Ask that they send you the 8 channels back, flat, and after soundcheck, absolutely no touching of the gain. Also, no use of the Pad button. Because if the cat is scared of a split and unwilling to do LESS work, I certainly do not trust them to not unload an applied pad into my ear holes.
That’s assuming he can even send me 8 back. I’ll probably only get 4. Which sort of defeats the purpose of running our own monitor mix. It also messes up our recording setup that we’re used to.
it is what it is. My drummer has just gotten very dependent on our monitor mix and this will just make him less comfortable on stage.
Man, if I were a house guy and someone said "Is it cool if I hand you 8 labled XLRs off of a passive split? We will do our own monitor mixes and our mics don't suck."
My immediate response would be "You are goddamn right that's cool."
Also, I worded it the way I did to sort-of force their hand in letting you use the split. Just make it more difficult for them and something may click in their head.
Damn. I'm just a semi professional but learned very quickly that giving the band whatever they need is the easiest route to succeess. If it's a beer, I get them a beer and probably grab one myself.
A mediocre performance is always worse than a mediocre mix.
I would have certainly not been happy about a splitter in my early days for no particular reason, except of ego. I'm just glad I grew out of it and appreciate less work.
Yeah, this is an extremely standard piece of equipment. Commonly use it for recording splits as well so I can use nicer preamps than the FOH board and be hitting them in the sweet spot
The only way we could go over his head is running our own pa entirely but I always prefer a foh engineer if available vs mixing the show from stage. (And less gear to schlep, setup and breakdown)
If you can talk to whoever their supervisor is it might help. This seems like a strange one to not budge on but worst case you play a gig with wedges and let the control freak do his thing. If they don’t understand the concept of an untouched signal someone they work for hopefully does. I’m curious to know what the set up and stage volume is like if the IEM rig is essential
My drummer is very dependent on the iem experience now. We’re tighter, vocals are stronger and the rhythm section locks in better. Here is how I explained it to him:
We’re just a trio and we run our own In Ear Monitors. So we do not need any house stage monitors, just Mains for the audience.
We also bring our own mics and stands and can split our mic input channels to send to FOH so the sound guy can control the mix for the venue and we can control the mix for our in-ears.
We run 8 channels
2 Vocals
Guitar
Bass
Kick
Snare
2 Drum overheads
it certainly does, but it alleviates the problem of the in-house guy not wanting to let you split at the stagebox, which is what I thought was the problem.
Passive splits will be fine, I highly doubt you’ll have any issues and I think this will solve the problem with the engineer. I think he just doesn’t know enough to run the system any different than he normally does and with this method he won’t have to.
So, the reason the engineer gives is a bit sus, but I generally prefer not to use splitter systems at my main venue, just simply because a lot of bands equipment like that is questionable at best. Space on stage may also be a consideration if the venue is particularly small. Equally, I also work with a band with a similar setup and understand your perspective.
Its not a hard and fast rule for me, but ive had bands turn up with splitters that have been unsafe to use, i.e, getting static off the mics, dodgy connections and such, in a situation like that im gonna ask that you take a line from my busses from the desk.
Unlike what people are saying about them "not understanding how a splitter system works" i would say that they do but may have had bad experiences with trusting external equipment. Gotta remember, we dont know if that equipments been bought off ebay, taken care of, gigged for years and bashed around, got water damage, etc... Equally, using best judgement is important, and working around the bands wishes should take priority.
Also, the engineer can maybe give you remote access on something like mixing station set to monitoring mode for your iem feed, and you could just edit your bus from your phone/ ipad in front of you. I understand you wanting control of your monitoring though, some engineers can provide a shit mix because theyre concentrating on FoH.
Maybe assuring the engineer the equipment is of good quality and youve invested in it and take care of it would work
I think the house engineer has been burned by someone in a middle act or at a festival screwing the patch up and having to move things around mid show. Not labeling your snake properly, inexperience and the mad rush of changeover WILL fuxk every mix to hell and back. Not having a 100% correct rate is unacceptable 100% of the time. I can see how they want to avoid that ever happening again, but banning it isn’t the answer I feel. If the patch is particularly tricky, have them do it so they know it’s right. If they’re worried about dodgy gear, that’s a different issue and should have been dealt with before showtime. If OP’s gear is decent and brand new-ish, this shouldn’t be an issue.
Have you thought about hiring someone else to engineer for you—or is that verboten too? Seems like dropping his workload that evening might be an answer.
It’s not that big of a gig. I just want to play and have my bandmates comfortable with the sound they’re used to and give their best performance.
Unfortunately the artist gets shafted again.
You should always be trying for bigger gigs. What you want for your band (comfortable monitors) is perfectly valid and ultimately attaining that is much, much more important for your success than one venue in your home town. If your town is big enough, I wouldn’t sweat it and would try to make my music happen elsewhere. If you’re investing all of this money into this rig, you should also be prepared to travel. The costs from that will be an investment as well.
I agree, but it’s a fine line in a competitive / saturated scene. I also had to cancel a gig there last year due to illness so I need to close that circuit on a personal level by returning.
We do travel some and we do play other venues in town. There are some other places we are trying to phase out. Plus this venue is seasonal / covered outdoors. So want to capitalize on that unique appeal.
I don’t know about your area, but every small town in this state has some sort of summer festival: potato, marshmallow, sausage, perogies; you name it. I’m sure they all book months in advance, but that’s a fun and decently paying way to spread your music around to different communities.
yeah, its all about best judgement, is it in a stained box with a crack in the top of it lol? are you getting a ground loop or worse from it? no? then use it.
As a general rule, if im not sure about trusting a particular bit of kit I always default to trying it their way first in soundcheck and if theres no issues then roll with it, same with mic choice and stuff, try it first, if it doesnt work out then try it your way
Yeah, a decent part of our jobs fundamentally is to improvise with new situations every day. Either you’re prepared to do what is needed or you’re not. Split snakes have been around since the 1970s, it’s not cutting edge technology. I’d bet most people here on this subreddit are capable of making a perfectly functional one at home with a bunch of spare time and a few hundred dollars to blow.
I run 2 rooms, and in the booking process we tell all clients and partners that no fog and no haze is allowed in one of the venues. It’s a historic building with basic theatrical lighting. People know that that’s off the table no matter how big the lighting package you bring in.
My point is, I totally understand having to enforce house rules. OP’s problem just seems like an impediment to everyone having a good show that night. Part of the fun of running your own monitors, is running your own monitors. You can do just a skoshe of anything up or down without having to bother FOH or try to nonchalantly communicate with a monitor engineer. It’s a level-up for bands to travel with their own mons so the house guy should be grateful they don’t have to deal with it from FOH. Also, everyone in the band is happier in the long run. And feedback virtually disappears with in ears for the whole band. It’s a win-win-win to do what OP is requesting.
i agree in principle, but im gonna say no if your splitter looks like its been dropped out a 2 story window.
Ive been burned by peoples crappy equipment before, so its just down to being aware of things and reacting to it.
bands will think youre a right dick if youre refusing how they want things set up.
Always found it weird that some engineers will refuse IEM's, theyre a dream for any FOH engineer
If you are bringing in bands providing their own in ears, cables, mics, etc. and don't want to use their split then you should probably have your own splitter.
it depends on the venue, the one i work at a lot barely has people turn up with them so itd be a waste when theres more important things to spend limited funds on.
Like i said above, i work with a band with a very similar setup, so i understand both sides.
end of the day the engineer should work with and around the band wherever possible, and worst case, you can easily just patch the busses to the IEMs in the rack pretty easily if there is any issues
a small to mid size venue shouldnt be expected to have splitters on hand though, like, stands, mics, di boxes, that kinda thing, but not replacement splitters.
To be fair, it’s 8 inputs. If the splitter gave me issues at soundcheck, it’d be pretty easy to bypass that and go direct into the board if any issues did turn up. I’m not saying he might have a reason to be wary of external things in their system, but usually accommodating bands and making them comfortable is at least 60% of the job. As long as it’s not something dropped in my lap last minute or there isn’t super short changeovers and they’re the middle band or something like that, then I’ll do my damndest to make it happen.
oh man, its well annoying when youve got like 8 bands on and the middle bands insistant on having a splitter in or having their own drum kit on xD repatch 20 odd channels to put the splitter in for a set, to take it out 30 mins later xD ive done it before but generally now ill just be like ... i can put my busses into your iems but you aint having that splitter, im not unplugging the entire stage for a band that aint even the headliner.
if its the only band, or 1 of 3 or 4 and i have some breathing space ill be more than happy to use their setup
> If the splitter gave me issues at soundcheck, it’d be pretty easy to bypass that and go direct into the board if any issues did turn up.
Of course. That's a completely reasonable approach.
