Though other workflow features are way more important to me (like longer show names, show sorting, and show lists not scrolling to the top when saving etc.) I do have some ‘new’ mute related stuff that would be helpful for me personally.
Mute Fade:
Hear me out. I am often in a situation where unmuting a channel at full volume sounds unnatural due to the background noise coming through. Both in the PA and in monitors. (think: opera singer entering the stage while the orchestra is playing, but won’t start singing immediately) A ‘global mute fade time’ for setting a short fade in/out is something I haven’t seen on live consoles. Even a 1 second max. would be helpful. It could also be a softkey you hold down while pressing a mute button.
Mute ‘GO’:
I often have situations where I’m told over comms what is about to happen next on stage (like in corporate events), but I have to sit around and wait for it to happen, and then mute and unmute all the correct channels extremely fast. I would love a function where you could pre-mute and pre-unmute the relevant channels, and then hit a ‘GO’ button when the change happens. You might say that you could do it vis scenes, but that process would be way to risky when doing it on the fly.
My suggestion would be to hold down a dedicated softkey while pusing mutes and unmutes, then pushing a different softkey to implement those changes.
An excellent idea for anyone who using mute buttons to mute channels or groups - I’ve often wished for that in similar situations like this.
Even if you don’t usually notice such described abrupt level changes live, they’re usually quite audible in other mixes, like for a stream, for example.
I’d love to have this option in SQ and Avantis – unfortunately, it wouldn’t be of any use to me in dLive.
A mute fade would be very welcome!! For broadcast, that would solve so many hussles.
As an “easy fix” I think of an option, that mutes are applied after a scene fade, not instantly when launching the scene. In combination with a DCA fade somthing similar as a mute fade could be achieved.
I just wanted to make sure the OP was aware of a “work around” that is available today. This post is not intended to take away from the original request or somehow make it unneeded.
The Workaround: You can program scenes that utilize the crossfade feature to achieve this same scenario of slowing “turning up/down” the volume of a specific channel(s). Instead of using the mute function however, you will want to use the channel fader and turn unneeded channels to -inf and turn desired channels up to unity (or whatever position you need). Obviously you will want to include a scene filter that blocks all changes except the desired channel fader changes. The good things about handling it this way is that you can pre-program this to affect multiple channels all at the same time.
Obviously the downside to this is that you have to pre-program all of this. Still, if a “mute group” works in your workflow, you can just as easily create a scene with those same “mute group” channel’s faders being the only thing that changes. The use of the cross fade functionality adds the ability to dial in how quickly you want the faders to adjust to their set position.
Those aren’t really workarounds. As some mentioned above, any pre-fader mix would need to be post-fader for this to work. And more importantly…you are assuming that I would suggest something like this without knowing what a scene is. I specifically mentioned why scenes are not viable in this scenario in my initial post…so I’m not sure why you would make the assumption that I don’t know what a scene is.
It’s really only the PA that matters when it comes to slowly ramping in/out sources. You don’t need to “ramp up/down” mutes on monitors (the most common use of pre-fader sends). I mean if the functionality is there it could obviously be helpful, but it shouldn’t be a deal breaker.
I would assume you are using post-fader sends for your PA. But since you got upset with me for “assuming things” in my last post, I better check to make sure that is the case.
And more importantly… my suggestion/response doesn’t apply only to you. Who knows how many people will be reading this thread in the future who are looking for a similar solution. I’m just trying to make sure people are aware there is a “work around” right now. Obviously that work around isn’t perfect (if it was you wouldn’t need to make the suggestion), but it is better than nothing and probably a workable solution in a lot of situations. If it doesn’t work for you, then so be it. There is no need to get upset and/or defensive about it.
Yes, and especially so in the recording or stream mix. That is why I avoid using mutes to bring things in and out if at all possible.
It sounds like this is an extemporaneous type of event, where you probably had at least some rehearsal. I am reminded of something I did decades ago when mixers were analog, recall was totally manual and “scenes” were written in pencil on paper in rehearsal. One mixer I had the privilege of using had Voltage Controlled Amplifiers (VCAs). It was quite a blessing to be able to set up all the faders and EQ knobs while the MC was talking between songs, and then bring up all the mics with one VCA master fader.
Maybe you could use a version of that workflow - have a couple of DCAs, one at 0 for what’s going away, and another at negative infinity for what’s next (perhaps mute that DCA while you set up to take advantage of the DCA mute LEDs). Set up the DCA assignments from the comms info and then crossfade from one to the other (“Mute Go",” if you will) when it’s time.
For context, my venue does roughly 1400 shows a year. These of course include a bunch of corporate stuff that is never rehearsed. An A2 basically calls out over comms what mics are coming on next etc. Sometimes we just agree that the mics coming on next are turned on so you can see it in the rf integration on the console. You also might want to open up a specific playback channel at the same time.
Using faders would be fine if the same channels wasn’t feeding monitors and other mixes.
Another scenario is singers with symphony orchestras. It is jarring if you unmute in the PA, but even more so for the orchestra when the monitors open up. The solution is to split the channels and use a DCA to fade the channels between inf. and unity. This gets a annoying if there are multiple singers. Remember, these shows are often one offs, and you don’t have hours to set things up beforehand.
You’re absolutely right and I can totally relate.
And actually, I can’t think of a single audio job where I wouldn’t prefer this mute function.
Using faders isn’t a viable alternative, even for post-fader mixes, since the faders don’t necessarily have to be at 0 dB when muting.
