I like spaghetti. Makes it look like important sht is going on 
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I started out in bands playing mostly guitar. Back then I could beat the drummer out of the door after the gig. Then I got into a band playing keys and guitar with a Cantabile rig. Then I was the last person to be ready after set up and the drummer started beating me out of the door afterwards. Oh well.
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This photo prompted me to start a post requesting higher resolution and some explanation of the equipment. Then an incoming call from a band mate at the music store (he’s old school) interrupted. Good to see the fan on the XR32, don’t feel as bad about the one on my Soundcraft Ui24r 
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My live rack contains
- Babyface (classic)
- Behringer ADA 8200 (more output ports via ADAT)
- VoiceLive 3 Extreme (on some drawer rails so I can pull it out for editing)
- USB / HDMI to Cat6 converter
- cabling so all ports are available at the front
- 8 x multicore to desk
- 4 x multicore and Cat6 to my setup on stage
- USB and HDMI to LiveCube PC
The mixer is actually a Ui24R, not a Behringer. The white fan behind it was already on site at the location - I think we removed it after setup 
. Haven’t really needed cooling for the mixer yet - the only devices complaining about heat and actually shutting down are our iPads when playing outdoors in summer…
Also behind the mixer: my light laptop running DMX Control with a simple USB DMX interface, networked to my Cantabile PC.
On the ground is a a battery-buffered UPS for PC and mixer. These two devices take longest to reboot if something goes wrong with the power, so having a UPS is really helpful there.
That’s pretty much it
It’s even worse for me - I’m also the person behind all the PA, monitors, and lights, so I’m definitely first to set up and last during teardown. But I’m not letting anybody leave until all the kit is in the cars - no early escape for the drummer…
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I don’t know anything about the Soundcraft mixer. Is Cantabile controlling or sending cues for mix changes during live performance?
nope - I’m leaving live mixing to “real persons” - venues and performances are so different that I wouldn’t attempt to pre-program a mix…
My keys and guitar sounds are of course leveled and EQ’d inside Cantabile.
I agree. After reading my question again, it read to actually mix a band. That would be asking for trouble. But I’ve had good results with changing effects parameters (BPM on delays and post fader effect levels) or mute/unmute mics during a song from Cantabile.
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Does the Ui24r belong to the venue or your band (or you)? I’m asking because I’ve done the deep dive on it for recording and live sound. If it’s yours I bet I can learn more from you
The Ui24R is mine - I’m by no means an expert, but I get by quite nicely with it. Not doing super-fancy stuff with it, essentially just traditional “manual” mixing; FOH and monitor mixes for IEM and wedges.
I had that problem in Welsh Floyd as I had keys and lights and video, and nobody else in the band had any technical competence. Whilst plugging leads in is not difficult, you wouldn’t believe the mess we got into if they tried to help. So easier to just do it myself. And when breaking down, they wanted to screw all the leads up and throw them in a box, whereas I wanted to recovery them neatly (they last a lifetime then as well).
And now I am solo (for now), I am first and last!
I have improved my setup times by making wiring looms and all cables labelled for source and destination. That makes a hell of a difference.
I bought a Brother PT-600 just because it has a cartridge made for cable labels. It prints the cable label six times sideways down the 1 inch label so when you wrap it around the cable you can read it from any direction.
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I have a Brady Labeller - does self laminating labels for cables. Worth its weight in gold.
I have the ui24r too and good experiences until now.
Beside the traditional mixing tasks you can slightly correct room resonances with pink noise measuring and adjusting the master EQ and you can do a virtual soundcheck with a multitrack recording of the band without needing musicians on stage.
The only reason for not doing this all is the lack of understanding from some of the musicians (especially brass players). So I don’t give them access to the “more me” function too.
I was given my Ui24r by a business partner who decided he didn’t need 2 backup units. It had “firmware corruption” that was repaired under warranty by Harmon/Soundcraft. BTW, their warranty people are great. Because of this incident and the research I did while trying to figure out why I couldn’t get the network settings to save I’ve learned a few things I want to share.
