Question on PM5D monitor/cue routing

[John O'Brien]

Hey all,

My current gig has me mixing monitors on a 5D, and we just made the switch to using several PSM900's as well as our standard Aviom/wedge set up. The way I've always done it, is to make one of my stereo faders control my cue wedge. Pretty standard, right? Well, now, because of how active I am getting the stage going and making adjustments on whatever is needed, I'm going to be using one of the 900's as a cue pack and will no longer be tethered to the desk.

My question is regarding routing for the wedge and 900's at the same time. I currently have my cue pack set to follow whatever mix I cue up. Star vocals need a tweak? It's instantly on my pack. My issue is now, is that I can't seem to figure out how to get my cue wedge working from the back of the desk. I have my 900's plugged in to the L/R of the cue area on the rear of the desk, but I just am not sure how to patch/route my wedge in the proper place. Would my best bet be a Y cable taking the same feed from my cue pack to a mono wedge? Or is there a way where I can control the wedge and pack independently(since I don't want to do my wedge mixing off an in-ear system).

Any thoughts you masters have would be greatly appreciated!

 

[Dave Stevens]

Re: Question on PM5D monitor/cue routing

That's one of the things the desk doesn't have that I like, dual cue system or at least dual outputs for a single system. For those that need to use both ears and steam powered monitors, err I mean wedges, here is what I used to do in that situation with the PM5D.

Feed a stereo switch with the cue outputs. Route one set of switch outputs to the ear rig and one to the wedge controller/amp/ whatever you use to drive it. Watch when you switch back and forth though, I didn't do it at rock level and brought the cue master down then switched. If you wanted to get swanky you could run the line level feed to the wedge through a foot pedal or some sort of big pot so you could switch at rock level after you matched levels with the foot pedal or volume pot. Sound Image provided the switch I used and it was a commercial product but I forgot who made it. IIRC the PSM 900 has a loop through. We are in the process of changing to PSM1000 and our have loop throughs, though we don't use them. Instead of a switch box you could loop through to the amp and perhaps use a summing box if you don't need a stereo wedge. As an alternative to that method you could also use something like a Mackie Big Knob monitor switching system. http://www.mackie.com/products/bigknob/

Another trick I used to do when I had to do wedge/ears gigs is use the headphone out to drive my ear system. When you want to hear your ears without the wedge, turn the local outputs down and use the headphone level to adjust the send to your pack.

When I talk to folks that design consoles (used to do it a lot more than I do now), one of my biggest issues with even mid range modern console design is lack of dual cue facilities, or at least dual control of a single cue bus. Folks that design desks for a living, most of them get the idea. The reasons I get are mainly cost justification but for something like a PM5D I think it's an oversight. They did it on the PM1D which is how I fed my studio mons and my ear pack at the last gig I used the PM1D.

Try some different things, see what works for you.

Dave

 

[Brad Harris]

Re: Question on PM5D monitor/cue routing

It may be a bit early for me in the AM, but you're just looking to cue one thing (a mix, input) and have it come out of the wedge and/or the IEM at same time??? NOT an independant wedge and iem getting different feeds?


It's built in to the 5D ... Monitor and Cue. Go to the Fader Assign page, make Stereo A Monitor, and Stereo B Cue. Plug in your ears on the back of the 5D on the Monitor L/R Output, and plug your wedge(s) into the Cue L/R Output. Make sure the Mon/Cue level knob on the suface are turned up (can use them as an output level 'trim' later on). Stereo A controls IEM, Stereo B controls Wedge (or vice versa depending on preferences)

Now you should have independant control of the level of the cue bus to your cue wedge(s) and IEM.


Or did I miss something? Since I rarely (never) doubt Dave whenever he chimes in ...

 

[Rasmus Rosenberg]

Re: Question on PM5D monitor/cue routing

It may be a bit early for me in the AM, but you're just looking to cue one thing (a mix, input) and have it come out of the wedge and/or the IEM at same time??? NOT an independant wedge and iem getting different feeds?


It's built in to the 5D ... Monitor and Cue. Go to the Fader Assign page, make Stereo A Monitor, and Stereo B Cue. Plug in your ears on the back of the 5D on the Monitor L/R Output, and plug your wedge(s) into the Cue L/R Output. Make sure the Mon/Cue level knob on the suface are turned up (can use them as an output level 'trim' later on). Stereo A controls IEM, Stereo B controls Wedge (or vice versa depending on preferences)

Now you should have independant control of the level of the cue bus to your cue wedge(s) and IEM.


Or did I miss something? Since I rarely (never) doubt Dave whenever he chimes in ...

Im missing something here too, I would suggest the same a Brad, And add if you have the signal on ST A and/ Or ST B you can also send that to a matrix for even more fancy cueing (subbing talkback mic's etc) And the ST bus has the only sub in (although thru digital 2 trk in) on the 5D.

 

[Jim Roach]

Re: Question on PM5D monitor/cue routing

Brad hit the nail on the head.

It may be a bit early for me in the AM, but you're just looking to cue one thing (a mix, input) and have it come out of the wedge and/or the IEM at same time??? NOT an independant wedge and iem getting different feeds?


It's built in to the 5D ... Monitor and Cue. Go to the Fader Assign page, make Stereo A Monitor, and Stereo B Cue. Plug in your ears on the back of the 5D on the Monitor L/R Output, and plug your wedge(s) into the Cue L/R Output. Make sure the Mon/Cue level knob on the suface are turned up (can use them as an output level 'trim' later on). Stereo A controls IEM, Stereo B controls Wedge (or vice versa depending on preferences)

Now you should have independant control of the level of the cue bus to your cue wedge(s) and IEM.


Or did I miss something? Since I rarely (never) doubt Dave whenever he chimes in ...

 

[John O'Brien]

Re: Question on PM5D monitor/cue routing

So, now I'm slightly embarrassed.

I had tried the above example when trying to suss this thing out, but it didn't work out, so I moved on to trying other things and ended up posting here.

What I ended up finding out today, is that the monitor knob, which showed at 12 o'clock. I started from scratch with the above example, and ended up zeroing out the cue and monitor knobs. Upon grabbing the monitor knob, it fell off, which revealed to me that it was broken and the pot was turned all the way down. It looked like it was on and up, but underneath it all it was turned down. Hence why I never heard the wedge work.

I would have never seen it if I haven't tried the steps you guys mentioned. Thanks, for helping me solve my issue, and making me feel dumb at the same time!