PA job :)

Whoever is interested, here’s a link to explain ground loops.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ground_loop_(electricity)

I don’t go near electricity without these, but that’s just me.

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I run a PA company. My mixer is an X18 (exactly the same as the XR18 except the aux outs are TRS not XLR).

There is some good stuff on the thread already but some of it I disagree with, some of it is unnecessary and is just going to make your head buzz, and some is just plain bad advice.

To answer your question:
The XR18 is a fully capable USB audio interface. You can control the mixer with virtually anything - phone, tablet, PC, while multi-track recording. You can record to the same PC that is being used mixing, no problem, but just remember that if you no redundancy (like a spare laptop for example) you are in deep trouble if the PC goes down.

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Hey AJ,

Well, I don’t mind if there is to much or unnecessary, as long as it makes me think :slight_smile: I’m pretty good in filtering out what is usefull to me or not. Since I saw that youtube video on the routing of the xr18 I wasn’t worried anymore :). Just gotta practice a bit to get used to the interface, and the rest of the gear they have therre to my disposal. The 26th I have my first gig, but I’m not gonna fidle around with recording yet. The day after I got a band to practice with, so I can get to the bottom of it.

Greetings

Yeah there are a lot of generalisations in there, based on the fact its a "low level’ gig with THAT Bose rig. As for the head buzz thing, well ya gotta start somewhere. I also haven’t used that mixer.

Maybe for something a bit bigger, things might change. But feel free to add something useful AJ, its all good.

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There’s nothing wrong with being in-Klein-ed toward safety. :wink:

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I will say that I have both of those safety devices, and they both - mine is a WIHA, not a Klein - have worked well for me… but one of them (the ‘pen’ stick /voltage tester) is also called the ‘death stick’ in electrical circles (as they are designed to be a guide, not a guarantee of safety).

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vtr

41m

“I will say that I have both of those safety devices, and they both - mine is a WIHA, not a Klein - have worked well for me… but one of them (the ‘pen’ stick /voltage tester) is also called the ‘death stick’ in electrical circles (as they are designed to be a guide, not a guarantee of safety)”

Good point. A quality multi tester and a thorough knowledge of the components being handled and the general principles of electricity is the best protection. You’ve probably heard the story about the talented young electrical engineer who electrocuted himself trying to wire an oven. Could be true.

So I guess I can throw you a bone, as @AJ is not forthcoming with any cool suggestions as yet, so heres a simple 3 piece live recording I did a while back, I mixed this on an analog desk after the gig. There WAS a proper video guy there, but I never managed to get in touch with him after. There is no free instruction manual on recording this stuff… if you have a better way, please just share it.

So the video just came from somebodys phone (that I found online).

Anyway, I did have stereo condenser room mics facing the audience - which are pretty loud in the mix…

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You (OP) are inexperienced in mixing live gigs. Unless you are some sort of super-human, your head will be on fire for the whole gig. You will be desperately trying to deal with issues throughout the set (there is no ‘Control + Z’ in a live performance), and trying your best to make it sound good. The recording aspect will hardly even register in your mind while the gig is on, so don’t set your expectations too high. Aim to get out the other side in one piece, there will always be another day.

You will not have any option to ‘save’ during the gig, unless you decide to use a huge USB cable run all the way to your mixing position from the stage, because the XR18 will be on stage (it is basically the stage box), physically connected to the recording PC, while you will be FOH. So unless the band is cool about you wandering on stage occasionally to save the recording, set it and forget it.

Don’t record at 48kHz. The band is highly unlikely to use a 48kHz recording, which means there will be a conversion at some point, which means a loss in quality (you don’t need 48kHz for video). Record at 44.1kHz, then there is less likely to be any sample rate conversion at any stage. Certainly record at a depth of 24 bits - it will not do any harm.

Watch your input levels. In my experience the input levels that work well for live sound are often too high for recording, so keep the levels (gains) as low as you can i.e. without having to take the faders to the limit in order to compensate.

EQ
Your query was about recording, not live, but honestly, I would ignore anything that has been said about EQ. Certainly HPF most channels (i.e. not kick or bass) to 100hz but after that, there are so many variables that you can only make EQ decisions at any given moment in history. Making pre-emptive cuts and boosts is folly.

If you do nothing else, do this, it will make the biggest improvement to your live sound: Download a spectrum analyzer app to your phone and observe it from your FOH position. This will give you a big clue as to how to EQ the master faders (i.e. the 2-bus) so that you can ‘tune the room’. (HINT: flatten any obvious big spikes).

You may be surprised what the XR18 can do in terms of recording, I think it is massive value for money. Here’s a recording using my X18 - you can see the laptop on the stage floor to the right of the drums.

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Thanks mate :slight_smile:

About the EQing. Do you take sort of the same approach at it like when mixing. I mean when it comes down to surtain regions. Like the cardboard zone of guitars btween 500-900 and the flatness region on drums between 600-800, stuff like that ? Coulen’t it be helpful to do a bit of presetting on those, so you just have to adjust a bit ?

I’m gonna focus on the live sound at the beginning ofcourse. Gonna use a laptop for that on FOH position, and gonna but my pc somewhere behind the drummer then I gues for recordings, and just focus if my input gain is sort of ok. Gonna take some time figuring out the routing stuff I gues, but on the video it looked pretty simple. Hope its like that while using multiple devices.

