The Mixer in a Box

The Daytona 2010 BikeWeek is now something for the history books. People came to the rally and partied. I did not talk directly to vendors but heard that it was a crowd of lookers, not buyers. The weather was somewhat less than co-operative. The temperatures were low for the whole rally. There was, however, only one rainy day and that mostly in the morning.

There were two bands that played the Full Moon Saloon where I worked this rally. Their schedule was broken up rather than straight through. This would have made for several remixes with an analog board, but with SAC, as any digital console, it is just a matter of saving the mix at the end of the night and calling up the proper mix session at the beginning of the evening. This was a good thing here but is really great for a regular rally or multi-band festival situation.

The stage and house PA in the Full Moon had been moved over the winter. The sound booth had not been moved. It is now located off to the side of one of the main cabinets. One cannot hear the mix through the PA from the house mix location. With the SAC system’s remote capability this was not such a problem. I mixed from the middle of the crowd using my NetBook. It is more comfortable to have at least a small table and even with the light weight NetBook my arm got a bit tired by the end of the evening, but I was able to hear the PA and the mix.

The NetBook worked fine for mixing the shows but the battery life is a bit of a problem. After the first few nights I spent some time uninstalling several programs that wanted to run in the background and shutting down several non-essential services. I also started putting the computer into hibernate during the breaks. There was a significant improvement in battery life.

The sets were one hour through out the week with a half hour break. Before the adjustments I needed shore power about 2/3 of the way through the second set. After the tweaks I had to plug in for the last ten minutes of the third set, and the last half of the last set if it went to four sets. The battery never makes it back to full charge with just a half hour, but it is much more workable now. Putting the computer into hibernate also helps as the lighting load is removed and the hard drive probably powers down, allowing more juice to trickle into the battery.

There were a large number of amazed people. They would see me in the crowd with the NetBook and wonder what the heck I was doing. I would explain that the little computer was a remote control for the sound system. Thanks to good bands and good equipment one of the patrons told me that the Full Moon was the best place to listen to music on Main Street.

The annual spring motorcycle rally in Daytona Beach Florida is underway. This year the event started on February 26th and runs through March 6/7th. I am mixing sound in the Full Moon Saloon on Main Street in Daytona. Main Street is the traditional center for the rally and is a must visit for the rally crowd.

The Full Moon has a house PA system. It is a good club system and covers the room without any problem. The room has just been redone and the stage rebuilt. The previous stage was a corner stage but the new stage is on the short wall and that is much better from a production standpoint. It has introduced one production problem though. There are exposed rafters and beams in the venue. The main speakers are flown and are between the beams and the ceiling. This means that the horns are reflected back to stage from close range and has resulted in some feedback problems. The horns are a bit hotter than I would normally run them as well. It took me longer than I would have liked to figure out the exact problem and make the necessary changes to deal with the problems.

I elected to take my SAC system into the venue for the event. Primarily this is because the SAC system is my preferred mixing environment. The house board is a small Yahama with limited features and the house mix location is left over from the old corner stage and is poorly positioned for the new club layout. The floor in the mix booth is also very resonate so that the low end in the booth bares little resemblance to reality in the room. With the SAC Remote operating over a WiFi connection I can mix from anyplace in the room (crowd permitting).

Mixing by remote control in this situation, as well as many other possible situations, is a great benefit. A sound man needs to be able to hear the overall sound from the stage and PA in order to do a good job. Monitoring a mix by headphones tells you what is in the mix but not what is in the room. Club sound is a combination of the stage sound and the PA sound. One reinforces sounds in the mains to maintain a proper balance in the room. Having the capability to hear exactly what is going on in the room is a great advantage. Being able to do this without taking up valuable real estate in a club has been impossible in the past. The SAC system enables this to become a reality.