashes. For the majority of bands I tour with as a FOH engineer, we use a x32 as a stage brain, plus up to 1 stagebox (usually for stage left 16ch and stage right 16ch). That all gets sent via aes50 to me at FOH where I lovingly manage each signal on my wing console. If you ever wanna just tour with a dedicated FOH person in Europe, hit me up. Who knows, maybe our schedules match.
I totally built my last IEM rig based on your previous video, though because i do electronic/industrial music i really only need 4 tails for FOH Took this on tour with my band over US/CA and sound check took 10 minutes max! Total run 42 shows. :D
I was actually having the very same thoughts about my IEM rig a few months ago about switching to analog audio over CAT5e and getting rid of the ART S8 3-way splitters which have been heavy and a nightmare to patch in such a small space when this does the same thing and is much lighter. The only difference I would do in our system versus Sungazer's is that I would do the splits at the Musician's end on the stage and not giving the FOH/audio engineers a bunch of tails to go to their patch bay. The disadvantage with this however is now I have to carry a bunch of shorter XLR cables to still give the FOH audio the sends from the Split Boxes after the mics get patched in (Soundtools Cat 8 box/Radial Catapult TX4M).
Thanks to those that have sent me DMs and letting me know about things like Radial's and Whirlwind's Mic splitter boxes and Line level splitter boxes like the LX3 and LBS. this way I can avoid purchasing more breakouts than necessary.
I have a pet peeve about referring to Category cabling and the signals that go down it. The cable is a category cable (cat 5, 5e,6, 6a etc) with RJ45 connectors on the ends. Ethernet is the digital signalling that's used to carry Internet protocol traffic down a physical medium, this could be a category cable or a fibre link, or over WiFi. Dante is an audio over Ethernet protocol. AES50 is a digital audio over category cable standard. These are analogue audio over Category cable, the only standards involved are the pinout and the fact you need shielded cables. This comes from working in lighting for a manufacturer that used RJ45 connectors as the DMX input on their fixtures (these were for permanent install so it's OK according to the standard). Trying to explain to someone "no, these don't use Ethernet, they use cat5 cable, they need straight DMX, they can't understand ArtNet, no streaming ACN won't work either, yes, the gateway is needed, those XLR to RJ45 adapters in the spec are necessary and shouldn't have been scrapped, yes, what you've referred to as an Ethernet cable work but it's not. fucking. Ethernet. no, don't plug it into the network port on your computer, oh, sparks and smoke, no, we won't be paying for those repairs and the damage is definitely not covered under warranty" I get a bit pedantic about this sort of thing.
Just a small correction - the baggage allowance for musicians is not actually a law, as not all airlines provide this service. I was touring as an FOH since about 2009, and Virgin Australia recognised the growing need for bands to travel and offer the baggage allowance to anyone who was a member of any recognised musical organisation (APRA/AMCOS, MusicVIC etc). From memory it was around 2010/11(?) that it came in and in one stroke captured 95% of the flights booked by touring musicians. QANTAS finally offered a similar deal recently, but too little too late. We all have our travel status points with Virgjn now.
I have been making stage drops with Cat5e for the band I tour with using the A&H SQ5 and DX168 IOs. We run FOH and IEMs from FOH desk though so it’s not for a split, more as a way to quickly patch in and out with our unconventional stage plot - though this video has given me more ideas to improve the setup for more efficientcy. Great video, hope you guys enjoyed Australia - I missed the show in Melbourne because I was touring in TAS 😂
Absolutely love the musical translations of the different chapters, such a great idea. 5:15 also yes, blessed to be an Australian musician, there's multiple Musician Unions - we also have an official minimum wage of $250 AUD per musician per show coming into effect in most states. I've had an 100% success rate with that despite being in a state where it isn't in effect. Also I've been paid tens of thousands by the government to do arts projects here and overseas, all costs additionally paid for. Our grant system actually has a good culture and social sustainability focus (when the liberals aren't in majority seats)
The thing with Ethercon is you don't really have to buy preassembled cables, you can pretty easily DIY (and also repair if needed) them yourself even with pre-terminated CAT6 (actually that's even easier since you don't need to learn how to terminate ethernet yourself, but you can do that too and save even more money), there are kits that can be assembled over regular CAT6 cables. So you can have it be more robust on the connector side AND lightweight of a cable overall.
Corrections/clarifications -
1. I was really bad with the naming of this tech, I should have called it “Audio over CAT5E.” It’s confusing, to me included, because it also works over CAT6A, which is what we were using.
2. We do travel with a FOH now, (shoutout to Sean Richards), and he prefers this approach for the time being vs Dante/digital routes. One, traveling with our own mixer is an extra bag/extra weight, and two, even if we were traveling with one, all we can afford now is an X32. Which is fine, but it’s silly to be playing clubs with like a Digico house console and set up a X32 next to it.
We’re considering a Dante/digital setup soon, however, but the ol’ X32 route isn’t really for us as is.
3. There are a lot of people who are giving some great info in the comments. Go check it out!
4. While I know this set up is unconventional, all I can say is that we’ve done about 30 shows with this idea, and it’s worked/made our lives simpler/cheaper/better based on the realities of touring in 2024 and the logistical/budget restraints we’ve had.
@@AdamNeely I’ve been in that situation, Adam. It sounds silly on paper, but if one act has their entire setup on an X32, it is not silly at all. Who would want those first 2 or 3 shows, doing the unnecessary transition to the Digico. We do what needs to be done.
There's an even better name for this: It's standardized as AES72. There's an actual standard, with different classifications for the pinouts so that this stuff is interoperable between different vendors.
Don't worry, there will always be someone nitpicking ;-). On Dante I would also be cautios. With digital you have one more layer of complexity to screw up the whole thing. If you destroy a CAT5e cable on the road you go literally to the next computer store and buy a new one. Or you carry a crimping tool and a bunch of connectors with you to fix stuff, which might give you some peace of mind. In an analog wiring system you can track down errors with simple tools like multi meters or connection testers where with digital a corrupt firmware can ruin your day. If anything I would consider creating a custom cable harness inside your stage box to bring the connection to the correct places so everything gets easier to patch on stage. If the setup is always the same it's maybe the most affordable way to pay someone creating custom cables in an hour or two instead of investing into a digital rig.
@@m.a.6478 I don’t see it at all the way you describe! Give me a simple (they’re always simple) boot problem anyday over hours of scrutinizing knobs and still KNOWING it’s impossible to get it right. Analog is for my mics and speakers. For every other part of the process, I don’t even want to hear about it. The depth of hardware issues for a fully digital system is about one thousandth that of racks filled with analog gear.
