The SC-This Still Ain't Vegas, but There's Plenty of Levitating! 

By hardwire summing like this with a Y-cable, you will lose 6 dB, thats why you had less headroom last year. Hardwire splitting is a common practice but for summing you should have either a mixer or a transformer based summing unit.

At my venue i have a dedicated patch for when the acts has there own mixer. Its not a y cable they are completed dedicated straight to the front of house cabs.

Wow, what a mess. It's amazing that over an entire weekend, you couldn't get an onsite tech to give you any info or guidance at all. I've only run into an issue like this once, and the house guy got on the phone with me right away to help solve the issue. In that situation the mains and monitors were all old Yorkville NX25ps, which were extremely common for being in Canada. Someone had gone and switched the fuse lever to a different setting on ALL of them (which is not easy to do) rendering them unable to pass audio. One of the band members switched it back (as it would never occur to me that it would be changed) in an attempt to try everything, and lo and behold we got sound back. This left both the house tech and myself totally bewildered how this had happened. Needless to say there is no longer fuse switches on the back of Yorkville speakers anymore.

Love the vlog style of this video, showing the hotel and food😂😂.

Big respect for the comments on the Sennheiser vocal mics! I started on Sennheiser vocal mics and just kept with them since and never really mixed with SM58s or Beta58s but the few times that I've worked with them, they always had a very warm response that isn't as easy to get from the Sennheisers but as you said, it's a preference thing so it's beautiful that there are reliable options that can get you close to the tone you prefer when providing vocal mics.

Watching from AZ! Love the videos. Keep up the great work.

The little clips you add in are hilarious! 😂

Congratulations, your channel inspires any music lover!

I like this band, and your work to of course

100% agree with Sennheiser!! EVERY SINGLE TIME I’m forced to use sennheiser mics the 8-10k range is just relentless. Also very “stuck” or congested sound on the low mid range. I always end up EQ’ing the snot out of it and then I think to myself “now it sound like a sm58!” 🤦🏻‍♂️ Once and while I’ll find a situation where a REALLY boomy voice benefits from a good pairing with a senny. But that’s like 1-2 times out of 10!

Fab video Bart and Stacy. We have only had a couple of venues where we have had to tap in to the house systems and I felt both were compromised on the sound. It is so much better to be self contained. I really enjoyed the gear walkthrough, it was very interesting. I really wish my band would go silent stage, but I don't think I would ever win that argument.

😂 I like the editing. Great video sound couple.

Great video as usual. My system is less complex. Using the XR18, I would take all of the band's inputs and IEMs, the house LR and monitor sends. Sometimes I'll use to House Channels split LR. FOH is wherever I'm standing or sitting with an Ipad. Your right, it is so much easier knowing you stuff and being ok with improvising within your knowledge base. I don't want to learn a bunch of different consoles but here's my hack if I absolutely have to use an unfamiliar mixer. I ask if its ok to ride the faders and effects during the show. This allows me to ask the pertinent questions and watch some features in real time. During the show I'll rename all of the channels, aux sends and effects. have the house guy save it on the mixer and make a copy of the mix for me on my thumb drive. The next time I encounter the that problem, I start with the file and keep it simple for the first set. I love the gear reveal segment that you did in this video. That was cool.

another video showing the surprises that the road gives us! The important thing is to know how to solve it, no matter how! but it solves it... Congratulations to the Top Do audio couple .....

I had that similar issue as well at the back of the hall I was at there was xlrs for the House system but they didn’t work on the stage they had boxes with xlr hanging out of them there was markings on it from desk to speakers which obviously it will work but when I connected it to the coms connector and sound came out of the speakers it’s all analog but the people at the venue was unorganised The video was excellent

That is an interesting and quite frustrating situation. It's always a possibility when trying to integrate into another system. No idea why you shouldn't have been able to plug your mixer outputs directly into the drive lines. Unless Yamaha uses a different wiring scheme? Can't imagine that, but I honestly don't know Yamaha mixers at all. So there is that! LOL!! Glad you got it figured out! I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree about Sennheiser vocal mics. I'll take my 900 series over a 58 any day! But my new favorite has become the sE Electronics V7. Amazing tone with less bleed than any mic I've ever used. Thanks for another awesome, informative video!

great job guys...