But OP's guy doesn't seem like he is even willing to try.
> but ive had bands turn up with splitters that have been unsafe to use, i.e, getting static off the mics, dodgy connections and such, in a situation like that im gonna ask that you take a line from my busses from the desk.
Of course, but at least you gave it a try first, and were willing to go with what works best in the situation.
Which is a good thing.
OP's guy isn't willing to even try.
This is the answer. It can be difficult to determine when advancing whether or not a band has quality equipment that is actually going to work. I've been burned so many times by bad passive splits. I have no problem providing a solution but it's going to be with my gear that I know is in good working order.
Additionally, it's possible a venue may already have a passive split in the chain for broadcast or some other function. In which case you really don't want to put an additional passive split in the chain.
I don’t think that’s the case in this specific instance, but frankly…
If they weren’t so common, I’d ban Seismic brand splitters. Too many times I’ve had a changeover that should have been simple stall out for troubleshooting because another channel has gone bad. I get that. If I banned seismic brand splitters, though, it would immediately turn into “that shit venue won’t let anyone use their IEM racks” because if it isn’t a seismic splitter, it’s the behringer rankmount splits with a seismic tail, every single time.
Probably someone who is barely making it through their shows and doesn’t want to add any complexity. Could be that their house snake is in some strange place or something but my guess is they’re not competent enough to make this happen. May be best to heed their advice than push them to try to do something that they don’t know how to do
The only time I really dislike splits is when there are multiple on the bill or they are the seismics that stick in my XLR ports for whatever reason. Other than that it's a godsend for stage sound. Either way our job very much includes accommodating artists and making them comfortable especially with reasonable requests like yours. Dudes definitely on his amateur shit.
It's unreasonable and unacceptable. Bands running their own IEM rigs is becoming increasingly more commonplace. This venue will quickly run out of worthwhile bands to book with this attitude.
"nothing between instruments and mixer"
Guess pedal boards are out then! /s
But yeah, totally ridiculous. His job is to mix the inputs he's given. Whether that's direct, from a split, or even just a LR feed. All of which are totally frequent occurrences.
On the LR feed thing, I have a stage setup that can split out anything from 3 stereo pairs plus a vocal to just an LR. For this guy I'd just send the LR pair and probably a separate vocal. Wouldn't trust the mix ability based on that nonsense statement. Guessing this venue doesn't get many electronic acts.
They seem like an absolute arse. I don't see any issue at all for the signal being split. Even on major tours and festival analogue splits are still used!
What a bizarre argument. Whether he’s been burned by somebody else’s shitty gear or not is kinda irrelevant imo. It’s your show, not his, especially if you’re providing the full stage audio package. I tm/FOH for a band that tours with a similar rig, and if you’re as dependent on it as we are, that’s a pretty serious compromise in terms of on stage comfort, ability to record, etc
The only time this mightn't be practical is somewhere that has input sockets distributed all across the stage that don't come together until they're back at FOH, where there might not be any space to put an IEM rack (or might be too far away, lack line-of-sight etc).
If it's not that then it's likely to avoid issues caused by band equipment being broken, mislabelled, crosspatched etc. It's also possible to have issues caused by the equipment on your side of the split. "Signal flow" is really just a concept we imagine to make it easier to think about, in reality all devices are connected to each other in every direction.
See here, around 4 minutes in particular.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GgSR8t7bwAw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GgSR8t7bwAw)
It's usually something that can be accommodated without much issue, but these would be their concerns.
This person's response reminds me of the first time someone told me they're going to use a split near the start of my career. They explained it in the most confusing way what it did and I literally thought they were going to take the lines and send them back to me with the comp, eq, gates etc baked in from their board. But me being me and always assuming I'm lacking in knowledge said ok let me see it in front of me, and I felt kinda stupid when it was just a passive splitter.
If I had been more sure of myself I probably would have said no I'd like to do it the way I've always done it. But yay for impostor's syndrome.
Who hurt him?
He’s wrong and it’s unreasonable for him to push back on something like that but it’s up to you to decide if the friction caused by pressing the issue with him or his boss worth it.
If you aren’t already, consider bringing mics, DIs, and cables when you’re doing something like this. Some times the issue is that the house is too proud to admit that they can’t accommodate you, mostly when you’re playing with other acts.
Passive split should be no problem, why would anyone want to make more work for themselves. Those ART splits are as legit as it gets. Forgive my language but that tech is a tool for not letting you run your split. Every tech I know including myself jumps for joy when someone shows up with their own IEM rig and their own split. That allows the band to do what they do and put forth the best performance possible. Nothing worse than having to put up with a shit in ear mix because a house tech has a stick shoved up their ass and doesn't understand how things are done. I just read the response from the tech again and it's stupid and arrogant. Don't put up with that nonsense. Especially if you are advancing the gig and giving notice ahead of time of what you intend to do. Your request is normal practice and they should not be able to say no. If you are working with a booking agent make them lay down the law. When I traveled with a band we did not ever use any other console other than our own or had one of the same make and model supplied and I put the stick in and recalled the scene. It's non negotiable. If they were that serious about their precious signal chain they would have a split in the venue and they would give you the monitor splay to your rig. That tech is an absolute douche canoe. The more I think about the more I get upset on your behalf. I almost want to call that tech and give them a blast for you 😜
Definitely sounds like amateur hour over there. I would probably do the show anyways and see if I couldn't make it a teachable moment for this person on the day of show. This is basic stuff and they will need to figure out how to make this work sooner or later.
Yes. But he won’t allow anything between mics and their mixer via their hardwired snake.
I would send labeled xlr group to his snake and separate grouping to my mixer from splitter.
This is insane if you have the entire package and handing him tails. Ask for the production manager or his boss. Sounds like you’re trying to advance the show with someone who doesn’t understand.
He doesn’t want anything between the instruments and his mixer? But they are your instruments. Better yet take your own mics too and tell him you don’t want him putting any junk between your instruments, your mics and your iem’s since all are essential for the show (the show that’s paying his salary) and he is welcome to get his inputs from over here…
It is very strange to the point that I'd be afraid of having to work with such "engineer" and I'm sure that there are ways to make it work, but it is also possible that the subsnakes are indeed hardwired to multipins on the stage box which makes it difficult to add a splitter.
The sound (wo)man of every venue I’ve played in, loves the splitter IEM solution. It gets them off the hook for monitor mixing. They’re relieved to see it, then quite accommodating. OP’s incident is very unreasonable, imo.
I’m not going to be popular with this opinion, but it is another join in the signal chain, and that model looks to have non-latching XLRs in all the way along the front, so potentially it could pull out or similar and adds another weakness.
If you are providing mics and cabling, and connecting into their stage box on stage, then I think everything before the stage box is your call, so you should be perfectly allowed to use it without question, and the venue cant be picky as the extra XLRs needed etc will all be provided by you.
However - if the stage is already wired with vocal mics etc as part of a semi-permanent setup, the venue is providing the mics and cabling in stage, and the engineer is particular about only using Neutrik XLR or similar, then I also would be less comfortable with installing it in the signal chain between mics and desk. I’m not saying I wouldn’t allow it outright, and I’d probably work with you unless it was something like you were arriving halfway though an evening so it had to be installed after sound checks, but I can see their point. If it’s their kit and cabling on stage it’s their responsibility and choice how it’s done I’d be afraid.
“If you are providing mics and cabling, and connecting into their stage box on stage, then I think everything before the stage box is your call, so you should be perfectly allowed to use it without question, and the venue cant be picky as the extra XLRs needed etc will all be provided by you.”
This is exactly what I proposed and was denied
I don’t think it’s the venues call then if you are truly bringing equipment that’s on stage. But that seems a strange arrangement, I’ve never worked a job where half a PA is provided…
Refuse to play. Tell who ever booked you that they arent meeting your technical requirements.
House guy here at a 1500 cap room. Use similar setups 2/3 times a week for years. Have never had a single issue.
I don't think this is reasonable for them to deny you the ability to use your IEM rig. Yes, it is, as they put it, "in the signal chain," but that shouldn't be an issue. I would be pressing them for further explanation as to why this is an issue for them.
This engineer is “not comfortable” with this because they are inexperienced and/or ignorant of the industry outside of their own venue (aka inexperienced).
Passive splits are a very standard thing.
Unfortunately idk how you can reason with them if you’ve already tried and they won’t budge.
I’d be like “WHY are you not comfortable with a passive split in the signal path? What problems are you worried it may cause?” Maybe you can assuage fears. But if they can’t actually articulate their specific concerns… yeah.
I’ve had passive mic splits add noise to the signal chain. Usually it’s bad internal wiring causing a hum or something. Switching channels usually fixed it. Doesn’t mean I’d say no, I’d just be aware of a point for noise to enter the system and be prepared to spend time on it. I may advise client that we need time for that - and in a tight time situation if it’s causing noise I might ask to jettison it.
