DaytonaRik

14 minutes ago, dave_bass5 said:

Yeah, ive seen these and quite fancy getting one, but i cant see my lot going for a mixer change when we aren’t all using IEMS’s yet, and i cant afford to buy it myself. A bit of a catch 22 at the moment, so I’m slowly convincing them its a good thing. 

At the moment, with the singer using IEM’s live, we only use one small monitor on stage anyway. Our gigs were small enough we could hear everything but the monitor helps us keep tabs on the vocals. Only the drummer really needs IEM for his vocals. He tend to ‘forget’ to bring his monitor most gigs. 

We also play pub/small venue gigs but moving to better monitoring has resulted in a much quieter on stage volume - even with wedges as the on-stage noise-wars of guitarists turning up to hear themselves above the other has gone.  Multiple monitor sends make such a difference regardless of the venue size that us weekend warriors frequent!

The small footprint stage-box type digital mixers have been an absolute revelation to pub musicians with much better FX, monitoring, EQing all in one small portable package.  Once the learning curve of the tablet/PC interface has been overcome you'll wonder how you ever managed without one!  I still take my XR18 to gigs as a spare, already set up for a rough mix for the band and with ball park EQ and FX settings.

I guess that they're up there with Thunderbirds in the love/hate aspect of shape/playability/sound?  Both are very divisive and have their fans and naysayers.

2 minutes ago, EBS_freak said:

I’d never trust anybody to have control of their own wedge. Asking for feedback central!

To be fair only one guitarist actually takes advantage of this - and his mix consists of his own guitar and backing vocals with absolutely nothing else in there.  It's the strangest monitor mix I've ever heard!

But I do get your point!

On 18/05/2021 at 20:11, dave_bass5 said:

That must be really cool heading the whole band in ears, and with someone mix it.

Assume you all get your own mix or are you sharing the same one? If the later how are you getting the different mixes?

I’m starting to think i need to push my lot, but it wont be easy as it will mean money. At the moment I’m not prepared to take a feed from the desk as 1, i dont need to hear the singers, and 2, i dont want to distract them with my poor playing lol. 

My singer has a cheap G4M system, and I’m thinking ill get the drummer to use my Xivie wireless system out of her headphone out, in to my spare P2 clone. That way he has wireless and both will get the same feed. Our PA desk only has two monitor sends. One pre, one post, so we would need to upgrade the desk, as well as get everyone IEM’ed up. With no gigs booked that will be hard to sell to them. 

What are the smaller ZS10’s? Are these the old non Pro ones?

Most of the digital desks - XR18/X32 Rack etc - allow individual performers to create their own monitor mix via an app on their phones.

The benefits of multiple monitor feeds are not only limited to IEMs - each band member can take advantage of an individual mix through their own monitor device be that IEMs or a wedge.

My g/f may well get recruited as lighting operator!

I'm just bidding my time on this one - landlords have enough cr@p on their plates without being hassled by weekends warriors such as myself looking for gigs.  Things will change but I'm in no rush to get out there from the word go

About this low!

On 02/05/2021 at 14:14, Crawford13 said:

Again its still subjective. 

There is a classical music community that keeps the music of 200+ years ago relevant. 

If we had the same sort of communities / Learning institutions etc focusing on pop music, Im sure we would have a different perspective. 

Fast Forward to 1:25

As a massive AC/DC fan I'd quite like the Cliff Williams #1 Workhorse replica but not at $7k!!!!  I'd probably be able to find a genuine late 70's/early 80's model and have lots of change for that kinda cash!

Friends, band mates, myself - a gig is a gig...it's usually only for the company before and post-gig analysis/beach-fest after as I tend to lose myself in the live show anyway!

On 22/01/2021 at 16:58, Phil Starr said:

We did get some great sounds out of a borrowed X32 though

Because of the channel count, we can do some neat things re monitoring with the X32 - e.g. we have 2 channels per guitar fed from the same input - there is a dedicated FOH channel and a dedicated monitor feed that has the guitar signal limited so not to rip everyone's head off in the wedges when a guitarist goes for a solo patch but the FOH is unaffected by the limiter - we set the limiter so the guitarist can hear his solo without overpowering everyone else's monitor mix with his solo signal.

19 hours ago, EBS_freak said:

As for the placement of mic receivers and IEM transmitters, this is as about as worse practice you can get and it will be greatly reducing the amount of intermodulation free (e.g. interference free) channels that you will be able to access. Given that there's only two channels in play here, and they are on different channel bands (one on free to use, the other on shared mic license), it's likely, I'm guessing, you are getting away with it Rik! If you upped your channel count with this style of deployment, you would have a right ball trying to get your radio working!

For reference @EBS_freak, ewhat would the industry 'statndard' method be that is expandable for multiple wireless etups, both IEM TX and wireless RX systems?  I'd like to add a few more wireless mic's and maybe persuade some other band members that IEMs are the right way to go with one guitarist flatly saying after 2 mins that they weren't for him, and our vocalist saying, and I quote "there's a strange noise...like aliens in my head"!!!!

3 hours ago, EBS_freak said:

I'll give you a bit of background on the Swissonic router. I took one apart - It's basically a router that can be found on Aliexpress for $30 that has been rehoused in a nice rack unit. That's not to say that the router doesn't do the job, if it works reliably, then it works reliably... and as stated, it's a nice format in that you can keep it racked up and ready to go.

I had long since expected it to be a completely run-of-the-mill router housed in a nice rack mount format

3 hours ago, EBS_freak said:

As for the placement of mic receivers and IEM transmitters, this is as about as worse practice you can get and it will be greatly reduce the amount of intermodulation free (e.g. interference free) channels that you will be able to access. Given that there's only two channels in play here, and they are on different channel bands (one on free to use, the other on shared mic license), it's likely, I'm guessing, you are getting away with it Rik! If you upped your channel count with this style of deployment, you would have a right ball trying to get your radio working!

