AMP in the Real World

A place to discuss AMP - Audio Mixing Platform (http://www.ampmix.net)

Re: AMP in the Real World

Postby RBIngraham » Sat Nov 01, 2014 10:46 am

Looks like a good plan. Thanks.
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Re: AMP in the Real World

Postby digitaloutput » Fri Nov 07, 2014 4:34 pm

Great! Nice to hear that....What about VST, did you tried any of it in the mix?
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Re: AMP in the Real World

Postby RBIngraham » Sun Nov 09, 2014 5:47 pm

digitaloutput wrote:Great! Nice to hear that....What about VST, did you tried any of it in the mix?


Yeah we go the thinly veiled dig... no VST isn't implemented yet so I have not tried it out. :roll:
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Re: AMP in the Real World

Postby RBIngraham » Mon Nov 10, 2014 11:40 am

airickess wrote:Let us know how that goes. Since theater productions is one of my primary uses for SAC I am very interested in seeing how AMP performs.


West Side Story has opened and closed. Had a couple of issues with control surfaces changing the the order of their MIDI ports which messed things up. But if we got things started up in the correct order all was well. It was so nice to have real DCA groups and not the bullshit fader latching of SAC. We had 23 channels of wireless lavs, 8 of which were on dedicated faders and the others were run from 10 DCAs, although more often than not there was only 6 to 8 DCAs in use. And the last bank of my 24 surface faders were hard assigned to submasters for orchestra levels, area mic levels, overall wireless levels, etc...

I set up Aux Sends on AMP to be used like Matrix Outputs. This will be a great package for theatre mixing when complete.

I am now using AMP to submix orchestra mics on Chorus Line at a local university here. Not enough inputs on their iLive. :)
Richard B. Ingraham
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Re: AMP in the Real World

Postby airickess » Mon Nov 10, 2014 12:17 pm

RBIngraham wrote:West Side Story has opened and closed. Had a couple of issues with control surfaces changing the the order of their MIDI ports which messed things up. But if we got things started up in the correct order all was well. It was so nice to have real DCA groups and not the bullshit fader latching of SAC. We had 23 channels of wireless lavs, 8 of which were on dedicated faders and the others were run from 10 DCAs, although more often than not there was only 6 to 8 DCAs in use. And the last bank of my 24 surface faders were hard assigned to submasters for orchestra levels, area mic levels, overall wireless levels, etc...

I set up Aux Sends on AMP to be used like Matrix Outputs. This will be a great package for theatre mixing when complete.

Good to know. Right now I'm working on a production touring locally where I'm running 24 wireless packs and 2 wireless handhelds. I'm the operator as well as the designer and I don't use control surfaces. It's a combination of the mouse and some scenes for more complicated parts of the show. If you were the operator as well, do you think you could be able to run the show without control surfaces? Operationally, how does AMP compare to SAC for theatrical work? Any differences?
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Re: AMP in the Real World

Postby RBIngraham » Mon Nov 10, 2014 2:58 pm

airickess wrote:Good to know. Right now I'm working on a production touring locally where I'm running 24 wireless packs and 2 wireless handhelds. I'm the operator as well as the designer and I don't use control surfaces. It's a combination of the mouse and some scenes for more complicated parts of the show. If you were the operator as well, do you think you could be able to run the show without control surfaces? Operationally, how does AMP compare to SAC for theatrical work? Any differences?


I really don't know how you do that. All those mics with no faders at all. :D

I wouldn't want to do that with AMP or SAC. At the very least I would carry a single fader pack used for DCAs. Heck, with AMP I've even mixed a simple show with just a Korg Nano Kontrol (you could do that with SAC as well with the new MIDI templates). Yeah those are stupidly small faders, but at least you have something to grab when things go into feedback. And it takes up almost no space at all.

Setting that issue aside, operationally AMP is similar to SAC. And in many, many ways a lot more customizable. One example, you can use the mouse wheel to change the selected channel or use it to adjust parameters (hover over a fader, use the scroll wheel to adjust the fader) or you can have it do both. Having it do both I find troublesome because the wheel then does different things depending on where you're hovering. But I could see that mode being useful if you were totally faderless. But the point is, it's user selectable so you can set it how you like it. Imagine that. :roll:

Another example is that all of the windows in the GUI are completely customizable. It's not just skins (or shades as Bob L likes to call them) with some different colors and backgrounds. Every window in the GUI is composed of various widgets that do something on the host. If you take the time and are so inclined you can create your own windows that have the faders and buttons you need to do your job. For example I have made a special meter bridge window for an A2 backstage. So they have meters, solo buttons, a Mute button and a recall safe button (so scenes won't unmute a mic they are working to fix). And that's all they see on the screen. That's just one example. You could create a few views that do what you need. Brett is working on some GUI windows that are optimized for touch screen usage. And with a few exceptions you can have as many or as few of these open as you like. I made another window (admittedly a work in progress still) that is just columns of buttons that show the DCA assignments. (great for writing scenes for theatre shows)

AMP has the ability to save and recall window layouts using F Keys like SAC. So that would be beneficial for your project here as well since you could minimize and restore windows as needed fairly quickly. In what is called the Mixer window (think F Mixer in SAC) you can create tabs, where each tab is a group of numerical channels. That is very helpful for theatre as well. I've made a mixer window where I have a tab for RF, Orch, Area mics, playback, etc, etc, etc... That makes it easy to jump to a group of channels without assigning an F Key and in the one I made there is graphics as well as text to show which tab is which. (you do have to edit the window on a per show basis for this to work, but it's really easy)

I think the only thing operation wise that you might miss from SAC is the ability to right click and see a pop up list of all the channels and be able to select one. But as noted above there are probably other ways to achieve the same thing, just different not better or worse.

