Mixing By Remote

If your were attending a concert to critically evaluate the quality of the sound, would you sit at the FOH (Front of House) mix position? Probably not. The size and quantity of the equipment used to mix and process the sound for many concert productions will often relegate the FOH mix position to the cheap seats. Adding insult to this injury, the equipment also creates a poor acoustical environment for listening due to the hard reflective surfaces of the mixer and processing racks. While we have become hardened to the fact that critical listening and mixing must be done from this second-rate seat, there are new options for getting closer to the best seat in the house.

Mixing a concert by remote control may seem like science fiction to many in the concert sound industry. However, there are current examples of both touring (Celine Dion) and fixed (San Francisco Opera House) installations that are using remote control to improve the functionality and listening conditions of the person mixing for the audience. These sound systems are examples of the control interface, used by the mixing person, connecting to racks of audio processing that are placed in relatively close proximity to the rest of the primary audio system components. This avoids the massive cables and huge load of gear that must be pushed out into the audience to create a mix position. It also avoids having every mic cable running hundreds of feet, with all of the noise induction and signal degradation this can entail. Now the delicate mic signals need only reach the side stage where they can immediately be amplified to line level.

The integration of complete remote control into a sound system allows the mic gain to be added nearest the mic, the processing of the audio to happen in a more concise rack of gear and the master level for the system to be adjusted within the power amplifiers. The gain adjustments can be distributed to maximize the dynamic range of the system, instead of having to be physically located within reach of the operator. When you consider that many regional touring systems run out a >150 foot snake to the mix position that includes very incompatible signals (mics, line level, communications, and AC power) in very close proximity; it is a wonder that those systems are quiet enough to hear the metal band over the EMC noise.

Using remote control can benefit the signal quality, simply by reducing the number of devices in the signal chain. Most obvious in this regard is the mic splitter. If the mixing is done by control signals, then both the FOH and the onstage monitor mixers can access the same input signals and just reroute them to suit their individual tasks. While this may require some redundancy (such as within the mic pre-amps, just in case the FOH engineer and monitor engineer disagree on mic attenuation during the show), each task's audio path can be minimized. There can be operational advantages, too, such as sharing signal processing or specific tightly cued mixing moves between monitor and FOH.

Moving from audio signals to control signals can also change the format of the connections between the mixer and the audio racks. Not only is the copper cable connection much smaller, if desired the cable can be even smaller using fiber-optics or disappear using RF systems. These alternative connections must be capable of getting more than just control signals to the mix position, including audio for the operator's headphones and headset communications with visual signaling.

There are also acoustical advantages to reducing the size of the gear at the mix position. Those large, hard reflective surfaces have a negative impact on the sound quality at the mixer. If the mixer can be reduced in size (with only the current controls in view and redundant controls, like EQ knobs, placed in one handy location instead of scattered across the mixer) and the processing rack reduced to a concise control surface, then the person mixing will be listening to sound qualities much closer to those in nearby seats. In addition, the reduction of seats killed to make room for the gear and the improved sight lines may allow the FOH mix position to be moved into the best seats in the venue (OK, maybe the second best). Placement of the mix position will then be based on good access and good listening conditions (not at the back under the balcony!). However, the act of mixing a show and communicating with the stage crew may still be a little too disruptive to sit in the center of some types of audiences.

United Entertainment Media Inc.
460 Park Avenue South, 9th Floor
New York, NY, 10016
Ph. 212-378-0400
FAX 212-378-2160

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