I’ve designed, built, and used both within my Artisan Mobile truck so I have a real-world comparison. In the period of about one week, I removed two 24 tracks, Dolby SR, a 56 channel Amek console, and racks filled with fine analog processors. In their place went my AVID Control 24, and a portable 96 channel Pro Tools system running on macOS. I had been using the PT system for a few years for difficult locations so I knew it very well.
In the passage of a few weeks, I looked back in the warehouse at all the heavy metal with approximately 500 trimpots and just said “wtf took you so long!?!??!” My tape supplier called to see if I was ok. Just the 24 pair cables that tied all that stuff together, the EDAC patchbays, constitute a few towers of large transparent bins in a storage space. That was about 25 years ago and I’ll never look back.
@@artysanmobile I certainly don't want to say analog gear is superior in every respect. I mean the mixer Adam uses is a digital mixer and that's totally fine. I mean the signal distribution on stage and to FOH has a limited number of signal paths and the distance is fairly short. If you want to go full digital you add a considerable number of active components to the system. These reduce your mean time between failures (MTBF) and increase the number of failure modes compared to a fully passive solution consisting of breakout boxes for RJ45 connections. It's always a tradeoff between running discrete wires vs. multiplexing signals into a single connection. Both have their benefits and drawbacks.
Adam Neely slowly moving away from being the Vsauce of music to being the Technology Connections of music.
"Thanks to the magic of buying thirty-two of them..."
Unironically could see Adam and Alec doing a crazy collab. Of what? No clue, but it would undoubtedly be incredible.
I love it. People will finally open their eyes to the technical side of music, which they've been actively ignored because music is an art.
Imposible, he needs more wrath for that and irony
He can be both
Happy to be a part of your creative journey with the StudioLive 32R in your rack!
A couple comments from a pro AVL installer and FOH engineer.
1. You don’t actually need to know how to solder to terminate a PowerCon connector. For the male ends, there are 3 labeled screw terminals on the inside, and as long as you know which colours in your power cable are live, neutral, and ground (easily found on google), it takes about 90 seconds with some wire strippers and a precision screwdriver to put a powercon end on a cable. The panel-mount terminals sometimes require spade terminals or soldering though.
2. You can save a lot of money by buying your own ethercon connectors and making your own cables. Learning how to terminate RJ45 is fairly easy, especially with passthrough connectors being so widely adopted and reliable nowadays. You don’t even need to solder the shield wire anymore, most shielded RJ45 connectors have a little half-circle crimp terminal on the back of the connector that you can just wrap the shield wire around underneath. Premade shielded ethercon is super overpriced imho. You can even use premade shielded cables and just put your own ethercon barrels on, as long as you can easily remove the strain relief on the premade connector.
Spot on comment. Also wondering what you think about ground issues from FOH or accidental double phantom powering issues considering the catracks don't seem to have an isolated split. Seems like a recipe for disaster, but maybe I'm missing something. When he mentioned the weight of the catracks, I thought to myself, yes of course the catracks are lighter, there's no transformers!
Just have to make sure the Cat6 cables have stranded core, more pliable and less prone to copper fatigue like in solid core ‘install’ Cat6
Amen!
I wanted to say that you bas... (Presumably) Very nice person
Edit: crimping ethercon sucks tho ngl
I will say, I find the approach Adam took for power to be a good one. It would be much harder for the locking connectors you saw to come undone in travel than a spade crimp or a screw terminal. Unless the power cables in the rack were very well relived of strain, you risk something coming apart and having live, exposed wires in the rack. I know there are boots for PC etc… and I’m not saying it’s a significant likelihood of failure… but I find Adam’s approach here to be less likely to fail and less likely to be dangerous if it should
On error proofing: I will always remember an instructor's quote from many years ago, "if you think you can make something foolproof, you have greatly underestimated fools."
I heard a similar version which has haunted me for many years: "Nothing is ever foolproof, because the universe is constantly producing bigger fools."
@@jasonclark1149 Both of these are from Mark Twain. Yours is more like the original but both get the idea across. Mark Twain has many quips that seem to apply to life and as I get older the more they apply.
I remember seeing a comment on foolproofing from an engineer that went something along the lines of "you're not trying to build a floor that one person can walk across, you're trying to build a floor that one idiot can drop a fridge on."
As a manufacturer, we worked hard to make gear more foolproof. And they just made better idiots😊
"With one wire it doesn't work and with two you can make to many errors!"
Hell yeah, this my dorky shit
Same. I heard “Over Ethernet” and I came running
System design! System design! I'm gonna do spreadsheets!
same
Just saw Sungazer in Santa Fe, NM. everyone go see them for your own good. You don’t understand the level of skill Adam has until you see him live. The same goes for Shawn Crowder. One of the better nights of my life. Also I met Adam after the show (hey Adam) and he is genuine and humble.
The encore in f#minor was ridiculous. The tempo and the sax… seriously unreal.
Feel like I commented on the previous iteration of this rig but here I am again: Every independent band should be doing this, it's so worth it to have your monitoring consistent from night to night (although there's also inconsistent ambience from room to room which is another unforseen issue that you don't know until you've tried a rig like this). I'm building a studio with analog audio over ethernet right now, so this is right up my alley ;)
It’s great unless you’re playing small cap venues where the sound guy is some rando off the street and gets annoyed when you ask them to repatch your drum mics in because they expect a 10 minute changeover
This is making me so happy that when I toured full time, it was with an a cappella group working acoustically in concert halls!
I totally get this obsession. I had a few shows where I was so rushed to get things going that I messed up some things, and the show suffered for it. It was then that I decided that there's no over-planning for the stage. Take your time, set up correctly, and make sure it's all PERFECT, so that you do a good show, and the people paying get a good show.
Amazing. The drummer in my band sent this to me, we've been working on our IEM rack for just over a year. Didn’t expect a personal philosophical revelation out of an IEM video, but here we are! Cheers to Adam!
I solidly understand about 40% of your gear videos (really just the IEM videos, tbh), but they are still so fascinating and TEACH ME SO MUCH, even if I don't understand what language you're speaking sometimes. Please don't feel afraid to make more gear vids!
I've been trying to catch the band for years, but things never seemed to line up. Finally had a chance to attend the show in San Francisco a few weeks ago. Such an amazing performance. Thanks for the great music and content!
