Creating headphone mixes on an ATB

[Fletcher]

When I've done that I've assigned Aux 5-6 to monitors... done my monitor balance on the monitor section... sent it out to Aux 5-6 and been done with it. If I need an additional "more me" cue mix I'll create a mix on one or two of the other aux busses that looks similar to the one I created with 5-6 and let the person on the other end of the mix tell me what they'd like more or less of... OR... I'll run the 2 mix out to the stereo input on the Langevin "personal Q" [or whatever the fvck that thing is called] and shoot other sounds out to the thing either via a mult off the tracking busses or though the aux sends and let them do their own damn mix and leave me alone to what I need to do.

I used to be a monitor engineer for a lot of years... shitty work on a lot of levels... though my favorite joke from that occupation was always: Q: What's the difference between a monitor engineer and a toilet seat? A: Toilet seat only has to listen to one asshole at a time.

Food for thought? 4 mixes? Shoot me.

[crypticglobe]

They had to leave off some of the fancy stuff to keep the price that low. :(

Can you not use your DAW to create headphone mixes?

[mmcfarlane]

Originally Posted by Fletcher

...
Food for thought? 4 mixes? Shoot me.

I used to only use 1 headphone mix but it's not that bad, at least on my digital board, to do 4. Sometimes I'll tack up to 9 simultaneous singers on their own mics and its pretty hard to get everyone happy with one mix. I just do a rough mix on one aux and copy it to the others, then quickly solo each channel and do a quick 'more me' fix, maybe a little more kck and snare for the bass player,.. Only takes a few minutes to setup and with the digital board I get total recall on a subsequent session.

I'm liking my 01v96 more and more. Maybe the ATB is a bad idea for the way I like to work. Digital re-patching of preamps, outboard, pretty much everything is pretty convenient although I need an excuse to get out of my chair every now and then.

Maybe there is an 02R in my future instead of new converters and an ATB

[mmcfarlane]

Originally Posted by crypticglobe

They had to leave off some of the fancy stuff to keep the price that low. :(

Can you not use your DAW to create headphone mixes?

For me at least soloing headhone mixes isn't too fancy, but I understand your point.

Running the live instruments through the DAW introduces a mandatory latency in the live instruments due the the A/D/A conversion and driver buffer settings. Even if the driver was a theoretical 0 latency there is still latency in the converters (although probably negligable in this application)

In my experience different people have different tolerances for how much latency they can tolerate in live performance. Ever take a walk out into a concert venue with a wireless transmitter? It's a real hoot to try to play in time when your even 30 feet from the backline.

I'd prefer to avoid any monitoring latency if possible, but a few ms latency is probably OK for most musicians. I'll have to do some tests to see what I can really tolerate.

My current setup has a really high latency that makes monitoring unusable through the DAW. New converters and a new interface card would improve this.

[Fletcher]

Originally Posted by mmcfarlane

Sometimes I'll tack up to 9 simultaneous singers on their own mics and its pretty hard to get everyone happy with one mix.

9 singers on individual mics?

Ouch!!!!

I've done things like 9-10 singers on two mics... with one or two "section leaders" in headphones and the rest working together in the room sans cans... but don't think I will ever find myself in a situation where I will ever have 9 people singing at the same time with their own mics unless they're on a stage somewhere and it's a necessary evil... or there is a split off to a monitor engineer who can focus on doing 9 separate mixes while I can focus on getting 9 different and acceptable vocal sounds at the same time without undue bleed or phase anomalies.

[warhead]

Mark, you could always grab a small headphone mixer amp (example Mackie HMX56 which is supposed to start shipping again soon, I own one of these) and patch in 6 aux sends to it with one main stereo and four mono "more me" sends. During tracking you could just send say 5-6 as the stereo cue mix and if the bass player says he wants more bass then simply reach for that channel and turn up "1" as bass for example. It's a pretty fast / easy way to take care of the more-me-ers. You could have bass / drum / vocal / guitar for example each on its own aux to mix in with no latency on the fly.

As much as I'd like to say it's not necessary as you can get away with a single cue mix, it seems somebody always needs more of something!

Mackie - HMX-56

War

[mmcfarlane]

Originally Posted by warhead

Mark, you could always grab a small headphone mixer amp (example Mackie HMX56 which is supposed to start shipping again soon, I own one of these) ...

Ya, I have tossed the idea of this device around a bit. If I get one I think I might put it in the middle of the tracking room, send some stems to it and tell the musicians to 'have at it'. I wish it had 12 input channels, say 6 for live and 6 for pre-recorded stuff.

I guess I am spoiled by my current 01V96 having 32 channels feed 8 auxes and total recall. I used to do (live) monitor mixes with separate EQ/compression/gates for each channel but it was too much work.

9 singers on individual mics?

Ouch!!!!...

I, the recording hobbiest, usually work on time-constrained projects with non-professional musicians and vocalists. For example, 3 nights ago I tracked 5 songs in 2 hours from the time the doorbell rang until everyone was packed up and out the door. I setup before people show up and often use a 'live', 1-take workflow.

Besides time constraints, here's my other 'necessary evil' for 9 mics: Sometimes it's very helpful to have the ability to make a voice or two 'disappear' from the final mix, or at least during the serious mistakes.

