Behringer XR12 mix to FOH

[ST3MOCON]

Hey guys it's been a while,

I wanted to ask for some general feedback from anyone who mixes there own sound and sends it to FOH.

Right now I've mixed:
Backing tracks including drums
Guitars
Bass
vocals
Using the behringer XR12(phenomenal piece of equipment)

I'm using high pass filters on
Vocals
Guitars
Bass

Compression:
Vocals
Bass

EQ and light reverb:
Vocals

I'm planing on sending the entire mix post EQ and effects as 1 signal to the "sound engineer" he will only have control of the master volume at that point.
The FOH mix will be the same as our Monitor mix.

I'd like to know if this is acceptable or if there is something I'm missing that the sound engineer won't be able to do if I send 1 signal.

Most of my concerns are feed back noise.

Let me know your experiences and it doesn't matter if you mix with the XR12 or not.

 

[Baelzebeard]

If the sound guy is totally inept,or the sound system is subpar you might get decent results.

If however you are dealing with a pro with a full featured system at hand you will limit their function to being a human volume control. It will likely not make them very happy with you, and the results might not be as good as you might expect.

First you'll be trying to generate a balanced and pleasant sounding mix from the stage, which does not give you the same sonic perspective as the audience position. You just can't mix right from the stage. Secondly, If anything needs to be adjusted during the set, the sound guy will be powerless to help,and you will likely be unaware that anything is amiss until after you've played a set, and nobody could hear the singer or whatever.

I generally wouldn't advise it. Maybe mix to groups like vocals/guitars/bass/drums, etc.. if you insist on it. Plus it sounds like it would take a long time to set up, and you usually only have a brief window to set up your gear.

 

[TonyFlyingSquirrel]

If the sound guy is totally inept,or the sound system is subpar you might get decent results.

If however you are dealing with a pro with a full featured system at hand you will limit their function to being a human volume control. It will likely not make them very happy with you, and the results might not be as good as you might expect.

First you'll be trying to generate a balanced and pleasant sounding mix from the stage, which does not give you the same sonic perspective as the audience position. You just can't mix right from the stage. Secondly, If anything needs to be adjusted during the set, the sound guy will be powerless to help,and you will likely be unaware that anything is amiss until after you've played a set, and nobody could hear the singer or whatever.

I generally wouldn't advise it. Maybe mix to groups like vocals/guitars/bass/drums, etc.. if you insist on it. Plus it sounds like it would take a long time to set up, and you usually only have a brief window to set up your gear.

I get this at work periodically, and the only time it works well is when they have a very low noise floor on stage, and one of their own is walking the room remotely during sound check (at a minimum) to control/tweak remotely with an iPad. I understand why musicians want to do this, but it's better in my opinion after having toured as a musician, and having worked for production companies on/off over the past 30 years, to have your own sound man, and work with the venue to allow you to mix the band from FOH. This means that you need to have your sound guy communicate in advance with venues/production companies and first of all find out if you can be permitted to do so, and if so, read up on any gear they may have. If you set up some good relationships, they'll share their equipment list info with you so that you can be well read in advance. Sometimes, this may actually result in your good reputation preceding you so that other bands, or production companies request you for FOH, and you learn how to use a variety of consoles, ie, old school Soundcraft 32x8x2's, Yamaha DM2000's, Mackie 3204's, Midas, & the Behringers.

The sound principles are the same on all of them, but basic setup, and menu navigation will vary.

I think mixing from stage by a musician is micromanagement that does not allow for partnerships to be built (which is what this business is all about), and is quite impractical.

I've had to pull rank & take over on occasion, and I've had other rare events where I just sat & watched. We got to the point to where there is only one group that comes through that we will allow to bring their own loudspeakers because they intently keep the SPL below 90 db average, and I simply bring up a pair of their master outputs. Anyone else, and we take their signal & give the house what they give us, maintaining our targeted output level, and if anyone complains of the mix itself, we can defer them back to the guest for commenting.

 

[GunpointMetal]

Everytime I've seen a band do this, something is always off. Even when they do it remotely and can check the room. Unless its a tiny little dive, you're better off giving the house sound man individual lines on everything and letting him mix to the room. He'll have more control over frequency interaction (like how much of what goes through the subs) and he knows more about the room/system as far as EQ and projection go.

 

[TonyFlyingSquirrel]

Everytime I've seen a band do this, something is always off. Even when they do it remotely and can check the room. Unless its a tiny little dive, you're better off giving the house sound man individual lines on everything and letting him mix to the room. He'll have more control over frequency interaction (like how much of what goes through the subs) and he knows more about the room/system as far as EQ and projection go.

Boom.

Mic Drop!

 

[TedEH]

he knows more about the room

If you're just talking about pre-processing your backing tracks a bit before sending them to FoH, then I don't see much problem in that. I guess the house mix guy would be doing the equivalent of a "master" to make the backing track fit the room. Then you could send separate lines for anything being performed live so that the sound guy is in control of anything in the performance that isn't predictable.

