- Intro and Inputs
- Outputs (and a bit more on Inputs)
- Patchbay
- Presets (and some Input bonus) [this post]
- Files and Organization
In this post, we're going to learn how to save some work. We're going to look at something called "Presets". We'll also cover one or two other work-saving tricks.
Start up D-Show if it's not running, and let's begin.
Click on "INPUTS" on the bar across the top of the screen. If this looks familiar, that's good. We've been here before.
Over the years, you may have noticed that there are some people that keep showing up on stage at NCBC needing sound reinforcement. You may have also noticed that their channel set-up tends to look pretty similar each time.
If input channel 1 (Aaron's channel) isn't selected, select it now. If you don't have his channel set up (bus assignments, EQ, compressor), set something up. Or go back to the first lesson and go through the walkthroughs. This post will still be here when you get back.
See Aaron's name in the upper left corner? Look below the right corner of that dark blue box. See the square button with the folder-looking icon on it? Click it.
A new window should pop up. Click the Folder drop-down and change it to "User Presets". Now click the "New" button. Hey, that's convenient - it pre-filled the name "Aaron". We'll go with that for now. Press Enter. Your preset is now saved.
We still need to figure out the best filing strategy. It may be multiple folders. It may be putting a prefix on the names, e.g. VOC-Aaron. It may be something else. But for this lesson, you can leave the name as "Aaron".Close the Presets window, either with the X in the upper right corner or by clicking Cancel. At least on your PC, this isn't a necessary step, but do it anyway.
See the "+" and "-" buttons next to the folder button you clicked? Click the "+" button a few times until Channel 8 is selected. This really doesn't do anything besides move you to the next channel, but it's another way of navigating.
Click the preset folder button again. Now click on the Aaron preset. Check that out: your bus assignments, aux sends, EQ settings, compressor settings--pretty much everything visible--has been set up. It's not such a big deal if we have Aaron already set up on Channel 1, but it could be a big time-saver if you don't.
Reality check: This is very convenient, but loading a preset does not mean you're done setting up a channel. You still need to use your ears. Voices and instruments sound different from day to day. The sound context matters: a perfectly (solo) EQ'd vocalist might sound terrible if the sounds around them muddy their voice. Presets get you past some of the set-up so you can use your ears faster (or have more time to use your ears, if you prefer to say it that way).
Open up the Preset folder again. I changed my mind about naming the preset. We don't want to confuse Aaron's vocal preset with his guitar preset. Right-click on the "Aaron" preset. Note the options on the pop-up. I won't go through them all, but this is where you'd come to do those things. (For those who are confused and not following along at home, if you were following along, you wouldn't be confused. Hop back to the first lesson and download the software, completely free and legal.)
Click "Rename", and rename the preset to VOC-Aaron. Now close the folder window.
Wow, this could be the shortest walkthrough ever! Well, it could if we were done.
Look carefully at the input page. Why aren't we done?
What, you were expecting the answer here? Oh, right, this is a walkthrough, so I suppose it's only fair to give you the answer. Look in the EQ section. Way down in the lower left corner of the EQ section. Do you see that folder button? Do you wonder what that does? Click it and let's find out.
There are two very interesting things here. One thing is that you can save EQ presets separately from full-channel presets. The other interesting thing is that there are some nice factory default EQ settings that we can use.
We can use them for things besides a nice EQ starting point. They'd be good for a training tool as well. For example, you could have a trainee compare two different EQ settings (maybe Male Vocal 1 and Female Vocal 1) and try to puzzle out why they'd be different.But for now, we'll just save Aaron's EQ. Use the dropdown to switch to the User Presets folder.
Oh no! VOC-Aaron is missing!
No, it's not. Well, yes, it's not listed. But it's not missing. What you're saving here is an EQ preset. It's a different kind of file than a channel preset. It's just like when you're looking for a file to open in Word, the Open dialog will list Word (.doc) files, but not MP3 files. So you can relax--it's still there.
Click "New", and save this as "VOC-Aaron-EQ". The "EQ" part isn't necessary (like the above paragraph explained), but we'll put it on there anyway. Nicely done! Now close the Preset folder window.
Quick, find me two more preset types. If you said Compressor/Limiter and Expander/Gate, you're right! (If I had cookies, and we were in the same room, I'd give you one. I shouldn't have said that. I wish I had cookies right now.)
Open up the Preset folder window for both Comp/Lim and Exp/Gate. Look! More factory presets. If you have time, study them and become our compressor expert. If not, know they're there if you need them.
Okay, take a quick break. We're going to change topic a little bit. Earlier I mentioned a couple of work-saving tricks. But I don't want to get into that too much until you've had a chance to rest for a few minutes.
Rested? Have all the Preset information processed, and ready to go on a couple work-saving tricks? Great!
First, let's change some of the settings on Channel 8 (the second "Aaron" channel):
- Change the channel name to AaronTwo (double-click the name)
- Un-assign from all groups (probably in 1 and 6); assign to groups 7 and 8 ("Bus Assign" section)
- Slide the fader all the way up to +15
Right-click on the channel name--or really, just about anywhere that's not on the graph or another channel's fader--and click 'Copy "AaronTwo" (Ch 8)'. For a second or two, it'll put a helpful message in the lower-left corner telling you that the channel was copied.
