Gallery Sound

Access to the studio & gallery is only possible in the presence of studio staff.

It will help if you have read the General Introduction to Sound before tackling the mixing desk.

Getting Ready:

Preparing Microphone Connections

Physically Connecting Microphones

The Studer Mixing Desk:

Switching on
Creating a file or project
General patch
Strip setup
Setting up a channel
Monitoring
Playback sources
Auxiliary outputs

Preparing Microphone Connections

Radio Microphones:

The studio comes with six Sennheiser Radio Microphone packs designed for fitting to presenters/actors in either visible or hidden positions. The radio mic receivers are located next to the sound desk in the gallery.

When the belt pack is switched on the panel on the receiver is lit amber and shows the strength of the radio signal being received, the audio level, the condition of the belt pack battery and the amount of gain on the receiver’s output.

A red screen on the receiver means that it is NOT receiving a signal from the belt pack; the pack is not switched on, has a failed battery or has gone out of range.

Wired Microphones:

Any standard (non-radio) microphone can be used on the studio floor and should be plugged into a nearby studio Wallbox using the ‘Mic/Line Ties’. Care should be taken to route cables safely across the floor and fire lanes.

Musical instruments can be plugged into Wallboxes via direct inject (DI) boxes.

Physically Connecting Microphones

Using the short patch cords, make connections from your microphone sources to inputs on the desk.

For mics connected to Wallboxes downstairs, find the holes on the patch-bay referring to the Wallbox tie lines – they start at the very top left – grouped by Wallbox. Plug a cord into the correct hole and then plug the other end into one of thirty-two “Vista 1 Inputs” which are on the second and third rows of the patch-bay.

For Radio Mics, find the holes on the patch-bay labelled “Sennheiser Radio Mic Receivers” (there are six of them about four rows up from the bottom and towards the right) and connect a cord from the appropriate one(s) to

“Vista 1 Inputs” as required.

It does not matter which Vista inputs you use as you can move things around when setting up the desk later. But for anything more than two or three mics it is worth making a note of where you have plugged them.

Switching on

Make sure the two green rocker switches at the top of the Patch-bay are on.

Press the tiny MAIN ON switch at the top right of the desk, under the computer screen.

The desk will take a couple of minutes to set itself up. It may start up with the most recently used layout, which may or may not be of any use to you. It is better to work with your own saved file/set-up if you have one.

Creating a File or Project

To create a new ‘blank’ project or file – where you can save all your desk settings - click on the large green dot at the top left of the screen and select OPEN TITLE.

In the folder structure which appears navigate to ‘Templates’, open this and double click on ‘Empty Desk Template’.

As the template file cannot be changed you are asked if you want to open a copy, click ‘Yes’.

You will be asked where to save this file and what you want to call it and where you want it to be saved. Find and open a project folder for your module – e.g. FT5203 – and then type your file ‘Title’ in the bottom box of the window.

PLEASE name it something like FT4303 Grp3MonAM201017

I.E. The name should include your module number, a reference to the group and the session you are in AND end in the date in a six-figure format.

Remember there are many students using this system and you will want to find your settings again quickly…rather than starting again from scratch!!

Once saved you will see the General Patch screen with your file name at the top.

General Patch

This screen allows you to rename your microphone sources so that you can easily identify them when mixing. It can also be used to move sources to different inputs. In the basic template file you should have started with, you will see that ‘Local Mic 01’ on the left is connected – by the little green square – to an input along the bottom of the screen – “Inp m 01”. This is mono input 1. This 1 to 1, 2 to 2, 3 to 3, sequence is already in the system and there is no need to change it for most projects.

To rename an input to something more useful, right-click on the input at the left – e.g. Local Mic 01 – and choose EDIT LABEL > USER. You can then call this input anything you like; perhaps the name of the person using a radio mic – “SOPHIE” – or just “R Mic 1”.

Click OK, or NEXT if you want to name more sources.

Repeat the renaming as required.

You can get back to the General Patch screen either by pressing the white ‘General Patch’ button just above the in-built mouse pad at the bottom right of the desk OR by clicking <VIEW> <GENERAL PATCH> with the mouse.

Strip Setup

You can now make the inputs appear anywhere you like on the channels of the desk. The desk has two FADER BAYS of ten channels on the left, which are designed for controlling inputs, and a CONTROL BAY on the right which controls outputs and monitoring.

Press the white ‘Strip Setup’ button just above the in-built mouse pad at the bottom right of the desk; or on the screen click <VIEW> <STRIP SETUP>. You are presented with a grey window with columns mimicking the channels on the desk.

Right-click on a column and choose an input (they will have the names you entered); it will drop into the display and appear on the surface of the desk. Repeat for other inputs.

