Signal Splitting question

[MicDaddy]

@ ~$50 a pop I could buy a new console with much more economic efficiency than building say a 10channel splitter using those Jensen's.

With a splitter there is the additional gear to be lugged around, racks, cables, not to mention needing an additional preamp for each channel to be captured.

For anybody that is splitting signals, are you using isolated outs for both FOH and recording, or using trafo isolated side only for FOH and direct out for recording? Do your signals suffer (high-end, low-end) from passing through the additional iron?

[Jim vanBergen]

Would you buy a Porsche, Mercedes, BMW or other high end car then and use lousy gas, cheap oil, and the cheapest tires from Sears?

Unless you are working in ONE venue with ONE FOH mixer who agrees to your scenario, you will most likely find that you're going to spend some $ building your insert cables to find that no one will let you use them. If that's the case, you'll prefer putting up your own mics.

For those of us who use splitters (most if not all of us) - the decision on who is DIRECT and who is ISO is always a question. If you're a guest walking into a venue, the existing system gets the direct as seeing the transformers WILL make small changes in impedance and will affect the sound of a live show, especially if it's classical music, opera, or Broadway where the sound is VERY specific, and unlike R&B, pop, or rock and roll where much of the nuances can be lost in a loud live show.

I've been surprised when some venues don't mind getting the iso side or a good transformer so that the truck can provide phantom on their audience mics as well as added mics we might want for capture of a live show.

When you use decent transformers (such as Jensen or Lundahl) it's no problem to record and mix from a transformer-isolated position. I just did this with a theatrical recording with lots of detail, great high & low frequency- no loss, no regrets!

Steve Remote has a famous quote, that is something along the lines of:
Buy the best transformers you can buy, because you never know when you'll be mixing through them!

Hope this helps. Good luck.

Originally Posted by MicDaddy

@ ~$50 a pop I could buy a new console with much more economic efficiency than building say a 10channel splitter using those Jensen's.

With a splitter there is the additional gear to be lugged around, racks, cables, not to mention needing an additional preamp for each channel to be captured.

For anybody that is splitting signals, are you using isolated outs for both FOH and recording, or using trafo isolated side only for FOH and direct out for recording? Do your signals suffer (high-end, low-end) from passing through the additional iron?

[studiotogo]

Ran across this link. I don't have experience with them, but they look interesting...

Welcome to TheLoudest.co.uk - XLR Splitters (pack of 4)

[MicDaddy]

Originally Posted by Jim vanBergen

Would you buy a Porsche, Mercedes, BMW or other high end car then and use lousy gas, cheap oil, and the cheapest tires from Sears?

*busting balls disclaimer

Gee, if I had a dollar for every $30 Boss, Pyle, or MXR pedal in the signal path after any decent guitar.....

Unless you are working in ONE venue with ONE FOH mixer who agrees to your scenario, you will most likely find that you're going to spend some $ building your insert cables to find that no one will let you use them. If that's the case, you'll prefer putting up your own mics.

Yes I absolutely agree with you, my previous post laid out that I am working both FOH and would be facilitating the field recording.

I wouldn't dream of patching ANYTHING into another man's(or woman's) console. I've never been put in a situation to have to ask, but I'd sure not want to. It'd be about as insulting as asking the FOH guy to borrow his wife during the second set..."hey buddy you don't care if I patch this here do you?" No thanks

[hbphotoav]

Originally Posted by MicDaddy

*busting balls disclaimer

Gee, if I had a dollar for every $30 Boss, Pyle, or MXR pedal in the signal path after any decent guitar.....

The difference, of course, being that the distortion and "personality" added by the $30 pedal is precisely what the guitarist thinks he wants...

[ebulb]

Originally Posted by jude

I would (and have done) the same!

You have encountered people with insert Y splitter cables to sniff a send to a recorder ?

I'll assume you put the kaibosh on their idea because you were concerned it would cause problems with your ability to mix FOH ? If thats correct what were you concerned about exactly ? Did you try the connections before you made the decision ? Also do you work in house at a venue or own your own PA ? Either way, do you let support acts use their own sound person ?

[jitterybit]

Also, levels may be an issue on both sides. You are either setting level at FOH for the recorder and maybe running out of fader for your mix while raising the noise floor; or you set the levels for the live mix and risk clipping the recorder. Also, loosing some volume from the unbalanced connection. An option would be to use some passive trim devices, but at that point why not go the tranfo/mic pre route....