I see problems happening if you've taken all control away from the sound guy though. Things like trying to balance your own mic volume while playing just don't really work.

I think the suggestion of sending busses could work well. Let him handle mics and things like usual, and send each instrument/group from the backing on it's own.

 

[ST3MOCON]

Thanks for the input guys.

Definetly don't want to hinder anyone from doing their jobs. My only concern is that the guitars and Bass use a variety of patches set and different volumes. we achieve an almost perfect mix at practice on our PA and headphones. I know this won't transfer perfectly but I believe it will be close anywhere we go. Similar to when someone plays a CD or MP3 at a venue.

We have no stage amps.

I think the guitars and bass would be fine to group together and send to FOH
we could send drums and some of the backing tracks together to FOH.

That way the sound guy has control of the subs. Which is one of my concerns.

Thanks for the comments. I think we are all on the same page and share the same concerns.

 

[GunpointMetal]

What instruments are you actually playing and how are you processing them? Having a good mix in your IEM and a small practice room doesn't necessarily translate to a big system or room.
Definitely don't combine your bass and guitars on the same output track, and definitely don't send all of your drums out on the same track.
Using studio-style compression live isn't usually a great idea.
If you're processing guitars/bass with something like a POD/Axe FX, just send another line off of that to the FOH and use your outputs on the mixer for kick (on its own output), the rest of the kit, and backing tracks. I think using a line splitter and feeding a "clean" line for vocals to the front is a better idea than a processed one with compression/EQ (again, these are things that are often dictated by the system/room, not just the sound you're chasing). If you have delays/verbs with specifically-engineered echos that are absolutely necessary to the music (even though they almost never actually are), bounce them out and mix them into the back track.
I don't want to sound like I'm pissing on your party, but as I said, everytime I've seen a band that does they're own mix like that it never quite sounds right. We played with two touring acts last Friday where both were just guitarists with backtrack bands. One of them had to have the backtracks eq'd out around his live guitar to the point where the rhythm guitars, snare, and bass were almost non-existent in the FOH, and the other one (aside from the crap guitar tone.....) had the WORST sounding drums on the backtrack, but the sound guy couldn't do much about it, because there was bass, rhythm, and sound FX all on a stereo track.

 

[GalacticDeath]

You probably want to give your sound guy more control over the mix. If you're really keen on using the effects on your XR12 you could try to group similar instruments together and send those to the FOH so they at least have some control over the sound. Not sure if that's possible with the XR12 but that's what I was planning to do with my X32 rack.

Another possible solution would be to use the XR12 as both a monitor mixer and as the FOH mixer and just give the sound guy access to your mix with a tablet that has the X-air app.

 

[indreku]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2E6PO_eO8k

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hAxJ8PEB64U

Both of these bands use this mix on stage solution and send signal to PA,

I myself have though of this and will one day, but I have talked this through with our sound guy as well and local mix is needed to be done always....
Not like use one mix to all venues, like I've seen some bands who use this do.

 

[iron blast]

Just did a gig with an xr 18 and it was a blast. The venue had their mains and subs pre installed and had a stereo pair of outs we plugged in to our the xr 18. All we had to bring for load in where our monitors, mics, di's, and stands. The setup took 10 minutes and same for tear down. I handled the monitor mix with a tablet on stage and my buddy handled front of house with his tablet. It all sounded epic the band loved it and we had tons of people come up to us raving about how good it sounded. We had effects adjusted different for monitors and for front of house i also gave the band keyboardist a tablet so he could adjust anything he needed on the fly overall setups like this are so easy to use and get a consitent sound they are a no brainer.

 

[eyeswide]

Yeah, just get a splitter and send dry stuff to FOH, that's what my band does. You're ....ing yourself over every time except the rare one where you accidentally have the right mix for the room.

 

[iron blast]

Seismic audio has a 16 channel split snake for $180 thats pefect for this application

 

[Descent]

Seismic audio has a 16 channel split snake for $180 thats pefect for this application

This.

 

[robare99]

Thanks for the input guys.

Definetly don't want to hinder anyone from doing their jobs. My only concern is that the guitars and Bass use a variety of patches set and different volumes. we achieve an almost perfect mix at practice on our PA and headphones. I know this won't transfer perfectly but I believe it will be close anywhere we go. Similar to when someone plays a CD or MP3 at a venue.

We have no stage amps.

I think the guitars and bass would be fine to group together and send to FOH
we could send drums and some of the backing tracks together to FOH.

That way the sound guy has control of the subs. Which is one of my concerns.

Thanks for the comments. I think we are all on the same page and share the same concerns.

How many outputs do you have. bass and guitars together means he can't balance anything out front. As a sound guy, I usually use less than 16 channels for a typical gig.

5 for drums
Bass
Guitar L
Guitar R
Possible keys
Possible acoustic
3 vocals

On my 32 channel mixer it leaves an easy 16 channels which would cover your band. It wouldn't be a problem doing a 1 to 1 split, if you sent me everything individually. Use my vocal mics, my drum mics (or yours)c tracks etc and we are off to the races. Shouldn't be any feedback if you're all running IEM's