The Mixer in a Box

February 4th was the evening of the annual spring Gospel Choir Concert at Bethune-Cookman University in Daytona Beach Florida. I have provided sound reinforcement for the Gospel Choir. This year was the first opportunity to use the SAC rig. This is a choir of singers. There is not too much problem getting the voices out. This year the Alto section was a little lite and the Tenor section was very strong, the reverse of years past.

Instrumentation included drums, percussion, and keys. Of course the prime instrumentation was the voices. As always with SAC the sound was excellent.

There was a mime group that performed to three numbers during the intermission.

There was video that was shot of this concert. I have a VST recorder available with the system. I recorded the performance and the video production crew had a USB external hard drive to which we copied the output file. They will sync it up and mix it with the camera audio for the sound track to the video.

My description of the auxiliary section has been uploaded to the Mixer in a Box site. This page is complete with screen shots of the primary screens associated with the auxiliary section.

The SAC aux section consists of six full stereo modules. Each can be patched with either plugin effects or as hardware send and returns. This offers a great deal of flexibility. While six aux busses may not seem like a lot, there are twenty five consoles in the Software Audio Console package. Many of the functions that require an aux buss in a hardware console can be better served by using an additional console with SAC.

Check out The Auxiliary Section Page at Mixer in a Box.

I have recently uploaded a description of the Scenes System in the Software Audio Console. The SAC scenes system is very powerful and easy to use. You have the resolution to control a single parameter on a single  mixer up to a global snapshot of all twenty five mixers. Check out the page on the main site at: The Scenes System in SAC

I have just posted a page on the Effects system in the Software Audio Console on the Mixer in a Box site. There are a wide variety of plug-in effects that can be used with the SAC system. There are several native plug-ins and most any VST or DX plug that does not cause latency can be used in the environment. I used some screen shots to help explain the system.

I also added a second SAC in Action video. Both videos are on the same page and can be reached from the left nav column.

There is another new page on the site. It is the mixer views page. It details some of the different views that are available with the virtual mixer. I have illustrated the new material liberally with screen shots and even have one trick up my sleeve. Check it out and find the trick!

There is a new page and a slightly different look to the Mixer in a Box site. I have added some pictures on the home page to break up the text and make the site a bit more friendly. I have also added a new page.

The Z Mixer page has a picture of the Z Mixer strip and a description of the controls on the strip. I put the mixer picture in a scroll box, so that it looks and acts much like the Z Mixer in the SAC GUI.

I made the picture by taking screen shots of the various parts of the Z Mixer and stacking them together with my photo editor. I use IrfanView and it has a vertical panorama function built in. If you look closely you will be able to see a couple of the seams, but over all it came out quite well.

I will be adding pages for the Wide Mixer (or is that whole mixer), the Send/Return section, and the output section with pictures and descriptions in the near future. More pages and information should make the site more interesting.

While I was working on the site I did some minor update work and found that I had never activated the comment system. I activated the comment system and added a Quick link at the top of a couple of pages to the comment box. Stop by and check out the site and say hello in the comment box at Mixer in a Box.

I see that the last post was the end of May. I have been slack in posting to this blog. That does not mean that there have been no outings with my SAC rig.

In June I did two major events using the SAC rig. The first was the Laconia, NH motorcycle rally. This was a eight day event. I did carry the analog board along and it was used for the Bang Camero and Edgar Winter shows. I mixed all the bands between on the SAC rig.

Then it was on to the Harley Rendezvous in New York. That is an old school biker party held annually on a ‘country club’ grounds. It is a two day event with two shows plus several opening bands. The first night was Gator Country with several former members of Molly Hatchet doing primarily Hatchet material. They did not carry a front of house engineer so I was able to do that show with the SAC rig. The second night’s show was the Kentucky Headhunters. I offered the rig to their engineer, but he declined. He did come out to the mix location during the opening act’s show and commented that the rig sounded great.

In August I normally go to Sturgis for the Rally. I lost the contract this year so did not go. I did do a fund raiser in Tallahassee with a band from Daytona using the SAC rig. This worked out well. The organizers of fund raisers never leave space for a mix location. I set the rig up at the side of stage and used a netbook to remote control the show. Look Mom, no wires!!

In October I worked the fall rallies in Myrtle Beach and Daytona using the SAC rig. In Myrtle they were especially pleased that there was no snake to worry about. I did my mixing on the netbook there. In Daytona I ran the snake but it was only used for the FogHat show. I mixed the BlackFoot show on the SAC rig.