Very happy to hear the CAT Rack was a helpful solution here!
Our band lives in the Behringer/Midas ecosystem. We bring our own mics and have the SD8 and SD16 digital stage boxes, and each member has their own P16 personal mix station. We have a 100FT ethercon cable we run between stage and FOH (if the venue doesn’t have any available) and we give the audio engineer (if we dont have our own) the M32R console on a keyboard stand, or they can mix from an iPad.
These days most engineers know the X32/M32 consoles, and our touring session already has all of the DSP settings dialed in, so it doesn’t take a new engineer long to get a good mix up and running. And our ear mixes are always right where we left them.
The beauty of digital consoles.
This is pretty cool…. I never thought of just providing FOH for the venue their own mixer… Thanks
@ this also keeps our lines separate from the other bands, they just set aside three channels for our LR/SUB outs
@@insolace Absolutely correct. I’m not looking to impress anyone, including myself, by reinventing the wheel daily. Whatever makes music more readily available and/or better makes me happy. My transition to music production entirely in the box followed those same rules. If an idea is just rattling my mind, I flip on the server, the DAW hardware and the computer and in minutes I’m choosing the file I must hear in the exact state it was the last time I heard it.
For many years I had from 2-4 major projects all on the burner, with impending deadlines somewhere in the near future and I would have lost my mind without my fully realized in-the-box solution. I’m not missing a thing about 2” tape, aligning 48 tracks plus NR, setting knobs to match, 80 patchcords…. Even just the thought of it makes me feel a little bit sick.
You can't imagine how inspiring this video was for me, and how much it clarifies fme so many doubts and stress I have been through, sincere applause for you on making this video, best regards from Mexico City where you have a new fan.
I don't know what he is talking about but I like listening to him talk while I have dinner. Thanks Adam, nice to hear from you.
I think when he says Cat5 or Cat6, it's the number of lives the cat has left...
This is the sweet spot in the Venn diagram that is me: electrical engineer (I know how to solder ;-) ) + musician + member of the FOH body of the student music company. Would love to be there when you soundcheck (April 1st in Utrecht, maybe?)
As a sound guy, thank you. Some bands have tried bringing in their own IEM racks and most of them do a great job, but once in a while they don’t know what they’re doing and make my job very very difficult.
Rehearsals are good for your gear! Practice practice practice the boring stuff and the venue will be happy to have you back!
Greetings from Australia. It's nice to learn you all enjoyed yourselves here! EXCELLENT explanation of your IEM rig.
As a former stage tech, this is a really cool solution. Well thought out. A good solution to a common problem, but one which doesn't completely re-invent the wheel (some solutions can be quite... unique.).
I recommend to all musicians to do your stuff as analog as possible. Oh how many times I have worked with relatively small bands which travel with crazy digital setups with dante going here and digital snakes etc. It usually creates more issues for everybody than it solves. Going as much analog as possible ensures that no matter what issue you hit, you WILL be able to get everything up and running without too much fuzz. And this is especially important if you do not travel with your own crew...
I am a working electrical engineer and I learned a lot from this video. You applied your expertise in video editing and presenting information to so clearly describe the requirements, the design, the process, and the results in a way that I look forward to incorporating into my work. Engineering is a hat that fits you well
I've been watching and learning from your channel for years now. I've taken away so much from them that have aided me as a musician.
But man, I don't think I've ever felt more connected to another musician on the internet than when you described your final thoughts and need for respite while onstage - sparking an obsession to build an error-proof rig and relieve the trauma of pre-show fuckery.
Felt this in my soul, dude lol.
That was great. Having just done a 3 band tour where all of us were sharing the same IEM rig running off of a Behringer XR18, i can definitely see how this system is an improvement!
For anyone considering using the 25-pin modular snakes, I used them in the drum corps setting and the prospect of those tiny pins getting bent in a rushed patching scenario was a hell that no one should consider putting themselves through.
I have been trying to decide between DB25 and audio over ethernet and I think you've sold it to me. The number of times I've had to straighten the pins on 5 pin DMX is too many and DMX is supposed to be repatched frequently. DB25 is more of an install solution and I don't want half of the band anywhere near it!
DB25 suck if they will be routinely mated/unmated by mere mortals; the pins bend easily and if you try to bend them back, they break. The connection cycle rating for RJ45 is around 1,300, IIRC. For some owners 1300 might be 2 years of rated life, for others 1300 cycles could exceed their personal lifetime. Another fragile connector that should be avoided if routinely connection cycled is the ELCO/Edac. Breaking a pin means shipping the cable off to a technician, or investing $400 in tools, followed by investing in a whole new set of pins, heat shrink/Hellerman sleeves, and hours of your life after you discover you can't just crimp on a new pin and have the wire reach.
@raygunsforronnie847 fantastic advice! As someone who has only had experience of multi pin connectors in installs it makes sense why all touring systems use those giant circular multi pin things that weigh about as much as a small dog.
@@fuzzylogickben There are several circular connectors, the more forgiving of handling and easier repairs come from Link in Italy. Whirlwind W4 are difficult to field repair.
If you want a connector in the same form factor that isn't as fragile, then I'd suggest the Centronics Connector. It also has a significantly less annoying locking mechanism and the pins are further spaced apart which makes them easier to solder.
for those of you doing this, audio over cat5*, ethernet isnt the cabling it's a packet switching protocol in network gear, I know its a seemingly stupid technicality but for anyone buying gear search that term, if you search ethernet you'll wind up with dante and similar tech, which is awesome (and a sometimes better, if more expensive solution) but not at all the same thing
Yeah, "analog ... over ethernet" was breaking my brain, until I watched and found out he just meant the cables. Ethernet is a computer networking protocol.
@@forrcaho Though if it _was_ actual ethernet, you wouldn't have to stay with copper at all really -- just put in some SFP transcievers and turn the entire stage snake into a single 2mm diameter run of optical fiber. (Unfortunately, I don't think there'd be any economical way to keep it fully in the analog domain with fiber -- not that it's impossible, but you're looking at VERY expensive custom transceiver hardware instead of cheap standardized SFP modules.)
it could be more expensive but a Dante/AVB rig would be the next step for him. just one case for the rig, one more for the foh splitter and a long ass cat 6 cable
@@jerry.berumenit is super expensive, but wouldn’t that be a dream, 1 cable like 16 channels of I/O
@@AJMansfield1 Yeah, insisting on analog audio when you are going for 32 freaking channels (with so few players) seems very strange.
