soundcraft series 2

[soundop]

soundcraft just recontineud there series 2, i love it, it works very well with my high schools shure uc wireless mikes, plus this acuttly has spots made for tape, lol any one have any objections to this.



also i am looking for a cheap early warning feed back detecter i know they make them, but there hard to find

[Inaki2]

I really like Soundcraft for schools. They seem to hit the spot in terms of how much capabilities they have and without making them overwhelmingly complicated. Plus they sound good.

Free feedback detector: your ears
Cheap feedback detector: look at Behringer stuff. They have one I beleive...or they used to at least.

[soundlight]

Soundcraft is pretty good for schools, and is pretty good in general. My high school that I'm a student at has a 16ch Spirit-8 (but we need a 32 channel console, and I would like to get a series 2, because that's what we need in terms of auxes & busses). My church has an FX-16 and is going to get a GB8-24, and the local music/theater venue (the artscenter) recently got a GB4-32. Soundcraft is just all-around good. (If only I could get an MH-4 for my school...)

[audioslavematt]

Originally Posted by Inaki2

Free feedback detector: your ears

I agree. Feedback detectors aren't the best way to eliminate feedback unless you have them built into a Soundweb or some other audio networking device. You would have to put one on every channel that has a mic. They can really make you lazy. The best way to eliminate feedback is train your ears to recognize frequencies. (I recommend this little gem. http://sft.sourceforge.net/) Once you know frequencies you can do several things.

When I put mics out (with the exception of wirelesses, but we'll get to that later) I "ring them out." Set your routing and apply phantom power if nesscessary. Start with your EQ and gain/trim at zero and your fader has high as it goes. Turn up the gain until a frequency starts to resonate. Normally the first time around it will be around 150Hz. Pull some of that frequency out with your EQ on the console. Then you can ring for a second time and a different frequency should resonate. It will most likely be somewhere in the mids. If you have a lot of mics and find yourself pulling out the same frequencies in a lot of channels, pull those frequencies back on your graphic EQ if you have one.

Occasionally in area micing you'll run into a slight ring at the end of some actors sentences. Sometimes you'll spend a lot of time trying to find the offending mic(s). The best way is to turn the volume on your headphones or control monitors all the way up and PFL all the area mics until you hear it. (Sometimes this won't work but most of the time it will.) Normally it's a fairly high frequency around 10-12kHz. Again, pull it back on the console and if you have to do it to multiple mics, pull those frequencies on the graphics.

Wirelesses are fun. Normally you won't want to ring them out if it's a musical. In that case, use your standard PFL level set by increasing the gain/trim until the meter for the channel reads zero at its peaks. Music increases your gain-before-feedback. Basically, that means it's harder for the speakers to bleed into the wireless. Be wary of monitors though and try to avoid using wedges. Normally for a man's wireless I will pull back the 400Hz range since that is mostly chest voice and replace it with some low end. Then I might at a little bit of high end for clarity. I still haven't quite found the best EQing for a woman's wireless. I normally pull back the 700Hz range, replace a little low low end, but not as much as I would for a man's, and add some high for clarity. That's pretty close, but you'll probably want to experiment some. You might need to change these frequencies if you run into problems, but it's somewhere to start.

Sorry for rambling/boring you/insulting your intelligence/being an Energizer bunny, but I'm bored.

[soundlight]

I always do the "ringing out" thing as well, even though my console doesn't have all of the freq cababilities. So, I bring the fader to unity, and bring up the gain until it begins to ring. I pull down the frequency range that it's in, and then bring it up a little more. But considering the lousy acoustics of our concrete-block auditorium, I usually don't go above one ring, because after one it starts to bring on lots of frequencies at once. And it is, in the word of one of my friends, "nongood."

Also try to use the PFL during shows to check up on individual mics through your headphones and see what you need to change, if anything. (If only someone hadn't ripped out our headphone jack, I could do this without any phanagling of aux knobs and crazy stereo to mono to stereo to craziness adapters.)

[Radman]

Ah yes, the stereo to craziness adapters. Very useful little buggers. Good for hooking just about anything to a stereo input or output, pain in the rear to wire up though.

[soundlight]

I have a box of adapters that's about 16 inches by 8 inches by 6 inches. It has about thirty adapters in it, mostly gleaned from the thrift shop, radio shack, the school's supply, etc. I can make the craziness be whatever I want. XLR male or female, TRS or TS male or female, 1/8" mono or stereo male or female, RCA-single or double male or female, and whatever else might be needed. It's crazy. Some of the center sections of the adapters are built to about four to eight inches long, making these adapters extremely unpredictable in the connectivity deparment. I have to tape them together with gaff tape to keep the connection from messing up. So, mono-stereo and stereo-craziness is normal at my school, as we can't afford all of the individual adapters whatsoever.

[soundlight]

So yes, them stereo to craziness adapters are very, very useful little buggers. Very.

[RelativeMischief]

I can't see why a school would need an 8 aux/bus console. Most schools I've seen perform absolutely fine with a 6 aux, 4 bus board. Though if it's cheap, Soundcraft is always a good choice.

[soundlight]

We don't use the eight busses, but we do use all of the auxes (and wish we had two more, we are running six right now). One of the requirements of the drama teacher is a full meterbridge, so she can teach students about signal routing easier and have less-experienced students work the board when they want to see exactly what they're doing on stage and in the booth.