What's your style?

[soundop]

Ok, so just windering, how many people have to manully mute/unmute mic channels, and how many use boards with cues you can set (i.e. series two) i cant use cue sets, i have to manually unmute/mute mics my slef

[mnfreelancer]

I've always done it manually, even though the board I primarily used had the ability to program channel on/off status in a cue. In the situation of a musical with over 10 wireless lavs the cue usually involved a fade-in as the actor/actress appeared so the cue system wouldn't have bought me much.

[DaveySimps]

We are still using the manual method with our 16 wireless mics. In our new space we are going digital. Our engineers are looking forward to it.

~Dave

[thorin81]

I am a bit of a control freak when it comes to that kind of a thing. I like to know and feel that I have actually muted/unmuted the sound. While the digital method sounds sweet, it just seems like there are too many variables for bad things to happen when I am not in control...

[Eboy87]

When I have automation, I use it. There're times I've considered buying an 01V to bring to my old house gig just for the automation the old RAMSA didn't have. May I pose a few more questions?

How many simply mute their VCA/Groups instead of individual channels?
Do you prefer the standard red mute light, or Yamaha's On button with light.
How do you guys set up your groups/VCA's?

Sorry soundop if that's a hijack.

[mnfreelancer]

I came to really like Yamaha's "On/Edit" button, especially because it was a momentary action button, not a push-on-push-off like the mackie boards have.

I always used a combination of group muting and channel muting depending on the scene. I think back specifically to musicals where the board was used to its fullest potential. I managed somehow even with 18 wireless mics not to leave one on when talent went backstage - a friend of mine did once though. Guess the actress went to the restroom in the dressing room and this guy didn't catch it right away and during a lull in program sound bathroom sounds came out for a little while before he lunged for the mute button.

I always grouped wireless mics into mens and womens groups for the purpose of inserting EQ and FX on the group since the overall EQ of both groups was at least similar. I also grouped all orchestra mics together like this.

[BNBSound]

My Soundcraft Series Two has mute groups and scenes. I tend to use the groups just to set everything to safe quickly and easily at the half and the end of a run. During a run I've manually managed over 30 inputs and have generally been glad to do so. The stuff I tend to do is short run community theater though. In a longer run I would definately want to get in to the scenes. The production would have to be running a lot smoother than the ones I'm usually on though. I'd want the cast to be more comfortable and consistant than they can get in the four or five runs that we do.

[Peter]

Even with the introduction of a Yamaha LS9 to our inventory this year, I still tend to manually mute/unmute things.

With sets of effects channels, I'll mute the group / VCA, but otherwise generally not.

Yamaha's "ON" light is the single worst thing about the LS 9 :-)

Setting up groups/vca's is waaayyy to much of a topic hijack for me to bite at :-)

[Chris15]

Not exactly what I do, but what I note people I work with do...

Last year for Schools Spectacular, monitors were running a PM1D and a PM5D doing submixes. What we had set up was each segment of half a dozen songs was a scene on the console and then within each segment, mics were muted and unmuted manually. The scenes were more than anything there to deal with EQ and IEM feeds. Muting was done by means of me reading our notes on the script to the engineer. I believe we did the numbers and it came out that if we were to have had to turn knobs, it would have taken 3 or 4 hours to get through a 2.5 hour show...

I think a part of the choice has to be the viability of having the chance to be distracted for the 10 or 20 seconds it takes to change scenes... But I'm sure the D5T and soon the SD7T with their theatre mods will assist in this process somewhat...

And as to the On v Mute... The 1D has both... On for channels and Mute for Groups... Can cause some confusion. Luckily a quick glance at the channel or group name will tell if it's on or not... If the display is bright it's on...

[Unmanedpilot]

At my theater we do it all manually, bring the slider up as they come out and back down as they leave. However at my church we have a Yamaha on/edit switch witch I love. I generally switch it on and off manually but occasionally I use the presets. I may just like Yamaha's method because I learned on it but something about having a light for on instead of off makes more sense to me. I find myself attracted to shiny things so having that light brings my eye where it needs to be when it needs to be there.