Sunday, November 14, 2010

Short video of Evelyn Kryger

I've uploaded a short video of the Evelyn Kryger concert to youtube. At the end, you can see the tablet used for mixing. The low end is lacking because of the not-so-great microphone of the camera.

Saturday, November 13, 2010

Second gig in Hamburg

Last weekend, we played in Hamburg for a small dancing crowd. We brought our own speakers, and of course the IDR32 and tablet. Setting things up was easy and quick, and doing sound was even simpler than the week before. This system is actually going to work out just fine :)

First gig at Folk'n'Fusion festival

Tablet
Our first gig with the ilive system was at the two-day folk'n'fusion festival in hildesheim, last week of October. The festival has a small bar-stage and a larger ballroom-stage, with many bands playing. We play here every year, and this year we started on the ballroom-stage on Friday, then played a concert for kids in the bar-stage on Saturday and finally played Saturday night again in the ballroom.



Normally, we spend much time on our sound check, and then some more time on writing down all mixing desk and outboard settings. This year was different, we brought the mixrack as part of our backline and just placed it on the stage. We also brought our own cabling and microphones and everything was pre-programmed. From the mixrack, an 8 channel snake carrying left, right and aux 1-4, connected our system to the house system. Initially, there was some ground-loop problem which is irritating. A 2-channel transform-box was inserted on left and right, and we found some channels on the house snake that has significantly less hum for the monitors. Gijs and Edwin performed some tests on Saturday to figure out whether just a cable without the ground connected, or a DI with ground lift could fix the problem. It turned out that both solutions were not really working. Perhaps this wasn't a ground problem, perhaps it something else. The house system had problems with phantom power not working on channels 17-32, so perhaps something else was really wrong.

Gijs working on the effects on the macbook
Our gigs were great. I just asked the band to play and used the tablet to set a room-mix (I always start with a rough room mix before doing monitors). All gain, channel-EQ, compression and gates were already programmed, so getting a main mix was easy. Then, I went on stage and fixed the monitors. This system is awesom :)

Mixrack on stage
Next to doing our own sound, I help the festival by running sound in the bar. This year, there was an GL2400 mixing desk which I've used for the friday bands. On Saturday, our mixrack was already downstars for the kid-concert of the Gonnagles, and I decided to just use this for the other bands this evening. Doing sound for bands you don't know on a tablet is a bit scary, but since there was enough time for soundcheck, everything was great. I had a chance to actually use test the system in a new situation with various bands I didn't knew. One band, Evelyn Kryger wrote about their experience:

 "Während der nette holländische Tontechniker (selbst Musiker bei den Gonnagles) mit uns Sound checkt, räkeln sich eine Handvoll Festivalbesucher auf alten Sofas. Alles wirkt ruhig und entspannt, nichts deutet auf das hin, was eine Viertelstunde später auf einmal losgeht: Der Raum füllt sich schlagartig, die Luftfeuchtigkeit steigt unaufhaltsam und der Lärmpegel ebenso. Dann geht es los und was in den nächsten 60 Minuten folgt ist der Wahnsinn!!!"

Translated to English: "While the friendly Dutch sound technician did our sound check, a handful of festival-goers lounged at the old sofas. Everything is relaxed and nothings indicates what happens next: suddenly, the room fills up, the humidity and noise level rise. Then 'es geht los' and 60 minutes of madness follow!".


Evelyn Kryger on tablet


There must have been a lot of people in the bar, and I had a hard time walking around with the tablet. But, I was able to get trough and do sound from many different locations with my tablet. It was a wonderful experience, doing sound for (i guess) 200 people using nothing more than a tablet and pen. One thing was a bit scary: at one point the wireless connection dropped (I tested the 5ghz network, which is not ideal for going through a lot of human bodies) and I had to wait almost 2 minutes to reconnect to the ilive. Those seconds were very scary, but nobody noticed a thing. At any time, my normal laptop was connected to the mixrack using a cable, so I could have made my way to the stage and change things from there during those 2 minutes.

Evelyn Kryger in the bar

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Big soundcheck day

Last Sunday, we had our big soundcheck day. We had access to a nice room with a stage to tweak and play with our system and spend the first few hours on individual instruments: what microphone, where exactly to place this, and the initial settings (pre-amp, EQ, compression) for that channel on the IDR. In the afternoon, all Gonnagles went on stage and played for about on hour.

Setting up the total mix was a breeze, since the individual channels are already set up. Also, setting up the monitor mixes is easy: just walk on stage with the table and set the levels :)

Some things that bothered me are:
  • sometimes, the ilive editor displays the message: system busy. You have to wait a few seconds before you can do anything
  • when an editor connects, the already connected editors and PL10 are very very slow
  • when an editor fails (network failure), the other editors and PL10 don't respond for almost a minute
  • the 5ghz wireless network is not really good though walls


I've uploaded our show file here, which contains all our settings and such. For now, we have just 3 monitor mixes (1: left, 2: right, 3: guitar).