I read somewhere on a forum, people having problems not getting all tracks in, and it had to do with an asio driver that he didn’t have installed. I already have asio driver installed for cubase-stuff, does this mean I’m good, or not necessaraly ? Cause I tried installing the latest asio driver I could find on the behringer site, but it could not install due to some windows updates missing. But I gues you understand why I don’t want to go and start updating windows :smiley: You think this is gonna be a problem ? Ofcourse I will find out when I get there (and I’ll have some extra time to trouble shoot) but if there was a possibillity to know this beforehand, would be usefull :smiley:

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This is just recorded in my livingroom in front of a set of speakers playing a dream theater track. Are there some peaks big enough you would considder attenuating if you got this kind of a reading live or doe they have to be bigger?

My gues would be not realy, but just checking :smiley:

Once you have learned what your PA generally sounds like, you can do some basic EQ like this beforehand, especially if you are always going to be in the same venue, as you say, and especially if you find that you tend to make the same adjustments to the same instruments, regardless of the band.

Keep in mind, though, nobody really cares too much what the guitars, drums, keyboards actually sound like, so don’t spend too much time EQ-ing them. Their individual levels in the mix are far more important than their actual sound. For EQ, focus on the lead vocal. Everybody in the room wants to hear the vocals, loud, proud and clear as a bell, so make them your priority. If the room is small, with some bands you will invariably have issues with cymbals and guitars on stage being too loud, which means talking to the individual band members about it. Good luck with that one!

But I will say again: get the vocals right. Not just sounding nice, but sounding louder in the mix than anything else in the vocal frequency range i.e. guitars, snare/cymbals/keyboards etc. Take everything else out of the PA if you have to.

If it works normally for you, then yes. As far as Cuebase is concerned, the XR18 is just another audio interface, so as long as Cuebase can see it, and you can select channels to record, you’re good to go.

I would bite the bullet and update windows.

I’d definitey have a go at that. I’d try a scoop at 500Hz - 1kHz, and I’d defnitely try calming down that 2kHz stuff. 2kHz seems to be a very common build-up area. Not only does it sound really crap, but it’s an easy fix.
Most rooms have that 100Hz - ish peak too. Amongst other things, it makes the bass guitar sound really honky instead of really bassy, so I’ve always calmed it down - often drastically - and I’ve never been disappointed with the result.

The EQ on the XR18 - in my estimation - is only a 12db thing, so even if you pull a frequency totally down, the effect is not as drastic as it looks. I have a separate graphic on my master faders as an insert, so that if a really stubborn frequency won’t move, I can apply another 12db of cut in exactly the same area.

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Yes, thats useful, as you now know there is a ‘spike’ @ 129Hz and 344Hz, there is also a little one @ 2K and a little dip @5 KHz, these are either potential feedback areas or ‘dead spots’ you may want to add back in - If instruments are muddy in the low mids, start by cutting around this region (344Hz) to see if that helps. Most rooms are DIRTY in the low mids, its just the nature of the beast.

Low bass may be trimmed if its getting a bit wooly but generally I’d leave a little in to help the bass and kick drum down there, and its always going to look different with people in the room… Note that 120Hz is one of the Kick Drum freq’s I generally arbitrarily trim anyway as its harmonically related to the kick drum fundamental. However, take note of what it does to the bass guitar (when he plays a low A, B or C note), ive even been known to adjust a loud bass note on the amp itself if there is a little graphic eq there.

But I find, in unknown venues, what I do on a mixer often negates any preset curves on the house system (go figure) so I generally only use the big FOH graphic EQs for a couple of (lead vocal only) feedback frequencies or leave them flat nowadays… with the exception that most subs are widly out of control, and the crossovers are set too high (for my liking) so I sometimes trim their response there. If the Bose bins are too loud, just trim them on the back of the cabinet (if possible).

Thanks for the vid (and the input) @AJ - but Im sticking with my beloved 24bit, 48kHz :wink:

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i just realised you cant press record or save between sets from your ipad/ wifi remote! that sucks, im used to just plugging in a hard drive (on the Mackie version) directly into the ‘stage box’ and pressing record /stop from my seat.

I need to build a wifi remote control to fix that, lol. Probably sell a ton of them :slight_smile:

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You could possibly do it using Teamviewer.

BTW, the XR18 (and x18) has a very poor integral router. It WILL let you down, guaranteed, and that is a scary thing to happen in the middle of a gig. Virtually all XR18/X18 owners use an external router.

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Good point, that reminds me that I always used an Apple router on the Mackie as the cheap ones were always hit and miss. Nothing like 300 cellphones in the room/near vicinity to make you hate your life when it comes to wifi mixing - 2.4 GHz will give you the distance, 5GHz will give you the bandwidth… pick your poison :slight_smile:

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Go for a dual band router, and choose 5gHz every time. For the moment, 5gHz is not really used by mobile phones so you are not likely to get kicked off the router. The advantages of 2.4gHz are irrelevant if you can’t acually stay logged on to the router. Place the router high up so that your remote device can ‘see’ it.

Further redundancy: always have a long CAT 5 cable to hand which you can use as a ‘multicore’ in case you have unresolvable connection issues.

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word :beerbanger:

love how you casually told the OP all that 3 hrs before his first gig :slight_smile:

edit…

and to the OP… record EVERYTHING that you can - we can only help you dissect it (mistakes is where its at).
We might also even be able to tell you how to fix any mic placement - so record EVERYTHING first… and then ask your questions.

Ive made mistakes in ‘professional’ recordings for well known bands (in my mind) so dont feel bad, it takes awhile.

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Can you use any router for that ?