Al Krow

30 minutes ago, neepheid said:

 

I know, right?  I only went wireless last year - dunno why I didn't do it years ago, it's so much fun!  People listen with their eyes, so you bet I go on walkabouts during easy bits in songs

Another big fan of wireless and the freedom to roam. Audiences seem to love it, right?! (And also super useful for sound checks, too).

What a great performance reminder: "people listen with their eyes" - I'm making note of that one! 

Have been really enjoying the combination of IEMs plus personalised monitor feeds we've now got via our digital desk (A&H CQ18T in our case).

By way of background, in case of help to anyone (and apologies for those of you who are already familiar!), it's been a bit of a journey for me: switching to KZ ZAR IEMs a year back from the more budget KZ ZS10s which I had tried out for about 18 months prior was a game changer in providing a fuller more rounded sound vs something that I found a little toppy/harsh in the case of the more budget option and which had almost made me want to give up on IEMs. The better preamps in the A&H desk plus the personalised feeds was yet another step up and I was finally getting an experience that was comparably good to using a backline amp. And with a line-up change six months back and the new guitarist being very happy not to have a stage amp (he doesn't have a car so is able to get to gigs with pedal board and guitar on public transport) was the icing on the cake in terms of not having to deal with an overloud guitar amp on stage, which I'm sure we have all had to suffer from from time to time! Our singers seem to particularly love IEMs, in general guitarists I work with the least keen; they miss the harmonic richness they get from their amps.

But the thing that I've had to wake up to is going from an overall sound where the non-IEM stage monitoring was sometimes meh (and that was on us for not wanting to invest in and lug separate stage monitors for each band member) but where our FoH sound generally pretty good to my ears, to a few gigs over the past six months where the band have had a really good gigging experience with IEMs, but me wandering out into the audience mid-set and discovering that the FoH was far from decent and punters getting a drum heavy mix, which didn't seem to be the case at initial soundcheck. Has been particularly the case with new venues and/or if they have an in-house PA. It's rare that the venues we play at have sound engineers on site and we certainly can't justify having one ourselves.

So I guess the key learning point I wanted to share is that if you are getting a good IEM mix from your desk, don't let that lull you into a false sense of security about the FoH sound! If anyone else has similar stories, please do share!

On 16/01/2024 at 11:50, Al Krow said:

Bought a filter pedal off Paddy. In great condition as described, well packaged and fast delivery: very smooth transaction and a pleasure to find out what a great bass player and band he's in! 

Having bought a filter pedal off Paddy, he's now returned the favour 15 months later and bought one off me which I've no doubt he will be putting to far better use than I would ever manage to! 

Another quick, straightforward transaction and a pleasure to deal with.

Do any of you guys also find that you sometimes get a "resonant boominess" from the low end of the guitar and bass overlapping and reinforcing each other?

Just wondering if the answer might be to set the HPF on the guitar at say 150Hz, which wouldn't impact any of the 2nd harmonics, but would cut the fundamentals on the guitar's low E, A and D strings which directly overlap with the important 2nd harmonics on the E, A and D strings on the bass?

...and sold (to a much better funk bassist than me)!

Old (and forgot to sling their boots) Order

19 hours ago, Phil Starr said:

I'm going to guess that with a female vocalist you won't be going for silly volumes or an over heavy bass sound. The DXR's are good speakers that will go really loud and are also well protected against abuse so you are unlikely to damage them in normal use. Honestly I don't think you will have a problem though that depends upon how big a venue you will normally be playing. Certinly until you are established I'd be prepared to go out with just the Yamahas and save your money until you are absolutely sure there is something lacking.

 

If you do find you are lacking at a larger venue then applying HPF to the mix will allow you a little extra headroom and probably a cleaner sound but in all probability Yamaha wil have some sort of dynamic speaker management in place already which will get the best out of the speakers and be almost unnoticed by you and the audience. Subs are a nice addition but not an absolute necessity in most UK pubs and clubs.

+1^^

Put our RCF 912As through their paces at a decently sized pub venue last night. Was very happy with the tone and "weight" of the bass in the mix, despite not having a sub.

A key for me getting more "weight" has been giving my bass a little (+3dB) EQ boost at around 125Hz - we can do that on our mixing desk, but any decent EQ pedal will also allow you to do this. 

