Best affordable tablet for headphone/IEM mixing?

[BluesB3]

I was in a recording studio last week and the session went down pretty well. I know they were using Pro Tools and a Midas M32R digital mixer. There was a sidecar with Toft analog board too. I have no idea what the patching or routing was. I'm pretty comfortable with old school analog recording but I'm struggling with the digital world.

 

There were several analog stage boxes on the studio floor. The mics and di's went into the stage box and our headphones were fed from the stage box returns. There was no Aviom or HearBack stations.

 

They gave each musician an SM57 strictly for talkback. The individual monitor mixes were set by a guy in the control room holding a tablet. They fed us one instrument at time and we signaled more or less with hand signals. We were pressed for time as the band was paying for the session so I settled for an OK but less than ideal monitor mix.

 

I know my details are a little vague, but is there a system where each musician could have used a cheap tablet to set their own mixes? If so, how much would you have to spend to get a tablet with enough capability?

 

Thanks in advance from an analog dinosaur.

 

 

[wineandkeyz]

We can use our smartphones with our system (a SoundcraftUi24r) but I use an old 1st Gen iPad Mini. 

[NewImprov]

I'm not sure about the Midas, but some digital mixers have a limit on the number of devices that can be connected at once. What I do at my studio is I have an old iPad Air in the lice room, and usually there's at least one person in the band who has enough sound experience to tweak mixes for everyone.

 

Sorry to hear you had a bad experience, headphone mixes can make or break the vibe on a session, and generally, it only takes a few minutes to get it working for everyone,

[obxa]

1 hour ago, BluesB3 said:

If so, how much would you have to spend to get a tablet with enough capability?

Depends on the board. Most manufactures have a free app.  Most are IOS and Android- but not all are Android.    I do a lot of theater gigs. For any new venue I'll ask the FOH  ahead of time what board they're using.  Same will apply to a studio situation.

 

Your phone will probably work.   The cheapest new 10.2  Ipad, or a refurb that's relatively new is great.    But like WineKez,  I also have an ancient Ipad mini that can usually still connect to most boards.  It just can't update to  latest version of the apps. Good (or bad?) news is those app aren't updated all that often.   

 Behringer (which owns Midas) have apps for Android- and at my old church we  used plain cheap refurb Kindle fires to get connected to the X series boards.   You can usually download demos of most of the  IOS/Android apps.  (E.G X32, Yamaha etc.) 

 

There are a couple of universal  mixing apps for  both IOS and Android- that work with just about every board.  "MX Buss"( $5 ) is one I use a bunch as I tend to run into mostly Midas & Pre-Sonus in live shows, and it's less fussy about connecting and often better than the native apps.

 

 

 

 

 

[eric]

iPhone. 

[JoJoB3]

Depending on your mixer you may be able to use an old cell phone, or buy cheap tablet (pc or mac) and use an app for the digital mixer. 
And/or, depending on your DAW and interface i/o you may be able to setup cue bus/headphone mix in the daw to easily control from the desk and/or allow players to adjust their personal mix from their phone/tablet.

Examples here in Reaper (the best studio daw today - period) but perhaps your daw of choice and interface has similar setup and capability.

Vid 1. Setup discrete Control and Headphone/Cue mixes in Reaper.

Vid 2. Setup Cue/headphone mixes with web control ability where performers can use their phone to adjust their own mix ('More me' web control in reaper).
*SWS Reaper extension must be installed first
 

 

[mcgoo]

You can find old iPad 3's on ebay for about $30. They run all the various mixer apps just fine. 

[Ibarch]

8 hours ago, eric said:

iPhone. 

 

Only if you already have one. 

 

The correct answer is the device you already have is the most affordable and will likely work with many digital mixers if it is reasonably modern. 

[Ibarch]

Looking at something similar for our band. 

 

Getting everyone up to speed with the right tech and how to use it can be a challenge. An alternative approach is to nominate someone in your band as the IEM tech. This means only one person to liaise with the main sound engineer and get something working. They will appreciate that.

 

It is likely that there won't be enough time for a solitary sound guy to go round the whole band as well as sorting the front of house. One of the band will have more time (usually). It is also easier for the rest of the band to talk to someone with them on stage to make a change , not find someone who is currently running around the venue looking for something else. 

 

Me looking after IEMs will mean it is more likely the rest of the band will come on board and be prepared to give it a go. They also will be much less stressed on the night not having to fight with unfamiliar tech in order to have a hope of hearing themselves. 

[eric]

1 hour ago, Ibarch said:

Looking at something similar for our band. 