At some point in the signal chain (both for the IEM and FOH), there will be A/D converters anyhow.
I’m a house engineer. I’ve seen some awesome IEM rigs that make everyone’s day easier and achieve great results. I’ve also seen hack job IEM rigs from well intentioned musicians who didn’t fully understand how the rig needs to be set up. The best configuration imo is to have an analog split in the rack with a set of tails that go to me. I’ll patch the tails of your snake into my stagebox one to one, and patch the stage into your IEM rig. DONT FORGET THE TAILS I only have so many XLRs and there are probably other bands playing too!
This is exactly how we do it. I have an 8 channel snake with 6 labelled channels. FOH mics up the drums. It's so easy and fast. We do need a mic on the kit somewhere to get some rhythm though but that's on us! I'm not sure what you mean "stage into the IEM rig" though.
@@Pinkybumif he's anything like the engineers in talked to before building out iem rig, he means he will run his mics into your split.
@@Pinkybum I mean I will take all of the inputs on the stage and plug them into your split first. Then I’ll take the tails to go to FOH
@@martinvannostrand8488 I see - this is not such a clean set up if you have multiple bands that have to change out quick. As long as it's the headlining band I guess where the split just becomes the stage box.
Exactly the same, and by far most nights we have 3-4 bands and 15-20 minute set changes. In those nights this rig would be a bit of a nightmare as it is built for their own mics.. and i'm not going to start changing the whole mic setup in the middle of the night just for one band. This system will be next to the house main box with tons of wires and breakout boxes in a pile... Pretty much all IEMs are analog splitter, i get the snake tail and just like you: I DON'T have enough XLR to double everything, that snake tail comes from the band or we will go with the wedges. With good color coding and marking a "standard" IEM rig changes from one to another in 2-3 minutes.
The worst nights are when there are 3 IEM racks on stage, the chaos and the amount of cables is just ridiculous... It is too bad it is a bit unsolvable problem since there are no standards for IEM racks, everyone builds their own...
I have been thinking that i might ask if we could get splitters on the house routing, ready to go so that we can do it in reverse: i give the band the split, they do whatever they want with it.... Would make things a lot easier but.. as you can guess it is shoestring budget...
I’ve been watching videos to help me build an IEM rig, so you’ve posted this at the perfect time. Thank you sir
I want to say I really appreciate you doing videos like this, even though I imagine the "viewer market" for stuff this niche isn't as large as some of the other subjects you cover. I am currently planning a tour for next summer and constantly weighing different set up options and calculating what I should invest in and how to have the best results and reliability for the precious resources I have to put into this. Thanks!
It's cool to see someone else doing this. Usually when you talk about this type of solution on sound engineering forums, the majority of the people are skeptical.
I've been using the SoundTools CAT boxes and CAT racks for the last year or so, and it seems to be holding up. By using "turnaround" XLR cables, I've been able to convert one audio channel on each CAT box to be a return for monitoring. So an output on the mixer gets patched with a female-female XLR cable to the CAT rack, and then a male-male XLR cable on the musician side gets patched to a wedge. With this setup, each member of the band gets a CAT box with a vocal input, two instrument inputs, and a return channel for their aux mix.
I'm using a Behringer X32 Rack mixer, so I currently use their 8-channel SD8 digital stage box on the floor next to the drumkit with a digital AES connection to the X32. However, the two CAT racks I have still have two unused 4-channel etherCON inputs that I could rely on if I wanted to drop two CAT boxes over by the drums and rack the SD8 in with the mixer (the X32 Rack only has 16 physical inputs on it).
We haven't used the split capability yet because we don't play too many gigs where we'd bring our mixer without also running FOH ourselves. But it's nice that all of the boxes and racks have etherCON outputs to allow us to split it when we evolve to that level. The cool thing about the SoundTools CAT boxes is that they also have their own etherCON output that would allow you to split right at where the musician plugs in if you want. That's the best thing about this system. It's very flexible and can grow and adapt to different approaches.
One interesting product SoundTools offers are the "Sound Tails". It's an all in one cable that has etherCON on one side and 4 XLRs on the other. Since it's not a breakout box that you supply your own cable to, it seems like it would be quicker and have one fewer failure point. The downside is it's a finite length, so you must have your split etherCON outputs within 60" of the FOH mixer inputs.
For etherCON cables, SoundTools offers a few different choices. They are expensive, but In Dave Rat I Trust. They have a line specifically called "SuperCAT Sound" that they've optimized for this 4-channel analog audio thing. I've just been using their regular "SuperCAT" cables so far without issues though. They cost a bit less, but are still not what I'd call cheap. 25' cables to get from the CAT boxes to our mixer rack have been enough for us on the stages we play.
It has problems. It is not at all designed for quick set changes where you do not have your own mics but every band uses the house mics. Then this IEM rig becomes a pile of wires and breakout boxes. Every single proper IEM rig i've worked with has been done with analog splitter that the house mics are patched in, and i get a snake tail that goes to FoH.
So, for this to really work it should still have the analog XLR splitters...
15:36 I feel this so hard right now. I've been working on building my IEM Rack and and trying to play shows at the same time. I kept running into issues with my rack and its been so busy and stressful. I finally had a chance to test my rig last night and it worked for the most part. Im having trouble with imbalance LR on the mix and don't know how to fix it. But im just glad I can hear myself and the band now. Our album release show is In a month and I am looking forward to using this rig. Thank you Adam for making the videos and doing the research to make things like this accessible. If you ever come to Nebraska with Sungazer and need a funk band to open for ya, The Groove Lagoon and I would be honored. Love your work magic Bass man
Those Van Gogh exhibits were amazing! I’m so glad I got to catch the one in Miami for my bday last year lol
I’m defo gonna be sending this video to some friends in bands, the timing is perfect
Good job handling all those problems with a clear goal and sharing your experiences. Thank you for the hard work
Nice man! This is pretty brilliant. I remember you mentioning this, and it’s cool to see how it’s set up.
I’m working on a video of something similar with the Behringer X32 rack with the Midas 4816 O as the splitter. I use an S16 as our stage box, which connects to the X32 with a single ethercon cable and sends 16 inputs and 8 outputs over that one cable. Then the Midas connects via a single Cat5 cable and then we have 16 channels of labeled tails to give to FOH.