Great video!

I used to had the same issues here with the venue's system, for some reasons it looped the signal in order for it to worked which is weird. At one point, i just had it enough, pull off the "root" amp rack input then feed it directly to my system, done! 😁 once show done, plug it in back to their "weird" connection.

exelente video

It is always fascinating to see how The Sound Couple integrates their excellent audio equipment and superior production knowledge with the facility management and venue gear at a facility with on-site technical support and with permanently installed systems. In this case, at least at the beginning, the name of the game was “Frustration.” There was lots of potentially unnecessary local horsing around at the Mustang Lounge. For my own purposes, I made note of these Learning Points: 1. Even packing personal gear for a road trip offers challenges. The “Little Red Wagon” carrier that Bart and Stacy employed on this trip is worthy of note. Food is, indeed, important. Bringing their own food will assure that production personnel have exactly what they need. 2. As the “roar of the casino” resonates in the background, we watch The Sound Couple set up in a very minimally lighted stage area. When the local sound tech is not readily available, hooking up to the house system is even more of a challenge. As usual, Bart’s broad background in production helps assure that he can rise to this challenge. 3. When one of the house techs arrives, The Sound Couple learns that Stacy will have to run the lighting quite a bit differently than the last time she was at this gig. Again, the professionalism of The Sound Couple comes through. (The humorous “inserts” in the video very appropriately illustrates the frustration that Bart and Stacy must feel.) 4. The Band Rhino’s in-ear monitor system always illustrates the great advantage that such a system brings to the overall production. Anytime the production company can eliminate the use of floor monitors is a very good thing. 5. The time that Bart took to document the trouble-shooting efforts during the afternoon of the second day of this gig was very instructive. When the most illogical explanation fails, one must turn to the logical. Could it be that the L-R output from the house's Yamaha Tio 1608-D stage box in the rack is providing a Dante or other configuration signal to some remotely located interface unit or power amplifier between the output of the Yamaha Tio 1608-D and the speakers? Unplugging the output cables from the house’s Yamaha Tio 1608-D stage box eliminates that Dante or other configuration signal and renders the speakers mute? With the absence of the proper Dante or other configuration signal, the PreSonus mixer would not provide the proper output to the device that needed the Dante or other configuration signal. (Please see: ca.yamaha.com/files/download/other_assets/2/614002/tio1608d_en_om_c0.pdf ) 6. It was very helpful to have a thorough explanation of how the in-ear system and microphones provided by The Band Rhino are implemented. Thanks to Bart for taking the time to share this information with us. It was also a great reminder of how The Sound Couple’s own gear is arranged for a gig like this one. 7. Hearing the recording based on the inputs from the live performance illustrates another very positive aspect of a valuable service that a dedicated production company can provide for its clients. Bart’s expertise in providing a very acceptable mix in somewhat record time was also noteworthy. As we always do, after watching another great video, we express our most sincere appreciation to Bart and Stacy for giving us the opportunity to share their gig and learn from their many years of experience. We look forward to the next knowledge-packed video from The Sound Couple. In the meantime, all the best to Bart and Stacy.

hello I'm watching you from French Polynesia I love your video because we are also sound technicians

Hi Guys. I like that you checked again without timing stress. You double checked with your y-cable. That worked. But you didn’t proof that you still get no audio with the direct connection… 🤔 I’m pretty sure that this should have worked that way, but you just haven’t checked if or not… Greetings

I totally agree about the Sennheiser vocal mics. Whenever I do sound for a band and the vocals seem too bright, it's probably because they are using a Sennheiser. I usually need to EQ off a lot of high-end in that case. Nothing, in my opinion, works better than a good ole Shure 58 - not even the Beta 58. At least for me!

