MD Vocals Monitor "Auto Gain"?

S

Simon Eves

Sophomore
May 12, 2013
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So last night's new problem was that the monitor we set up for the MD/pianist to hear the wireless vocals is having to be set really loud for him to still hear them when the band is wailing around him. It's a Behringer B208D on its side on the floor next to him, and he's playing a baby grand. He got my assistant to tweak it up so loud that in dialog scenes, there was almost more vocals coming from backstage than there was through the house! (sigh)

So, how can I achieve a sort of auto-gain system for that monitor, whereby it will convey the vocals loud when the band is loud, but go quieter when the music is quiet, or there's no music at all.

Some kind of side-chain trickery with dynamics in that monitor bus, but it's not obvious to me...

And don't say "get a monitor engineer" or "get him headphones" (well, we had headphones for him, but he refuses to wear them, but might have to if I can't solve this).
 
Re: MD Vocals Monitor "Auto Gain"?

Note that X32 buses don't have Gates, only Compressor/Expanders, and I'm using all 32 real input channels that do, otherwise maybe the Gate in Duck mode would have worked...?

Edit: No, that's rubbish. That's the opposite. Maybe I need a Gate with a small range, keyed from the band bus, so that the level drops when the band goes below a threshold but is still loud when the band's loud.

Screen Shot 2015-07-21 at 2.02.09 PM.png

...but I don't have any available signal paths (certainly not real channels) with Gates.
 
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Re: MD Vocals Monitor "Auto Gain"?

Are you using scenes, and if so, could you put the monitor level in the scenes so it is recalled at the appropriate level for what is going on?


It looks like one of the exapander modes with sidechain feed might work; can you demote (or, perhaps, sacrifice might be a better word!) one of your inputs to an aux channel freeing up a full channel with dynamics?
 
Re: MD Vocals Monitor "Auto Gain"?

I use automixers for the dialog parts and I have the singing on one subgroup and the dialog on another subgroup. The conductor gets a small monitor that sits on a mic stand and is very close to their head. And the feed comes from a matrix and they only get the vocal mics, the talking subgroup is set lower then the singing subgroup to this matrix. That way the conductor doesn’t have to do anything, the mix is right for singing and talking.

I am doing it this way for the show I am doing right now. I asked the conductor if he needed any change in his monitor and he said it was just fine as I set it. I just used the standard ratio setting I always do and I didn’t even have a chance to listen to it (too busy running cues) and he was happy.

What you will find is that most people need completely different levels when they sing and when they talk and you will find that some talk louder then they sing and some sing louder then they talk. And even if you aren’t using an automixer for a show like this you can still have a singing subgroup (for the X32 I should call it a Bus) and a talking/dialog Bus. If you make each Bus post fader variable you can tweak each output for how the person performs and by just switching between the 2 Buses you can make it easier for yourself and have more control.

And then you can feed the conductor the matrix feed as I mentioned and taper the bus feeds to it in the appropriate way, usually singing a little bit hotter then the talking.
 
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