is there any value to putting the chorus mics into a group before assigning the group to a DCA? What, if any, extra processing might someone do to a chorus group in a musical?
What
desk are you on?
I don't see any value in convoluting input
channel workflow, I generally find keeping decent organization on
channel layers in most digital desks to be sufficient. You especially don't need another
fader with audio routed that you could
mute or pull by accident. I would generally stick with routing input channels to a DCA and not assigning groups. If you have someone parked in a group but they are offstage in
quick-change but you are just assigning groups to a
fader, you'll quickly wish you hadn't done that.
That being said, that is one of the nice organizational features on the DiGiCo "T" Software -- in your Control Groups (their name for a DCA) selection
page you can create quick-assign groups so you aren't just tapping a hundred faders across a hundred cues. This feature is literally only useful for writing your scenes and has no bearing on running of a show.
When I'm unlucky enough to be mixing a musical on a big Midas
desk I sometimes find the POP Groups cool for quick organizational workflow -- having huge colorful tap buttons that let me tap info up really quickly has the potential to be useful, but probably not the flavor of group your
console has.
Again, the two above examples are very
desk specific and don't really fall into the realm of what you're doing, but show you that the idea you have is a good one -- but in the realm of organization but not audio.
However -- if you want to talk output flow in a
console I find it's quite often good practice to set up output busses for Lead
Vox and Ensemble
Vox (and on bigger shows LeadM/LeadF + EnsM/EnsF) and
send those to your PA via matrices. This is good practice for a number of reasons -
First, you'll generally want different reverbs on each, so you can shoot those output busses to their own FX channels.
Second, if I find I'm doing the same EQ tweaks to the same section of mics I'll pull it off the input channels and move the EQ to the group.
Third, Same as the 2nd but with Dynamics. I try to never use Compression on vocals in a musical (the
mixer is the human
compressor), but sometimes it doesn't hurt to
throw some light bus compression on the ensemble.
Finally - I'll often
image the Lead and Ensemble so they sit differently in the PA. I want my Lead bus to have a little more presence and will output them differently.