New to the Soundcraft Expression 3

[Tim McCulloch]

Re: New to the Soundcraft Expression 3

Brilliant!

thank you. We have a square room with a stage in the corner, creates lots of natural reverb so I don't plan on using any of the effects as of now.
I was considering using a gate on some open piano mics. Try to cut down on the ambient noise when they are not playing. I know that gate is used on drum sets normally but would it help with our pianos?

considering using compression on our pastor's mics. Dynamic speaking can cause some uncomfortable sound levels. Would compression help to keep the sound level from getting too high while allowing the passion and enthusiasm to come through?

My personal take is that it's the sound person's job to turn down or mute inputs that aren't in use. Will gates work? Sort of, but if your pianist is doing underscore music while speaking is going on (offering appeal, testimony, etc) it's possible that the gate threshold will sufficiently high that the piano will be "choppy" as the gate opens a closes. For this task I'd really just use the piano channel(s) fader or on/off switch. It seems like the piano is VERY hot if you have to turn it down when not is use. We can explore that later...

As for compression of the pastor's mic, the answer is yes. Mind you, if he hears it and doesn't like it (been there, done that) you'll end up removing it unless you can convince him that his "noise" is not "joyful".

As for effects, if you are streaming or recording the services I'd use a touch of reverb on singers and some of the instruments. You don't need a lot, just enough to tell you've got it dialed in (use headphones to set the blend, if you do it "in the room" you'll have waaaaay too much).

Corner stages suck, but you've already learned that....

 

[Jeff Sebers]

Re: New to the Soundcraft Expression 3

Response in bold

My personal take is that it's the sound person's job to turn down or mute inputs that aren't in use. Will gates work? Sort of, but if your pianist is doing underscore music while speaking is going on (offering appeal, testimony, etc) it's possible that the gate threshold will sufficiently high that the piano will be "choppy" as the gate opens a closes. For this task I'd really just use the piano channel(s) fader or on/off switch. It seems like the piano is VERY hot if you have to turn it down when not is use. We can explore that later...
We normally have it muted if not in use. Back to the original "if you don't need it don't use it" mantra we probably do not need to use the gate, rather just keep doing what we are currently doing.

As for compression of the pastor's mic, the answer is yes. Mind you, if he hears it and doesn't like it (been there, done that) you'll end up removing it unless you can convince him that his "noise" is not "joyful".
:lol:

As for effects, if you are streaming or recording the services I'd use a touch of reverb on singers and some of the instruments. You don't need a lot, just enough to tell you've got it dialed in (use headphones to set the blend, if you do it "in the room" you'll have waaaaay too much).
I will try that, thanks!

Corner stages suck, but you've already learned that....
Flat walls, flat ceiling, concrete floor. Just about everything that you would NOT want.... But the seating/carpet tiles/acoustical panels on the walls make it manageable. The struggle that we fight with most is people wanting their personal monitors so loud it muddies up the FOH sound (whether through hearing monitors come back through the mics or just loud enough to hear over FOH).

 

[Gideon Boisson]

Re: New to the Soundcraft Expression 3

I have also just bought the mad - usb card. i can get to patch the usb. its showing my firewire card still. can you zip a show with the stage box and usb recording confit please.
Thank You

Gideon
[email protected]

 

[Michael Grimaila]

Re: New to the Soundcraft Expression 3

i have also just bought the mad - usb card. I can get to patch the usb. Its showing my firewire card still. Can you zip a show with the stage box and usb recording confit please.
Thank you

gideon
[email protected]

menu -> show -> reset config

 

[Gil Navarro]

Re: New to the Soundcraft Expression 3

its showing my firewire card

I have the multi digital card for my Expression 3. I've been testing my different windows/mac machines with Waves plugins using both USB and Firewire. I've noticed that whatever the last driver I happened to have used is still active so I have to close it and then open the other one. You might have to re-boot the computer as well.
FWIW, Waves native plugs work great with the Expression using the usb connection and Mac. I'm not at all satisfied with the PC drivers and latency..