It’s super fast and really efficient. Although some limitations are: the S16 is heavier than those breakout boxes and has its own 2u case (same with the Midas splitter)…. I believe this can only be done with 16 channels…. And the split happens pre fader/eq/comp/etc… but post gain. Going into Allen and Heath boards in particular has been troublesome since they don’t have PADs on most of their mixers for some dumb reason. But we have a scene saved with the gain set down by 10db specifically for that. But it’s been incredibly consistent, more “compact” than light weight, but still decent, and is relatively error proof.
I just hope more companies start to integrate the audio over Cat 5 setup for splits. It’s so much cleaner and easier.
I go the music tribe way, I love how practical splitting is through a midas/behringer stagebox/splitter
Allen & Heath input channels don’t feature a pad because you can imagine it like they start with the pad in. Instead of you having to engage the pad, the input gain range just includes that range the pad would cover on every channel
It’s a “but this goes up to 11” kind of scenario
That 4816-O splitter completely hosed me the one and only time I tried to make it work, FWIW. To be fair, it was at a divey venue where we were certainly the first band to ever attempt to bring our own IEM rig, but since the signal wasn't a true split it (in conjunction with the divey venue's questionable sound setup) resulted in a terminal amount of noise we weren't able to fix in the time we had before we had to bail out of using it. I'm sure there's a way to make it work but it wasn't worth the risk to me - sold it and got a set of S8's.
Saw you guys in Melbourne with Plini last year. Easily my favourite gig I've ever been to! Thanks for the awesome music!
I'm so grateful for our avocado toast, coffee and aviation laws for musicians, especially as a West Aussie! I was lucky enough to make it to your Perth show and was blown away to see WA on the schedule. See you next time!
Great video - love laying out the considered approach. I cannot recommend enough getting molded, custom in-ears. Ideally laser measured. You dont know what you are missing until you have tried it. Its life changing. We went with UE but there are other options but its worth testing.
Thanks for the video, and many others I haven't commented on. I've enjoyed seeing your progress as you adapt your rigs over time. The quirks section got my attention, because it hightlighted what I experienced myself a couple years ago while searching for a proper splitting solution.
The solution that worked for us was to go digital, using the 24Ao by MOTU. Our 6U rack includes a 16x8 rack mixer/stage box (MOTU B16), some wireless units and a heaphone amp (drum IEMs and backups for wireless units).
If we're self-mixing, that's all we need. We have a couple spare outputs on the stage box that cover the Mains.
If we're playing a proper venue with a sound person, we place the 24Ao rack next to the venue's stage box, patch to 2m tails (picked this for weight concerns, since the box can be anywhere my ethernet cable will reach) and we're ready to go. We keep the 24Ao in a 3U rack, with the breakout cables 3 x (DB25 to 8MXLR) permanently attached with strain relief and labeled for rapid, error-free setup.
We looked into all the different technologies (Dante, Waves Grid, AVB). We chose AVB for its idiot-proof self-configuration. Plug in stuff and it works. We didn't get hung up on what well-funded venues were buying, because we knew if we could deliver analog signals via xlr we'd be good to go anywhere.
Another great benefit is we can push a virtual soundcheck to the FOH, looping a performance in our DAW and sending to the FOH. "Fader flip" from DAW to live sources is as simple as selecting a routing preset. We could always do this in a closed system, like our old Allen and Heath Qu16, but pushing recorded signals to FOH using traditional analog splitters is not possible.
There are several videos online that showcase the 24Ao with StudioLive hardware. I can verify it works beautifully and will save you significant weight in splitters and multi-pair audio cable.
I remember meeting Dave Rat at Coachella in the late 00s when he was just working on the original "cat snake", amazing how mainstream it's become for something that was a solution to a specific problem. They used to have to cut and cover foot deep trenches in the polo field for the FOH run.
make your own network cables. Easy and dirt cheap. You can add ethercon connectors to any network cable, you can even add or remove the 'con' part after the RJ45 is crimped on.
custom lengths, easy repairs.
This is brilliant. I am using power over ethernet to drive my pedalboard from my guitar synthesizer but this is a holistic whole band solution that could be used to create "studio-like" recordings of live gigs in addition to the traditional sound reinforcement aspect. Bravo!
As a touring drummer on ears (that, apart from setting my own mix, has nothing to do with the setup of the whole thing) who has never been interested in this kinda stuff, I was amazed to be super enthralled by this. Awesome setup, can see how this would be a breeze in those highly stressful, second-band-on-the-bill, 15-minute changeovers! Love it!
thanks for sharing your knowledge to us amateurs 😭🙏
In some cases (depending on the technical rider and your requirements)... Depending on the FOH console (Avid ones for example), your Presonus console can communicate AVB via network cable, becoming the stage box directly without requiring the analog split (reducing weight and space). And if you place an external AVB-compatible network card (or dongle) to the laptop, you can integrate backing tracks, metronome, control signals, visuals, etc. through the same AVB network, handling additional digital tracks, with their due processing without affecting the physical/analog channel count.
an apple computer's ethernet ports are AVB compatible out of the box.
As the "house guy", NO NO NO. Don't give me a gain-shared digital split. Analog is fine.
Unfortunately AVB from PreSonus is NOT compatible with other AVB networks without an external AVB box, one of the downsides in general to AVB in our current audio universe. ‘Milan’ compliant AVB is slowly growing to accommodate more brands, but as of today just being AVB is not going to make a PreSonus talk to anything other than a PreSonus. Same deal with MOTU, who also use AVB, but again using their own protocol.
However, I am curious about what you said about Apple Laptops being AVB compliant out of the box, the idea being that one could connect a playback laptop directly with a Network cable instead of going through an interface. I’m going to have to research that one a bit.
But end of the day; speaking as a FOH engineer, as much as I dream of the day when all these desks and DAWs speak each other, almost none of them do and you certainly can’t take out an IEM rig like this and hand someone a Network cable and expect to plug into a house setup expecting it to work. That scenario would currently only occur on about 2% of your shows, if that.
@@raygunsforronnie847 … So explain to me what the problem is?
I don’t know why this should bother anyone. Unless it is horribly wrong the worst thing that could happen would be a tiny addition of noise. But my gain staging is way more likely to be better than the house guy’s as I am using the same mics on the same gear with the same band night after night and as an electrical engineer my understanding of gain staging is likely way better.
@@imakenoise I can't give you an injection of the 45 years of live, professional audio experience I've got, but if I'm your FOH mixerperson of the day, help me do the best possible job for your band. If you insist on getting your way because you're also an EE, your dismissive treatment of those whose job is to help present you will not get the results you feel entitled to.