Going through inputs 1 and 2 on the venue's stagebox is what I would have done if I were in the position of plugging an external mixing console into the house system.

i totally agree on youre opinion about the Senn mics.

I know you're not going back...good choice. But one really crazy thought which would give the result you encountered - the cables that are supposed to be going to the input of amplifiers is actually the output of their mixer. And the jacks on the rack are actually going to the input of the amps. Yes, that would mean the genders on the connectors are wrong. Yes - I've seen this and even crazier things. Not that you're ever going back, but if you did you can use an XLR turn-around to confirm or eliminate this possibility. You guys R-O-C-K!

Kurt’s IEM transmitter is CRANKED!! Unity gain on those PSM300’s is at 11:00 on the potentiometer. It’s always recommended to match the meters between mixer outputs and IEM transmitters so that when the mixers output channel clips, so does the IEM input side. No doubt he’s overloading the into it on transmitter as a result of not turning up his pack enough. Musicians often want to run their body packs at 20-50% volume when they should be at 75-80% ideally. This then allows for the proper signal to the transmitters.

As a singer who uses ears, the Sennheisers have the air the SM58s are missing. This is while wearing IEMs and singing. There are a lot of low-mids in my ears from the sound of my natural voice resonating inside my head. (Put your fingers in your ears and sing … that sound). IEMs are competing with that so a mic with more air does sound better for us in that situation. 58s sound like they’re under a blanket and we have to push harder to hear ourselves which wears out the voice and impacts performance. I like Sennheisers more. I’m not saying I’m right … when singing in IEMs, they sound much better to me.

Fractal is industry standard pro gear! Helix is as well, with Kemper also in the triad of heavy hitters.

From the Yamaha Stage Box be connected to the Amps via Danté? I could be not making any sense, but just curious upon the Main Output issue!

Regarding the Sennheiser wireless, they don't "play well with others" in terms of third party capsules. I work with Heil Sound and from time to time run into singers who have the Sennheiser but want to use a different capsule. It's almost impossible. Of course you can use a Neumann capsule but there are lots of alternatives that sound very good and they won't work on the Sennheiser. Actually, there is an adapter that a German company makes to use threaded capsules on Sennheiser but the adapter is pretty expensive and bulky. Great video although Bart will never be a good candidate for Premier Guitar's Rig Rundown! "I don't know what that is that the guitar player has..."

This is why you need a Sound Bullet. Super fast troubleshooting. Plug the cable into your outputs, verify signal is coming out by listening to it with the sound bullet speaker. Then plug into the white xlr's and test that pink noise or tone is sending from the Sound Bullet, and going to the PA. Not working? Find the amps, test those white xlr's, it could be a wiring issue. They look crummy anyway. Was there a DSP in between the Tio Stage Box and the amps? Were the amps dialed way down and the TF1 sending levels super hot, resulting in you not raising your levels high enough to be heard from where you were standing. Another good tool is a Sound Tools XLR Sniffer/Sender, which comes in 2 parts, allowing you to test the cable from the TIO to the AMPS and check the wiring. At the end of the day, you got through it and made it work, and that's what matters. Also, with regards to the last issue at the end of the video, sounds like someone recalled a preset that changed the patch in the TF. It's super simple to fix, just make a blank scene and patch the TIO to channels 1-16, and the second TIO to 17-32.

Didn't you say that the amps were off? Were they off when you plugged direct into their system?

My take on the SM58 vs. the 835 is essentially the same as yours, though I do find there is a time and place for them. I carry both in my mic bag. One mic I really like is the Sontronics Solo, it's about the same price as a 58/835 but in my view it nails them both to the floor. A mic I've recently heard is the Lewitt MTP340CM, only hand held condenser I've ever used and it sounds astonishing...sadly, its EOL now. I far prefer to run my own gear too. I know the capabilities and I'm more comfortable. I have an event coming up where I'm intending to use the house system...but am still going to take mine, just in case.

