scene recall help

[soundguy85]

I need some tips and advice on setting up scenes on a digital board and recalling them for a play. My university is putting on Ruthless the musical. I have been volunteered to do the sound design and operate for the show. I have ran sound on digital boards for years for music festivals and concerts.

Sounds like I will have a M7CL for the show (they are working on getting a new board and are trying to demo one)

My problem I run into is what do you guys save/recall. Do you save a scene for each act? Do you use selective recall?

Hopefully this makes sense, I am really just looking for any advice I am new to this whole theater thing. I am very disappointed in the technical knowledge of the staff at the school, but some people want to see a piece of paper that says I went to school for four years, and work is helping pay for it. Are there any good books on actually running sound for a show?

 

[museav]

I'd guess the replies will likely reflect that it depends on what you're trying to do and what is most comfortable for you. You may have a scene on the mixer associated with a scene in the performance or with a cue within a scene or whenever it makes sense. What a scene does or changes will also vary based on what is needed.

I personally like selective recall. Being able to change only certain channels or certain parameters without affecting the others makes for less to recall and can make it where a change later on affects fewer scenes.

Using the M7CL editor with the appropriate device driver and Studio Manager should let you work with the programming offline and then load it to the mixer later. That will not only let you get familair to some of the programming and functionality of the console but also let you get much of the basic setup completed in advance.

 

[JBrennan]

Some good books have been thrown out in this thread:

http://www.controlbooth.com/forums/sound-music-intercom/6005-books-sound.html

and others if you search for them on the site.

I usually only use the recall function for sound effects playing from a USB when running sound. I am a lot more comfortable with analog boards and doing everything manually to begin with though.

Another way to do it would be to save scenes for each musical number, making sure as mentioned before you could change an individual channel on the fly if you had to and not lock yourself out.

A colleague of mine prefers to do as the other poster mentioned and build it using the computer software and then import all the settings and channels into the console. This does seem to make things faster since you can click through menus, pages, effects rather than using a tiny scroll wheel or a few arrow buttons to select things depending on how your console is set up.

Good luck either way.

 

[soundguy85]

Thanks, that is what I have run into in the past, you make a level change to a Microphone and it doesn't copy into the next scene. I was planning on using studio manger to set everything up to make life easier and hopefully make tech rehearsal run smoother.

Any other advice for someone doing a full theater production for the first time would be helpful. My goal right now is just to get the show done without looking like a complete idiot.

 

[Stookeybrd]

Thanks, that is what I have run into in the past, you make a level change to a Microphone and it doesn't copy into the next scene. I was planning on using studio manger to set everything up to make life easier and hopefully make tech rehearsal run smoother.

Any other advice for someone doing a full theater production for the first time would be helpful. My goal right now is just to get the show done without looking like a complete idiot.

If you attend one of Yamaha's classes they repeat the phrase, Select, Tweak, Save. This is a must, especially when your show has multiple scenes.

Also make sure that the settings you want to be recalled in each scene are recalled in each scene and aren't set to recall safe.

After a quick skim of the Wikipedia page, you should be able to control each actress' mic with a VCA and have two left over for FX or playback.

Feel free to PM me with any specific questions you have.

 

[metti]

Depending on the show and the flexibility of the recall system on the board, I will put more or less in the scenes. If I am working on a board without selective recall I will often often make the fader levels recall safe and then use the scenes primarily for mute automation. I will also say that in general, I use my scenes to switch mics on and off as cast members enter, exit, or go in and out of long periods of silence. I also use them for switching FX on and, if they want it, changing who is routed into the conductor monitor.

 

[ArthurRiot]

Truthfully, it really matters how many mics you have, and how you use 'em. Do you have multiple body mics, that share between actors? Then you should save a scene for each Mic change, so their EQs can be memorized. Do you have different groups? Once again.

My basic rule is, I save a new scene when I adjust something that isn't Db or mute.

I also save every scene with every mic on mute, as a safety thing, but it's really what works best for you.

 

[WooferHound]

You could set up some Mute Groups instead of scenes, then use each mute group as a scene. This will save any changed mic levels but it uses a whole bunch of User Defined Keys.

 

[metti]

You could set up some Mute Groups instead of scenes, then use each mute group as a scene. This will save any changed mic levels but it uses a whole bunch of User Defined Keys.

Doesn't this limit you to a handful of scenes.

 

[avare]

Doesn't this limit you to a handful of scenes.

It depends on your definition of limited.

The M7CL has 8 mute groups. If you want no more than 2 groups open at any time, that is 64 combinations. If you can accept 3 open at any time 512 combinations.

