Multiple band night with M20d

[nickinfrance]

Hi all,

 

I have a gig coming up that i am doing sound for.  It is going to be a night with several different acts and a variety of instruments.  I am wanting  bit of advice to keep the stress to a minimum!

 

In this situation would it be a good idea to save each band as a separate setup at the sound check?...or should i be thinking in terms of scenes?   I have read other posts about the difference between the two and i'm not convinced I fully understand it.

 

If i have everything plugged in at the start and just use scenes to set trim, levels, fx etc that might be easier than different setups?

 

Advice welcome!!

 

Thanks

[silverhead]

I would use different setups rather than scenes. Most likely the bands will have different numbers and types of inputs. That's what setups are designed to handle - the number and type of inputs.

 

Scenes, on the other hand, are designed to handle different channel processing (FX and such) for the same set of inputs.

 

Setups are best suited for different bands, and even different venues for the same band. Scenes are great for different sets or songs within a specific band's playlist.

[nickinfrance]

Thanks, that makes sense.  This might be a silly question but if i am working with different setups, am i going to need to remove all of the unused inputs from the desk so i dont clog up the stage view or can the unused ones happily be deleted from the screen?

[SiWatts69]

Ditto to using Setups.

 

I did a 4 band event a few months back.

I emailed the organiser beforehand to try and get as much information about the various band lineups / setups as possible.

Assuming the bands play ball, you need to know:

How many vox and whether any have preferred mics plus male/female, lead/backing

How many guitars amp to mic

Keys?

Does bass head have post eq DI

Drums... how many mics you gonna need (suggest staying simple, Kick, Snare/Hat and 2x o/h

Any other instruments, fiddles, brass etc.

Midi/Computer inputs for drum tracks?

 

The more you know about the lineups of the bands, the more you can preset the M20

 

As the 4 bands that were playing that night all knew each other (indeed some played in more than one band) They shared some of the backline making it easier to keep track of what was where

 

When setting up the M20d, try to use the same input for the same purpose across all the bands. It will save unplugging and plugging in again between bands. Thus a male lead vox mic with band one is make lead vox mic for band 2. Bass DI stays in the same, drums stay in the same.

 

HTH

[nickinfrance]

Thanks, much appreciated.  I will get planning.  There are several folk bands and they always present challenging instruments that sometimes i'm not even sure what they are let alone what best to do with them.  Thankfully the M20 even has a bagpipe channel preset!!

[silverhead]

Thanks, that makes sense.  This might be a silly question but if i am working with different setups, am i going to need to remove all of the unused inputs from the desk so i dont clog up the stage view or can the unused ones happily be deleted from the screen?

I think that's something you can experiment with in advance. Create a couple of representative setups, say a larger one with more physical inputs and then a smaller one. Connect all cords and cables as required for the larger setup, and then switch to the smaller setup. I am not entirely sure what the system will do when it recognizes that there are more physical inputs than are defined for the setup. Based on its behaviour you can determine your options and test what will work best for you when the situation arises in real time.

[quadcabby]

I regularly do sound for multiple bands and save each band as a "Setup". If I have enough info from them I can usually get effects, in their basic form, set up within "Scenes" for different songs. So "Setups" for bands and "Scenes" for songs. Your life will be easier....ish!

[tochiro]

I still don't understand the reasons behind Setups vs Scenes...  What is saved in Setups and what is not, same for Scenes?

[silverhead]

Here's what the manual says:

 

"A Setup is defined as the current configuration of all M20d inputs and outputs, all FX and channel settings, levels, mutes, pans, monitor send levels, footswitch assignments, L6 LINK settings and your stage icon layout."

 

" A Scene is essentially a snapshot of all your settings within the current Setup. These include settings for processor and FX parameters,

channel levels, mute, solo, pan position and monitor send levels.You can store up to 32 Scenes within a Setup."

 

So a Scene is a specific instance of the above mentioned settings within the constraints of its parent Setup. In particular, a scene cannot contain inputs and outputs that are different from its over-riding Setup. The physical configuration of the Setup is fixed for all scenes contained within it. The channel processing values and settings can be different from scene to scene.

 

Again, the best analogy is to think of a Setup as being the physical configuration of all inputs and outputs corresponding to a particular band/players stage presence. A Scene corresponds to particular sets or songs that the band might play throughout the event, where different FX might be temporarily applied to different inputs and outputs (monitors).

 

As an example, suppose a 4-person band consists of a lead vocalist, a lead guitarist also doing background vocals, a bass player, and a drummer. The band's performance is mostly rock-n-roll with electric guitars and heavy drums. But at some point in the evening they soften things up using acoustic instruments; they put down their electric guitars and pick up their acoustics and the drummer uses only his snare with brushes.

 

The setup would include all physical inputs to be used during the event, including all electric and acoustic guitars as well as full mic'ing for drums. There would be two different scenes: the rock-n-roll scene would use the electric guitar inputs (the acoustic inputs would be muted), all drum mics, and rock-style vocal settings with perhaps some delay and reverb on the vocal mic channels. The acoustic scene would activate the acoustic guitar inputs while muting all electric guitar inputs, could mute all drum mics except snare, and provide very different FX processing for the vocals and the snare drum mic. The monitors might also want a different mix for one or more performers.

 

All the setup and scene settings are done in advance so that no plugging, unplugging, or tweaking is required during the performance. It's a simple matter of recalling the appropriate saved/stored Scene when the players put down one set of instruments and pick up the other.

[eklynx]

The only downside to each setup is if you're playing break music through the mixer as well, as loading a setup will bring all outputs down to -∞

[nickinfrance]

Really useful replies, thanks guys. Do you know if trim levels are saved with a scene? I assume that they are with set ups? I'm thinking that if two bands have exactly the same setup but are just plugging in different acoustic guitars for example a scene change might be simpler in this case if the trim levels can be saved in the scene at sound check...

[Rick_Auricchio]

Channel trim is stored in the Setup, not the Scene.

[SiWatts69]

Also worth remembering;

 

If you save a setup and then create scenes, you need to save the setup again else when you reload the setup, the scenes will be gone.

 

Create and save setup

Create X scenes, saving each one

Resave the setup before exiting.

[tochiro]

Would have been much more simple et intuitive to have just Setups.

[Rick_Auricchio]

After struggling like you, I came up with the attached diagram. I think it's correct...if not, Don or Arne should chime in.

 

I'm a 30+ year software professional and it still took some time to get my head around the Stagescape design.

setups vs scenes.pdf

[ArneLine6]

That's correct, thanks Rick. As others mentioned before- you can just use setups but there will be a very short interruption of the audio.

[actdmusic]

After struggling like you, I came up with the attached diagram. I think it's correct...if not, Don or Arne should chime in.

 

I'm a 30+ year software professional and it still took some time to get my head around the Stagescape design.

 

Nice! I thought the stage icons were part of the setup. Good clean information. Thanks a lot ;)  

[tochiro]

Thank you Rick!

[GaelW]

It will be great, in the next firmware update, to have the names of the current setup and scenes displayed on the screen. Thx Line6 :)

[ColonelForbin]

-Scenes are designed to handle different channel processing (FX and such) for the same set of inputs. Scenes are great for different sets or songs within a specific band's playlist.

-Setups are best suited for different bands, and even different venues for the same band. Most likely the bands will have different numbers and types of inputs. That's what setups are designed to handle - the number and type of inputs.

 

Excellent explanation!!!!!!