Raising the stage
IDR32 rack

IDR32, PL10, Tablet, Macbook

Stage

Gijs mixing

Frank and Gijs relaxing at FOH

Side-stage

Normal view

Marijn and Moes

Violin Tree

Gijs checking the harp

Frank mixing

Frank mixing again

Dennis and Moes

Monday, October 4, 2010

First test with violin

Today, one of our violin players visited me and we had a chance to try out some different positions of the violin microphone (DPA 4099) and set the EQ just right for this instrument.

I'll post pictures of different positions and accompanying audio clips when I get the chance.

Tuesday, September 28, 2010

The quest for the best case

Finding a suitable case for the IDR32 is important. The case should house the IDR32, the PL10, the wireless router and a 5m-8way XLR snake for connecting to the house system. For the case, we have some requirements:

  • Size is a big issue for us, the smaller it is the better. We want to really push the limits on keeping this as small as possible. Not only for transportation, but also for the space it consumes on stage. Often, there is not all too much space since we are already with 10-12 people on stage. For easy of transportation, a pull-out handle and 2 wheels would be really nice. Also, the IDR32 is only 25 cm deep, so shallow cases are best.
  • Setup-time is the second requirement. The system should be set up within seconds. Most festival-like gigs we do, there is sound-check time in the afternoon and in the evening we have change-overs of 15 minutes. Sometimes, we'll be able to leave this case on stage and sometimes we'll have to remove it from stage. A short setup-time is therefor important.
  • Safety is the third requirement. The equipment is expensive (for us) and it is basically a computer. This means that should handle it with care. If it is possible to buy a case that provides better protection, this would be nice.

The first question to answer is: do we want 6U or 8U? Using a 6U system is certainly good with regard to the size, but having an 8U system allows us to include a power conditioner and move all connectors to the front using an 8 hole 1U plate. The front could then include: powercon in, powercon out, some ethernet ports, 3 antenna's and 1 XLR for a light. The power cable and the XLR snake could be stored in the front lid, the PL10 in the back lid. Setting up the system would consist of removing the front and back lids, connecting the power cable, connecting the XLR snake and connecting the PL10. For the 6U system, this means that the router (attached to the back) will also need to be connected to the front and we lose the power conditioner and the light. We can mount a power strip to the back rail, with a 5m power cord. This means we have 1 extra thing to do: connect the ethernet cable from the router in the back to the front of the IDR32. Also, we'll need access to the back of the rack when we connect a laptop.

We have found the following products that could work:



Picture Brand Model Rack height Rack depth LxWxH Weight
SKB Standard 6U Effects Rack 6U 40cm 55.88 54.61 33.02 6.67kg
SKB 6U Ultimate Strength Series Roto Rack 6U 43.18cm 6.76kg
SKB 6U Roto Rolling Rack 6U 47.63cm 62.23 60.96 35.56 8.89kg
SKB 6U Roll-X Rack Case 6U 44.45cm 55.25 62.87 35.56 7.33kg
SKB Standard 8U Effects Rack 8U 40cm 55.88 54.61 41.91 7.51kg
SKB 8U Ultimate Strength Series Roto Rack 8U 43.18cm 6.78kg
SKB 8U Roto Rolling Rack 8U 47.63cm 62.23 62.23 45.72 12.49kg
Gator G-PRO-6U-19 6U 48.26 54.61 53.72 34.29 15.00 pounds
Gator G-PROR-6U-19 6U 48.26 55.88 53.72 34.29 18.00 pounds
Gator G-PRO-8U-19 8U 48.26 54.61 53.72 43.18 18.00 pounds
Gator G-PROR-8U-19 8U 48.26 55.88 53.72 43.18 21.00 pounds
Gator GR-6S 6U 37.47 44.45 54.61 33.02 13.00 pounds
Gator GR-6L 6U 48.90 57.79 54.61 33.02 14.00 pounds
Gator GRR-6L 6U 48.90 58.42 56.49 33.02 18.00 pounds
Gator GR-8L 8U 48.90 57.79 54.61 41.91 17.00 pounds
Gator GRR-8L 8U 48.90 58.42 57.78 41.91 20.00 pounds
Gator GTOUR EFX6 6U 38.10 57.79 58.42 33.02 28.67 pounds
Gator GTOUR EFX8 8U 38.10 57.79 58.42 15.25" 32.37 pounds
Boschma 6U HE Rack 6U 45cm 53.5 62.0 37.5 7kg
Boschma 8U HE Rack 8U 45cm 53.5 62.0 46.5 8.3kg
Bespoke 6U Rack Case 6U 30cm
Bespoke 8U Rack Case 8U 30cm


(sorry for the bad layout)

Sunday, September 26, 2010

Network bandwidth

Before deciding on the wireless access point to buy, it is useful to have some idea of required the network bandwidth. The IDR32 and ilive editor communicate using TCP/IP, and I installed ntop to get some information about the data thoughput.

In this graph, I started the ilive editor around 17:00. You will see a small peak of 1.4 Mbit/s while the editor receives the configuration and all other information from the IDR32. After this, there is a steady stream of 1.2Mbit/s. This steady stream does not depend on the number of channels actually receiving input, as I started with feeding 10 channels into the IDR and I stopped this from 17:07.

This information tells me that any network connection that we use must be able to sustain 1.4 Mbit/s. Hopefully, this will help us in making a decision on the wireless networking technology to use.