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

The only things you have to be warned about are few. If you use both the 1/4" jacks and the "D"
and you should be aware that one connector does not somehow stop the other. The 1/4" jacks are not
"inserts". They are connected directly together which can be good for daisy-chaining but bad if you end up
connecting two outputs together. Usually the result is both signals suddenly distort. For example one
output is a console aux send that is coming in on channel 1 thru the "D" and you want to plug in the output
of a guitar effects box into channel 1 thru the 1/4". Some studios will want to set up the patchbay so that
points not patched are shorted to reduce noise (this is good). Once again that guitar effects box will distort
as it is driving into a short. Here you just need to put in a patch cord into that one point to open the short
or, in other words, dead patch it.
One reasonable thing to worry about with any Cue system is feedback. It can hurt an otherwise
friendly musician with loud phones. It can even happen when a musician hits the TALK button when the
volume is very loud and the phones are not well sealed. Feedback can be complicated due to having
several communication mics in separate rooms being switched into control room monitors, Studio Loud
Speakers and headphones. The remedy as always is use your ears to be aware of hints of feedback and be
ready to turn the volumes down. One suggested practice is to grease pencil mark what you have found to
be good settings on the TB mic and SLS. These controls are the hardest to be aware of in the control room
because we rarely hear them there thus they are most likely to creep to Murphy's settings. If the
headphones are simply on the verge of feedback into the vocal mic the only answers are to have the
musician turn down their volume or wear better sealed phones or both. Occasionally you can insert a good
(graphic) EQ into the "MORE ME" channel to notch out a frequency but usually the frequency changes as
they change their distance from the mic.
Another typical CUE problem is leakage from the headphones into the mic. It can happen with
quiet instruments and loud headphones. Leakage often is a problem with vocals and more so with harmony
vocals. The usual fix is in the mix. We use gates and automation and phase reverse tricks and plenty of
time to try to eliminate the leakage. The best solution is not to record much leakage in the first place. Try
the same methods we suggest to prevent feedback. Less volume and better sealed phones. Personal "In Ear
Monitors" should be encouraged in the studio. Some of them sound damn good. The only problem is that
each musician should really invest in their own set because of health and hygene concerns. A studio can
get some with disposable parts. The better personal ones are custom fitted to each ear. They help reduce the
outrageous listening levels because they seal out much more of the external noise. This helps the musicians
hear and hear longer. They also reduce the listening fatigue that sometimes makes those last hours so
pointless. Just as they seal out external noise, they seal in the cue mix and drastically reduce leakage and
feedback problems. A few hundred bucks are spent on In Ear Monitors and a few hundred bucks are saved
in trying to clean up tracks on a console with gates on every channel. Looked at it that way, you get clean
tracks for free and the musician gets to keep some good sounding phones and their hearing to appreciate
them and your mix.
If you have to use click tracks, "In Ear Monitors" are the best solution. Much less leakage into the
mics which is always a real challenge to clean up. Try a drum machine high-hat pattern with "swing" rather
than a loud metronome-like click. With todays technology of MIDI tempo tapping and tempo maps there is
little reason to even consider a click track. Some project studios still think that Clicks are the key to a tight
feel. More often the click track is responsible for damage to what could have been a great human feel.
Studios either kill the drummers natural feel or attempt to lay down real drum tracks after initial tracks
rather than at the same time. Remember that music can be defined as people playing instruments together.
If it wasn't for overdubs and iso-booths we could record great music without headphones and these stations
would not be as necessary. Feel free to try it sometime - it's more fun and the results can be worth the lack
of effort.
On the topic of hints - here's a few things to try sometime. Some singers and drummers have a real
problem with headphones. If these artists are veteran stage performers they are probably more comfortable
with stage monitors. You can set up speakers instead of headphones if you are careful and do it right. First
you need a pretty dead room - across the spectrum not just the highs. Next set up the speaker at the dead