Absolutely agree completely - in the past it took a lot of fault finding to identify which channels can operate without causing issues.  As the rig is never hired out and we only use 3 channels of UHF wireless - 1 x IEM, 1 x mic and 1 x guitar (separate) then we've managed to find a compromise that works well without problems.   If we wanted to go expand that count then have no doubt we'd go IEMs TX's in one rack and mic RX's into another, both served with paddle antenna and kept well away from one another, and probably all moved to a similar brand/model for ease of configuration.

3 hours ago, EBS_freak said:

Hope this is insightful - this hasn't been written to run anybody's setup down - quite the opposite. I've tried to be helpful to avoid any mishaps down the road!

Your insight and experienced opinion is ALWAYS always welcomed when it comes to PA, wireless and a plethora of other audio related questions.  You are the man!

5 minutes ago, BCH said:

Very neat, what's your verdict on the Swissonic Professional Router 2? 

Router is pricey for what it is BUT there was no other rack mountable 2.4/5ghz router available so I really had very little choice if I wanted the aesthetics.  Personally I think it's worth it for the convenience but others may not be willing to part with the readies for the solution.

Performance-wise it's absolutely rock solid and no operational complaints.

On 22/01/2021 at 16:58, Phil Starr said:

Wait until he adds the x32

We did get some great sounds out of a borrowed X32 though

Could always go the X32 Rack route?  I use an SD16 digital stage box upstage and an SD8 downstage - both have 8 XLR returns and either 8 or 16 inputs and connects via a single CAT5 cable making setup/strike a doddle as you can use short cable runs to a conveniently placed stage box.  The SD16 takes care of the kit and backline mics/DI plus drummer's wedge and the SD8 for vocal mics, downstage wedges and FoH.

On 10/03/2021 at 15:15, Muzz said:

That's the bunny I was on about - in a bigger band with keys and possibly even 2 guitars, there's room for the bass to play the other line, but one acoustic and the bass? It sounded like I didn't know what I was doing...

...and that's the last thing I need to be alerting people to... 😕😀

I've never played that line in unison - that's the guitard's bit...I'm off doing my bit!!!

16 minutes ago, Cuzzie said:

Great photo

Thanks - I'm pretty lucky to have some great photos of me playing over the years 👍🏻

On 13/03/2021 at 16:24, Cuzzie said:

So for muting all strings I don’t have a closed hand, my little finger stays pretty straight, becomes an extension of the palm and spits a very long palm/finger bridge 

Thats just me

I'm another that uses this technique - it's pretty hard to play a massively overdriven guitar at gig levels without being able to effectively mute strings.

On 18/02/2021 at 23:12, Mcgiver69 said:

 In reality it does sound different and more open than any other daw.

How does it compare to the Slate Virtual Mix Bus or the Brainworx channel strips with TMT?

PDK Is the obvious free drum VST that springs to mind - 

https://www.powerdrumkit.com/download76187.php

Code LYS3-2999 gets you any plugin from PIA for $29.99 with a few exclusions (ADPTR AUDIO Streamliner, bx_console SSL 9000 J, AMEK EQ200, Bettermaker EQ232D, Gig Performer 3, Shadow Hills Class A, dearVR PRO, dearVR MONITOR, Neold BIG AL, Lindell Audio 50 Series, Gallien-Krueger 800RB)

Just picked up the Metric A/B for £35 inc VAT (usual price $199 + VAT)

https://www.plugin-alliance.com/en/products.html?utm_source=ActiveCampaign&utm_medium=email&utm_content=ANY+PLUGIN+%2429+99+🚨+The+Grand+Final!&utm_campaign=210302+Leap+Year+Special+-+3%2F3&vgo_ee=%2FtTfbLGAsXYRNED3rJH0F1n%2BcU2xOj7xY6kiLCPV8sw%3D

Jason Newstead at home with some great pick work - especially at 1:40 or so playing the bass line from Iron Maiden's Phantom Of The Opera with a pick!

On 27/02/2021 at 15:04, TheLowDown said:

No, how could I effectively mute the lower strings when using a pick? Fingers do a much better job.

Palm and left hand muting is such an important part of playing guitar with any kind of high gain that when I swapped from guitar to bass it just because a natural part of my pick-oriented bass playing style.  I wouldn't say that either fingers or palm are better at muting than the other...both are tools/techniques to achieve the same end result.

3 hours ago, Al Krow said:

This one should be a treat for all of you glass half empty brigade - enjoy! 

I'm as far from a negative individual as you can get.  In fact, I'm one of the most positive, upbeat people you're going to come across but experience tells me that the average UK knucklehead is just unable to think of anyone except themselves and that once again this will cause problems for the rest of us trying to stick to published guidelines.

I hope I'm proved wrong, I really do, but I don't expect that I will be sadly 😢

38 minutes ago, Al Krow said:

Following a hugely successful vaccination programme that folk across Europe and the rest of the world are looking on at with a degree of envy, announcement of a road map out of lockdown, gigs starting to reappear, music festivals being announced...the stream of negativity from the usual suspects above, reminded me of your comment back last November, Douglas. 

Ah well, c'est la vie, as you very well might say 😉

Not really negativity - just realism.

We have a vaccination programme in conjunction with a lockdown - but which is impacting the figures?  The vaccine?  The lockdown?  Both?  It's an unknown - if you change two variables you cannot say for certain which change is having the greater impact.

Slowly slowly catchy monkey here, that's all.