Yep, it's not the ideal, professional way to do things. Nevertheless I find myself working this way frequently.

I work similarly in live sound. If someone isn't quite hiting it I back them off a bit. The drummer can't do steady 8's on the hats? back it off. The Kick and bass aren't in sync, back off the guy screwing up. If it's the lead singer, well, you're in the deep stuff, but I'd rather have someone say 'i can't hear the singer very well' rather than 'that singer really sucks and this song hurts my ears'. The worse they sing/play the softer they are in the mix.

Do most people just do one or two headphone mixes?

[warhead]

You will create more problems if you allow all of those people to mix their own headphones. That's a whole lesson you have to teach also which would kill your workflow! Just adjust from your position as necessary would be my suggestion. Having a device like that out by the performers is confusion.

War

[mmcfarlane]

While speaking of headphone mixes, does someone make a prosumer level headphone "mic-stand hanger with a volume pot on it"?

How about just a passive stereo inline volume pot with 1/4" TRS in and out?

[mmcfarlane]

Originally Posted by moracspace

Always send aux 1 and 2 for cue.Never had a problem with needing more than 1 cue mix.If a player needs more of them self, I direct inject there signal to there cans.

Are you using a headphone amp with a stereo cue mix input and a second input on each channel for 'more me'?

Where do you get the 'more me' direct inject signal from, passively splitting the direct out of their tracking channel?

[Croaker]

Originally Posted by warhead

Mark, you could always grab a small headphone mixer amp (example Mackie HMX56 which is supposed to start shipping again soon, I own one of these) and patch in 6 aux sends to it with one main stereo and four mono "more me" sends. During tracking you could just send say 5-6 as the stereo cue mix and if the bass player says he wants more bass then simply reach for that channel and turn up "1" as bass for example. It's a pretty fast / easy way to take care of the more-me-ers. You could have bass / drum / vocal / guitar for example each on its own aux to mix in with no latency on the fly.

Mackie - HMX-56

War

War is right about this.thumbsup
I also use a small headphone mixer amp too. I send it a stereo mix off Aux 5-6 from the toft and inject (bass, guitars, vocals, or whatever from assigned busses) so the players can have their own mix to taste. Works like a charm.

Originally Posted by warhead

You will create more problems if you allow all of those people to mix their own headphones. That's a whole lesson you have to teach also which would kill your workflow! Just adjust from your position as necessary would be my suggestion. Having a device like that out by the performers is confusion.

War

It was different for me. After I got a basic cue mix set up I let one member of the band near the headphone mixer be responsible for giving each person whatever they wanted in their mix(more bass, less vocal etc). The key is to have one person do it. In my situation the guitar player had no problem doing this.
There were only 4 players in the room though.
I labeled the mixer so it was easy to do. I found that once the mixes got set up there was very little adjusting after that. It works great for recording a band live in one room and I could concentrate on the recording. I guess it comes down to how many people you have and if they are comfortable tweaking their own mixes. Either way it works. Good luck.

aloha

[dan p]

HAppy New Year! I too have encountered issues with the headphone mix.What i did was get a Cheap headphone amp,Mine is fostex with six stereo headphone jacks on it.I run Straight off of the stereo headphone jack above right of the Stereo bus with a trs chord that feeds into the fostex that way my gtr player can play with reverb while hes tracking without the reverb getting printed.Same is true for any vocalist i record as well.A cheap and inexpensive way to deal with headphone issue here.My studio is a project studio,so anything else bigger i need to go somewhere else.Hope that is another suggestion for you.Good Luck!


Dan P

[warhead]

Speaking of making reverb available, that Mackie unit also has an fx send and return for each channel. Snag a little cheap Alesis verb box and leave it setup for no latency no fuss no muss monitoring for vocalists who want to hear reverb (I don't know about you guys but the only effect requests I ever get while tracking are for reverb to help add the sense of "being there" in the mix).

War

[Croaker]

Originally Posted by warhead

Speaking of making reverb available, that Mackie unit also has an fx send and return for each channel. Snag a little cheap Alesis verb box and leave it setup for no latency no fuss no muss monitoring for vocalists who want to hear reverb (I don't know about you guys but the only effect requests I ever get while tracking are for reverb to help add the sense of "being there" in the mix).

War

yes, the box I have has the same thing. OZ q-mix, didnt Mackie take them over?

[warhead]

I think so, but never investigated really...!

War

[Liquid Caravan]

Old thread, I know.. but here is my solution. I run a single stereo cue mix from Aux 5-6 out to a Presonus HP4 headphone amplifier. I run the headphone amp L-R outputs to the Toft ATB "2TK 2 RET" unbalanced input using an insert cable. the Toft 2TK returns are wired:

Sleeve - Earth
Tip - Right
Ring - Left

So I plug in the tip and ring insert cable accordingly. This method allows me to monitor a single stereo cue mix with one button.

The other method I tried was to route the headphone amp L-R returns to a pair of subgroup monitor inputs. The downside to this method is you have to hit "solo" and "tape" for both subgroup channels which gets annoying. you also use up a valuable subgroup pair.

The Toft comes with two "2TK" returns. I suppose these could both be used for stereo cue mixes if you monitor your DAW final 2buss returns using a pair of solo'd channels with the EQ's bypassed.