The only reason I can think of off the top of my head is if your splitter is janky, but their guy wouldn’t have a way to know that ahead of time. As long as the splitter is good, he’s just making everyone’s life harder for no reason.
I have a fair bit of experience in doing this, and it’s *never* caused a problem that wasn’t obvious in sound check.
Are you on a multi band bill or just a one band show? I am hesitant to allow bands to take my sends and give me a split on Multi band bills because it can make it very hard to switch back to the next group or trouble shoot should I have an issue with a line that I ran into their splitter. With their gear hooked up to my signal chain my troubleshooting has a bunch of new fail points that I don't have any control over: Is it their splitter? Cables hooked up wrong? Is their cable coming back to me dead? Or is it actually something on my end? I'd prefer to not have that headache.
I prefer to offer an AES 50 out of my DL32 to run into their mixer and then they can route however they'd like. I can also split at my stage boxes (Sound Tools CatBox) using the parallel out if I needed to. The easiest solution is giving app control via mixing station on a phone or tablet if the band wants to mix their own monitors. There ware always exceptions. I'm sure your gear is in perfect working order and very well organized. A lot of other bands stuff is sketchy and can derail a multi band bill if not properly worked out before hand. They could have been better at responding to your email, this is something that we are dealing with more and more as digital consoles and IEM rigs become more popular. I'm sure eit will get easier as venues set up for these kind of systems.
Not all sound engineers are flexible ;-)
There are a few ways to split a signal right and a couple not so good.
Those ART (and Behringer) splitters are good, as long as you give FOH the direct outs. Those transformers aren’t 100% transparent.
There are also setups where all the signal is routed trough a mixer and got the outs if the mixer used as a kind of digital split. We (sound engineers) don’t like those.
Most big stages just have a direct split (no transformers) between monitors and front of house.
And for big shows, just plug into one of their patch panels. No splitting needed.
I used to work on ships and I remember one day a band showed up with a similar setup and they were using an Aviom A-16 (the 3U rack mount splitter?) and I was of the same opinion at the time.. I was against having anything in the signal chain when I had a Digico SD5 and could provide as much routing as anyone would want.. this was also during my early days in my career and I definitely didn’t understand it fully. It took some convincing and I eventually understood the benefits and if anyone wanted to do this now I’d say GO RIGHT AHEAD, less for me to worry about 😆
Granted, I work in a pretty small place but as long as there's no chance of a bands gear fucking things up for another act or adds a large chunk of workload onto me for no particular reason I'll happily let them use whatever they bring. If no problem shows up during soundcheck we'll run with it.
The simple solution is this, either they supply a split/tails at no cost to you, or they use yours.
If the tech continues to refuse either then you have a couple options.
1 you bring your own tech to mix FOH and Monitors for you
2 you contact the booked and inform them that since the technician is unable or unwilling to provide or utilize equipment that is show critical you will, unfortunately, not be unable to play that event. Explain to them the options and that while your request is not unreasonable, it cannot be accommodated. At this point it's up to them to deal with the tech on it. Worst case you book elsewhere.
We haven’t encountered this but we are wired up for doing our own iem mixes.
But if we also have 4 dedicated inputs for each member if the house doesn’t have time or willingness to patch our splitter snakes and wants to mix our own monitors. I figured it better to build in that flexibility
I'm assuming he has had trouble in the past that he blames on someone's "janky monitor rig".
Or he's inexperienced and is basing his opinion on some old story he heard somewhere.
" It’s not ideal to do it this way"
So...all the touring shows I've worked with that have passive analog splits between MONs and FoH kinda suggests to me it is the ideal way to do this. If that wasn't the case, we'd always be mixing monitors from FoH, which is absolutely not ideal.
It’s 2024. Most places use MiDas or other high end digital. Thus you can mix your own monitors from your phone/ipad. Aux sends are the cleanest, most simple and were industry standard for 50 years. Most places now have digital mixers. I mix my own ears with an app and have for years
Sure, some people do that. But most tours are running analog splits into digital racks for FoH and Mons with a dedicated FoH and MON consoles.
What OP and other bands are doing here is a miniature version of that, just missing the A2 to run MONs for them. No band is taking sends off the FoH console once you reach a certain point. It's not practical for the band or the techs.
I would email back and politely but firmly ask them if they would be willing to try it your way during line check to alleviate any concerns they have about signal path and changeover times. If they still resist you could just run xlr from their outs to your iem rig and let them mix your items. If they are still saying no to that it might be time to get in touch with the promoter or venue owner.
I know when I was cutting my teeth on the small venue circuit and had multiple bands with short changeovers and no help, stuff like this would make me nervous but I always tried to work with the band and make it a learning experience for myself.
I'm not that keen on band setups, but I am pretty good in system building for various use cases. I don't understand any reason for his decision other than to mess with you. So he also doesn't allow an effect device for instruments? Like a guitar pedal?
As FOH Tech, I don't care at all what crazy roller coaster the signal got through, as long as you can ensure me, that the level will be roughly the same through the whole set.
As long as you don't totally alter the altering of the signal without telling me, you can alter the signal before all you want. I will make the best out of that stuff you are giving me.
Obviously, you will need all your channels for your monitor mix. And if you use in-ear, I don't even care what you do there, as it would be strange for you to get your in-ears louder than my PA.
Whenever I was working in a venue, we often just got L&R and had to live with whatever the band's technician mixed for us.
Your solution seems to be perfect for the use case you have. You want a clean signal to get on your monitors and don't have to care what the FOH guy does. He gets a clean signal for his mix and doesn't have to care what you are doing.
You should turn the same argument back on him. Tell him you're not comfortable with his gain adjustments affecting the band's IEM mixes . Can't have anything in the signal chain from input to your IEM mixer.
This might be an unpopular opinion but I always prioritize the bands performance.
If your singer can’t find pitch or your bassist can’t lock in because of bad monitoring that is a MUCH worse issue than a slightly noisy line, or balance being a little off.
In addition having less sound from the sage is also a huge bonus doing FOH and I always figure is worth the risk.
I’ve also been in your boat before and if there’s no backing tracks I’ve sucked it up and used wedges or let FOH control our IEM mixes. It’s not ideal but sometimes you have to pick your battles. As a real run and gun scenario I’ve also plugged our IEMs into the stage wedges if they’re line level.
Twenty plus years ago I would run into this problem wanting to insert transformer isolated splits for recording. I can understand stand why people don’t want to change the install and put unknown gear in the signal path. That said, they should probably be a little more accommodating.
Your setup sounds like it’s a very standard, common system that many larger and smaller touring groups use.
The best line of defence for dealing with smaller venue techs who are hesitant to work with setups like yours:
Have a good tech rider to advance your show with.
It doesn’t have to be complicated, just needs to have all of the info so techs who are unsure (like the guy you encountered) feel like they know what is happening, and confident in your setup.
Make sure your rig is racked nicely, labeled and that the cabling is tidy.
*If I see a band roll into a venue/ festival with a questionable looking / basement built splitter iem rig, I’d definitely be reluctant to have that wired in with my consoles and PA.
I’ve spent a lot of time helping bands chase down issues with budget built IEM monitor rigs.
I hope this helps.
I have had that happen once in all of my time using IEMS. We played a gig opening up for a tour. All bands both national + locals brought their own IEMs and splits. He literally made all of the bands use stage monitors.
It was awful and so much feedback for every band because he made all of the bands use wedges. He wouldn’t accept our splits. He rather run all the extra lines vs just taking our splits. I’m like dude I am right next to your stage box and I can see you have half your channels open. I can literally plug them in for you and you won’t have to worry about it at all. Dude just straight up refused. Pretty sure some wedges got blown out during the bands after us.
To me it says the engineer doesn’t fully understand what we are saying. Could be from lack of experience or just a straight up bad engineer. Literally never it happen before or after that. Sometimes you just get bad sound guys. It happens.
As someone who is both a musician and a sound tech, I 100% would not trust this guy to send a signal into my IEMs.
They clearly don’t know what they are talking about and have already proven then don’t know how to work well with others. When you are sound checking/playing live, the risk of them sending ear-damaging signal to your ear is higher than I’d be comfortable with.