I have also done several smaller gigs with the rig and used it for the opening acts on a couple of other shows.

There have been several updates since I bought the software in March/April. Each of the updates adds features. The developer is very responsive to sensible feature requests. Each update makes the software more of a pleasure to use.

The BCASCA Jamboree is an annual event with which I have been evolved since its inception. BCASCA is the Brevard Caribbean American Sports & Cultural Association. The event was held Labor Day weekend for several years, but consistent bad weather and a hurricane caused them to change the date to Memorial Day weekend a few years ago.

There is a good bit of Island music both from live entertainers and a DJ. There are also the necessary announcements and some raffles and drawings. This is a two day event that runs from 9 AM to 7 PM (or so).

The weather the week of the event had been very wet. There was rain in the morning of set-up day that delayed the start of festivities. Because of the rain we got started at about noon. The weather did co-operate for the rest of the event. There were threatening skies and a few drops along the way, but nothing that slowed the event down. One of the bands was canceled on the opening day. They were from Miami and the weather was too uncertain at the time that they would have had to get on the road to drive to Palm Bay.

One of the filler acts that played to compensate showed off the quality available with the SAC system. There are always hand drummers in this crowd. There was a Sax player that was asked to play a medley to fill some of the time. He invited a couple of hand drummers to accompany him. With the SAC rig I had the best hand drum sound that I have ever heard. The Sax player had already played so I knew that I had a great Sax sound, but the hand drums were amazing. You could hear the fingers slid across the skins.

The second day of the event both scheduled bands played as well as the dance groups and track artists that were scheduled. The first band, Alize, I work with several times a year. The other band from Jacksonville has played the event the last three years. During the second band’s set there was an old gentleman in the crowd who was introduced as Byron Lee’s former bass player (of 35 years). Byron Lee is one of the primmer acts in the islands. After the show I stopped to say hello to the artist. He was effusive in his praise of the quality of the sound. This was made possible, in part, because of the quality of the SAC mixer that was driving the system.

This is always a good event. The island people are wonderful. There were vendors and rides for the kids. It is a good family event. The Palm Bay Regional Park has come a long way in the 12 years that the event has been held there.

Myrtle Beach Spring Motorcycle Rally – 2009 was the first motorcycle rally for which I used the Software Audio Console. The motorcycle rally business makes use of some SAC features that I had not had opportunity to use up to this point. For a rally there are typically multiple performances by various acts on consecutive days during the event. There are also two or three bands a day.

With the SAC rig I am able to save the mix for the band, including monitors. The first day I do the mix for the band. At the end of the show I save the mix under the band’s name. The next time that the band plays I am able to recall their mix and setup. This is a great convenience and improves the flow of the event because there is no time wasted on subsequent shows by the same band. The same thing can be done with shows and opening acts. The show artist can sound check and then the show mix can be saved. The opening acts can be mixed as necessary using all channels and when it is time for the main act the show mix can be recalled.

The rally itself was shortened due to local politics. There was a question as to weather the rally would go at all. The venue that I support ran for six days instead of the normal nine days. The overall attendance was poor, more because of the negative publicity than the poor economy. The local people are most unhappy with the current administration. I am hoping that things get better by the fall, as the little bump in income is always nice.

Overall the SAC rig performed flawlessly. During only one mix session there were two slipped buffers, but no audible clicks or pops. I suspect that this was caused by the wireless system. I set up a remote on stage so that I could take care of monitors from stage. In fact, our main act for the rally had a knowledgeable player and he adjusted monitors several times during the shows. This feature also adds to the professionalism of the presentation as there were no calls for monitor changes over the microphones. I think that I have a bad antenna with the new wireless card that I put in the remote computer. I hooked it up to a friends computer and there was no improvement in signal versus no antenna. I will do some further testing to confirm this.

The third time out with the SAC rig was the benefit event for Reuben Morgan aka ‘The Lounge Lizard’. Reuben has been a figure on the local scene for many years and has done much for the community in the promotion of live music. He has been stricken with a debilitating disease and so is unable to work for a time. The community came together to support him in his time of need.

The event was held at the Coliseum complex in Daytona Beach. There were three stages with entertainment through the afternoon and evening. I had been asked to mix the sound for the main stage. Nine area bands played in a ten hour period. I took the SAC rig in and used it to mix the show. We drove the house racks and stacks from the SAC output. There was good volunteer stage and provided backline equipment, so the band change overs went smoothly.

The SAC rig performed flawlessly and the sound quality was outstanding. As always, the SAC rig was a pleasure to use.