i just recently showed a bass player the difference in hum level he was experiencing with his Rickenbacker bass was all due to his insistence of using a wireless transmitter it meant that the shielding that was built into the instrument did not exist when there was no physical connection to a ground....
sorry but as someone who grew up in an analog era, i have my reservations with respect to the new "digital" is best philosophy! i once had to tell a well a know award winning country artist that their show and potentially a three day festival was off the map due to a system crash with both main and monitor consoles going south because of a glitch....so sorry, love the capability but distrust the reliability...
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Some of the highend consoles do seem to have more problems than an X32. That is the irony with complicated devices, high volume mass production naturally exposes problems that might take years to find on a system that only sells hundred of copies. That is no excuse for not having a backup though...
Simplicity and ease of operation is paramount to me. Replacing rack mounted hardware software effect makes the job easier. Most bands now don't have a sound man so being able to call up an effect on a mixer beats fiddling with something in the rack.
On effect unit/pedal that impresses me is the TC Helicon Mic Mechanic. It allow the singer to quickly select a vocal effect and change or bypass effects on the fly.
Sadly, as gear improves there is less live music. Gear has improved a lot. Music hasn't.
did have a backup...but the headliner was not happy with it, so it meant having to drive to the Muskoka's for a Midas.
At the risk of sounding like the Grumpy Old Man from SNL. The more complicated something is the more problems. I remember with German cars didn't suck but now they are overly complicated endless money pits. I would rather my engineer have an ear for what sounds good than one with the technical abilities of a geek. Automation has it's good points but a good sound check can get you in the ballpark.
There's a lot of irony. Most guitar players swear by tubes but in blindfold tests most can't tell the difference between tube, digital amp, hybrid and solid state and when you think about it, their mic'd tube amps go through as solid state board that goes through digital effects and gets amplified by solid state power amp.
I got called to fill in for a gig this dude had booked. The problem was he didn't have a band or a PA so we cobbled together a PA. It consisted of a worn out 100 watt Ampeg V4 head some no name mixer, a couple of monitors for mains and an Electro-Harmonix Memory Man for effects. The vocals sounded great. Our EQ was the tone controls on the Ampeg.
If I wanted to go all audiophile I might go with a tube amp for the mids and and highs and run the vocals on a separate send to a dedicated amp into dedicated speakers that are best of vocals while the rest of the PA handles everything else. Maybe add some preset type C aural exciter to the vocals and a right touch of compression.
Being able to call up effects with the turn of a knob is a good thing.
@turk: really, I'm just an amateur. My perspective is biased by what I could afford to gather in the early 2000's compared to what I can get today for similar prices and how much easier it is to work with. Btw, I fully agree on the hardwiring of instruments. What I meant was only the musician having control over his own monitor mix through wifi.
There is a Portuguese Country / Folk singer which has a truck that You switch a button and the truck simply does it all. In a few minutes One side raises & you have a stage with the big led panel, instruments and speakers placed, and can start the show. Think of those big automatic caravans with all the bells & whistles.
I've seen it once when there was a Political Party nearby, and didn't thought that We were so advanced. There are other older mature singers which aren't so technologically advanced.
Stupendous! Hilarious! Just the act for the Covid19 world. No walls, no tables & chairs, no liquor license, just drive to a parking spot & put on a show! No boring setup & sound check. Alcohol consumption is banned anyway - or was that Italy?
Back in the days of dinosaurs we played on portable stages/band shells but nothing like you described. Many worthwhile inventions come from musicians. Les Paul and Chet Atkins, and Tom Schultz pushed the envelope along with Eddie Van Halen.
If a tractor trailer was outfitted like that you could probably have a full band do a decent size outdoor show. Get Elon Musk and the whole thing can run on battery power.
I played with a really good drummer who worked at a factory that made stainless steel tanks. He turned one into a snare drum and it sound great.
I played with another guy who used potentiometers from electric stoves for light dimmers. In the first band I was in we made our lighting board with mercury switches so when you tilted it the lights would go wild.
We did stuff with dry ice.
One of my favorite regional would rub either Visine or laundry detergent on their faces and hands. You were not able to tell under normal lighting but when the normal lights were shut off and the black lights were turned on all you could see was faces and hands with a eerie green glow. The would play either Riders on the Storm the Cars Moving in Stereo.
In the mid 70's and 80 and before the drinking age changed clubs could afford to pay rock acts and those acts could afford a crew to run the board, lighting, do the load in and load out, select groupies for the after parties and come up with cool stuff. As things scaled back and crowds got smaller clubs went out of business and the money dried up.
I knew a guy who would rent speaker cabinets and copy them.