You can add a number of sequential inputs by highlighting a number of columns and then right-clicking and choosing the first input of the group. If you chose five channels, all five inputs will be added in sequence.

You may see the LED meter next to the channel fader working, which shows that sound is getting from your microphone onto the desk surface.

Setting up Channels – Phantom Power

We need to set up each channel in terms of dealing with its input, level and destination.

Radio Mics and dynamic mics will probably be showing up on the LED meters, but condenser mics will not, as they need Phantom Power sending from the desk in order to work.

Press the CHANNEL button – the display at the top of the desk changes to show lots of settings for that particular channel.

At the left you can switch on Phantom Power by pressing the little black button. If there is anyone speaking near the mic you should see the LED meter working.

Press the CHANNEL button again to return the display to normal.

Do this for all condenser mic channels.

Setting up Channels - Level

You may not be able to take accurate level immediately if you have no presenters, actors or guests, but you could have an assistant – or the Floor Manager - test the mics on the floor while you adjust the GAIN on each channel. (Use talkback to communicate more easily between gallery and floor)

You should take level whilst listening to the source - not just watching the LEDs. So press the PFL - Prefade Listen - button at the very bottom of the channel. This puts the channel of the two smaller speakers over the sound desk.

You may have to ‘wake’ them up as they go into standby when not being used. Wake them by pressing the NEAR FIELD and MAIN buttons by their volume knob at the far right of the desk a few times, making sure that you leave the NEAR FIELD button lit up. Set the volume to something around ‘50’.

Adjust the channel GAIN using the black rotary control at the top of the flat surface of the desk on each channel. (Helpfully, it does not have a label.)

As usual, a rough guide is that you need the sound to reach the upper areas of the green LEDS, only occasionally hitting the yellows and avoiding the reds, which indicate likely distortion.

Notes on PREFADE LISTEN - Use the PFL buttons to listen to one source at a time for taking level. Using PFL means you do not have to open the channel fader to hear the source, and so the mic does not go live while you are taking level. You can also use PFL during a show for checking for faults or strange noises, even if the fader IS open. It means you can check one source out of many which may be open.

Setting up Channels - Routing

Now the microphone inputs are on the channels we need to ‘route’ the signal through to the desk output, where it is joined with pictures from the vision mixer and goes to the video recorders.

There are a number of ways a signal can be routed, but in a simple set up each channel is sent directly to the main output.

Press the BUS ASN (Bus Assign) button on the channel. A range of coloured touch buttons appear in the upper part of the desk. Touch the red Mstr 1l and 1r (Master 1 left and Master 1 right) buttons. This means the channel is now connected to the master output and when the channel fader is pushed up the sound from that microphone will be added to the master output.

(A ‘bus’ is a rail onto which many channel connections can be made.)

Push up - or ‘Open’ - the channel fader AND the Master 1 fader - the left-hand of the two main faders at the right-hand end of the desk - and you should hear that channel’s microphone on the big speakers at the front of the gallery.

If not, check that they are switched on at the wall and that the yellow volume control at the Producer’s desk is turned up, and the two CUT and DIM buttons next to it are not lit.

Little Tricks for faster Channel Setup

To assign a number of adjacent channels to the main output at the same time, first press the square LINK/SELECT buttons at the bottom of the channels. Press them all together or press the buttons on the two extreme left and extreme right buttons of the channels you need to assign. The buttons light on all the channels in between showing they are selected. You can now press BUS ASN on one of the selected channels and any bus connection you make will be made to all selected channels.

To check how all channels are assigned, press the GLOBAL BUS ASN button situated between the two fader bays. The display changes to show the bus settings for every channel on the desk - a good quick way to check things.

Monitoring

There is nothing more important than knowing what you are listening to and having an awareness of loudness. The ‘what’ can mean both which source(s) you are hearing and which part of the routing your loudspeakers are attached to. For example, you might be listening to a single channel via the PFL circuit but believe you are listening to the whole desk output during a sequence with only one person speaking…then when a second person speaks you may not be able to hear them even though they are on the output. This kind of mistake can happen the other way round too.

It is also important to be aware of the volume settings on any monitoring speakers. Try and keep them at a similar level so that you can trust your ears in terms of relative levels; if the speakers get turned down you might start to increase channel levels to compensate and so start to overload the desk output. Conversely, if the speakers are higher than normal you might lower channel levels and have an output that is too quiet on the recorders.

So there is a routine of using ‘ears first, meters second’ to check or monitor sound levels.