[jitterybit]

here's a question, what model console is in the venue?

[ebulb]

Originally Posted by jitterybit

Also, levels may be an issue on both sides. You are either setting level at FOH for the recorder and maybe running out of fader for your mix while raising the noise floor; or you set the levels for the live mix and risk clipping the recorder. Also, loosing some volume from the unbalanced connection. An option would be to use some passive trim devices, but at that point why not go the tranfo/mic pre route....

when you take direct outs you rely on FOH levels for your recorder also so its the same thing.. The main purpose of this idea is to get a more direct signal than many direct out consoles provide. Many of them you recieve direct out post insert and EQ so your recording suffers at the hands of the FOH engineer and believe me there are MANY of them that dont know how to setup kick drum or tom gates to save themselves.

With a Y cable the level for the insert would be reduced but its ultimately driven by the gain pot on the channel so in most circumstances you just increase that slightly to compensate.

The reason behind why i was even considering this in the first place is mainly this..

Sometimes when you are recording a support act its often hard to organise your splitters on stage when you have no run of the soundcheck etc. Thats not always a problem but sometimes it can be.. So when it is an issue it means you are left to use a direct out (thats presuming the desk even has direct outputs which isnt always the case). Direct out is ok if its pre EQ and insert but if its not then you you are in trouble with gates as i mentioned and also EQ changes happpening through your recording. in this scenario your recording can turn into a dogs breakfast and almost not even worth doing..

So when you have a young band wanting to recod this big support slot they scored with a touring band you can either turn down the whole thing and knock back income or you can try and find a way of still being able to record without your stage splitters.. I'll still choose the stage split first time everytime but ive actually had a few scenarios like ive just mentioned where i couldnt use splitters, so ive been trying to find a way of still being able to recod under those conditions without getting a horrible direct out signal.

[jude]

Originally Posted by ebulb

You have encountered people with insert Y splitter cables to sniff a send to a recorder ?

I'll assume you put the kaibosh on their idea because you were concerned it would cause problems with your ability to mix FOH ? If thats correct what were you concerned about exactly ? Did you try the connections before you made the decision ? Also do you work in house at a venue or own your own PA ? Either way, do you let support acts use their own sound person ?

last thing first, yes. support acts are welcome to bring their own engineer.
FOH is for the audience's enjoyment. anything that may cause channels to drop out (ie bodgy home made insert/direct out addapters) are less welcome than door to door sales people.

i have worked as a house engineer and also touring, running other peoples rigs

[Jim vanBergen]

Originally Posted by MicDaddy

Yes I absolutely agree with you, my previous post laid out that I am working both FOH and would be facilitating the field recording.

My apologies.

appreciate your patience while I demonstrate my age and forgetfulness by not re-reading the ENTIRE thread before adding posts.

[ebulb]

Originally Posted by jude

last thing first, yes. support acts are welcome to bring their own engineer.
FOH is for the audience's enjoyment. anything that may cause channels to drop out (ie bodgy home made insert/direct out addapters) are less welcome than door to door sales people.

i have worked as a house engineer and also touring, running other peoples rigs

So if you plug it in at soundcheck and it works and causes no problems at all, you would be paranoid to use it at the gig because you are worried it might drop out ??

What if the bands engineer brings his own FX to insert, something in his rack could cause a drop out, do you stop him plugging things in to save the audience from certain death ? Or what if the bands engineer brought these insert cables and went ahead and used them, do you step in and interject even though everything line checks ok ?

Id say you think its "bodgy" because you havent seen it before and you possibly dont understand exactly whats going on.. As far as signal flow goes its no different to any desk with pre insert/EQ direct outputs, nothing is going to explode..

I can also tell you for a fact there are a lot more bodgy practises going on with most venues that i visit.. I lost count the amount of bad channels on a consoles and stage boxes i have seen that just dont get fixed, or mic cables that half work, or bad speaker jacks on foldbacks.. Not to mention power points falling apart ready to zap someone etc. Thats all fine i guess, just dont dare bring an insert cable we havent heard of before..

[jude]

Originally Posted by ebulb

So if you plug it in at soundcheck and it works and causes no problems at all, you would be paranoid to use it at the gig because you are worried it might drop out ??

If you bothered to show up early, without this attitude, then sure id have it a try and see if it works. come in and tell the house engineer how to do their job and expect some attitude.