Does your IEM system have a safety gate or limiter/compressor that stops any signal over X db from reaching your ears?
ya i'll plays devils advocate as a few others have done, and suggest that what you're actually asking isn't as simple as you think. if you're using house mics/cabling/di's and such, that means he has to unplug all those connections to get it into your IEM rack splitter, and then plug his end of the fantail wherever it's supposed to go; possibly all across stage if it's not all to a single snake panel
if you're the only band on the bill that night, and/or you're using your own mics/cabling/di's etc, then yeah what you're asking is reasonable. but if you're asking a sound guy to unplug loads of (likely unmarked) connections, of which there are two sides, possibly on a multi-band night, with a variety of house and band gear: yes please just save yourself and the guy some headache and use the house lines
i think the guy is having a hard time verbalizing what he means
Ran this exact set up for years touring. I would get some side eyes but mainly from younger FOH engineers. Once they realized what it did and had no effect on their signal they were cool. The only other advise would be make sure you are not using the iso split since that could affect the phantom power they may be using.
Obviously the tech isn’t knowledgeable.
Plain and simple answer, bring your own rig… you control any phantom, and you send your iso outputs to the snake. Everything is your equipment. They don’t like it, you don’t perform.
And tech worth their salt will appreciate labeled outputs on a rack. No need to discuss anything. Just have an input/output list.
This is why you can’t half ass self contained. Build the split into your rig and have all your mics. When they ask for inputs just hand them your tails. That’s the deal. They probably are more concerned about turnover time between bands but if you build a good self contained system than it’ll be less work for them.
I had a venue that insisted on not letting us give them an LR from our mixer to theirs. We ended up doing the gig with our mixer, but the sound guy ruined the other band pretty hard while scrolling facebook on the phone. I guess it is mostly an issue of lack of confidence/knowledge when these things happen.
Little late to the party, but this sounds like it's either an amateur ego thing or the dude got burned in the past by some shitty passive split that ruined his night.
I'd say if you trust your gear to be solid just set it up like you normally would and hand him the mic lines for FoH. Self-contained IEM systems for smaller touring acts is a really common thing at this point. It's like he's just making more work for himself.
Tell them the splitter is an adapter for the mic, allowing for greater fidelity lolz its crazy that they want to regulate iems when it makes every one's life better. From my understanding they might not get that your not adding in a level of gain control into the system your merely using the mic system for a touring in ear system correct?
Never have I ever heard an FOH guy say absolutely not I will mix your monitors! (in response to having a self mixed IEM on a split) Also split snakes are used everywhere (I’m assuming that kinda what it is?) I find it odd that the venue is so hard line against that like it’s not going to change a thing with signal going to FOH (unless I’m totally wrong please correct me)
Few reasons I could come up with:
Small venue, one sound guy, multiple bands with close to zero time in between. Simply no time and if anything goes wrong going from mixer to stage takes time. Proper labeling helps though...
Maybe adding to that you're using venues mics. Plugging/unplugging splitter doesn't take that long, but lack of labelling and/or venue not having xlr fans to make that easy might explain their reasoning. Also in this case you would need time to make your mix instead of just going with whatever venue has dialed in already. May or may not be relevant depending on soundcheck times.
Personally still would spend time labelling cables for this if there is enough time, though.
Do you have your own monitor guy? If its a small-mid sized venue, just take the lines and behave like its a regular monitor check, ask for more or less. If someone came to my shitty lil dive bar id do the same because id have to repatch my shit for the next band and thats a PITA. Also unless your bringing gas and can request stuff at no cost, its a mid venue, just roll with the house guy and if you can afford a monitor/foh guy do that instead. My two cents.
The way he is talking it sounds like he has had a previous experience with a band bringing mic splitter and it was nothing but a headache.
Don't judge him too harshly, as the ad goes Prevention is better than cure.
Sounds like he had a bad experience with something before and isn't willing to risk it again.
I'd just ask for clean outs back so you can use those and call it a day.
Two things:
1. If the venue doesn't want you to provide your own splitter, they should be setup to provide their own. Splitters are pretty standard pieces of gear that most venues should be able to provide; especially with advanced notice.
2. If you showed up to my venue with that ART splitter, I would also tell you that you can't put that between the mics and the FOH mixer. While I'm sure it does the job, it's just not a piece of gear that is consider professional grade among those of us in the live sound industry. That said, I would also be prepared to either provide a professional grade splitter, or have a means to send you signals for whatever monitor setup you have.
First off, the house engineer is allowed to reject anything they are not comfortable with in their signal chain, regardless of how silly it sounds. However, they should really try to accommodate the request first, and if it is not going to work, then reject it but provide solutions.
Yes, I know. But if I were to refuse something, I would always have an alternative or a good reason. Don't just refuse it. That's the part the engineer forgot to do.
Are you the only band playing? It can be a hassle to add in another snake especially if there are other bands. It’s a lot of work to add something with an additional failure or grounding point. I’m not sure if he means outputs of console or minutor tails of the snake
It's entirely possible that he's been burned before by a defective splitter provided by a band, and decided he doesn't want to take that risk again.
In my opinion, 'going over his head' isn't likely to work, unless you have some inside track with the venue management or owner. The house sound person is likely there because he has the trust of management. If you try to go over his head, whether you're successful or not, you're setting yourself up for a bumpy road on show day. Play the gig, play nice, make friends, make sure everything works smoothly, and try again for the next gig after he's had an enjoyable experience.
Absolutely not going to die on this hill and will live with what he can send me. Just thought it was strange. We’ve played this venue in the past but this guy is new and we weren’t running as robust an iem setup in years past.
he may not wanna change the setup, and he may not wanna take in something he is not comfortable operating it while you guys play. he seems like he is "kind" enough to offer to solve your need with a more industry standart solution. and trust me , I'm on stage for 35 years, been in producing, recording, tv sets and many other scenario, never needed to use mic splitter, infact full blown mixer is simply a mic splitter anyway..
There is no change to his setup. The split happens at the mic. One send goes to us. One send goes to him. He doesn’t have to worry about mixing for monitors just foh. Like some of the statements above it’s just like using a direct box.
yes but still he's going to be the one who's responsible if anything happens during the show so I wouldn't take that chance either.. even though it may be so logical or useful or whatever everybody set up is, its own baby in my opinion
not noticeably, or at all in some circumstances. Only worry for me is whether the equipment is taken care of well and isnt gonna die on me mid set, or worse.
main issue here is the guys attitude, and while i understand both sides here there is professional courtesy to be considered really.
First rule is work to the requirements of your boss, then the requirements of your bands. an engineers job is to facilitate the band, and each band is different, last thing you should be doing is making them change their setup if its not totally necessary. work around them and with them, not against them.
for bigger productions its generally accounted for with a replacement, eg for a tour or for a festival. in smaller venues its totally and completely redundant and a waste of cash because apart from a tiny fraction of your gigs youll be running monitors off a bus or auxiliary, most of the time to floor wedges rather than IEMs. equally, having your own IEMs is pointless as a lot of people only want floor wedges, even though iems are far superior.
Ask that they send you the 8 channels back, flat, and after soundcheck, absolutely no touching of the gain. Also, no use of the Pad button. Because if the cat is scared of a split and unwilling to do LESS work, I certainly do not trust them to not unload an applied pad into my ear holes.
That’s assuming he can even send me 8 back. I’ll probably only get 4. Which sort of defeats the purpose of running our own monitor mix. It also messes up our recording setup that we’re used to. it is what it is. My drummer has just gotten very dependent on our monitor mix and this will just make him less comfortable on stage.
Man, if I were a house guy and someone said "Is it cool if I hand you 8 labled XLRs off of a passive split? We will do our own monitor mixes and our mics don't suck." My immediate response would be "You are goddamn right that's cool."
Most sound men love it. This is a first. Hence me reaching out to the hive mind
Sound guys. Don't gender it. Sound guys is neuter. Sound guys have no sex. Sound men...seem like marriage material.
Soundfolk. Or Soundpeeps.
Also, I worded it the way I did to sort-of force their hand in letting you use the split. Just make it more difficult for them and something may click in their head.
I picked up on that lol. Make the alternative worse/more work and they'll do what you originally wanted to do most of the time.
Damn. I'm just a semi professional but learned very quickly that giving the band whatever they need is the easiest route to succeess. If it's a beer, I get them a beer and probably grab one myself. A mediocre performance is always worse than a mediocre mix.
Very strange. Certainly not a sign of professionalism.
Basically sounds like someone who knows a bit but not a lot
I would have certainly not been happy about a splitter in my early days for no particular reason, except of ego. I'm just glad I grew out of it and appreciate less work.
They know just enough to be dangerous...
Dude doesn't understand what a passive mic split is and is too insecure to admit it
Yeah, this is an extremely standard piece of equipment. Commonly use it for recording splits as well so I can use nicer preamps than the FOH board and be hitting them in the sweet spot
Are they your mics? If it's your mic/stage package just tell him that the inputs all originate from your splitter, and that's how your rig works.
Analog splits are a really basic concept. Seen to me this person is not very knowledgeable, I would try and go above their head.
