Concert Audio Setup

Mixer Location

The first order of business is identifying a location for the mixer. The mixer generally lives somewhere around the center of the orchestra, which makes XLR cable runs shorter (which saves time and effort during setup plus TSC doesn't have many long cables, mixer in a corner of the venue could simply not work due to running out of XLR cables).

The mixer area actually contains several devices: mixer, wireless router, wireless microphone receivers, laptop, sound engineer headphones. Currently all of the electronics live in two rack cases, which generally need two chairs to be set on top of.

Mixer Power

With the mixer location identified, power needs to be run to the mixer. The venue could happen to have a power outlet nearby; if not, a suitable extension needs to bring power from wherever it is available.

The mixer case has its own power strip with 6 outlets, which is sufficient to power the mixer, wireless router, lapel microphone receiver and one of the Sennheiser receivers. If using more than one Sennheiser receiver an additional power strip is needed to accommodate the receivers' power adapters.

Lapel Mic

Henric prefers the lapel mic (Shure) to the headworn mic (Sennheiser SK 500). To set up the lapel mic:

1. Retrieve the power cable attached to the Shure wireless receiver and plug it into the mixer power strip.
2. Retrieve the XLR cable attached to the Shure wireless receiver and plug it into the mixer (usually input 1).
3. Locate the pouch with the lapel mic and the beltpack transmitter.
4. In the pouch, locate the two wireless antennas. Connect them to the wireless receiver.
5. Turn the wireless receiver on.
6. Turn the beltpack transmitter on. Speak into the microphone and verify the mixer shows signal in the respective channel (normally 1). Turn the transmitter off.

With the lapel mic operational, main speakers and monitors can be checked without any other microphones or instruments attached to the mixer.

Main Speakers

Identify a location for main speakers. They should normally be pointing at the audience and ideally be as far as possible from the orchestra and as close as possible to the audience, to reduce feedback. In practice the venues TSC performs in have limited space and there are often very few choices for where to put the speakers.

Main speakers are checked from the lapel mic.

Monitors

If the same person is setting up main speakers and monitors, the monitors should generally be set up after the main speakers. If there are multiple people available, monitors and main speakers can be set up concurrently.

There are 5 total monitors organized in 4 types:

• Solo (aka Vocal)
• Choir (2)
• Piano
• Rhythm

There are two choir monitors, and they are generally set up one on the left and one on the right side of the choir, in front of the choir, pointing at the choir. Remaining monitor types have one monitor each.

Each monitor requires:

1. Power - in most cases this would need an extension cord to be run from wherever power is available to wherever the monitor is.
2. Power cord to be attached to the monitor and the outlet.
3. XLR cable from the mixer to the monitor. The female end of the cable goes into the mixer, the male end goes into the back of the monitor.

One of the choir monitors is wired in the standard way as just described, the other one is daisy-chained to the first one: an XLR cable is run from the pass-through output of the first monitor to the input of the second monitor.

Monitors are checked from the lapel mic. This requires "Henric" input to be routed to each of the AUX outputs. After checking each monitor, reduce Henric level to the minimum because he shouldn't be in any of the monitors during the concert.

Microphones

To check each microphone:

1. Review the mixer setup sheet for whether the microphone requires phantom power. If yes, in Master Fader enable phantom power for the input.
2. Verify mic preamp gain is set sensibly.
3. Talk into or whack gently or otherwise make noise into the microphone. Verify mixer is seeing the signal in the correct input.
4. Check the microphone off in the setup sheet.

If mixer is not seeing any signal:

1. Check if phantom power is enabled.
2. Check other inputs - cable may have been connected to the wrong jack, commonly to one below the correct one (8 input positions over). If so, move the cable to the correct jack.
3. If the input is a "dodgy input" and the microphone is a dynamic type, perform the following dance:
   • Unplug the microphone.
   • Locate a condenser microphone, plug it in instead of the microphone being tested.
   • Enable phantom power in the mixer for the channel in question.
   • Disable phantom power.
   • Unplug the condenser microphone and plug in the original dynamic microphone.
4. Check if the microphone has an on/off switch, ensure the microphone is turned on.
5. XLR cable could be damaged/dead. Replace the cable.

Monitor Mixes

Initial monitor mix can be the same for all monitors and have the faders set in the middle for the piano, keyboard and each of the vocal solo mics.

The rhythm monitor mix is more about piano/keyboard than solo vocals, but some solo vocals there won't hurt. This mix can be proactively configured to have lower vocal fader positions.

I would think that for piano monitor the same would apply - piano should be more prominent than vocals - but I haven't received instructions to this effect so far.

For vocal solo and choir monitors, piano/keyboard and vocals need to be balanced. This is tricky because piano essentially always plays at the same volume and vocal volume varies with the songs and with the singers. See SoundIdeas#MonitorMixes for ideas to investigate. In the meantime, there are two options: send audio to monitor outputs pre-fader or post-fader. Last concert post-fader option was used, but I can't tell if it's actually better or choir can't tell the difference (or the difference exists but is not meaningfully quantifiable).