Chapter 2: Setup
Typical setup and capture
BLUE is illustrating the amplifiers projecting noise into the room along with the acoustic drum kit, and additionally, a wedge in the centre of the room to feed back vocals
RED is illustrating the microphone and XLR cable placement, which then flows to the mixer at the bottom of the plan, which is then feeding a stereo mix to a two-input interface
GREEN illustrates the instrumentation and unbalanced cables going to the amp's inputs.
Above, you can see a floor plan of how we initially set up when starting the creative practice. This is what I will call my "control". Not to make this a scientific test, but just to illustrate how I typically operate in sessions like this and, therefore, transfer to real-life performances. A simple channel list was as follows;
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Main Vocals
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Kick in
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Snare
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Mono OVH
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Guitar L (Lead)
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Guitar R (Rhythm)
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Bass Mono
Having the amps play in the rooms meant we didn't have to set up foldback for each other, which greatly reduced our setup time and increased the time we could rehearse and create together. The video below demonstrates the initial setup process, setting levels and adjusting after playing the first song.
Silent Stage
Above, you will notice an almost identical floor plan; our method of processing the guitars has changed, so the monitoring setup has changed accordingly. You can see the previously mentioned Harley Benton DNAfx Git Pro in place of my amplifier head, and the other members of the ensemble changing over to their silent processors. To capture what was coming from the modellers, I simply swapped the XLR cable from the microphones to the modellers' mono outputs.
The most challenging part of the setup phase for this method was routing the monitoring for each member. Eventually, we worked out that Julian (Bass) and I would patch into the desk's headphone outputs, and the remaining members, James (Drums) and Harry (Rhythm Guitar), would get a mono channel mix from the monitor outputs. This presented a challenge because the ensemble members couldn't hear me, as I was panned to the channel they weren't hearing. I could have easily panned to the centre and solved the problem; however, I wanted to maintain the fidelity of the previous recordings.
My solution was to take the remaining output from my modeller, which was functioning in stereo, and plug it straight into James' in-ear pack. This, however, meant that Harry could not hear me during the silent recordings.