Originally Posted by ebulb

What if the bands engineer brings his own FX to insert, something in his rack could cause a drop out, do you stop him plugging things in to save the audience from certain death ? Or what if the bands engineer brought these insert cables and went ahead and used them, do you step in and interject even though everything line checks ok ?

his inserts, for his band = his problem.

Originally Posted by ebulb

Id say you think its "bodgy" because you havent seen it before and you possibly dont understand exactly whats going on.. As far as signal flow goes its no different to any desk with pre insert/EQ direct outputs, nothing is going to explode..

well, if its no different why not use the direct outs? sure sometimes you get post fade/post eq... but sometimes i get behringer when i want midas. dosent mean i refuse to mix the show. i just get on with it and do the best i can

Originally Posted by ebulb

I can also tell you for a fact there are a lot more bodgy practises going on with most venues that i visit.. I lost count the amount of bad channels on a consoles and stage boxes i have seen that just dont get fixed, or mic cables that half work, or bad speaker jacks on foldbacks.. Not to mention power points falling apart ready to zap someone etc. Thats all fine i guess, just dont dare bring an insert cable we havent heard of before..

Im sorry you come across things like this. id like to think that most engineers took pride in their work, unfortunatly this isnt always the case. There are plenty of us that take pride in our work.

My desk (a DDA) has had all its direct outs modded to be pre everything but the preamps, i also hire in KT splitters (Dn1248's) where budget allows. I love audio, and working with it. I am not going to go out of my way to piss people off. that said when im doing FOH that is my job. ive had people start patching in leads like you are talking about during the support band without asking me, and yes he did get told to rethink his actions

[OzGizmo]

There you go thats what 48 channels of mics split 3 ways looks like ... FOH, FB and Broadcast.
The splitters are Klark Teknik | DN1248 Plus

[recordinghopkins]

Originally Posted by OzGizmo

There you go thats what 48 channels of mics split 3 ways looks like ... FOH, FB and Broadcast.
The splitters are Klark Teknik | DN1248 Plus

That's a $40k split happening there. There didn't seem to be time for cable management though.
Still very impressive!

[tourtelot]

Yeah, that's a nightmare! Whew! Hope it all worked as patched and continued to work all night so that the only emergency was untangling it at wrap

D.

[OzGizmo]

Originally Posted by tourtelot

Yeah, that's a nightmare! Whew! Hope it all worked as patched and continued to work all night so that the only emergency was untangling it at wrap

D.

I do a couple of jobs like that each year, the key thing is get the paper work right before you start. The theatre head sound tech (FOH) is the one that calls the shots and supplies phantom power, FB gets the next split and then Broadcast the 3rd.
If Broadcast wants something different (and they often do) they need to add it themselves INDERPENDANT from the splitter system..... NO exceptions!!!

[huub]

He, this is a 112 channel split .
The integrated splitter of the Midas XL8 mic input section.

[recordinghopkins]

Since this thread evidently has a good number of subscribers, I've got a question for ya.

I have been eyeballing the KT Square One active splitters for a while now, as a combination solution for mobile recording. I carry passive splits and mic pres with me to gigs, but I was thinking a quality active split would do both jobs at once.

With the Square One, am I correct in assessing them to be useful without additional mic pres?

Here's my plan: Active split 1 to HD24xr#1, Active split 2 to HD24xr#2, xfmr split to House system.
Alternatively, I could send active split 2 to FOH and the xfmr split to a mixer for broadcast live to two, and direct outs from the mixer to HD24xr#2.

Thoughts?

[Remoteness]

Check this out...

Active mic splits as mic preamps

Originally Posted by recordinghopkins

Since this thread evidently has a good number of subscribers, I've got a question for ya.

I have been eyeballing the KT Square One active splitters for a while now, as a combination solution for mobile recording. I carry passive splits and mic pres with me to gigs, but I was thinking a quality active split would do both jobs at once.

With the Square One, am I correct in assessing them to be useful without additional mic pres?

Here's my plan: Active split 1 to HD24xr#1, Active split 2 to HD24xr#2, xfmr split to House system.
Alternatively, I could send active split 2 to FOH and the xfmr split to a mixer for broadcast live to two, and direct outs from the mixer to HD24xr#2.

Thoughts?

[recordinghopkins]

Originally Posted by Remoteness

Check this out...

Active mic splits as mic preamps

Thanks!