External Pots

[exclibr]

Hi all.. New to this forum but not to live sound.
Does anyone know of anyone that makes an external potentiometer for speakers that can be plugged in between the feed and the speaker? I am trying to allow individuals in an orchestra in a live theatre situation to control the volume on their own monitors without having to use a seperate monitor send for every monitor. I currently have four wedges in the orchestra on one monitor send, but of course some of the musicians say it's too loud and some say it's not loud enough, and of course the monitors the group has have no onboard pots. I might mention that it's a community theatre, so buying newer monitors is not an option. Thanks to all......

[jpleong]

So, this is not exactly what you're asking for but it's along the lines: http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/ATTY/

But you're looking for SPEAKER level attenuation not line/mic level.

I know what you're talking about (Galaxy Hot Spots have them built-in) and I know how to do it (changing impedance) I just have never seen one not built-into the speaker or a wall.

I'm curious, are your monitor wedges all connected in series/parallel or do they each have their own amplifier?

JP

-if you're handy with electronics, you could try wiring-up one yourself: http://www.amazon.com/Parts-Express-WALL-SPEAKER-ATTENUATOR/dp/B0002KRA0Q

[exclibr]

They are in series/parallel, so of course the pots would have to have feed through capability. Thanks....

[5454stevef]

Hi all.. New to this forum but not to live sound.
Does anyone know of anyone that makes an external potentiometer for speakers that can be plugged in between the feed and the speaker? I am trying to allow individuals in an orchestra in a live theatre situation to control the volume on their own monitors without having to use a seperate monitor send for every monitor. I currently have four wedges in the orchestra on one monitor send, but of course some of the musicians say it's too loud and some say it's not loud enough, and of course the monitors the group has have no onboard pots. I might mention that it's a community theatre, so buying newer monitors is not an option. Thanks to all......

In generic terms, what you're looking for is called an "L-pad". I did a quick search with that term and quite a few things came up. You would want one that is rated at least as high as the wattage of the speaker it's controlling, because the resistive element basically takes the place of the speaker load when you turn it all the way down. The ones you see for most applications probably are not rated high enough for your purposes - something like that is liable to be kind of pricey.

I don't recall ever seeing one built into its own box, except for the ones like the old Power Soak that were intended to attenuate the output of a guitar amp so you could get output stage distortion at a lower volume. Those kinds of things were pretty costly, though.

If you don't mind having fairly coarse steps in the volume adjustment, you could probably get by cheaper building something using a rotary switch and a few power resistors of various values.

SF

[cmchamp]

It has been general practice in this neck of the woods with both community theatre and college theatre that the only person(s) who get monitoring (of vocals only) in the pit is the conductor and the main keyboard-piano player. Everybody else follows those two.
I've been doing tech support for live theatre for over 10 years and never had room to provide multiple monitors for everyone, let alone offered the option.
C.

[exclibr]

Yeah, the L-pads that are rated high enough are far too pricey for us to afford, by the time the other parts are factored in. Thanks to all for the advice though.....