 

Getting everyone up to speed with the right tech and how to use it can be a challenge. An alternative approach is to nominate someone in your band as the IEM tech. This means only one person to liaise with the main sound engineer and get something working. They will appreciate that.

 

It is likely that there won't be enough time for a solitary sound guy to go round the whole band as well as sorting the front of house. One of the band will have more time (usually). It is also easier for the rest of the band to talk to someone with them on stage to make a change , not find someone who is currently running around the venue looking for something else. 

 

Me looking after IEMs will mean it is more likely the rest of the band will come on board and be prepared to give it a go. They also will be much less stressed on the night not having to fight with unfamiliar tech in order to have a hope of hearing themselves. 

 

In my main band, we took the time to get everyone set up with the mixing app on their devices (iPhone, Android, iPad, etc.) and we 90% of the time use the same sound person who has really dialed in great scenes and mixes for us in the live PA and our rehearsal rig. It's great to have full control of your IEM mix via your device and not have to worry too much with asking the sound person for more kick, vocals, whatever. I find that in most cases, once I have my mix dialed in, it is usually a "set it and forget it" kind of thing, whereas a few of my band mates keep an iPad on stage to continuously adjust their levels during shows.

[D. Gauss]

15 hours ago, BluesB3 said:

 

 

 is there a system where each musician could have used a cheap tablet to set their own mixes? If so, how much would you have to spend to get a tablet with enough capability?

 

 

 

 

 

Of course there is.  There's many... Dante, AVB, and good ol' Interweb browser based protocols. (the great thing about standards is that there are so many.)  You seem to have chosen a studio that didn't have personal monitor controlling as a feature.  There is nothing you can "buy" or use that will assure you can do this at a studio in the future unless they are setup to accommodate that.  That's on their end.  In the studio, as the client, it's not up to you to solve.  Look for a studio that provides personal monitor mix control if that is important to you.  In my studio, I can derive individual mixes out of Reaper via a browser, also via web directly out of my interfaces (Motu 16a's), and 3rdly via phone/tab apps through and Allen & Heath QU-PAC i use as a headphone monitor mixer.  I keep a drawer full of old tablets and phones of various sizes and ages.  Those get divided out and used accordingly, as i've found that my clients wanna keep their own phones free for regular "texting their girlfriends/boyfriends/drug dealer/bookie/whatever" stuff instead of having it control their monitors.

[Ibarch]

4 hours ago, eric said:

 

In my main band, we took the time to get everyone set up with the mixing app on their devices (iPhone, Android, iPad, etc.) and we 90% of the time use the same sound person who has really dialed in great scenes and mixes for us in the live PA and our rehearsal rig. It's great to have full control of your IEM mix via your device and not have to worry too much with asking the sound person for more kick, vocals, whatever. I find that in most cases, once I have my mix dialed in, it is usually a "set it and forget it" kind of thing, whereas a few of my band mates keep an iPad on stage to continuously adjust their levels during shows.

 

It's a work in progress in our band. I have my own IEMs. Best case I can get a full mix from the desk and adjust myself on my phone. Worst case I can take the output from my DI box and have just my keys, in just one ear - this is enough to at least hear myself every gig. 

 

Getting others comfortable with the idea and confidence to rely on IEMs rather than stage monitors has yet to be completed. Have done some practices with IEMs but yet to do a full gig. 

[BluesB3]

Thanks for all the suggestions.

 

I looked up MX Bus but it seems to be IOS only. I grabbed M-Air Q and installed it on my Android phone. In demo mode I see a maximum of 6 busses with, it looks like 16 channels of I guess tracks from the board. If I link it with a digital mixer in a studio via WiFi, I assume I'll see how ever many channels and busses it has.

 

I've not had any DAW or IEM experience before. Is there a tutorial or video someplace that will help me understand how to set this up??

[BluesB3]

I like the idea of having a tablet for the larger screen surface and utility tasks like checking emails on the road, but I 'm not comfortable with Apple products.My wife had a Macbook that was just different enough from the PC World that I never adapted to it.

 

Would something like this Galaxy Tab A9+ suffice for monitor mixing?

[D. Gauss]

23 hours ago, BluesB3 said:

 

 

I've not had any DAW or IEM experience before. Is there a tutorial or video someplace that will help me understand how to set this up??

 

Refer to my post above.  You can't just waltz into a studio with a tablet and and app unless the studio (not you ) is configured to do so.  To be even more clear, monitor mix apps are usually different from regular mixing control apps. Why?  because  in addition to the benefit of controlling your own mix, they more importantly keep you AWAY from messing with everything else so you don't screw up things for everyone else and possibly the recording as well.  e.g. "oops, i think i muted the lead vocal mic input."