direct outs

[Boingo]

A friend wants to switch over to using the direct outs and asked for help. (He uses a TD-10.) I told him about the problems with using ambience and effects with direct & master outs and asked if the FOH has some effects units. His face dropped to the floor and said this was a problem. I asked if he was sending a mono signal to the PA and he said yes.

It would seem to me that it won't make any difference if he uses ambience and/or effects if he feeds the direct and master outs to the FOH where it's then sent to the PA as a mono signal. This would give the FOH volume control over kick, snare, tom's and cymbals and still let the drummer control the sound of the kit, which is what he wants.

Am I still confused on this issue or am I on the right track?

I am also going to suggest he get the exp board. The global settings for the direct outs will really be worth it.

[szvook]

Originally posted by Boingo:
A friend wants to switch over to using the direct outs and asked for help. (He uses a TD-10.) I told him about the problems with using ambience and effects with direct & master outs and asked if the FOH has some effects units. His face dropped to the floor and said this was a problem. I asked if he was sending a mono signal to the PA and he said yes.

It would seem to me that it won't make any difference if he uses ambience and/or effects if he feeds the direct and master outs to the FOH where it's then sent to the PA as a mono signal. This would give the FOH volume control over kick, snare, tom's and cymbals and still let the drummer control the sound of the kit, which is what he wants.

Am I still confused on this issue or am I on the right track?

I am also going to suggest he get the exp board. The global settings for the direct outs will really be worth it.

Your friend is not using an outboard mixer at this time for him self?

Master outs will retain the ability to apply ambience and effects, so he could send the FOH wet signals.

Am I on the right track?



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szvook

[Schuh Man]

Not sure if this is helpful, but here goes:

My current setup is as follows:
1. Kick - Direct 3 Left to PA, Direct 3 right to my bass shaker amp (which is extremely cool by the way)
2. Snare: Direct 2 Left to PA
3. High Hat: Direct 1 Left to PA
4. Toms, Crashes, Ride: Master Left/Right
3 Directs outs are panned dead center.

The setup above actually works neat as I would get a mono send from FOH from the board to the Mix In on the TD-10 for my monitor mix.

My current setup is TD-10 w/ TDW-1.

The ambience and effects are applied to the Master and Direct Outs. There was an issue with ambience bleed when I recorded, so I don't record with the ambience.

PS: Count me in on recommending the TDW-1. The global pan features alone made it worth the price of admission.

[Multilin]

Hi fellas, can I jump in here and ask for some clarification here on a couple of things regarding definitions? I've read a lot of posts in the past that talk about "PA" and "FOH". Are we ALL defining these the same? Just for kiks Ill give you my definition..:
FOH: Front of House : This is the portion of the Public Address system which the audience will hear.
PA: Public Address : This is the entire audio system; mics, mixers, processing, amplification, speakers.
I hope I'm correct on my definition but it may also be possible that PA could be considered as "Power Amp".
This could be very confusing for someone learning how to hook up things unless they know for sure what you mean.
Please clarify.
Sorry for getting off topic.

[Schuh Man]

Good Point Multilin!
PA in my reply means the main mixing board for the FOH system. The FOH mixer has 5 channels for my V's. The mono send back to me is from a monitor send from the main FOH mixer. The soundman just sets each channel to the level I desire Has worked great so far, although I just got a BBE and am not sure how to work it into this setup.

Hope this helps. I am a drummer (?) and definitely NOT a soundman.

[szvook]

OK, I will throw my .02 cents in as well.

FOH - Refers to the speakers that face toward the audience. Also called the "main" speakers.


PA - A Public Address system is the means by which you can reinforce or sustain sound within a space. A PA is typically used by musicians in two different applications: to provide unifying and mixed amplification (volume) for their existing onstage sound (ie, you may use instrument amplifiers and still wish to use a PA), or to simply amplify and reproduce the sound onstage using only the PA. A band may use a vocal PA, a solo artist a reinforcement PA - and essentially they can have the same make-up.

In order for a PA to be a PA, it must contain three things, an input device (microphone, instrument etc), a means of amplification, and speakers.

I don’t run my outs from my TD-8 or SDS-7 to the FOH directly. Actually I run my outs into my outboard mixer from my modules, then the feed the signal that I have control over (in every sense – EQ, effects, compression, gain, etc.) to my brothers console (our main board) he will add (EQ, effects, compression, gain, etc.) to my mix if we choose to and then send all of our signals to the FOH.

This way the FOH’s job is minimal, since we control most of everything.

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szvook

[This message has been edited by szvook (edited August 07, 2001).]

[Boingo]

I guess poor use of terms has probably confused things. Basically he wants to do what Schuh Man is doing. To send direct outs to the Main Mixing console using TD-10 ambience and effects. Mr. Soundman is controlling volume only and converting it to a mono signal. The mono signal is fed to several house speakers.

No recording is going on that I'm aware of. There is no outboard mixer for the drums.

I think any problem he has will apply to effects only. My understanding is that the effect portion of the sound is sent to the master outs. I have heard this and it sounds like the drum is out of phase and in a cave.

The direct outs have separate ambience controls for each of the 3 outputs. I don't get why they have controls if they bleed. What is bleeding where?


It will probably be a couple weeks before we hook up and make the changes. I'll experiment at home with my 4 track mixer. I was looking for the benefit of your experience and recommendations.

[Schuh Man]

Originally posted by Boingo:

The direct outs have separate ambience controls for each of the 3 outputs. I don't get why they have controls if they bleed. What is bleeding where?

Your statement made me have to go back and re-look at this feature on my TD-10.

Your right about their being separate "ambience volume" (AMBLVOL) for each output (Master + Each Direct).

The problem I had with ambience was you couldn't isolate just the ambience for the sounds assigned to each output (ex. I couldn't get just snare ambience to the snare assigned to the direct output the snare was assigned to). You can just set the overall ambience levels for each input and the AMBLVOL level controls just determine how much of this overall ambience is mixed into the outputs. You may need to test it yourself to understand what I'm saying. I guess what I'm saying is I was miffed that Roland made "ambience" just like what it is when you mike an acoustic kit. I hate it when the E's imitate the A's

I just decided to go with outboard gear to achieve the effect and flexibility I wanted.

Let me know if I can help when you hook it all up in a couple of weeks.

[Lee]

Boingo - just to further explain the bleed problem. Send your snare to ambience. Put the snare out direct3. Send your cymbals to ambience and direct 2. Turn up the ambience send to direct2 and the ambient snare (along with the ambient cymbal) gets louder on direct2 - which is what we mean by bleed - the snare comes out direct2.

My advice is: if you gotta use effects and ambience - only use the effects on the drum sounds going out the master. If a sound is not assigned to the master outs - don't use effects on it. Assign the ambience only to one pair of direct outs and only use the ambience on the drum sounds going thru that direct out. If the drum sound is not assigned to the direct out of the ambience - don't use ambience on that sound.

If you don't trust the soundman to mix - send him a mono signal - otherwise - give him what he needs to mix - signals that don't bleed thru to other channels.

[Boingo]

I think I understand it now. I already understood the effects part but the ambience still had me confused. I had recalled some older posts, of which you were a contributor, but still wasn't clear.

I really don't know why my friend can't get the individual volumes he needs without going through this trouble. I have only heard him play a couple times and the drums were always weak.

Thanks

[Steveo the Devo]

Holy Sh1t!!!!!!

Was that Lee???????????

Man I have read about that guy in the history books!!!

Good to see you around again bud!