Practice Group/Band Setup

MandM

Hi all, I wanted to share our practice group/band setup. It is a work in progress as I am continuously learning. For example, initially we had all cables directly coming into the mixer and that resulted in quite a bit of cabling mess on the "stage". During the last two weeks I reduced that cabling mess by using several smaller "snakes." Please see the "before" and "after" pictures below.

I tagged this "member recordings" because we record our sessions (including the keyboard) on the SD card in the mixer. I also tagged "Off-topic" because this is not just keyboard recording. Btw, this is my very first post ever <-: Any suggestions/questions appreciated.

Some specifics:

Left and Right Mains are QSC KW153
Sub is QSC KS118
Monitors are Eon One Compact
Microphones are Sennheiser e935
Drums is in that specific location because the room is a little longer there.
Mixer is on stage, because we don't have a dedicated mixer operator, so I take care of that
Mixer is Zoom L20, thinking of going to Allen & Heath CQ-18T in the future
Mixer has multitrack recording capability to SD card; could also connect to DAW
Drums is an electronic drum set
Keys is Roland Fantom-07
Left/Right Mains are currently wireless in our practice room because there are a couple of steps, and cables in that location could be a tripping hazard
The 3 small snakes that helped keep the cabling mess in check are D'Addario (modular)

At this point we are just a small practice group that is meeting every 2 weeks, we have not performed publicly yet
The equipment is not meant for touring or anything like that, it is just for a small group that mostly plays inside but may occasionally play outside in the future

Before:

After:

Rob

MandM Thanks for posting your setup.
It takes me back to some of the best times of my life, playing onstage in bands.
Of course the gear is so much more advanced these days, but we got the best we could out of what was available back then. though I imagine there are very few studios around the world today, that don't have a drawer full of SM58s and 57s.

I would love to hear a recording of your band. 🙂

TC3

I love gear talk!

As I've mentioned, I started teaching a pal to play guitar several months ago. He comes over once or twice a week to jam with me (bass or keys) and my wife (drums). We all share some singing duties. Our big gigs coming up are two garage parties. 🙂 We'll be playing at our place in a couple of weeks and then his place over Labor Day weekend.

We're keeping things pretty simple for now. I'm definitely not worrying about full frequency range (though my five-string bass sure would like it!) or a sophisticated monitor system. "Garage band" is not only literally true but a good aesthetic description as well!

Gear-wise, my wife's drum set will speak for itself. The guitar and bass have their own combo amps (though I've been saving space in the house by running my bass through the PA by way of a Fishman Platinum Pro pre-amp during rehearsals). Vocals (via two Shure SM58s and an AudioTechnica Pro 8HEx for the missuz while she drums) and my keyboards (Roland VR-730 and RD-2000) will go through our PA system, a Samson MXP144FX mixer and two Alto TX308s. They are more than sufficient for our rehearsals and very small gigs. If we get good enough at some point to play serious venues, then I'm hoping there will already be a PA there ...

MandM

TC3 Those two upcoming big gigs sound like wonderful opportunities. I remember you showed a video of "Tell me why I don't like Mondays" and that sounded really great. I heard good things about the Shure SM58. I had the RD-2000 myself for a couple of years and liked it a lot.

TC3

MandM Thanks for the kind words!

Yes, the SM58s are good old-fashioned workhorse mics, perfect for a low-fi garageband and sturdy as heck.

I love my RD-2000, but it['s heavy as heck and I'm not looking forward to moving it ...

MandM

Rob Hi Rob, the members of our group used to attend song playing meetings at a Meetup in Austin, TX and from there we spun off and formed a private practice group. We are five laid back folks in the 50-60 year age range and we have been meeting about every two weeks for a year. We play classic rock, etc. for fun. I play bass guitar in this group, my wife does keys. What we lack in skills, we make up in fun and spirit 😄 Tonight we had a very motivating session, everyone was excited, it was a really good session. I have a feeling we might play something outdoors later this summer to a bunch of horses, a lot of dogs, and a couple of humans.

Please find below a couple of songs from tonight's practice:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1oc5yQZEujwtE4kckMVwd7j0C9i6APODS?usp=sharing

All the best.