Way cool rig! I just changed from an XR18 to a Presonus 24R. We use splitter snakes, making things heavy- and kind of funky for festivals because we kind of foist this stuff on the crews there. Your rig is way cool, but yeah... that's pretty expensive, but seriously well thought out and light and small. Very cool, Sir!
This is a great video, thanks for showing your bands setup!
It's not audio over Ethernet, it's audio using Cat 5 cables. Ethernet is a digital networking protocol, all you are doing is using cheaper cables than conventional XLR cables which has both advantages and disadvantages.
Most likely most musicians won't care about the nomenclature but it's important and this channel is very technical.
Yeah, this got me very confused. I through it was something like Dante, but no, it's just using a different cable and connector (that isn't even strictly ethernet...)
They're clearly Cat6A
Lots of interesting concepts here, but many things that could make the system easier to use.
Spending a few hours learning to solder XLR cables (which is one of the easiest type of connectors to solder) would save a lot of weigth on connectors, and save the connectors themself. Running a soldered patch from the back of the panel to its destinations saves a pair of connectors, thats both adding weight, complexity and a failure point.
Having your split outputs be out of order is basicly asking for trouble. If instead of using the cat racks you couls get ethercons with IDC punches, with some 8pair or 12 pair analog multis punched directly out for for FOH split, and then custom wires going to your presonus.
That would allow your output tales to be simply just 1-1 from 1-32 but the monitor ends going directly into your preferred channels on the presonus.
There is a very easy way to make a very similar setup that is substantially lighter and cheaper, by not being scared of the soldering iron or IDC punches.
I have a x32/S16 setup that Im waiting for some parts on, will make a video soon to show how Im solving a lot of similar issues in a much better and more cost efficient way.
Do you mind explaining further what IDC punches are, and how they'd fit into such a system?
This is an awesome video, truly the breakdown I was looking for
I haven’t seen many of your videos but this is great. Can’t wait to see more live rig content!
This is actually interesting to see this kind of thing deployed. In the professional lighting world we use this exact same ethernet breakout box trick to move DMX universes around with 4 universe boxes. Additionally for larger rigs we use 8 universe cable and breakout boxes with a circular locking connector colloquially known as CPC connectors. The cable for these larger ones is literally 2 x CAT5 lines fused together at the factory.
The many points of failure and also similarly convoluted signal routing means we have to do extensive labeling and paperwork to ensure that the correct signal ends up in the correct location.
I commend the effort put into this setup! Have you considered bringing a sound engineer on tour with you? I know it would cost a lot but it would be invaluable. A good sound engineer who understands the band is essentially another band member. Not only would it help the mental load of all of these tech issues, but they would also help shape your sound as a band. Don't think of sound engineers as a last thought or a means to an end but rather a part of who the band is.
Such a good emotional point at the end there. Struggling with that currently. Thanks for acknowledging it.
I work with software engineers. This really sounds like 'developer environments' and 'build tools' - i.e. investing a reasonably large amount of time in setup that makes doing your job more seamless and ultimately better.
Thank you so much for sharing this with us! This is a brilliant setup and it'll be such a helpful thing to build for a band who's gearing up to start bigger touring runs
thanks for posting this Adam, I've been looking for something like this for when I show up to random jams in my city on a whim
I love this setup, very clean! Though I have had show-stopping issues with Presonus StudioLive rack mixers, so I’m wary of them.
I took this even further in our band’s setup - we’re putting audio, MIDI, sometimes DC power down Cat cables for our IEM rig. Makes setup a breeze, even though we’ve got some pretty complex routing. Though we don’t use half of the channels you guys do. But everyone does live loop in sync, so there’s that.
As a stage technician I would like to recommand building your own ethercons. Yeah, the ethercon shields costs a little (in Poland it's less than 20 PLN, or less than 5 USD for an OG Neutrik and 14 PLN/less than 3$ for pretty good Adam Hall piece). Good 8P8C aka RJ45 shielded plug is about 5 PLN /1,25 $. Still it's so much cheaper to buy CAT6A cable with regular plugs and replace them with ethercons than buying etherconned CAT 6A. For example, again here in Poland, Telegartner 50m CAT 6A with regular RJ45 plugs costs about 333 PLN (or 83 USD) on thomann while etherconned CAT 6A 50m cable costs 649 PLN (137 USD). That way you can get etherconned cables for 40 USD less if getting ethercons by yourself.
Also, powercons should't be soldered, they use screws just like speakons :)
Very well thought out solution to a weirdly underrated problem. Thanx for sharing, Adam!
Audio over ethernet has been a gamechanger for my iem setup. I have my splitter and mixer in one rack and all our transmitters in another, i connect the two using 2 ethernet cables and It makes setup and breakdown effortless!
Great video.
I've just started using analogue audio over ethernet and I think it's been a game changer.
Really cool and detailed walkthrough of your setup. I'm looking into building something similar, so I'll definitely take some cues.
Regarding colored labelling, remember that that 1 in 12 men (less for women) suffer from some kind of color blindness (me included). It usually does not mean you can't distinguish red from green, but it can be hard to deal with certain nuances and particularly under difficult lighting conditions (which is common on a stage) it can be a problem. I would suggest adding text based labels as well.
there needs to be WAY more info out there on stuff like this. As technology advances, it would really be doing the world a favor for companies to be more transparent on the technicalities and features their products have instead of expecting everyone who's in audio have to just.... figure it out.
Awesome to see the Dingwall getting some love again.👍
I was literally shopping for an IEM solution last night. What I'm looking for is something modular - something that can grow with me from a solo act to a full band as needed, and isn't a pain in the ass or huge investment for new band members as they come on board. Thanks for doings these!
It will always be a pain in the ass. Understand that now and the future will be a lot easier on you ;)
It's said that experience is the *worst* teacher, because you get the lesson after the test. That's why it's so helpful to learn from others' experiences. Thanks for sharing!
I don't tour, but this was really well done and fascinating to watch!
I've been wanting to build one of these for our band, but the ethernet tech is quite pricey up front. Did consider building it myself instead of buying off the shelf components. Thanks for sharing your info. Peace and rock!
Thanks for taking the time to share these learnings!
It´s a good system. Finally someone who really thinks about daily Touring Life.
