Mixed a show on a Soundcraft Expression

John Chiara

Senior
Jan 11, 2011
931
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Troy, NY
Did 3 sets in a casino club with a 4 piece rock band Sat. night.
Impressions:
FOH position was really weird with 2 brick pillars exactly blocking the 2 VRX flown tops.
Board worked well, sounded good, monitor and FX sends were on faders which was easy but I needed to switch out of ch fader layer to adjust..but tapping the monitor send button got me right back...pretty quick.
EQ seemed a little 'jumpy' as in it seemed to jump in steps when adjusting. Screen readout for EQ was too small and crude and inaccurate.
FX adjustments acted the same...onetime I could not scroll between reverb settings. Tap delay control kind of freaked out and acted weird..probably my fault.
Ch read outs were easy to read but not color coded so I never got comfy reaching for a guitar or keys routed next to each other.
Ch meters were not good...signal, -24, -12, clip. Pretty useless.
All the knobs for controlling filters, EQ, comps, gates, hi pass...were layed out so that the "0" settings on all the gain knobs, or whatever setting left the 12 o'clock LED indicator lit...ended up blocking this top LED and the surrounding ones as well. This messed me up and the console was at a good height and angle. One thing I despise from the "old" days was trying to mix on a Heritage or PM analog console and having to stand on something to get an angle from where I could actually see the EQ silkscreens on the board.

One thing that messed me up. The large blank area above the faders had the magnetic dry erase board, and this area obviously collected anything I had with me, phone, pen, set list..etc. Above the ch faders are rotary controls that can be gain, high pass, pan, etc. problems arose when I left these on input gain function, things...including my fingers while reaching for a pen or whatever, hit these knobs and basically wreaked havoc with ch gains and then, monitor levels. Took me a while to figure out what was happening.

More later if I think of it.
 
Re: Mixed a show on a Soundcraft Expression

I know it would be a bit tedious but couldn't you have selected a particular channel to get more detailed metering in the fat channel?

Yeah, when selected the ch input gain was displayed on the screen. There may have been a metering screen that I was unaware of. Maybe the iPad app has a meter screen but they didn't have the app working.
 
Re: Mixed a show on a Soundcraft Expression

Im not sure about on the screen but when you select a specific channel, doesn't the meter in the fat channel just above where you select +48v give you a more detailed meter?
 
Re: Mixed a show on a Soundcraft Expression

Im not sure about on the screen but when you select a specific channel, doesn't the meter in the fat channel just above where you select +48v give you a more detailed meter?

Yes. My main problem was with varying level keyboard presets...imagine that...where I would see nothing on the meter above signal present. Hard to adjust between 12db increments.
 
Re: Mixed a show on a Soundcraft Expression

I have an Expression, and when I mix on it (or any other console for that matter) I don't look at the meters or screen. I just grab a knob and turn it until it sounds right.

If I really want to get an exact meter level, I just Solo the channel and it pops up in the solo meter section.
 
Re: Mixed a show on a Soundcraft Expression

I have an Expression, and when I mix on it (or any other console for that matter) I don't look at the meters or screen. I just grab a knob and turn it until it sounds right.

If I really want to get an exact meter level, I just Solo the channel and it pops up in the solo meter section.

Hard thing was I was running monitors from FOH and they were fluctuating and I could look down at multiple channels and know where I was at.
 
Re: Mixed a show on a Soundcraft Expression

i regularly use a SI Compact (so much better build quality than the expression!) and a SI Expression 3 and I haven't seen many of the issues - maybe it's just a getting used to the work flow type of thing? Metering a channel should be done by selecting the channel and looking at the large meter the fat channel gives you. You shouldn't be adjusting between 12 and 24db increments- the screen also gives you a detailed db readout of where you're turning that knob.

I will admit, there is a bit of a curve but only in the workflow - and these consoles behave more like an analog board than a digital where you're flipping menu layers constantly on screen.