Having said that, there was a 3 piece function band at the same venue the previous week with a LOT of kit, tops, subs and a Markbass combo as backline. Can't deny they sounded really good! 

Sounds like you're sorted, but worth mentioning that Harley Benton do a very compact range which are not spendy. Their Iso2 Pro looks like it also matches your spec.

10 hours ago, Phil Starr said:

I'm still looking out for a pair of RCF 910's which are near enough to collect and at the right price.

I'm wondering whether picking up a solitary 910A as and when it appears, rather than waiting for a pair might be a good alternative approach? 😊

On a completely separate note, and just thinking aloud (!): would it make any sense to try using a 12" PA speaker on the floor or if we have one going spare (or even better, your 745A!) and just use for low bass and kickdrum with crossover set at (say) 120Hz, plus HPF maybe at 30Hz, and then let your tops just deal with everything above 120Hz?

I suspect you would get a bigger sound than just your two 310A tops, and not have the weight of a heavy sub to deal with? What do you reckon?

Thanks for that Phil. Yeah 43 kg would be a non starter for me! I'm sensing you're not yet a covert to adding a sub, and might be happier with a couple of RCF 932As as your standalone rig?

Out of interest, what drum synth do you use with your duo?

5 hours ago, Phil Starr said:

I don't think you'll have any problems at all, especially if you are operating in dual mono rather than stereo. Certainly nothing is going to happen that will stop you entertaining your audiences. In the past when I had no money we mixed all sorts of amps and speakers using whatever we could get. I won't pretend it was ideal but these are two great speakers which are essentially flat response so sonically I don't think anyone in the audience will notice.

 

I did wonder about suggesting you buy the 932A. I think they'd be my first choice for our PA if I was buying today, my 745's are just so damn big, over the top in many venues. I recently acquired a single ART905 mkIII sub at a knockdown price and will be looking out for another, It's a great way to update and not spend too much if you have a plan and a bit of patience. Buying used when the opportunity arises means you usually get your money back when the time comes to take the next step up and sell of your old kit. Good move

Thanks Phil. Let us know what you think of the ART 905 mkIII - I'm guessing you will be pairing with your 310As (or are they 910As now)?

Heartbreaking to read. RIP Sam x

Ordered 😊- just £20.50 on Amazon Prime.

5 minutes ago, Chienmortbb said:

Does it check TS leads correctly? Most Cable Testers I have tried only cater for TRS.

Good question - I was about to place an order following Woody and Steve's recommendation!

12 minutes ago, Phil Starr said:

We've all been there The obvious still trips me up and the adrenaline flowing when something goes wrong at the start of a gig makes it hard to be entirely rational. It's good to see a happy ending

Haha thanks Phil. I think I may have ended up with B stock RCF 932A coming tomorrow as the fall out (as we can't be gig ready with only one working PA speaker!) 😂...may actually have saved me a few quid and I'll see if I can bag another used / B-stock one at some point soon - as it was definitely my plan to upgrade the 912As --> 932As at some point this year, having seen how much better for vox the 732As are than the 912As, but with the 912As delivering a fuller bass.

Does come back to the question of whether mixing and matching a 912A and 932A is going to work? - I guess I'm going to be best placed to find out! Another mate of mine pointed out that given how close the speakers are in many aspects any downside should be, fingers crossed, limited and we can get some improvement in vox until I bag another 932A to get the full benefit.

13 minutes ago, Steve Browning said:

Much.

Perfection is often the enemy of the good!

Get as good a sound as your budget and ability to transport allows: better than doing nothing right?

52 minutes ago, Jack said:

Ground loop? Wouldn't explain the lack of output though.

I'm guessing someone hadn't properly connected the lead to the desk output, which would account for both the hum and the lack of output. Didn't occur to me on the night it could be something as basic as that... but now noted for future reference!

On 13/04/2025 at 18:02, Woodinblack said:

 

Not that I can help with your speakers, but I woudn't call that 'on the blink' - that is way beyond the blink, that is full on broken!

Hmmm...just tried all possible combinations of desk outputs, PA speakers and PA leads and both the 912As seem to be working fine.

The hum was there on both when I had the PA lead plugged into the speaker but not into the desk, so I can only guess that this was user error on my part and I / bandmate had not properly connected the desk to the PA speaker.

All's well that ends well, fingers crossed!