I´m also working with a band that´s flying all over the world but they decided to invest into a soundguy with a flyable FOH console. We doublepatch everything in the desk so the IEM mixes are independent from the FOH mix and that´s it. super fast changeover, great front of house Mix every night and no Soundchecks needed besides giving the PA a listen to the mix from last night with Virtual Soundchecks. Espacially handy with Festival shows. Sometimes (like on the next US and EU runs) we´re even bringing a split for local supports so no one has to repatch everything.
The current System has two checkins inluding IEM´s, Desk, Mics and most of the cables.
I know it´s hard to bring/afford another person but it´s paying off after time and you guys can focus on your music and your shows rather than discussing stuff with inhouseguys whom mainly not give a dime about your show. with over 120 shows a year it´s worth the struggle.
Great video. I’ve done videos on how I built my bands Soundcraft IEM rig but this has given me some great ideas on how to improve it, particularly with the Ethernet bits! Subbed!
7:05 This is the most important part of this video. By reducing the weight, you've given up transformer isolated split and opted for a passive split. It definitely does not fulfill the requirement of "error proof", since this introduces several drawbacks, like possibility of ground loops, signal degredation and of course introducing two stages of phantom power by accident.
Also, Ethercon cables isn't a specific cable type, it only refers to the plug used. You can get Ethercon plugs for pre-terminated CAT cables of your own choosing. Or buy cables with Ethercon ports that doesn't weigh that much. However, you don't want them too thin either when they're bundled up together like the loom you showed
That’s what I was thinking about the transformer-less splitting, good observation.
"Double phantom" isn't a thing so long at the standard is followed. -48V on pin 1, +48V on pins 2&3. Over the decades I've generally specified transformer splitters, but "wye" splitters tend to be fine so long as "we" have control over every connection to an input or output, and all our power comes from the same service. Any other hums or buzzes are from a failing or failed device, not a ground loop, and a transformer would not fix the noise problem. The AES finally arriving at a "Pin 1" standard helped, too, and separating the chassis ground from signal ground solved a bunch of noisess left over from 1980.
I came here to say this, cheep passive splits will bite you when you least expect it
@@jeffgaz Transformers are passive devices; the last 'active' splitter I used was 30 years ago, from BSS. If you're thinking of "wye" splitters, I will tell you that my old firm had multiple wye splitters on tour with "artists you've heard of", but they aren't the Seismic/Elite Corps stuff that can be found online. And I still prefer transformer splitters for the occasional input source or mixing console that just won't play nice otherwise, but in our current world those are fewer and fewer every year, to the point were we stopped ordering transformer splits.
I would love to see more about the playback rig as well, and how they go together.
I love audio over Cat5! It's great for long cable runs too. I use it all the time to monitor my mics from a long distance for wilderness field recording without having to carry an extra 20lbs of balanced cable. Unexpected plus is that rodents LOVE to find and chew through xlr cables in the deep bush, but they leave Cat5 alone for some reason.
You just solved a problem that I needed to solve 5 years ago, this video is gold.
interesting take! not too much of a presonus guy anymore, but the catracks and AAoIP are a realy neat, and fairly coist effective at small scale, but the problems with using different brands is very real! those vary a lot so thx for pointing that out
Point of order from a network engineer: Shielded Cat6 is NOT just "one better" than Shielded Cat5.
Cat6 is designed for fixed cabling, it has more fragile wires inside, with a plastic insert to try and bolster them. It's particularly sensitive to repeated coiling & uncoiling, and is pretty badly-suited to an on-stage and on-road life. Cat5 is designed to be the fnal link under an office desk, getting kicked and scuffed for years on end.
Electrician here, still can't get used to how bulkier CAT6 is - it feels more sturdy, but as you pointed out, it's the opposite with frequent stress.
@@Timocracy That sturdiness is the plastic insert!
that doesn't make sense, how would the wires be more fragile? They still need to be the same guage as cat5 and cat5e to be compliant in current capacity for POE injection.
Both Cat6 and Cat5e coming in solid and stranded wire. That's what determines the "where used" not the "why used". The "why used" is speed and bandwidth.
We call these wall and fly types. You would need a fly type then, with non-solid wires.
Wow, maybe the one Video of you I enjoyed the most xDD I’ve spend quite some time in my live thinking about musical setups (most time Electronic Music). Your end thesis is such a joyful take on this. Helped a lot to hear this :)
Taking control of our in ear monitors was one of the best decisions I've ever made. Behringer XR18, splitter strip, and a thoroughly labeled passthrough to the front, we stuck some LED's in the rack for good measure. It's consistent and as idiot proof as possible. This is for a regional cover band now, so I don't really have use for the stage boxes and stuff. We're not playing anywhere that we can't just reach the rack with XLRs. I'll definitely consider doing this when we upgrade.
Ethernet solitions are awesome. I'm from germany and i know it under the name "CATcore" (cat multicore). This is also awesome for lighting. 4 universes in one cable.
It's important that you don't use regular ethernet RJ45 cables. For durability use ethercon cables, they have metal connectors and are much more resistant
Not sure if someone already mentioned it in the comments, but have you considered buying a roll of ethernet cable, the ethercon ends and just making the cables yourself? After a very quick and dirty Google search I can see there are some fairly cheap ends and the cable itself isn't expensive either. I'm not sure how difficult it is to crimp the ends of the ethercon, but if it's anything like normal RJ45s, then it's one afternoon and you should be done. This way you would get the benefit of the lighter and more pliable ethernet cables and the rugged connectors.
I welcome any and all criticism and suggestions!
Not sure if someone else mentioned this, but since the Cat Rack is a passive split (essentially just Y-ing each mic line) you need to make sure to clearly communicate which position provides phantom power (FOH or monitors, pick only one) or else you risk damaging your condenser mics!
I love the use of the 6th Suite prelude! Definitely an underrated piece
A coworker who was a former roadie once told me, "You have to do it perfectly 100% of the time. Because that one time you don't, might have been Stephen Tyler's microphone."
One more thing to keep in mind, Dirt/debris. The male and female Ethercon ports are basically designed to collect dust/dirt/debris. The first time you try to plug in an ethercon cable with any debris in it (even a grain of sand), that's potentially a ruined connector and 4 lost channels of audio. I would suggest either buying (Seetronic CNAC-FDP) or making covers for all of your cables and jacks. I learned this one the hard way and it nuked one of our breakout boxes.
Happened to be in San Diego for your show, was a great experience!
Great work. We're doing it pretty much the same HOWEVER we rely on normal multicores with Harting multi-pin jacks.
Its super error proof and it' always just one wire/jack that needs to be patched in between two components.
But you're right, this stuff is heavy.