Most importantly AMP has real DCAs. You can move them and the input faders don't move, imagine that. You can tweak your balance between channels while they are muted and currently unassigned from a DCA. With the use of scenes and a few DCAs I could see you pulling that mixing job off sans faders. That is how I would do it... if I had a gun pointed to my head and was forced to do so. :lol:

Those are the main points that pop into my head at the moment.
Richard B. Ingraham
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Re: AMP in the Real World

Postby airickess » Mon Nov 10, 2014 10:46 pm

Thanks Richard. That is some great information.
The Mixer Window Tabs sounds like a very useful feature.
Having real DCAs would probably change my workflow for mixing theater. Currently I am using Scenes when needed while also selecting groups of mics by latching the needed mics by clicking the tops of the channels in the F Mixer and bringing them up. I've adapted well to this method. Of course the downside to this is that I can't bring down any open mics at the same time so I've learned to pick the spots where I need scenes to do that for me or else I just very quickly bring down the mics after the others are up. Obviously with this method I can't do a line-by-line mix like many musical theater mixers are wont to do, but I've found I don't run into any feedback issues considering that almost half the casts have headset mics on and at least four more are headworn cardioid lavs. I've become very good at setting gains and EQs to make all the vocals match evenly. Oh, and compressors are helpful too.
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Re: AMP in the Real World

Postby RBIngraham » Tue Nov 11, 2014 10:47 am

airickess wrote:Thanks Richard. That is some great information.
The Mixer Window Tabs sounds like a very useful feature.
Having real DCAs would probably change my workflow for mixing theater. Currently I am using Scenes when needed while also selecting groups of mics by latching the needed mics by clicking the tops of the channels in the F Mixer and bringing them up. I've adapted well to this method. Of course the downside to this is that I can't bring down any open mics at the same time so I've learned to pick the spots where I need scenes to do that for me or else I just very quickly bring down the mics after the others are up. Obviously with this method I can't do a line-by-line mix like many musical theater mixers are wont to do, but I've found I don't run into any feedback issues considering that almost half the casts have headset mics on and at least four more are headworn cardioid lavs. I've become very good at setting gains and EQs to make all the vocals match evenly. Oh, and compressors are helpful too.


I understand, sometimes we just make do the best we can with a given situation. :D

What you're describing to me seems like a lot of mouse gymnastics required. Carpal tunnel anyone? :shock:

If you were to switch to AMP someday what I would suggest is that you follow a more traditional theatre method. Set up a handful of DCAs as needed. Leave all the inputs up at an appropriate level that keeps things blending well, write scenes that assign and unassigns them to DCAs. When unassigned the channel is muted. Bring the mics in and out with your mouse using the DCA, recall next scene and the DCAs and run your DCAs up down, etc....

Seriously though, I would consider looking at the Korg Nano or any tiny controller. I even used the knobs to run things up and down with the Korg. And it takes up almost no space. I still think that would be easier than using the mouse.

Also, you could do something similar with SAC. I would rather use SAC's group latches to bring the channels up and down if it were me. Same basic programming as above it's just that with SAC, the input faders go up and down. So my work around for many years with SAC has been to not actually use the FOH mixer for mixing the inputs. I only use it to bring things up and down, over all levels. I keep my EQ and Dynamics on the FOH as well. Then I use monitor mixers tapped post fader where I actually balance out the various inputs and mix them. The biggest issue with this of course is that with SAC there is not way to tweak that balance without leaving the FOH mixer. And even with a control surface you've then lost access to your over all volume controls when you FKey to the monitor mixer where the wireless are balanced. This has always been SAC's biggest downfall for theatre mixing to me. If that one issue could have been solved (and it's not like I didn't ask and/or make numerous possible suggestions) my over all satisfaction with SAC would be much higher today than it is. :horse:
Richard B. Ingraham
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http://www.rbicompaudio.20m.com/
SAC details and goodies at: http://www.rbicompaudio.20m.com/SAC.html
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Re: AMP in the Real World

Postby airickess » Tue Nov 11, 2014 3:39 pm

RBIngraham wrote:What you're describing to me seems like a lot of mouse gymnastics required. Carpal tunnel anyone? :shock:


Trackball!
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Re: AMP in the Real World

Postby RBIngraham » Tue Nov 11, 2014 3:42 pm

That seems even more difficult actually. But hey, if it works for you...
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