what the hell happened tonight at my show?

Johnisfaster · Post by **Johnisfaster** » Mon Nov 20, 2006 10:01 am

I've played this venue before and they claimed they weren't doing anything different than all the other nights but for some reason my mix had a ton of lows and a ton of highs and almost no mids. it sounded weak as all hell. I kept asking him "are you doing anything differently than normal" and he insisted that it must be in my rig. I can't figure it out. none of my vst's were active to change the sound, my mixer was zero'd out.

what happened?

Johnisfaster · Post by **Johnisfaster** » Mon Nov 20, 2006 10:07 am

besides the problems I got free drinks and didn't have to perform, yippee..... I'm gonna go pass out...

Contra · Post by **Contra** » Mon Nov 20, 2006 10:07 am

its a setup,
one day when you get big, buy theplace and fire the FOH engineer.

sorry that shit went down like that.

peace.

Johnisfaster · Post by **Johnisfaster** » Mon Nov 20, 2006 7:15 pm

the only thing I can think of is that usually they run 2 DI boxes out of my mixer for right left and then they center them on the system. but last night they had me running both right and left into one DI box which I thought was weird. is that even possible?

bradelectro · Post by **bradelectro** » Mon Nov 20, 2006 7:59 pm

DI boxes? What are you a rock band?

I don't trust those things. 90% of my gigs I go into the line inputs on the DJ mixer. The other 10% I go straight into the mains via 1/4" or XLR. Sorry I can't directly address your DI question, but If you're using them a lot, consider getting your own so you know they work- you know?

Adonis · Post by **Adonis** » Mon Nov 20, 2006 8:08 pm

Johnisfaster wrote: what happened?

We wouldn't know, we weren't there - you were.

dragonbyte · Post by **dragonbyte** » Mon Nov 20, 2006 8:12 pm

sounds like your mix was phase canceling the mids out ...

If he had you plugged into the DI box and it summed the L & R channels together!! That was most likley the problem

C

Cryptic UK · Post by **Cryptic UK** » Mon Nov 20, 2006 9:20 pm

Adonis wrote:
Johnisfaster wrote: what happened?
We wouldn't know, we weren't there - you were.

Im proud of you Adonis well done.

Pitch Black · Post by **Pitch Black** » Mon Nov 20, 2006 9:30 pm

Had both your left and right output plugged into the one input????

Thats verboten! That means you were actually connecting your output to your output - very bad medicine. Not surprised it sounded odd. The "engineer" should know better!

Johnisfaster · Post by **Johnisfaster** » Mon Nov 20, 2006 9:31 pm

no no, not into one input, it was a di box that seemed to have 2 inputs on it and one xlr running back to the control booth.

Pitch Black · Post by **Pitch Black** » Mon Nov 20, 2006 9:48 pm

weeeell, there are stereo DI boxes - I used to have one. But ONE XLR you say? Can't say I've ever seen a stereo DI box that feeds both sides down one XLR cable??? Maybe, but....

Unless he was such a nong-head that he plugged one of your outputs into the input, and the other into the "link" or "thru" jack...???

FWIW, phantom power can do REALLY strange things to a DI box/mixer if it is switched on for that channel at the FOH mixer. On our setup with a Behringer mixer on stage, if Phantom Power is switched on at the FOH desk for our channel(s), we get one side of our desk's stereo output VU meter totally peak out (full-on everything, constantly) but only on one side.

Just saying, there is potential for wierdness there....

logickal · Post by **logickal** » Mon Nov 20, 2006 9:53 pm

Definitely sounds like he was summing your l/r outputs into 1 channel back into the board.

Johnisfaster · Post by **Johnisfaster** » Mon Nov 20, 2006 10:15 pm

Pitch Black wrote:weeeell, there are stereo DI boxes - I used to have one. But ONE XLR you say? Can't say I've ever seen a stereo DI box that feeds both sides down one XLR cable??? Maybe, but....

Unless he was such a nong-head that he plugged one of your outputs into the input, and the other into the "link" or "thru" jack...???

FWIW, phantom power can do REALLY strange things to a DI box/mixer if it is switched on for that channel at the FOH mixer. On our setup with a Behringer mixer on stage, if Phantom Power is switched on at the FOH desk for our channel(s), we get one side of our desk's stereo output VU meter totally peak out (full-on everything, constantly) but only on one side.

Just saying, there is potential for wierdness there....

hmmmmmmmm...... the box did say IN and OUT right above the quarther inch slots I fed my right left into. and I asked him about it and he said "no thats right just plug them into the 2 jacks there" and I was like "ok....."

I don't know much about these boxes so I just figured I'd trust him, this may have been the cause though.
weird cause I've been there before and it sounded great. maybe he was drunk or something.

Pitch Black · Post by **Pitch Black** » Mon Nov 20, 2006 10:31 pm

Thats your problem. The OUT or LINK or THRU jack is not an input. Its there for guitarists (mostly) to run a line out to their onstage amp as well as feed the DI. The engineer musta been trippin'.

divonic · Post by **divonic** » Mon Nov 20, 2006 10:39 pm

logickal wrote:Definitely sounds like he was summing your l/r outputs into 1 channel back into the board.

I agree.

XLR is either ballanced or unballanced but I have never seen stereo. In my experience stereo XLR is 2 XLR cables running two two seperate channels on the board.

Now a balanced XLR cable has 3 pins one ground and two with the signal one phased backwards from the other. (This cuts down on noise). So if you plugged your L & R outs into a box that set them to the two nonground pins on a ballanced XLR cable and changed the phase of the one (assuming that it was identical to the other) you might get what dragonbyte suggested.

There are boxes that take an unballanced signal and convert it into a ballanced signal I've seen ones that had 2 inputs and combined them into one output but the two signals were combined prior to being made into a balanced signal

Sounds like the FOH guy was an idiot. He definitally should have given you 2 DI boxes.

what the hell happened tonight at my show?

what the hell happened tonight at my show?

Re: what the hell happened tonight at my show?

Re: what the hell happened tonight at my show?