Those angled XLR patches you use look super light too btw?! Never seen those before.
Been running this setup using Whirlwind's Catdusa for the 6-piece I FOH for! Saves so much effort!
You specify to get STP cables, but I would go a step further and recommend full EtherCON cables for durability and ease of setup
I had no idea that you were coming to Australia. Glad you guys made it here, maybe next time. Your ad for givewell sounds the most useful ad I've heard so far. We're sick of donating to corps.
Hooray! Been waiting for another IEM vid! 🤘
Great video. I'm going to pursue some of these ideas. A couple of things:
1) Passive mic splitting concerns me. The potential for ground loops and noise is always there if signals are not split via isolation transformers. I'm wondering if you ran into any noise or hum issues? Also, do you let the FoH add phantom power to those channels that need it or do you do that in the Presonus? Because in a passive, non-transformer split, only one side should be adding phantom.
2) The best shielded ethernet cable that I've found is the Elite Core PROCAT5E. Not only is it very high quality and easy to work with, it lies flat on stage just like mic cables. Cheap ethernet cable sucks. It either coils on stage like a snake and you have to tape it all down, which wastes time, and/or it bunches and knots up. The Elite Core lies flat and is very flexible, just like mic cables.
3) Definitely learn to solder. You'll save thousands of dollars on cabling over the course of your career. It isn't that hard. Lots of great tutorials on YT. i saved a ton making my own Ethercon cables with the Elite Core wire. And those don't even require soldering. You just need the right crimper and a tester. But I also make all my own mic and instrument cables. I have cables that are probably older than you that I made when I was in my teens that still work flawlessly.
Pro tip: in low / odd-colored light situations where color coding can be difficult to see, tiny zip ties can be leveraged, 1 tie for input 1, 2 ties for input 2 etc. you can count them w your eyes AND fingers. Clear shrink wrapping your labeling can also help whatever labels you do use last longer.
Input 24
@@250count The Romans figured it out
Input 24 being one solid stick with 24 zip ties... In poor lighting you carry your own light... Head lamps are made for exactly this, cost few bucks.
We just ended up with a very similar rig in Inherit The Ashes. For the majority of bands I tour with as a FOH engineer, we use a x32 as a stage brain, plus up to 1 stagebox (usually for stage left 16ch and stage right 16ch). That all gets sent via aes50 to me at FOH where I lovingly manage each signal on my wing console.
If you ever wanna just tour with a dedicated FOH person in Europe, hit me up. Who knows, maybe our schedules match.
I totally built my last IEM rig based on your previous video, though because i do electronic/industrial music i really only need 4 tails for FOH
Took this on tour with my band over US/CA and sound check took 10 minutes max! Total run 42 shows. :D
I was actually having the very same thoughts about my IEM rig a few months ago about switching to analog audio over CAT5e and getting rid of the ART S8 3-way splitters which have been heavy and a nightmare to patch in such a small space when this does the same thing and is much lighter. The only difference I would do in our system versus Sungazer's is that I would do the splits at the Musician's end on the stage and not giving the FOH/audio engineers a bunch of tails to go to their patch bay. The disadvantage with this however is now I have to carry a bunch of shorter XLR cables to still give the FOH audio the sends from the Split Boxes after the mics get patched in (Soundtools Cat 8 box/Radial Catapult TX4M).
Thanks to those that have sent me DMs and letting me know about things like Radial's and Whirlwind's Mic splitter boxes and Line level splitter boxes like the LX3 and LBS. this way I can avoid purchasing more breakouts than necessary.
I have a pet peeve about referring to Category cabling and the signals that go down it.
The cable is a category cable (cat 5, 5e,6, 6a etc) with RJ45 connectors on the ends.
Ethernet is the digital signalling that's used to carry Internet protocol traffic down a physical medium, this could be a category cable or a fibre link, or over WiFi.
Dante is an audio over Ethernet protocol.
AES50 is a digital audio over category cable standard.
These are analogue audio over Category cable, the only standards involved are the pinout and the fact you need shielded cables.
This comes from working in lighting for a manufacturer that used RJ45 connectors as the DMX input on their fixtures (these were for permanent install so it's OK according to the standard). Trying to explain to someone "no, these don't use Ethernet, they use cat5 cable, they need straight DMX, they can't understand ArtNet, no streaming ACN won't work either, yes, the gateway is needed, those XLR to RJ45 adapters in the spec are necessary and shouldn't have been scrapped, yes, what you've referred to as an Ethernet cable work but it's not. fucking. Ethernet. no, don't plug it into the network port on your computer, oh, sparks and smoke, no, we won't be paying for those repairs and the damage is definitely not covered under warranty"
I get a bit pedantic about this sort of thing.
I just built out 2 stages just like this!
Great design!
Just a small correction - the baggage allowance for musicians is not actually a law, as not all airlines provide this service. I was touring as an FOH since about 2009, and Virgin Australia recognised the growing need for bands to travel and offer the baggage allowance to anyone who was a member of any recognised musical organisation (APRA/AMCOS, MusicVIC etc). From memory it was around 2010/11(?) that it came in and in one stroke captured 95% of the flights booked by touring musicians. QANTAS finally offered a similar deal recently, but too little too late. We all have our travel status points with Virgjn now.
I have been making stage drops with Cat5e for the band I tour with using the A&H SQ5 and DX168 IOs. We run FOH and IEMs from FOH desk though so it’s not for a split, more as a way to quickly patch in and out with our unconventional stage plot - though this video has given me more ideas to improve the setup for more efficientcy. Great video, hope you guys enjoyed Australia - I missed the show in Melbourne because I was touring in TAS 😂
Absolutely love the musical translations of the different chapters, such a great idea.
5:15 also yes, blessed to be an Australian musician, there's multiple Musician Unions - we also have an official minimum wage of $250 AUD per musician per show coming into effect in most states. I've had an 100% success rate with that despite being in a state where it isn't in effect.
Also I've been paid tens of thousands by the government to do arts projects here and overseas, all costs additionally paid for.
Our grant system actually has a good culture and social sustainability focus (when the liberals aren't in majority seats)
The thing with Ethercon is you don't really have to buy preassembled cables, you can pretty easily DIY (and also repair if needed) them yourself even with pre-terminated CAT6 (actually that's even easier since you don't need to learn how to terminate ethernet yourself, but you can do that too and save even more money), there are kits that can be assembled over regular CAT6 cables. So you can have it be more robust on the connector side AND lightweight of a cable overall.