Manley Langevin HP-100 More-Me Headphone Mixer 2/1995 - 6/ 1996 D-SUB - Manual (Page 3)

Sometimes you have to set up a "Room Mic" or dedicated mic so that the talent can talk to the control
room.
A better method is to use real line level cabling rather than mic lines because the mic signals are
quite low in level and the above technique may tend to crosstalk the cue signals into those valuable mic
signals. Do not use any speaker cables for line level signals because they are rarely shielded and will hum
rather badly. Do not use the power amp outputs to drive the station. At the best it will sound lousy - at the
worst you will blow up the inputs of the station.
If you have more lines available you can send more channels to the station. First choice would be
a channel dedicated to the musicians own mic. The best point to take this from is the output of the track
you are recording onto. That way they not only hear the mic but also the playback from tape. "MORE ME"
is a common request and in itself is an improvement over typical cue systems.
The next variation is a simplification of the first two methods that is useful when the talent is
likely to use several tracks or work on several songs. Use the main stereo mix for the headphone station's
stereo input. Then use a mono aux send that is just the new tracks to be used for the "MORE ME" channel.
The advantage is that the stereo mix is only one mix to set up, not two. In general the stereo mix that the
engineer is hearing will be better balanced than the CUE mix. The artist usually is happy with this as long
as they can have extra "ME" to zoom in on their performance.
The next variation is even "MORE ME". Add another line that represents the mic (after the mic
pre). Maybe a stereo feed of their reverb would be a nice touch. Have you got more lines available? Some
singers like the bass and kick on faders. The bass tends to help with pitch while the kick helps with
phrasing. Now they almost gotta be happy. The only complaint should be either the air conditioning or the
cigarrettes.
If a few musicians require phones and they can compromise a working volume simply plug up to
four headphones into the station. If you expect that they need different volumes you can use a commonly
available and cheap box with individual volume controls. Better yet is to use several stations. The engineer
can send each station as many inputs as there are lines available. Again a better option is to use multi-
cables to link stations. This saves on lines needed and simplifies the set-up. This method gives each player
their own mix, volume, tone controls etc.
In larger set-ups some consoles have more busses than are usually required. One example is with
an SSL console. With 32 busses and 24 track machines many engineers could use those last 8 busses to
feed the stations. This is one easy way to pre-mix any number of tracks down to 8. The downside is that the
Talk-Back does not send to these outputs unless the Slate button is pushed. A better variation is to use 6 or
7 pre-mixes and one channel for Talk-Back. You can access this signal from the Cue outputs. You may
want to dead-patch ahead of this point so that the stereo cue send is available for effects. Then again, you
could set up a pre-mix on the CUE mix and TB will be there for free and no tricky patching is required.
These types of set-ups are typical with many consoles and a little experimentation goes a long way.
Most studios are pre-wired to accomplish any of the above set-ups and if not the changes
hopefully are minor and easy. Anywhere from 2 to 24 extra lines that are run from the patchbay to the
studio will do the trick. Some may elect to have one or more "25 way D" panels in the studio and only use
multi-cables. This is a neat and organized style and a good way to wire a new studio. It may be difficult for
an existing facility but not all that necessary because the 1/4" inputs are pretty easy to deal with.
The communication features built into the stations have not been addressed yet but if you can
access 12 or more lines between the studio and control room much is possible. With most comprehensive
systems some thought and work is involved in a complete installation in order to get everything the system
is capable of. The following examples are for more advanced applications.
ADVANCED INTALLATIONS