- Be careful with phantom power. The preamps can be damaged by plugging a non phantom powered device in a channel that has the phantom power on. I know this one is obvious but some owners have set the option to not turn on phantom power automatically when powering the unit back on or recalling a “show” that includes channels with phantom power.
- Use a powered USB hub plugged into the “Record” USB port for your recording devices. Apparently the units internal power supply can be over taxed. People suspect over taxing the power supply can lead to problems with the unit’s mainboard
- If using WiFi to control the device it’s best to add an external router plugged into the unit’s ethernet port. I’m using a Linksys EA2700 I already had.
3a. Once you’ve configured the above make sure to turn off the internal hotspot and WiFi
3b. Turn off SSID broadcast whether using internal or external WiFi. Users suspect the dreaded “connection not found” message some have received during shows might be a sort of WiFi “DDOS” caused by hundreds of phones in the audience. I haven’t researched that from the IT vantage point but if their WiFi module had some coding/driver issue perhaps this is true. In any case it’s best if the audience can’t try to connect to the unit’s WiFi (of course put a decent password on it also).
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Hi All,
We played at an event for the total solar eclipse here in Arkansas at a soccer stadium in Russellville. We were the opening act for a blues based festival with 14 different bands over 2 days. There were supposed to be hot air balloons launching that day from there but it was too windy. It was one of the bigger sound rigs I’ve played through and it was very powerful. I played Stormy Monday and dedicated it to Corky, one of our blues men at the forum here.
We know an astronomer who lives in our mountain range and he took an excellent photo of the total event with his telescope and camera and I posted it below. I watched it from my pasture with family. It was breath taking ( at least for me it was 
).
Cheers and a good spring and summer to all!
Dave
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Quite a special occasion, Dave, by the sound of it.
I did my most recent Spectral Streams gig a month ago now. Loads of Keyboards, but Cantabile is the heart of my rig as the MIDI hub for all keyboards (all connected to the PC, not direct to each other) and a plethora of VSTs. And this was the show where I used the Imaginando Visual Synthesizer live the for first time for the visual experience along with my trusty DMX lights, with the visual show set up to react to what/how I am playing.
It went really well, albeit I was a little disappointed with the the turn out; but I did make the school boy error of booking a gig whilst the Six Nations rugby was still on (I would never have done that when I was gigging regularly before Covid!), so I will blame the rugby! But those that were there loved it. And, as I am sure you all know, it doesn’t matter how many you have in the audience you give it your all.
The first picture is one I took during sound check, and the following pictures with yours truly in it were taken by a pro photographer (and electronic music fan) in the audience.
I was out with a
- Yamaha Montage M7
- Kronos X 61
- ASM Hydrasynth Deluxe
- Novation Summit
- Sequential Prophet X
- Roland FC300 (My trusty MIDI foot controller)
- And too many VSTs to mention, but Korg Wavestate and Modwave feature a lot as do DIVA, Zebra and Omnisphere
Cantabile is running on a small NUC PC in the bottom right of the rack between the keys, which also holds my mixer, IEM transmitter, sound module, DMXIS interface and a small network hub for connecting the computers. My faithful Nord G2 Engine is in there as well, but I am not really using that right now. I need to get something in the set that needs it!
Cantabile is shown on the Gechic Touch Monitor above the Kronos, and the laptop on top of the rack is running the Visual Synthesizer software, which is being displayed on the large projection screen via a HD projector. I keep the visuals on a separate computer as I am really pushing the GPU on the laptop and do not want the visuals glitching the music.
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Hi Derek,
I like how the DMX lights seem to coordinate with the projector. The screen seems to be about 100 inches - does it roll up? I’ve been thinking about doing something with a projector for our rock band.
Doug
Many thanks for the dedication! Would’ve loved to hear it.
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Hi, Doug
You are spot on, it is 100" diagonal! It took a while to find the right screen, as my local venue has a height constraint and most screens would not fit from a height perspective. This one was perfect and also due to it being a roll up screen is quite compact for transporting.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0CHVKHWR4/
And I am really impressed with the projector for the image quality and brightness.
The way I built the show is that I did all the videos first and then looked what colours were in use to get the DMX light cues to match
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