Rob

It is great that you have a group of like minded people to play with 🙂

Unfortunately, I cannot access your link. 🙁
I think you need to change the access permission in Google Drive, to 'Anyone with the link'

MandM

Rob Alrighty, access permission is fixed now.

The recordings are from the stereo master track, unmodified. The Zoom L20 mixer also records all individual tracks to SD card along with the master track. Thus, if desired, a new master track could be generated from the individual tracks, e.g., with increased singers volume or increased/decreased drums volume, or different high-pass filter, effects, etc. The mixer can also play back individual tracks, let's say the drummer cannot make it to a session, then the drummers track could be played back. Just the SD card file search/naming is a little clunky on this mixer, that's why a connected DAW might help.

Rob

Yes! It worked for me.

Sounds like you are all having a good time🙂

I did notice though, that seven of the different song titles all pointed to 'You Ain't Goin' Nowhere'
( a great song all the same🙂).

MandM

Rob A glitch in "the matrix" ... now fixed ...😉

Rob

MandM 👍

Emeton

Electric drum pads played live with a combo always have timing issues which are problematic. Your band sounds good, worth getting acoustic drums asap.

MandM

Emeton Thank you, Emeton. Maybe an acoustic drum set is in our future😀 But I also want to learn more about these timing issues that you mention. Could you please give a little more info when these timing issues typically occur ? Do these timing issues occur during live playing, or is this regarding recording ? Just trying to understand the issue fully.

Emeton

MandM during playing, the drummer keys on the stick hitting the pad surface. If you just put a simple beat together on your daw, bass drum on 1 + 3, snare on 2 + 4, 1/8 notes high-hat and quantize endless loop; you can record your live musicians just fine to that. A live drummer has to play before the beat to have his strikes line up with the live musicians.

I heard it pretty quickly and give your drummer the benefit of the doubt. Electric Drums sounds like such a good idea for everyone except the drummer. Ask the guitar players to play midi guitars all the time, it’s the same thing.

TC3

I apologize for being contrarian but I'm not aware that e-drums have any more timing issues than digital pianos. My wife has a Roland e-drum set and she certainly never has any problems with timing.

Rob

It is just amazing how technology has advanced!
Now I have a whole recording studio sitting on my desk!

In a band I played with in the early 70's, our 'state of the art' reverb, was a WEM Copycat tape loop machine lol.

This is from around the same time. I have fond memories of the Elka, but it was prehistoric by today's standards.

TC3

Rob Great photo!

Rob

TC3 Thanks! Those were the days when I had hair, lol.

TC3

Emeton Again apologies, but this simply isn't true. There is no more noticeable latency in e-drums than there is in DPs. My wife uses her e-drums for practice and plays along with a metronome, or YT videos, or MP3s, and she doesn't have to adjust her playing compared to her acoustic set at all.

MandM

Emeton Interesting stuff. I am wondering if this timing issue occurs when one is using a DAW for live playing/recording. E.g. when the inputs are fed into the mixer, the mixer output into the DAW, then back to the mixer, and out to the speakers. In this case, there would be some time delay for the DAW to input and output back to the mixer.

In our case, we are currently not (yet) using a DAW for live playing. We are feeding all inputs directly into the Zoom L20 mixer, then from the mixer directly out to the speakers without any DAW. There is a wireless transmission in the picture above (we use Xvive U3 to avoid cables in a specific area), but that should add only around 5 milliseconds or so. Meanwhile, the Zoom L20 mixer records in 48KHz to SD card. Later, when the session is finished, the individual tracks from the SD card can be imported into a DAW if desired. I just did that the other day for fun for the song "FromABuickSix."

On the other hand, in the track "FromABuickSix - Remastered using FL Studio" there seem to be indeed some timing issues, I mention this because one of my bandmates also mentioned them. Thus wondering: a) do the timing issues for live playing also exist if one is not using a DAW for live playing, and b) could I have possibly introduced them while remastering the track "FromABuickSix."

TC3

Rob Haha, yes, I know that feeling well ...