Any possibility that the main outs on the Yamaha stage box provide phantom power to something in the signal chain connecting to the amps? Like an active DI box? I've never seen phantom power on outputs. But that would explain why it works when the house stage box is tied in with the Y-cable.

The Dante stagebox mains outputs have to be connected for the Mustang Room mains speakers to be 'on'... is this some kind of network setup, are the Mustang Room stage mains speakers part of a larger system of speakers... is there a 'server room' rack of power amps and system processors powering multiple speaker systems in the building... as far as the mixer is concerned, over a weekend like this I would have preferred to get familiar with an unfamiliar mixer instead of bringing my own setup.

What is this sorcery? Hooked your output in Y with their output, and it works? I am baffled 😮

So I had to rewatch and edit lol. So assuming those blue xlrs with the orange tape are your outputs going into the venues TF stage box into input 1 and 2. The bottom right connections on the TF are out are outputs, so it won't work if your plugging your board output into the TF outputs 7 and 8. So question. Outputs 1 and 2 on that top TF, do you know where it goes to? Could that be the actual output to foh?

1. KISS. keep it simple stupid. Never unplug their system. Go into ch 1 & 2 and forget about it. 2. If you went through hell on the first day setting up I would have never changed it no matter how curious I get. Cool video though. I wish I did video while doing jobs like this. I agree with your take on the Sennheiser mic vs the 58.

Am I understanding this correctly that you couldn’t just take the cables sending to the PA and plug those into your console? This resulted in no signal?

fully agree on the sennheiser vocal mics.... and to add insult to injury, the VRX tend also to be rather bright and harsh. not exactly a winning combo!

I'm a Shure/SE guy now. Never was a fan of the Sennheiser mics (except for the 604/609)...have him try a sE v7 capsule

I've had problems with the TF series of consoles, especially when connecting the stage boxes to the consoles via Dante. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. I've now vowed to avoid the TF series.

I am guessing that they have not connected all pins of the XLR. So maybe only the hot one in a way that you need to complete the circuit to get cold and ground. Or reversed polarity or some other funky wiring with the ground? The cable does look rather thin, even for a multicore. Only thing that makes sense is wiring. And I have encountered those contraptions myself. All with venues with their own system, wiring and BUDGET SAVING! And they all tell you that you are the first to have "that" problem...

Very hard to tell what is going on there with the mains-PA connection. That’s super weird. However I don’t want to comment on that before having clear information on what type of cables they use, how it’s wired in the xlr connector and where the two wires end up or what following devices are connected on it. On first sight I would say it’s probably some weird grounding-issue what the Yamaha stage-box is solving for whatever reason.. You should check that. It might be dangerous to plug your presonus to shoot the output amps then. Usually in such cases I always run my gear through the house-desk again as I don’t want to mess around with the specifics of local house systems

Are you always do the sound for Rhino?

This will just be a very wild guess but the y splitter situation may have have something to do with the way their house snake is wired and by using the y splitter and the tf console it corrects the wiring scheme to work with the wiring scheme of your tie ins’

Our singer sounds muddy on Beta58 so he prefers an 845. Another singer of ours prefers a Beta87 ... I think it's mostly a cultural difference, Europeans need more treble where Americans don't. All are excellent mics and easy to EQ in the end. Chinese need even more treble than Europeans, I think it's related to linguistic intelligibility.

19:13 isn't your left out still running into the TF?

It must be a connection issue with the xlrs. I would never drive a signal into the output of anything no matter what I'm told to do. That stage box had no effect on the mains working or not. The only way I would beable to give a perfect answer is to check the solder joints in the xlrs and the pinout. If you need gender changers, someone has the wrong connectors. And yes sennheiser mics are too bright. Sm58 or Telefunken m80 all day. Unless it's a 906 on a guitar cab. Those work and sound good.