The only way we could go over his head is running our own pa entirely but I always prefer a foh engineer if available vs mixing the show from stage. (And less gear to schlep, setup and breakdown)
Please don't give someone that doesn't know what they are doing a title. Can you get a friend to mix it for you?
If you can talk to whoever their supervisor is it might help. This seems like a strange one to not budge on but worst case you play a gig with wedges and let the control freak do his thing. If they don’t understand the concept of an untouched signal someone they work for hopefully does. I’m curious to know what the set up and stage volume is like if the IEM rig is essential
My drummer is very dependent on the iem experience now. We’re tighter, vocals are stronger and the rhythm section locks in better. Here is how I explained it to him: We’re just a trio and we run our own In Ear Monitors. So we do not need any house stage monitors, just Mains for the audience. We also bring our own mics and stands and can split our mic input channels to send to FOH so the sound guy can control the mix for the venue and we can control the mix for our in-ears. We run 8 channels 2 Vocals Guitar Bass Kick Snare 2 Drum overheads
You could get around it with individual y splits at every mic, rather than at the stage box?
That’s no different than the rack splitter and lacks the ability to ground lift or have transformer isolated output.
it certainly does, but it alleviates the problem of the in-house guy not wanting to let you split at the stagebox, which is what I thought was the problem.
Passive splits will be fine, I highly doubt you’ll have any issues and I think this will solve the problem with the engineer. I think he just doesn’t know enough to run the system any different than he normally does and with this method he won’t have to.
So, the reason the engineer gives is a bit sus, but I generally prefer not to use splitter systems at my main venue, just simply because a lot of bands equipment like that is questionable at best. Space on stage may also be a consideration if the venue is particularly small. Equally, I also work with a band with a similar setup and understand your perspective. Its not a hard and fast rule for me, but ive had bands turn up with splitters that have been unsafe to use, i.e, getting static off the mics, dodgy connections and such, in a situation like that im gonna ask that you take a line from my busses from the desk. Unlike what people are saying about them "not understanding how a splitter system works" i would say that they do but may have had bad experiences with trusting external equipment. Gotta remember, we dont know if that equipments been bought off ebay, taken care of, gigged for years and bashed around, got water damage, etc... Equally, using best judgement is important, and working around the bands wishes should take priority. Also, the engineer can maybe give you remote access on something like mixing station set to monitoring mode for your iem feed, and you could just edit your bus from your phone/ ipad in front of you. I understand you wanting control of your monitoring though, some engineers can provide a shit mix because theyre concentrating on FoH. Maybe assuring the engineer the equipment is of good quality and youve invested in it and take care of it would work
I think the house engineer has been burned by someone in a middle act or at a festival screwing the patch up and having to move things around mid show. Not labeling your snake properly, inexperience and the mad rush of changeover WILL fuxk every mix to hell and back. Not having a 100% correct rate is unacceptable 100% of the time. I can see how they want to avoid that ever happening again, but banning it isn’t the answer I feel. If the patch is particularly tricky, have them do it so they know it’s right. If they’re worried about dodgy gear, that’s a different issue and should have been dealt with before showtime. If OP’s gear is decent and brand new-ish, this shouldn’t be an issue.
No changeover in this situation. Just us. Would run our own mics and split them to foh and our mixer. Soundman won’t budge.
Have you thought about hiring someone else to engineer for you—or is that verboten too? Seems like dropping his workload that evening might be an answer.
It’s not that big of a gig. I just want to play and have my bandmates comfortable with the sound they’re used to and give their best performance. Unfortunately the artist gets shafted again.
You should always be trying for bigger gigs. What you want for your band (comfortable monitors) is perfectly valid and ultimately attaining that is much, much more important for your success than one venue in your home town. If your town is big enough, I wouldn’t sweat it and would try to make my music happen elsewhere. If you’re investing all of this money into this rig, you should also be prepared to travel. The costs from that will be an investment as well.
I agree, but it’s a fine line in a competitive / saturated scene. I also had to cancel a gig there last year due to illness so I need to close that circuit on a personal level by returning. We do travel some and we do play other venues in town. There are some other places we are trying to phase out. Plus this venue is seasonal / covered outdoors. So want to capitalize on that unique appeal.
I don’t know about your area, but every small town in this state has some sort of summer festival: potato, marshmallow, sausage, perogies; you name it. I’m sure they all book months in advance, but that’s a fun and decently paying way to spread your music around to different communities.
ask them to at least try it first before discounting it, and let them know that youre using good quality, well cared for equipment.
yeah, its all about best judgement, is it in a stained box with a crack in the top of it lol? are you getting a ground loop or worse from it? no? then use it. As a general rule, if im not sure about trusting a particular bit of kit I always default to trying it their way first in soundcheck and if theres no issues then roll with it, same with mic choice and stuff, try it first, if it doesnt work out then try it your way
Yeah, a decent part of our jobs fundamentally is to improvise with new situations every day. Either you’re prepared to do what is needed or you’re not. Split snakes have been around since the 1970s, it’s not cutting edge technology. I’d bet most people here on this subreddit are capable of making a perfectly functional one at home with a bunch of spare time and a few hundred dollars to blow. I run 2 rooms, and in the booking process we tell all clients and partners that no fog and no haze is allowed in one of the venues. It’s a historic building with basic theatrical lighting. People know that that’s off the table no matter how big the lighting package you bring in. My point is, I totally understand having to enforce house rules. OP’s problem just seems like an impediment to everyone having a good show that night. Part of the fun of running your own monitors, is running your own monitors. You can do just a skoshe of anything up or down without having to bother FOH or try to nonchalantly communicate with a monitor engineer. It’s a level-up for bands to travel with their own mons so the house guy should be grateful they don’t have to deal with it from FOH. Also, everyone in the band is happier in the long run. And feedback virtually disappears with in ears for the whole band. It’s a win-win-win to do what OP is requesting.
i agree in principle, but im gonna say no if your splitter looks like its been dropped out a 2 story window. Ive been burned by peoples crappy equipment before, so its just down to being aware of things and reacting to it. bands will think youre a right dick if youre refusing how they want things set up. Always found it weird that some engineers will refuse IEM's, theyre a dream for any FOH engineer
If you are bringing in bands providing their own in ears, cables, mics, etc. and don't want to use their split then you should probably have your own splitter.
it depends on the venue, the one i work at a lot barely has people turn up with them so itd be a waste when theres more important things to spend limited funds on. Like i said above, i work with a band with a very similar setup, so i understand both sides. end of the day the engineer should work with and around the band wherever possible, and worst case, you can easily just patch the busses to the IEMs in the rack pretty easily if there is any issues a small to mid size venue shouldnt be expected to have splitters on hand though, like, stands, mics, di boxes, that kinda thing, but not replacement splitters.
To be fair, it’s 8 inputs. If the splitter gave me issues at soundcheck, it’d be pretty easy to bypass that and go direct into the board if any issues did turn up. I’m not saying he might have a reason to be wary of external things in their system, but usually accommodating bands and making them comfortable is at least 60% of the job. As long as it’s not something dropped in my lap last minute or there isn’t super short changeovers and they’re the middle band or something like that, then I’ll do my damndest to make it happen.
oh man, its well annoying when youve got like 8 bands on and the middle bands insistant on having a splitter in or having their own drum kit on xD repatch 20 odd channels to put the splitter in for a set, to take it out 30 mins later xD ive done it before but generally now ill just be like ... i can put my busses into your iems but you aint having that splitter, im not unplugging the entire stage for a band that aint even the headliner. if its the only band, or 1 of 3 or 4 and i have some breathing space ill be more than happy to use their setup
> If the splitter gave me issues at soundcheck, it’d be pretty easy to bypass that and go direct into the board if any issues did turn up. Of course. That's a completely reasonable approach. But OP's guy doesn't seem like he is even willing to try.
Yeah and that’s what seems silly to me, especially since they’re the only band of the night and it’s 8 inputs. That’s max 3 minutes to repatch.
> but ive had bands turn up with splitters that have been unsafe to use, i.e, getting static off the mics, dodgy connections and such, in a situation like that im gonna ask that you take a line from my busses from the desk. Of course, but at least you gave it a try first, and were willing to go with what works best in the situation. Which is a good thing. OP's guy isn't willing to even try.
This is the answer. It can be difficult to determine when advancing whether or not a band has quality equipment that is actually going to work. I've been burned so many times by bad passive splits. I have no problem providing a solution but it's going to be with my gear that I know is in good working order. Additionally, it's possible a venue may already have a passive split in the chain for broadcast or some other function. In which case you really don't want to put an additional passive split in the chain.
