Workflow - Snapshots at Monitors

Question for today: How do you like to use snapshots at monitors?

Snapshots are a powerful tool. There are a few schools of thought, but I tend to take a rather conservative approach. For a long time, I was hesitant to dive into snapshots because the potential of programming something you didn’t intend to is very real.

I primarily work on DiGiCo consoles, and I am primarily a monitor engineer. Therefore, I am nowhere near the snapshot pro that a musical theater engineer would be. However, for monitor purposes, I do think my approach may have a little more nuance than people might assume.

Like most, I will typically do one snapshot per song. I limit what is called the “global scope” to as little as possible. Snapshots can control a lot, but I like to only control faders, aux sends, and mutes. There may be times to add more to this, but generally this allows me to accomplish my primary goal of having minor mix changes between songs, leveling tracks, and muting/unmuting for instrument changes.

When starting a new showfile or set of snapshots, I will have a start snapshot that I will use to create the base mixes for everyone. Once everyone feels comfortable, as they start to go through songs, I will duplicate that start snapshot so it keeps the individual snapshot scope and the base mix for everyone. If I were to make a new snapshot, it would create a snapshot of the console at that moment. Depending on what I am doing at that moment, I would rather start from the “Start” snapshot. It also streamlines any other control programmed in, such as being triggered by timecode or MIDI.

On DiGiCo consoles, there are a few ways to update snapshots. Obviously, you can update each snapshot as you go. Another option is auto-update where the snapshot will constantly update as you work based on your scope (one key thing is that in the global scope: while the “recall” column means whether a parameter will be recalled by a snapshot, the “update” column means whether that parameter will be auto-updated when that feature is enabled). I do not use this feature since I want to be deliberate with what I intend to update. I tend to mix the artist actively and then when I go to the next snapshot, I know if I change anything drastic I will be reverted to a good baseline, prepping me for the next song. (An important note regarding scoping: even if a value is not scoped, the console will store the value of every parameter that COULD be scoped. If a parameter is ever added to recall later on, it will use the value of whatever was stored last.)

Next, we have group update. Unfortunately, you can only put a snapshot into one group, but my approach is to usually put every snapshot in the same group for the show. Then I have the option to either update the snapshot I’m working on, or I can update them all with the same change. There are also two types of group changes: absolute and relative. These two types of groups confused me for a long time, however, once you learn how they work it can be a useful tool.

Absolute groups are the default. If you do not have any color style assigned to the snapshot, they will become blue when assigned to a group, and you are in absolute mode. The way these groups work is that whenever a parameter value is changed and updated as a group, if the parameter value was the SAME in all the other groups, it will also update. If the parameter value in the other snapshots in the group are NOT the same, it will be left alone.

For example, say you have a group of three snapshots:

Snapshot 1: Bass DI Send -15dB

Snapshot 2: Bass DI Send -15dB

Snapshot 3: Bass DI Send -17dB

You are in snapshot 1, you raise the bass send value to -12dB, and update the group.

In absolute mode, only snapshot 1 and 2 would update to -12dB because the parameter value matches. Snapshot 3 would stay the same.

At first, seems silly. When would this be useful? I’m sure there are several use cases, but in my head, it allows you to adjust parameters more selectively. For example, you can make a group change on something like where a guitar sits in the mix but doesn’t mess with your guitar solo snapshot where it gets boosted to +5dB on the fader.

So what about relative groups?

Relative groups are where I like to live. At monitors, it makes my job much easier. Relative groups will make the same adjustments to ALL snapshots in the group relative to the parameter value regardless of the value it is at. In our previous snapshot set up, that same +3dB change would result in the following:

Snapshot 1: Bass DI Send -15dB \> -12dB

Snapshot 2: Bass DI Send -15dB \> -12dB

Snapshot 3: Bass DI Send -17dB \> -14dB

At monitors, this is much more flexible because I can update more intuitively a broad mix change vs. a song-specific mix change.

Lastly, the TRUE absolute group mode is accomplished by selecting all or selecting a range of snapshots. This means if you select multiple or all snapshots, make a change, and press confirm, that parameter value will be changed to the same value in every snapshot regardless of what it was before. This is useful for setting new channels after the base snapshot list has been built.

One caution of the relative snapshots that was brought to my attention recently is a danger that is also present with moving fader-style control groups or Multis. If you have a parameter value that is set at -infinity on a snapshot and that value gets changed to anything above -infinity, updating it in a relative group will cause every other snapshot to jump to +10dB. This is because any value above -infinity is +infinity. This causes any relative snapshots to jump to the highest value.

Personally, I have not run into this issue when using relative groups. This is probably because of my conservative approach, but I felt it important to bring up.

Will all of this set up, my flow when mixing becomes make a change, determine if this is a change for this song or for the whole mix, press update selected or update group accordingly. This keeps me quick when working with bands who may not understand or care about the nuance of snapshots, but still allows me the flexibility to make consistent changes song to song. I hope this helps!