The standard set up is that the main output is fed to the large speakers at the front of the gallery which causes an issue, because their volume is controlled at the front desk and not by the sound operator. This is so that the Director or Producer can adjust the volume in relation to the volume of talkback from the floor or perhaps so the PA’s and Director’s shot calling can be heard by the vision mixer etc. There is a yellow volume control plus two push buttons; one CUTs the speakers completely and the other DIMs them…i.e. reduces their volume by a set amount. It is useful to keep the volume knob at the same level and use the DIM button to reduce the volume when required.

TIP

To overcome this lack of control over monitoring the main sound mix it is possible to get the mix on the smaller, nearer speakers usually used for Prefade Listen. To monitor the whole mix, press the PFL button below the main output fader. You will now hear the main mix on the near speakers…. but it will be interrupted if you press any other PFL button.

7a Playback Sources - VT

Sources other than microphones can, of course, be added to the desk.

The two gallery Macs - VT A and VT B - are permanently plugged into the mixer;

VT A appears on Local Mic 29 and Local Mic 30 and is patched to stereo input 1.

You can use STRIP SETUP to place the input on a channel. It will automatically use just one channel for the stereo source.

VT B appears on Local Mic 31 and Local Mic 32 and is patched to stereo input 2.

If a video played from the Macs has been edited with correct audio levels – peaking at -12dB – then the GAIN control can be set to zero. Touching the GAIN knob makes it display the channel gain in figures. But don’t rely on an edited piece being at the correct level; take level while the video is playing just as you would with a microphone.

Playback Sources - Jingle Player

The desk has a built-in Wav file player called Jingle Player. Up to eight files can be available at any time and are triggered by pressing buttons on the surface of the desk.

Get the Jingle Player onto a channel by going to STRIP SETUP and selecting it from the menu you get when right-clicking on a channel strip.

The files are loaded onto the USB stick which is plugged into the right-hand side of the desk.

They must be held in a folder called ‘Jingle’ on the top level of the stick and only the eight files currently in use can be kept in this folder.

Other files can be held in reserve outside the ‘Jingle’ folder.

The Jingle Player requires audio files with the following properties:

USB stick formatted with FAT32 file system
Max file size - 4GB
Wave or Broadcast Wave format
File extension - .wav
Linear PCM coding : sampling rate 44.1 or 48 kHz
Word length may be 16 or 24 bit.
Naming convention: J01_name.wav

The USB stick cannot be loaded or interrogated via the Studer desk. Remove it and plug into another computer to inspect its contents and load new sound files.

On the desk surface, press the button, 1 - 8, referring to the file name. Click on the musical note at the top of the screen to open a window which displays the actual file names.

Only one file can be played at any one time and starting a second whilst the first is still playing will instantly replace the first with the second.

Despite this fiddly file handling, it is useful to have sound effects etc that can be triggered instantly with one button push.

Auxiliary (Aux) Outputs

We often need to send sound back to the studio floor for presenters, guests, crew and audience to hear some parts of the show. But if we sent the main mix / desk output to loudspeakers on the floor they would cause howl-round/feedback when the studio mics were on. So we need to organise a separate mix of only some of our sound sources to be fed to the floor. Such a mix is called FOLDBACK or, for musicians, a MONITOR MIX.

We choose which sources are fed to these mixes using auxiliary outputs, called AUX OUTPUTS or AUX SENDS.

For a drama we might need to send sound FX and music to the floor speaker so that actors and audience can hear them; a phone ringing, a police car speeding past a window with siren wailing, the music track played by an actor on set etc.

We usually pick up the output of Aux 3 on Vista Output 7, and this appears on the patch-bay. In a reverse of plugging in microphones, you can plug a patch cord from Vista 1 Output 7 to any Wallbox tie line.

BEWARE: You need to use ‘Line Ties’ which appear on the patch-bay much further down from the Wallbox Mic Ties we used before for microphones. A loudspeaker can then be plugged into the nearest Wallbox on the floor.

The controls for feeding a channel to Aux 3 are in the sloping panel above the channel; find the small black button and if it currently says ‘OFF’ press it so it says ‘ON’. The knob then controls the level sent from the channel to the Aux output.

There is a further choice to be made - should the sound of the channel be fed to the floor speaker PRE or POST FADER?

As this suggests, we can connect the speaker to the channel PRE FADER or POST FADER.

PRE FADER means that the sound source - microphone, VT, sound effect etc - will be heard on the floor whether the fader is open or not.

PRE FADER is used for a feed to musicians' MONITORS so that they can still hear themselves even when not on air. This gives them confidence. If other microphones are in use in the studio they should know to keep quiet until their performance starts, so no unwanted audio leaks onto the live mics.

POST FADER means that the sound source will only be heard on the floor when the channel fader is open and, therefore, the sound is part of the programme mix.