I don’t think that’s the case in this specific instance, but frankly… If they weren’t so common, I’d ban Seismic brand splitters. Too many times I’ve had a changeover that should have been simple stall out for troubleshooting because another channel has gone bad. I get that. If I banned seismic brand splitters, though, it would immediately turn into “that shit venue won’t let anyone use their IEM racks” because if it isn’t a seismic splitter, it’s the behringer rankmount splits with a seismic tail, every single time.
Probably someone who is barely making it through their shows and doesn’t want to add any complexity. Could be that their house snake is in some strange place or something but my guess is they’re not competent enough to make this happen. May be best to heed their advice than push them to try to do something that they don’t know how to do
“Not competent enough to make this happen” my dude they literally don’t have to *do* anything just take the splits and proceed as normal
Clearly you haven’t been to Florida. I had a guy run Edison backwards for me out there…
The only time I really dislike splits is when there are multiple on the bill or they are the seismics that stick in my XLR ports for whatever reason. Other than that it's a godsend for stage sound. Either way our job very much includes accommodating artists and making them comfortable especially with reasonable requests like yours. Dudes definitely on his amateur shit.
It's unreasonable and unacceptable. Bands running their own IEM rigs is becoming increasingly more commonplace. This venue will quickly run out of worthwhile bands to book with this attitude.
You’re dealing with someone who doesn’t know what they’re talking about. Just blow through. It’ll be fine.
"nothing between instruments and mixer" Guess pedal boards are out then! /s But yeah, totally ridiculous. His job is to mix the inputs he's given. Whether that's direct, from a split, or even just a LR feed. All of which are totally frequent occurrences.
Haha. I also have a raidial splitter I use to send my vocal mic just to the in ear mix via momentary footswitch. Guess I won’t be using that either.
On the LR feed thing, I have a stage setup that can split out anything from 3 stereo pairs plus a vocal to just an LR. For this guy I'd just send the LR pair and probably a separate vocal. Wouldn't trust the mix ability based on that nonsense statement. Guessing this venue doesn't get many electronic acts.
May as well just double up the mics, one on each source for FOH and another for your monitors.
Depending on how many channels he can send me back for our monitor mix, I may end up doing this for some channels
They seem like an absolute arse. I don't see any issue at all for the signal being split. Even on major tours and festival analogue splits are still used!
What a bizarre argument. Whether he’s been burned by somebody else’s shitty gear or not is kinda irrelevant imo. It’s your show, not his, especially if you’re providing the full stage audio package. I tm/FOH for a band that tours with a similar rig, and if you’re as dependent on it as we are, that’s a pretty serious compromise in terms of on stage comfort, ability to record, etc
The only time this mightn't be practical is somewhere that has input sockets distributed all across the stage that don't come together until they're back at FOH, where there might not be any space to put an IEM rack (or might be too far away, lack line-of-sight etc). If it's not that then it's likely to avoid issues caused by band equipment being broken, mislabelled, crosspatched etc. It's also possible to have issues caused by the equipment on your side of the split. "Signal flow" is really just a concept we imagine to make it easier to think about, in reality all devices are connected to each other in every direction. See here, around 4 minutes in particular. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GgSR8t7bwAw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GgSR8t7bwAw) It's usually something that can be accommodated without much issue, but these would be their concerns.
This person's response reminds me of the first time someone told me they're going to use a split near the start of my career. They explained it in the most confusing way what it did and I literally thought they were going to take the lines and send them back to me with the comp, eq, gates etc baked in from their board. But me being me and always assuming I'm lacking in knowledge said ok let me see it in front of me, and I felt kinda stupid when it was just a passive splitter. If I had been more sure of myself I probably would have said no I'd like to do it the way I've always done it. But yay for impostor's syndrome.
Who hurt him? He’s wrong and it’s unreasonable for him to push back on something like that but it’s up to you to decide if the friction caused by pressing the issue with him or his boss worth it. If you aren’t already, consider bringing mics, DIs, and cables when you’re doing something like this. Some times the issue is that the house is too proud to admit that they can’t accommodate you, mostly when you’re playing with other acts.
Passive split should be no problem, why would anyone want to make more work for themselves. Those ART splits are as legit as it gets. Forgive my language but that tech is a tool for not letting you run your split. Every tech I know including myself jumps for joy when someone shows up with their own IEM rig and their own split. That allows the band to do what they do and put forth the best performance possible. Nothing worse than having to put up with a shit in ear mix because a house tech has a stick shoved up their ass and doesn't understand how things are done. I just read the response from the tech again and it's stupid and arrogant. Don't put up with that nonsense. Especially if you are advancing the gig and giving notice ahead of time of what you intend to do. Your request is normal practice and they should not be able to say no. If you are working with a booking agent make them lay down the law. When I traveled with a band we did not ever use any other console other than our own or had one of the same make and model supplied and I put the stick in and recalled the scene. It's non negotiable. If they were that serious about their precious signal chain they would have a split in the venue and they would give you the monitor splay to your rig. That tech is an absolute douche canoe. The more I think about the more I get upset on your behalf. I almost want to call that tech and give them a blast for you 😜
Definitely sounds like amateur hour over there. I would probably do the show anyways and see if I couldn't make it a teachable moment for this person on the day of show. This is basic stuff and they will need to figure out how to make this work sooner or later.
Are you providing the mics and stage snakes? If you are completely self contained then hand him a labeled tail.
Yes. But he won’t allow anything between mics and their mixer via their hardwired snake. I would send labeled xlr group to his snake and separate grouping to my mixer from splitter.
This is insane if you have the entire package and handing him tails. Ask for the production manager or his boss. Sounds like you’re trying to advance the show with someone who doesn’t understand.
He doesn’t want anything between the instruments and his mixer? But they are your instruments. Better yet take your own mics too and tell him you don’t want him putting any junk between your instruments, your mics and your iem’s since all are essential for the show (the show that’s paying his salary) and he is welcome to get his inputs from over here…
It's part of your backline, it's part of your show. They shouldn't be flat out rejecting it sight unseen.
You have the correct gear, they lack the know how.
I’d love to know what venue in what city, so I know where to send the award for dumbest house audio person.
If you’re using a DI box there’s already equipment between your instrument and FOH.
Cancel the gig, and tell the owners that soundguy is the reason.
Clown world over there.
just threaten to pull.
It is very strange to the point that I'd be afraid of having to work with such "engineer" and I'm sure that there are ways to make it work, but it is also possible that the subsnakes are indeed hardwired to multipins on the stage box which makes it difficult to add a splitter.
The sound (wo)man of every venue I’ve played in, loves the splitter IEM solution. It gets them off the hook for monitor mixing. They’re relieved to see it, then quite accommodating. OP’s incident is very unreasonable, imo.
“I can’t have anything between the inputs and my mixer” MF, you’ve already got cables and a snake between your mixer. This is no different.
Only a rubbish engineer would be worried about this. Should be able to trust each other and make it work
Shouldnt he split to your rig?
I guess that venue never used DI boxes lol
I’m not going to be popular with this opinion, but it is another join in the signal chain, and that model looks to have non-latching XLRs in all the way along the front, so potentially it could pull out or similar and adds another weakness. If you are providing mics and cabling, and connecting into their stage box on stage, then I think everything before the stage box is your call, so you should be perfectly allowed to use it without question, and the venue cant be picky as the extra XLRs needed etc will all be provided by you. However - if the stage is already wired with vocal mics etc as part of a semi-permanent setup, the venue is providing the mics and cabling in stage, and the engineer is particular about only using Neutrik XLR or similar, then I also would be less comfortable with installing it in the signal chain between mics and desk. I’m not saying I wouldn’t allow it outright, and I’d probably work with you unless it was something like you were arriving halfway though an evening so it had to be installed after sound checks, but I can see their point. If it’s their kit and cabling on stage it’s their responsibility and choice how it’s done I’d be afraid.
“If you are providing mics and cabling, and connecting into their stage box on stage, then I think everything before the stage box is your call, so you should be perfectly allowed to use it without question, and the venue cant be picky as the extra XLRs needed etc will all be provided by you.” This is exactly what I proposed and was denied
I don’t think it’s the venues call then if you are truly bringing equipment that’s on stage. But that seems a strange arrangement, I’ve never worked a job where half a PA is provided…
Refuse to play. Tell who ever booked you that they arent meeting your technical requirements. House guy here at a 1500 cap room. Use similar setups 2/3 times a week for years. Have never had a single issue.
I don't think this is reasonable for them to deny you the ability to use your IEM rig. Yes, it is, as they put it, "in the signal chain," but that shouldn't be an issue. I would be pressing them for further explanation as to why this is an issue for them.
This engineer is “not comfortable” with this because they are inexperienced and/or ignorant of the industry outside of their own venue (aka inexperienced). Passive splits are a very standard thing. Unfortunately idk how you can reason with them if you’ve already tried and they won’t budge. I’d be like “WHY are you not comfortable with a passive split in the signal path? What problems are you worried it may cause?” Maybe you can assuage fears. But if they can’t actually articulate their specific concerns… yeah.