6 hours ago, Steve Browning said:

I can only repeat that I get a great result with a single 12" sub. I guess it's not optimum performance but it sounds great to my ears, and others. 

And I'm guessing sounds better and fuller than without a sub and just 2 x 12 tops, Steve?

A lot of pub bands gig with just 2 x 12" tops and no sub and get a pretty decent sound.

Are folk saying it's pretty pointless adding a 12" sub into the mix, to primarily put the kick through, for larger venues and / or outdoor gigs?

25 minutes ago, jrixn1 said:

 

You've probably already checked, in which case apologies - but don't they come with a three-year warranty, although perhaps it might depend on which retailer you bought it from and if you registered the purchase?

They do indeed, thanks John. And I'm planning on getting it repaired under warranty, but will involve shipping to Germany which could take a couple of month for the round trip and we will be needing a full PA in the meantime. Happened once before 5 months back - they couldn't find any fault with it and sent it back and seemed to be working fine since Jan, but 2nd time this has happened, so I'm thinking I may have a definitely faulty unit.

Have been using a pair of RCF 912As for a couple of years. One of them seems to be on the blink - giving out a worrying hum but no output at a recent gig, so we had to do the gig on one speaker! Not ideal, but a couple of comments about being too loud at one point put my main worry about a lack of volume to rest!

I've got the possibility of picking up a used single 932A to replace the faulty 912A. Essentially same woofer, but better mid range coil which will be better for vox and guitar.

Bad idea to mix two speakers even when their specs are pretty close? Or will the overall impact be a slightly better mid range from the two PA speakers, despite the mixed mid-range 1" and 3" coils/horns and potential interference? I'm guessing the interference may not be too bad, given the greater directionality of the higher frequencies, and not something the audience at a given location will notice, whilst benefitting from the better vox?

Or should I just get a replacement 912A, instead?

2 hours ago, nilebodgers said:

I have just got a CQ-18T and I am impressed. I worked in pro audio for years before I retired, so have a lot of experience of larger scale digital, but this little thing is very capable. I’d have killed to have something like this when I got started doing band sound in the mid 90’s!

 

The only thing missing from my POV is subgroups with full eq for things like groups of lav mics, but I can live without and it would be a nice bonus if they add them in a firmware update. (Some flexible busses that could be either be an aux or a subgroup would be perfect)

Agreed! They really are a great piece of kit!

Just picking up on your excellent post on the "distortion that keeps the 'thump'" post:

On 29/03/2025 at 15:19, BEADist said:

For me 'blending' only works if the clean path has a LPF and the filthy path has a HPF in front. In stompbox-domain that's a lot of pedals for a distortion sound (... so yeah, Boss GT Core : )

 

By the way, to me the X-Bass distortion on there is quite good. I played in a loud sludge band and from the distortions I tried (several blended options and also Darkglass pedals) this X-Bass was absolutely the easiest to fit into a mix and without loosing 'thumb' (if by that you mean the low frequency portion of the attack, the part that differentiates loud bass and loud guitar). On it's own it sounds a bit boring, not spectacular at all. Because of this it took me a long time to actually try this one.

 

Good luck with your endless search, do not give up, do not leave the distortion to the guit@ri$ts !!! 😃

(certainly in recordings there will be distortion on the bass to get a huge sound ?!)

I'll need to give your recommended X-bass distortion a try out!

I've been using the AIRD Preamp Orange stack which gives a very juicy fuzz that I'm liking a lot.

As we were discussing, so much more weight to it with a clean blend parallel path, and with the EQ in the +125Hz bass/low mids given a boost on both paths, combined with using a comp as a sustain on the fuzz path but something much more standard on the clean blend path. 

1 hour ago, dave_bass5 said:

This is a good point. I see many 'musicians' saying how they wont play for free etc, but quite of a few of them really should as entertainment wise, they are worth bugger all 😇

I think that's what's called an "open mic night" 😅

41 minutes ago, Bilbo said:

A renowned guitarist once said to me, there are three reasons to gig.

1. The qualities of the music.

2. The quality of the 'hang', or

3. Good money.

One of the above is enough, two is great, three is heaven.

I think we get out of it what we put in and it will vary for all of us.

Our guitarist heard the exact same from a pro jazz drummer he knows, and I thought at the time there's much wisdom in that! Wonder who came up with that little gem originally?