Andre

 

[metti]

It depends on your definition of limited.

The M7CL has 8 mute groups. If you want no more than 2 groups open at any time, that is 64 combinations. If you can accept 3 open at any time 512 combinations.

Andre

I'm sorry, I'm probably missing something obvious, but I am not understanding how this works. I understand that one can assign channels to one of 8 mute groups (I do this all the time) but unless you can group your channels into eight discreet groups who are on or off together, don't you still need some other form of automation (even if that is your hands)? I am curious to understand your approach so can you try and clarify your description?

 

[mstaylor]

I have never done this but I think what he is saying is assign two mics to each mute group fader, that gives you 8 unique pairs that you can now match in different combos to get 64.

 

[NUSound]

The show I currently am working for is a fast-paced pop-music revue type thing (can't really describe it any other way.) 16 Singers/Dancer on Wirless, 6 horns on Wirleess, and a 4 piece rhythm section.

The first thing I did was to make a template scene. This scene is setup as though everyone is on stage singing as a choir. It includes all names, monitor settings, etc exactly as how you want them in MOST of your scenes. For me, it means that all my channels are on, on in to to all 8 monitor mixes, all channel faders are at -5, and all mix faders are at unity. I then setup my recall safes: For channel strips, everything is safed except for the fader and channel on/off. Once the template is setup CORRECTLY (it took me 5-6 tries... I kept findind something that I wanted to change) I just copied it, renamed it and then changed what parameters needed changing (so and so off, so and so at Level X.)

My channel's were not safed (on/off) to the mix busses, so I had to set them ON in my template so that this would be default. I did this so that I could send specific channels to 2 of my mix busses for scene-specific effects.

One of my UDK's is set to advance scenes and another is to go back a scene (just in case I double tap) and for most of the show I'm just advancing the scene at the right time. This has worked incredibly well for me through about 100 shows right now. By the way, I have about 230 scenes.

 

[metti]

The show I currently am working for is a fast-paced pop-music revue type thing (can't really describe it any other way.) 16 Singers/Dancer on Wirless, 6 horns on Wirleess, and a 4 piece rhythm section.

The first thing I did was to make a template scene. This scene is setup as though everyone is on stage singing as a choir. It includes all names, monitor settings, etc exactly as how you want them in MOST of your scenes. For me, it means that all my channels are on, on in to to all 8 monitor mixes, all channel faders are at -5, and all mix faders are at unity. I then setup my recall safes: For channel strips, everything is safed except for the fader and channel on/off. Once the template is setup CORRECTLY (it took me 5-6 tries... I kept findind something that I wanted to change) I just copied it, renamed it and then changed what parameters needed changing (so and so off, so and so at Level X.)

My channel's were not safed (on/off) to the mix busses, so I had to set them ON in my template so that this would be default. I did this so that I could send specific channels to 2 of my mix busses for scene-specific effects.

One of my UDK's is set to advance scenes and another is to go back a scene (just in case I double tap) and for most of the show I'm just advancing the scene at the right time. This has worked incredibly well for me through about 100 shows right now. By the way, I have about 230 scenes.

I would say this sound pretty similar to my workflow on most shows though I am often working with boards that are capped at 99 scenes (cough, cough, DM1000) which is a pain as it forces me to load a new show file during intermission. I have never needed more than 198 scenes on a show that I was using one of the smaller boards on but I am not sure how I would handle it if I did.

 

[avare]

I'm sorry, I'm probably missing something obvious, but I am not understanding how this works. I understand that one can assign channels to one of 8 mute groups (I do this all the time) but unless you can group your channels into eight discreet groups who are on or off together, don't you still need some other form of automation (even if that is your hands)? I am curious to understand your approach so can you try and clarify your description?

I think it is more of a matter of what is desired. Yes, you would use your hands to turn on and off mute groups as needed.

Andre

 

[TimmyP1955]

Our SOP is that the only thing that's recalled with the scene is the faders (we could do mutes, but we like to have the faders down on those channels that are off). Everything else is recall-safed. The reason being that if we need to tweak an EQ or the gain, we won't have to re-save every scene.

We usually write a new scene every time there is an entry or an exit. In part this is because you cannot count on folks keeping quiet when they are off stage, even within seconds of their entry or exit. For The Man Who Came to Dinner I think we had 147 scenes. For Hello Dolly it was a bit less. This is a lot of work up front, but during the show one just needs to follow the script and push the Recall Increment button (a UDK). (Be sure that you also have a Recall Decrement UDK, in case you get miscombobulated.)