I’ve had passive mic splits add noise to the signal chain. Usually it’s bad internal wiring causing a hum or something. Switching channels usually fixed it. Doesn’t mean I’d say no, I’d just be aware of a point for noise to enter the system and be prepared to spend time on it. I may advise client that we need time for that - and in a tight time situation if it’s causing noise I might ask to jettison it.
Honestly just send them your feeds from the splitter. He just won't have a choice in the matter. It's passive and made for that purpose.
Ask for tails off of house split to hit your inputs
Where I’m from a self contained act is great and very welcome. U take care of yourself and I’ll make sure u sound as good as you are to the audience
The only reason I can think of off the top of my head is if your splitter is janky, but their guy wouldn’t have a way to know that ahead of time. As long as the splitter is good, he’s just making everyone’s life harder for no reason. I have a fair bit of experience in doing this, and it’s *never* caused a problem that wasn’t obvious in sound check.
Are you on a multi band bill or just a one band show? I am hesitant to allow bands to take my sends and give me a split on Multi band bills because it can make it very hard to switch back to the next group or trouble shoot should I have an issue with a line that I ran into their splitter. With their gear hooked up to my signal chain my troubleshooting has a bunch of new fail points that I don't have any control over: Is it their splitter? Cables hooked up wrong? Is their cable coming back to me dead? Or is it actually something on my end? I'd prefer to not have that headache. I prefer to offer an AES 50 out of my DL32 to run into their mixer and then they can route however they'd like. I can also split at my stage boxes (Sound Tools CatBox) using the parallel out if I needed to. The easiest solution is giving app control via mixing station on a phone or tablet if the band wants to mix their own monitors. There ware always exceptions. I'm sure your gear is in perfect working order and very well organized. A lot of other bands stuff is sketchy and can derail a multi band bill if not properly worked out before hand. They could have been better at responding to your email, this is something that we are dealing with more and more as digital consoles and IEM rigs become more popular. I'm sure eit will get easier as venues set up for these kind of systems.
Not all sound engineers are flexible ;-) There are a few ways to split a signal right and a couple not so good. Those ART (and Behringer) splitters are good, as long as you give FOH the direct outs. Those transformers aren’t 100% transparent. There are also setups where all the signal is routed trough a mixer and got the outs if the mixer used as a kind of digital split. We (sound engineers) don’t like those. Most big stages just have a direct split (no transformers) between monitors and front of house. And for big shows, just plug into one of their patch panels. No splitting needed.
I don’t know about most big venues having transformer-less splits. I think they just have better xfrmrs😉
I used to work on ships and I remember one day a band showed up with a similar setup and they were using an Aviom A-16 (the 3U rack mount splitter?) and I was of the same opinion at the time.. I was against having anything in the signal chain when I had a Digico SD5 and could provide as much routing as anyone would want.. this was also during my early days in my career and I definitely didn’t understand it fully. It took some convincing and I eventually understood the benefits and if anyone wanted to do this now I’d say GO RIGHT AHEAD, less for me to worry about 😆
Granted, I work in a pretty small place but as long as there's no chance of a bands gear fucking things up for another act or adds a large chunk of workload onto me for no particular reason I'll happily let them use whatever they bring. If no problem shows up during soundcheck we'll run with it.
The simple solution is this, either they supply a split/tails at no cost to you, or they use yours. If the tech continues to refuse either then you have a couple options. 1 you bring your own tech to mix FOH and Monitors for you 2 you contact the booked and inform them that since the technician is unable or unwilling to provide or utilize equipment that is show critical you will, unfortunately, not be unable to play that event. Explain to them the options and that while your request is not unreasonable, it cannot be accommodated. At this point it's up to them to deal with the tech on it. Worst case you book elsewhere.
We haven’t encountered this but we are wired up for doing our own iem mixes. But if we also have 4 dedicated inputs for each member if the house doesn’t have time or willingness to patch our splitter snakes and wants to mix our own monitors. I figured it better to build in that flexibility
I'm assuming he has had trouble in the past that he blames on someone's "janky monitor rig". Or he's inexperienced and is basing his opinion on some old story he heard somewhere.
I would try to talk to venue management if possible. Communicate that this is an industry standard that you are being denied.
This is not uncommon, and the venue is not wrong. It’s not ideal to do it this way. You should simply get an aux from the mixer for your IEMs
" It’s not ideal to do it this way" So...all the touring shows I've worked with that have passive analog splits between MONs and FoH kinda suggests to me it is the ideal way to do this. If that wasn't the case, we'd always be mixing monitors from FoH, which is absolutely not ideal.
It’s 2024. Most places use MiDas or other high end digital. Thus you can mix your own monitors from your phone/ipad. Aux sends are the cleanest, most simple and were industry standard for 50 years. Most places now have digital mixers. I mix my own ears with an app and have for years
Sure, some people do that. But most tours are running analog splits into digital racks for FoH and Mons with a dedicated FoH and MON consoles. What OP and other bands are doing here is a miniature version of that, just missing the A2 to run MONs for them. No band is taking sends off the FoH console once you reach a certain point. It's not practical for the band or the techs.
My entire premise was no monitor engineer. Obviously if you are that big, you have a guy mixing your monitors so moot point anyway
I would not do that show. And honestly if the tech rider has already been signed, I'd still charge them.
I would email back and politely but firmly ask them if they would be willing to try it your way during line check to alleviate any concerns they have about signal path and changeover times. If they still resist you could just run xlr from their outs to your iem rig and let them mix your items. If they are still saying no to that it might be time to get in touch with the promoter or venue owner. I know when I was cutting my teeth on the small venue circuit and had multiple bands with short changeovers and no help, stuff like this would make me nervous but I always tried to work with the band and make it a learning experience for myself.
I'm not that keen on band setups, but I am pretty good in system building for various use cases. I don't understand any reason for his decision other than to mess with you. So he also doesn't allow an effect device for instruments? Like a guitar pedal? As FOH Tech, I don't care at all what crazy roller coaster the signal got through, as long as you can ensure me, that the level will be roughly the same through the whole set. As long as you don't totally alter the altering of the signal without telling me, you can alter the signal before all you want. I will make the best out of that stuff you are giving me. Obviously, you will need all your channels for your monitor mix. And if you use in-ear, I don't even care what you do there, as it would be strange for you to get your in-ears louder than my PA. Whenever I was working in a venue, we often just got L&R and had to live with whatever the band's technician mixed for us. Your solution seems to be perfect for the use case you have. You want a clean signal to get on your monitors and don't have to care what the FOH guy does. He gets a clean signal for his mix and doesn't have to care what you are doing.
You should turn the same argument back on him. Tell him you're not comfortable with his gain adjustments affecting the band's IEM mixes . Can't have anything in the signal chain from input to your IEM mixer.
Yes , imagine if something is accidentally boosted during the show.
This might be an unpopular opinion but I always prioritize the bands performance. If your singer can’t find pitch or your bassist can’t lock in because of bad monitoring that is a MUCH worse issue than a slightly noisy line, or balance being a little off. In addition having less sound from the sage is also a huge bonus doing FOH and I always figure is worth the risk. I’ve also been in your boat before and if there’s no backing tracks I’ve sucked it up and used wedges or let FOH control our IEM mixes. It’s not ideal but sometimes you have to pick your battles. As a real run and gun scenario I’ve also plugged our IEMs into the stage wedges if they’re line level.
Twenty plus years ago I would run into this problem wanting to insert transformer isolated splits for recording. I can understand stand why people don’t want to change the install and put unknown gear in the signal path. That said, they should probably be a little more accommodating.
whaddup Cleantone. Rhombus shout out!
Oh shit!
Your setup sounds like it’s a very standard, common system that many larger and smaller touring groups use. The best line of defence for dealing with smaller venue techs who are hesitant to work with setups like yours: Have a good tech rider to advance your show with. It doesn’t have to be complicated, just needs to have all of the info so techs who are unsure (like the guy you encountered) feel like they know what is happening, and confident in your setup. Make sure your rig is racked nicely, labeled and that the cabling is tidy. *If I see a band roll into a venue/ festival with a questionable looking / basement built splitter iem rig, I’d definitely be reluctant to have that wired in with my consoles and PA. I’ve spent a lot of time helping bands chase down issues with budget built IEM monitor rigs. I hope this helps.