Now click on the Channel 9 fader strip at the bottom (or use any other favorite method of yours to select Channel 9). Now right-click the channel name (or channel fader, or almost anywhere on the screen) and click "Paste to Selected Strip". Bam! All the settings from 8 now show up on 9. The one exception is that the name doesn't change.
We won't actually walk through this, because it's very similar to what we just did, but try right-clicking the EQ section. You can copy just EQ settings. Now right-click the Comp/Lim section. Look! You can copy just compressor/limiter settings. Now right-click the Exp/Gate section. I'll bet you're not surprised anymore that you can copy just compressor/limiter settings.
We just realized that we shouldn't have pasted AaronTwo onto Channel 9. It's my fault. You just did what you were told. Now we have to change it all back to the defaults. My, that could be a lot of work. Except it's not. Right-click the fader strip for Channel 9 at the bottom of the screen. Click "Reset Ch 9". And...defaults! Much easier.
Now let's say we want AaronTwo on a different part of the control surface. Basically, we want to move the controls to a different channel strip.
Today you'd do this by manually adjusting each control on the new strip to match the old strip, then re-patching on the patch panel. Not difficult, but it is time-consuming and can be error-prone.
Select AaronTwo (Channel 8). We're going to move it to Channel 41. With AaronTwo selected, right-click the fader strip for Channel 41 at the bottom of the screen. Now click "Move Selected Strip Here".
It pulled Channel 8 out, moved all the channels to the left, and put Channel 8 in where Channel 41 was.
Something happened that's not quite right, though. Look where AaronTwo ended up: it's at Channel 40. I don't know if this was intentional on the part of the programmers, or if it's a bug--but when you move a channel to a higher channel number, it copies to a spot one lower than where you wanted it. (It's a side-effect of the likely algorithm they used: insert a copy, remove the original, shift everything left to fill.)
So let's fix it. Select AaronTwo (Channel 40). With AaronTwo selected, right-click the fader strip for Channel 42 (yes, forty-two, not 41, even though we want it to end up at 41) at the bottom of the screen. Now click "Move Selected Strip Here". There we go!
Just below the left side of the channel name, "AaronTwo", there's a box that says "Ch 41: Stage1 8 >>". Click it. It's a shortcut to the Patchbay settings for that input channel. Look at where AaronTwo is connected: Analog Card A #8. Now scroll up. Ch 7 is connected to Analog Card A #7, Ch 8 is connected to Analog Card A #9. So moving the channel preserves its Patchbay settings. This is a very good thing (unless you messed up the patching in the first place), because it means you don't have to re-patch every channel between the new and old channel numbers.
The reason I'm very happy that there is a Move feature has to do with this scenario: You've set things up, carefully ordering your channels. Your vocals are nicely grouped together, instruments are in the order that you like, and everything is painstakingly EQd.
Personally, I've always liked putting vocals under my left hand and the band under my right hand, generally starting with guitars or other lead instruments. Not really relevant, but I told you anyway.
Now someone (it's probably Aaron, because he does this kind of stuff) waltzes up to you and says "So, the band got to talking, and decided we needed another electric guitar. I don't want to make extra work, so I'll get everything set up on stage for you. Don't worry, man, I've got your back!" As he walks away, feeling very helpful and generous, you're looking sadly at your beautiful board set-up. Finally, you shrug and stick that extra electric at the end, after the mandolin, the tambourine, the saw, and the kazoo.
It's just not right, is it?
I feel your pain. And apparently, so did the D-Show designers. Thanks, guys!
Even though we're blaming this on Aaron, I know I've ended up doing silly things like leaving three channels for four guitars. So it'll help you fix your own mistakes, too.
One last thing and we'll be done with the tricks. I'm not sure if I can call this a time-saving trick, but it'll probably be useful for properly setting up banks of channels.
In case you don't know, this mixer can handle more channels than we have faders on the control surface. It uses a concept called "banking" to deal with that. The first 32 (I think that's how many physical faders we have) channels get assigned to Bank 1. The next 32 channels get assigned to Bank 2, and so on. When you switch between banks, the control surface will adjust the positions of faders, the indications of knobs, etc, to reflect the settings. There's also a concept called "Bank Safe" which lets you keep a channel always available, but I won't get into that now.Go back to the Inputs page. Right-click the fader strip for AaronTwo (Channel 41) at the bottom of the screen. Now click "Insert Blank Strip". That blank strip isn't selectable, doesn't have any processing associated with it, doesn't show up in the Patchbay... It doesn't exist, except to space your channels out to how you want them.
Well done! You now know all about presets, including the different kinds of presets. On top of that, you know some nice tricks for saving yourself time, like copying and moving channels. You even know something about channel banks.
That's good, because training is on Wednesday!
What's next?
I may do another walkthrough or two on files and organization, snapshots, and things like that.Training is on Wednesday. You should be there.
After Wednesday, I may add some material based on actual knowledge and experience. How's that for a clever plan?
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