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.

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

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

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.

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)

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.

Latency of the system

A digital system always has some latency. On a forum, someone questioned the use of digital mixing desks because of the latency that is added by the system. Although my experience tells me that the latency is really small, it is always a good idea to measure it.

For this test, I downloaded the 'test tone generator' software an ran this from the tablet. The headphone-output of the tablet is split to two XLRs: one going in the IDR32, the other going in a two channel USB pre-amp. Then, a cable is connected between output 1 of the IDR32 and the second input of the USB pre-amp. Using Audacity, it is possible to capture the exact delay added by the IDR32.


The latency turns out to be 1.2 ms (or 53 samples at 44100 samples a second). This is equivalent to time it takes sound to travel 41 cm through the air. I think this latency is very acceptable for live sound, but things might be different when using in ear monitoring.


(BTW, the gain of the pre-amp was not matched, this is only a test on timing).

PL10 working

I tested the PL10 device, and it works brilliantly. Using the 8 rotary knobs, you can control the levels of your channels, the aux sends for each channel etc. The 16 push knobs at the top allow you to select different scenes. For now, just a picture showing the levels for the first 8 channels on the tablet and on the PL10.

One problem I found was that when the tablet is unplugged, the PL10 stops responding for almost a minute. This is a problem since I planned to use the PL10 as backup in case the tablet has some problem. I've been told that A&H is aware of this problem and is working really hard on fixing it.

Soon, I'll do some digging around on the network protocols to see what is actually happening on the cables.

Poor man's multitrack

A while ago, I wanted the ability to practice mixing without a band present. Normally you would buy a nice multi-output for your computer (or go digitally, for example with MADI) and connect that to your mixing desk. There are many expensive solutions for this, and I settled for a very cheap one.

Buying two cheap USB 5.1 channel sound devices, I now have 12 outputs (14 including the outputs of my macbook pro). These outputs are minijack, so using minijack to 2x XLR I can connect to the mixing desk.

Very cheap USB 5.1 Audio Devices

Minijack to 2x XLR

Combining the two usb devices in one aggregated device

In Mac OS X, there is a nice feature called aggregate devices (in Audio MIDI setup). An aggregate devices allows you to tie multiple sound devices together. Using this, I create a virtual sound device with 4 inputs and 12 outputs.




Next I installed Ardour and Jackpilot. This open source 'digital audio workstation' allows me to load my tracks and play them to the different outputs I have. With this, I have my poor man's multitrack output for less than 100 euro's. Such a system is unsuitable for real use, but allows me to play around with the IDR32 without a band present.

Jack Pilot

Ardour

The complete setup

It works!