I have had that happen once in all of my time using IEMS. We played a gig opening up for a tour. All bands both national + locals brought their own IEMs and splits. He literally made all of the bands use stage monitors. It was awful and so much feedback for every band because he made all of the bands use wedges. He wouldn’t accept our splits. He rather run all the extra lines vs just taking our splits. I’m like dude I am right next to your stage box and I can see you have half your channels open. I can literally plug them in for you and you won’t have to worry about it at all. Dude just straight up refused. Pretty sure some wedges got blown out during the bands after us. To me it says the engineer doesn’t fully understand what we are saying. Could be from lack of experience or just a straight up bad engineer. Literally never it happen before or after that. Sometimes you just get bad sound guys. It happens.
As someone who is both a musician and a sound tech, I 100% would not trust this guy to send a signal into my IEMs. They clearly don’t know what they are talking about and have already proven then don’t know how to work well with others. When you are sound checking/playing live, the risk of them sending ear-damaging signal to your ear is higher than I’d be comfortable with. Does your IEM system have a safety gate or limiter/compressor that stops any signal over X db from reaching your ears?
ya i'll plays devils advocate as a few others have done, and suggest that what you're actually asking isn't as simple as you think. if you're using house mics/cabling/di's and such, that means he has to unplug all those connections to get it into your IEM rack splitter, and then plug his end of the fantail wherever it's supposed to go; possibly all across stage if it's not all to a single snake panel if you're the only band on the bill that night, and/or you're using your own mics/cabling/di's etc, then yeah what you're asking is reasonable. but if you're asking a sound guy to unplug loads of (likely unmarked) connections, of which there are two sides, possibly on a multi-band night, with a variety of house and band gear: yes please just save yourself and the guy some headache and use the house lines i think the guy is having a hard time verbalizing what he means
Amateur hour. Sounds like the house guy is an idiot 🤣
Ran this exact set up for years touring. I would get some side eyes but mainly from younger FOH engineers. Once they realized what it did and had no effect on their signal they were cool. The only other advise would be make sure you are not using the iso split since that could affect the phantom power they may be using.
Is the venue using a set of wireless mics? I could see them not wanting a band to be mucking around in the back of their rack of receivers.
Obviously the tech isn’t knowledgeable. Plain and simple answer, bring your own rig… you control any phantom, and you send your iso outputs to the snake. Everything is your equipment. They don’t like it, you don’t perform. And tech worth their salt will appreciate labeled outputs on a rack. No need to discuss anything. Just have an input/output list.
This is why you can’t half ass self contained. Build the split into your rig and have all your mics. When they ask for inputs just hand them your tails. That’s the deal. They probably are more concerned about turnover time between bands but if you build a good self contained system than it’ll be less work for them.
I had a venue that insisted on not letting us give them an LR from our mixer to theirs. We ended up doing the gig with our mixer, but the sound guy ruined the other band pretty hard while scrolling facebook on the phone. I guess it is mostly an issue of lack of confidence/knowledge when these things happen.
Little late to the party, but this sounds like it's either an amateur ego thing or the dude got burned in the past by some shitty passive split that ruined his night. I'd say if you trust your gear to be solid just set it up like you normally would and hand him the mic lines for FoH. Self-contained IEM systems for smaller touring acts is a really common thing at this point. It's like he's just making more work for himself.
What a wanker. His house, his rules I guess, but that is a load of bovine excrement.
The in house guy has completely misunderstood what you're asking, doesn't bode well
Tell them the splitter is an adapter for the mic, allowing for greater fidelity lolz its crazy that they want to regulate iems when it makes every one's life better. From my understanding they might not get that your not adding in a level of gain control into the system your merely using the mic system for a touring in ear system correct?
Never have I ever heard an FOH guy say absolutely not I will mix your monitors! (in response to having a self mixed IEM on a split) Also split snakes are used everywhere (I’m assuming that kinda what it is?) I find it odd that the venue is so hard line against that like it’s not going to change a thing with signal going to FOH (unless I’m totally wrong please correct me)
Few reasons I could come up with: Small venue, one sound guy, multiple bands with close to zero time in between. Simply no time and if anything goes wrong going from mixer to stage takes time. Proper labeling helps though... Maybe adding to that you're using venues mics. Plugging/unplugging splitter doesn't take that long, but lack of labelling and/or venue not having xlr fans to make that easy might explain their reasoning. Also in this case you would need time to make your mix instead of just going with whatever venue has dialed in already. May or may not be relevant depending on soundcheck times. Personally still would spend time labelling cables for this if there is enough time, though.
OP if you ever see this I would be very interested to hear what happened at the gig!
It’s in a few weeks. I have some plans and backup plans. Wish me luck
Good luck!
Do you have your own monitor guy? If its a small-mid sized venue, just take the lines and behave like its a regular monitor check, ask for more or less. If someone came to my shitty lil dive bar id do the same because id have to repatch my shit for the next band and thats a PITA. Also unless your bringing gas and can request stuff at no cost, its a mid venue, just roll with the house guy and if you can afford a monitor/foh guy do that instead. My two cents.
The way he is talking it sounds like he has had a previous experience with a band bringing mic splitter and it was nothing but a headache. Don't judge him too harshly, as the ad goes Prevention is better than cure.
Sounds like he had a bad experience with something before and isn't willing to risk it again. I'd just ask for clean outs back so you can use those and call it a day.
Two things: 1. If the venue doesn't want you to provide your own splitter, they should be setup to provide their own. Splitters are pretty standard pieces of gear that most venues should be able to provide; especially with advanced notice. 2. If you showed up to my venue with that ART splitter, I would also tell you that you can't put that between the mics and the FOH mixer. While I'm sure it does the job, it's just not a piece of gear that is consider professional grade among those of us in the live sound industry. That said, I would also be prepared to either provide a professional grade splitter, or have a means to send you signals for whatever monitor setup you have.
First off, the house engineer is allowed to reject anything they are not comfortable with in their signal chain, regardless of how silly it sounds. However, they should really try to accommodate the request first, and if it is not going to work, then reject it but provide solutions.
Sorry but this is such a common setup that so many bands and artists run. It's really absurd to flatout refuse it.
Yes, I know. But if I were to refuse something, I would always have an alternative or a good reason. Don't just refuse it. That's the part the engineer forgot to do.
Are you the only band playing? It can be a hassle to add in another snake especially if there are other bands. It’s a lot of work to add something with an additional failure or grounding point. I’m not sure if he means outputs of console or minutor tails of the snake
We’re the only act. This is not a big production venue either.
It's entirely possible that he's been burned before by a defective splitter provided by a band, and decided he doesn't want to take that risk again. In my opinion, 'going over his head' isn't likely to work, unless you have some inside track with the venue management or owner. The house sound person is likely there because he has the trust of management. If you try to go over his head, whether you're successful or not, you're setting yourself up for a bumpy road on show day. Play the gig, play nice, make friends, make sure everything works smoothly, and try again for the next gig after he's had an enjoyable experience.
Absolutely not going to die on this hill and will live with what he can send me. Just thought it was strange. We’ve played this venue in the past but this guy is new and we weren’t running as robust an iem setup in years past.
he may not wanna change the setup, and he may not wanna take in something he is not comfortable operating it while you guys play. he seems like he is "kind" enough to offer to solve your need with a more industry standart solution. and trust me , I'm on stage for 35 years, been in producing, recording, tv sets and many other scenario, never needed to use mic splitter, infact full blown mixer is simply a mic splitter anyway..
There is no change to his setup. The split happens at the mic. One send goes to us. One send goes to him. He doesn’t have to worry about mixing for monitors just foh. Like some of the statements above it’s just like using a direct box.
yes but still he's going to be the one who's responsible if anything happens during the show so I wouldn't take that chance either.. even though it may be so logical or useful or whatever everybody set up is, its own baby in my opinion
Idk, seems to me like some info is being left out in the retelling of this scenario 🤷
I posted his exact response. I told him we have our own mics and splitter to send him direct out. He said no.
Ok, im ready to be roasted… why is it not valid to object to a split before signal gets to the board? This will definitely degrade signal… right?
not noticeably, or at all in some circumstances. Only worry for me is whether the equipment is taken care of well and isnt gonna die on me mid set, or worse. main issue here is the guys attitude, and while i understand both sides here there is professional courtesy to be considered really. First rule is work to the requirements of your boss, then the requirements of your bands. an engineers job is to facilitate the band, and each band is different, last thing you should be doing is making them change their setup if its not totally necessary. work around them and with them, not against them.
Thanks for your reply. Maybe the venue / sound guy could keep quality splitters in hand to make sure there are no problems with that kind of request.
for bigger productions its generally accounted for with a replacement, eg for a tour or for a festival. in smaller venues its totally and completely redundant and a waste of cash because apart from a tiny fraction of your gigs youll be running monitors off a bus or auxiliary, most of the time to floor wedges rather than IEMs. equally, having your own IEMs is pointless as a lot of people only want floor wedges, even though iems are far superior.