POST FADER is most common - you don’t want the actors and audience to hear a sound effect when you are just testing it out in the gallery.

At the bottom of the desk in between the two fader bays is a small button labelled PRE/POST. Pressing this gives the option, on each channel, of selecting a PRE or POST FADER send to the Aux in question using the same little black button which turned the Aux send on.

Make sure that the Aux 3 controls are setting to ON and POST

Levels for each channel can be set separately and should be done with a colleague on the studio floor monitoring the speaker(s).

GLOSSARY

Aux Output or Send : Auxiliary output of the desk used to send a mix of channels other than the main output to different destinations such as effects units or floor speakers.

Bus Assign : Method of selecting the route a signal take through the desk. Most common destinations are the Master Output or Groups. Button is labelled BUS ASN.

Channel Patch : Screen where complex source and channel connections can be configured.

Condenser Mic : Microphone which uses charged plates instead of a magnet and so needs a power source. Some have a built-in battery but most need Phantom Power sent from the desk.

Control Bay : Right-hand set of channels & faders used for Groups, Aux Sends and other control elements of the desk.

DI Box : Box of electronics designed to take signal from an electric musical instrument – e.g. guitar, keyboard – and output a signal suitable for plugging into the studio Wallboxes.

Dynamic Mic : Microphone which works by vibrating a coil of wire set between the poles of a magnet. Works without any power source - does not need phantom power.

Fader Sliding : control on a channel which controls the level of the source added to the output.*

Fader Bay : Set of 10 channels of inputs on the desk surface. The Vista 1 has two fader bays.

Feedback : The howling whistle caused when a microphone is fed to a loudspeaker in the same space as the microphone. Can also happen with electric guitars etc.

Foldback : Loudspeaker(s) on the studio floor set up for artists, crew or audience to hear some parts of the audio mix.

Gain : The main level control on a channel, used to set up the incoming level so that the source is at the correct level when the channel fader is opened to the ‘0’ mark.

General Patch : Screen where relatively simple source and channel connections can be configured.

Global : A Studer term for something referring to more than one channel. GLOBAL BUS ASSIGN displays the bus assignment of every channel.

Howl Round : See Feedback

Jingle Player : A facility for playing Wav audio files at the touch of a button. They need to be loaded on the USB stick attached to the desk and can then be triggered by one of eight buttons.

Level : The strength of an audio signal as passes through the audio chain.

Link Select : Method of selecting more than one channel in order to change settings such as Bus Assign on more than one channel at a time. It also links the channel faders so that all those selected will move up and down together.

Monitoring : System, of loudspeakers and meters, which enable you to hear and check sounds at various stages in the desk: sources, main output etc.

Monitor Mix :Similar to Foldback: a term used more in music production, for the speakers which feed elements of the sound mix to performers.

Patch-bay : The panel of jack sockets - sometimes called a jackfield - used to make audio connections between various parts of the studio and gallery. E.g. studio Wallboxes, sound desk inputs and outputs, radio microphone receivers

Post Fade(r) : The point after the channel fader where a signal can be monitored or connected to another part of the desk (e.g. an Aux Output). There is only a signal if the fader is open.

Prefade(r) : The point before the fader in a channel where a signal can be monitored or connected to another part of the desk (e.g. an Aux Output). There is a signal regardless of whether the fader is open.

Prefade Listen (PFL): System of monitoring a channel source before the signal reaches the channel fader. Used to listen to a source while adjusting level or to single out one source for problem solving. In music production sometimes called ‘Prehear’.

Pre/Post : Small button at bottom of desk between the fader bays which controls whether Aux controls display ON/OFF or PRE/POST states.

Phantom Power : The DC voltage sent from the desk to condenser microphones in order to make them work. As a default Phantom Power is OFF.

Sample Rate : The number of times per second a digital audio signal is, or has been, sampled. The higher the sample rate, the better the quality of the audio.

Strip Setup : Screen mimicking the layout of the desk where sources can be assigned to channel on the mixer surface.

Studer Vista 1 : The brand and model of the sound desk in the gallery

Tie Line: A circuit between two different areas of the studio complex enabling audio connections between them. (There are also video tie lines.)

Volume : How loud a speaker is. Distinct from LEVEL which is the strength of an audio signal as it goes through the audio chain. Adjusting the VOLUME of a loudspeaker has no effect on the level of the audio signal in the chain.

Wallbox : A panel on the studio wall with vision, audio, camera, optical fibre and Cat5 tie-line connections. (There are 8 in Studio A and 4 in Studio B.)

Wav File : A computer audio file using the ‘wave’ codec.

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