Mixers/Consoles PreSonus Studiolive 16.4.2 For Live Theatre

[ratthepoodle]

Hey Guys,
I am the TD for a production of Annie. It is in a school so I have a crew with just a bit of background in sound. We have a Yamaha MG2414FX in the enclosed booth. The problem is that the booth has fixed windows so you cannot hear the mix. I am considering bringing in my PreSonus 16.4.2 as to be able to sit in the audience and mix using iPads. Has anyone ever done this? Me concern is reliability during the show. Some other info is we are running 8 wireless mics and an assortment of boundary mics.

I'd appreciate any experience you've had with using the PreSonus in a live theatre setting. Thanks in advance!

 

[Footer]

Buy whatever size snake you need to move the console and move the console. You will be much happier with the results. Mixing body mics on an iPad won't exactly be an easy thing to do.

 

[bishopthomas]

What happens when the wifi drops during a scene change and you can't mute the mice?

 

[TimmyP1955]

My friends who've mixed via iPad have not reported any dropouts.

I don't see mixing body mics on the iPad to be any more trouble than mixing on the surface.

Using scenes would be the best approach, but as the Presonus drops audio during changes that's a no go. (I've been told that if you make the changes in Universal Control - as opposed to on the surface - this does not happen.)

 

[museav]

My friends who've mixed via iPad have not reported any dropouts.

I don't see mixing body mics on the iPad to be any more trouble than mixing on the surface.

If your friends were not mixing at ratthepoodle's venue and on their mixer then I'm not sure one can necessarily assume the same Wi-Fi conditions.

I cannot see trying to mix a live theatrical performance with more than 8 inputs on an iPad. I would not even try to mix any live performance like that with an iPad or tablet even if just for the simple reason of not being able to monitor or solo audio, but that is a personal preference.

While often a good option in some other applications, I believe the StudioLive series is certainly usable in some cases but rather obviously not aimed at theatrical use.

 

[ratthepoodle]

Thanks for the advice

 

[AlexDonkle]

Personally, I occasionally mix in the audience via WiFi during rehearsals, but would've ever rely on WiFi for live performance and especially without physical faders in front of me.

I would suggest either removing some seats and getting the console into the audience, removing the glass window of the sound booth, or setting up a mic in the audience and some monitor speakers in the booth (and walk back and forth between the spaces enough during rehearsals that you can identify the differences in what you hear and attempt to correct for it in the mix).

 

[NZM]

I find iPad apps for mixer control to be very handy for things like setting foldback/monitor levels on stage during rehearsals (I use with Midas Mixtender on XL8 and Yamaha Stagemix on LS9 and M7CL regularly). I also find it handy for setting FoH EQs, front-fill levels etc while wandering through the audience space. But I would never consider mixing a show via a WiFi connection. While it is mostly stable, its not bullet-proof enough for me to rely upon.

 

[gcpsoundlight]

It is a useful tool. I use it for eq's etc on consoles such as ls9's and presonus consoles where I don't normally get the eq curve displayed. I would never use it in a show situation unless I was desperate (ie no other choice)

 

[Footer]

I have had exactly one show come in that mixed via a wifi connection. They had an M7 in monitor world and mixed on a tablet running studiomanager FOH. The M7 was doing both FOH and monitors. They still dropped us tails that we connected to our house FOH console. They put a pretty good wifi antenna center stage for the tablet to connect to.

Now, this was for a band that does the same set every night. The engineer was doing small adjustments all night... he was not chasing mics all night. It worked for them... but at least 1 out of 20 shows they had to go to the backup console.

 

[bishopthomas]

I mix concerts quite a bit on a tablet. Quite often I have to set up on the side of the stage (or even behind/on the stage) so taking an iPad out front is really the only viable option. I'm talking about restaurants and such, not theatres or other venues with nice cable paths. Now, if I was still doing touring sound for bands I would most definitely be using an iPad/tablet setup with a console set up in monitor world. I do like the idea of the backup console, though. No matter the situation I want a physical console that's halfway accessible so that worst case scenario I can at least run back and grab faders.