You were a lot more calm than i would be. Their "sound guy" obviously didn't care enough to be there. He probably jacked around with the routing in his board and you lost your original LR feed. It's always the routing! Glad to see I'm not the only one that runs into this garbage of people that don't know what they are doing nor do they care. I quit a huge house gig because of a doomass dj. Thought he knew everything , but actually knew nothing. But he is the owners friend.🥴

Man what a mess to say the least. Phase issue maybe or routing? I don't. Least you got it goin. Well done

If you could have plugged into their network and ran Dante controller I bet all would have become clear. It is obvious the patch changed in between your shows.

It’s because you’re at Shooting Star. That’s why.

I REALLY THINK THE CABLE TO THE MAIN AMPS TO FRONT OF HOUSE IS WIRE UNBALANCE, HOWEVER THEY ARE USING XLR BALANCE CONNECTOR , THEY HADS ISSUE IN THE PASS AND NEEDED A CHEAP QUICK FIX AT THIS, AN THEY JUST LEFT IT THAT WAY, WHY BECAUSE THEY GOT SOUND . JUST MY REASONING

I prefer Sennheiser vocal mics for Tenor and lower voices, and Shure to Alto and higher voices.

On the mics: The e835 is more comparable to the SM48 or PG58. The e845 is more comparable to the SM58. The e935 is more the Beta58. The e945 is above that. Long ago there was the e855 and that was more Beta58 but different than the e935. It's been some years since I used those so hard to explain exactly.

?! I am also surprised ! The Y cable connects 2 outputs together ! So you are sending your signal in the output circuitry of their console and the same for you, your console is getting in the ouput the signal from their console ! To mix 2 signals together, you need amplifiers isoliting both outputs just like a console is doing ! I really think the best setup is to send your signal in their 2 channels inputs like you did. Or you have to completely disconnect their console and connect to the PAs and switch the cables when they need to use their system. But i keep thinking the best setup is the first one. No Y cables ! Y cables are OK for one signal going to 2 inputs and even then.... you need an electronic splitter otherwize you mess arround with the impedance of the input and for microphone it may create some drops.

Confused viewer. From what I can tell the house system was made up of a Yamaha TF1 consol, 2x TIO1608 stage boxes (upper set as Unit #1 channels 1-16 and lower as Unit #2 channels 17-32), a pair of yellow "out" cables for FOH that went off somewhere - possibly to a Yamaha SP2060 speaker processor (or similar) and then into unknow amps, finishing up with JBL SRX718's & flown SRX900's? TIO SB (top) unit #1 had 3 outputs goings somewhere??? not monitors and then your L/R signal from the PreSonus going in channels 1&2 (which worked) but was later changed to Y cables - taking a signal from your system & the house TF1 (& their wireless mic) to the JBLs. Like you, I don't understand why connecting your L/R (out) signal directly to the 2 yellow FOH cables didn't work - but I noticed that when you were testing the system (around the 18-20 min mark) you only connected the PreSonus R signal to the FOH R cable, but left your L channel from the PreSonus in channel 1 on the TIO, so wouldn't the signal from your left, going into channel 1 on TF1 still have sent a signal to both the L&R FOH? A double positive test? Thanks again for a great post - no need to respond, but I'll be thinking about your problem, this baffles me.

I would have just mixed on the house console ... most well known consoles function on similar principles and can easily be operated

Digital routing was wrong I say.

Because your using lighting out put

🤍🤍🌹🌹

The classic mistake using other peoples equipment and never seems to work out . join the club. it happened to me one too many times never again.

I think the house wiring is unbalanced and the Yamaha stagebox output is more forgiving than your mixer’s output. The Y-cable is also unbalanced and just pure luck it works. It makes absolutely no sense as you are connecting the output of your mixer to the output of the Yamaha stagebox and via the circuitry of the output stage of the Yamaha you are feeding the house system. Very scary and I think you’re lucky no mixer/stagebox was hurt during this.