Al Krow

Worth dipping into this SY-200 thread.

I thought your EVOX 8 were going to be perfect for us - I loved how well they worked for your 3 piece! Would have avoided needing to go down the IEM route for stage monitoring, too. I got as far trying out some in a local store with a bandmate, but couldn't get passed the feedback we were getting in store and, given that was effectively my opp to demo the set-up to my sceptical bandmates who didn't believe there would be no feedback, the EVOX 8 ship sadly sailed on that morning...

I sadly can't comment on your white lines as I'm from the Frank Zappa school when it comes to that sort of gear 😅 On your serious point, I'm not convinced that our previous combination of RCF 702ASii + 310A tops was better than the current 912As - if anything the 912As win relatively easily. And @EBS_freak has always been horny about the 3" VC on the 732As - and the penny's starting to (finally!) drop on that and the benefit of a 700Hz crossover point. It's never been about perfection for us - you're talking to the guy whose function band were content with 310As for the best part of a decade; my Alto equivalent story haha! It's just about having something that's going to be good enough for our needs. But if the drummer now still wants to get a heavy/expensive sub and transport them to gigs, he's very welcome to...strangely I've a feeling he'll be fine not doing that! I started this thread almost a year back thinking about getting a pair of 312As. I guess in terms of compactness I've not varied too much from that precept. But as for being "budget", well yeah, you guys have been very persuasive on getting something better than I'd planned, haha! But it's BC and this is the way.

Says the owner of a pair of QSC K12.2s...😁

Currently just the one - a pair of 912As This second set of 732AS will be kept by our lead vox So if either of us are not around for a gig for whatever reason the band will still have a PA We actually had two sets of PA tops previously - my old 310As and our former drummer's cheap and cheerful Proel V15As. You'll appreciate that that the 912A & 732As represent a considerable upgrade on what we previously had, and we also took the opportunity to upgrade our drummer a while back. But that's a whole 'nother story 😄

Hmmm, there's quite a lot of hidden wisdom in that little post of yours! It's given me pause for thought and I've managed to dig out a fuller discussion from another older 2019 thread and key points from that seem to be as follows: Vocals really will sing with that 3"VC horn. While the RCF 712A is not bad, it's really worth spending the extra to go to the larger HF driver in the 732. The extended response of the larger HF driver in the 732 brings the crossover frequency down from the 712's 1,600 Hz to 700 Hz, which makes it a peach for vocal reproduction. Not to mention a 2dB increase in max SPL. Our singer has confirmed she's ok with going for a 12" rather than a 10" speaker in terms of portability, and given that she'll also be using the PA for solo vocal work, it seems like the 732A is actually a better option than the 912A we've got, and which can then become our #2 "spare" PA set-up. The relative quality of the two I guess is reflected in the price, with the 732A still being sold at a significant premium over the 912A. Should allow us to dispense with the need for a bass rig to support the PA or additional sub for the kick drum and thereby simplifying our set up. A lot of boxes ticked. Fingers crossed, this is going to be a treat!

We're heading down the IEM route for monitoring. But even without IEMs or a bass combo, I've found it not too hard to hear bass through the tops when standing near one (even from behind). Btw I very much take your point about best sound for the band etc. but I've come around to thinking it's also reasonable for bandmates who are primary users of a particular piece of gear to either own it outright or at least take some significant responsibility for it - so if the drummer is going to be the main user of the sub it seems fair enough for him to take it to gigs. Just as I wouldn't dream of asking another band mate to be responsible for any of my bass gear, even if there's an argument it's the audience that is the main beneficiary of that, too. And don't get me started about vocalists happy to turn up with just their mics and often asking someone else to bring a mic stand for them!

Yes I do own a CMD 121H. A bass rig with PA support is a pretty standard set up, right - so not sure why it would be a bodge? I had a RCF 702 which we used with 310A tops - it was ok, but not transformative. The recently acquired RCF 912As are fine without a sub for our needs; sounded great at a wedding we played at over the weekend and my bandmates described them as a "massive step-up" over the 310As. They did sound good! The 710As are going to be a second/spare band PA for one of my bands, which our singer can also then use for her solo work - portability will be a factor for that and they're not too bulky. My thinking is if we are using them as tops, then for larger venues I can take along the CMD 121H for a bit of additional low end support. Certainly won't hurt.

Thanks John. With regard to your second point, scalability of (b) could perhaps be achieved by using the bass combo in the same position as you'd put the sub woofer ie don't use it as backline but as part of the FoH set up? I guess if you wanted, you could put the kick through both the PA and bass cab (eg making use of a Boss LS2), but if the tops are not having to solely handle the bass, they should have more headroom to handle the kick. (Besides, if drummers want the benefit of a sub I'd be inclined to encourage them to get and store one themselves - I certainly don't want to volunteer to be lugging the thing, haha!)

The QSC's are around £975 each vs £800 for the top of the range RCFs 932A (or a paltry, by comparison, £533 each for the RCF 912As I've got). Are the QSC's a significantly better product than the RCFs?

I'm guessing that @Bill Fitzmaurice's advice wasn't necessarily intended to be applicable to bass cabs in relation to the boundary effect, though? Most of us have our bass cabs and subs on the floor precisely to take advantage of the additional 6dB of low frequency boost Phil mentioned, albeit maybe with a slight bass EQ cut or alternatively with judicious use of hpf + possibly a touch of bass EQ boost to give audiences that meaty low end thump.

Had a quick look at the specs and this unit sounds really well featured - very much Pod Go competition. 11 (GP 200) vs 6 fx (Pod Go) blocks available, drum machine (decent?) which I don't think the Helix units feature, and same number of fx patches (256). What are the filter and synth sims like - would you rate them as being "usable"?

Does that qualify them as unsound injuneers then? Just asking for a friend...

Wow - that last sentence got me to sit up and take notice!

Intuitively that all makes great sense. Interested why you prefer two 15s over say two 12s plus a decent sub? The last sentence seems, on the surface, to chime against the often repeated mantra on this amps & cabs forum that "speaker cone size shouldn't make a difference to a cab's ability to handle bass" i.e. a 10" cone should be able give out the same depth of bass as a 15" cone; it's more about how the cones have been tuned and driver displacement? But then very few of us ever end up using just a single 10" speaker, although a single 12" speaker e.g. a BF SC or BB2 or 12" MB combo are a pretty common set up. But I guess that's maybe more the ability of a single 10" to handle a lot of wattage from an amp, whereas the BF BB2 can comfortably handle the power requirements for most indoor situations.

I take your point @Jack, but my reading of the amps and cabs thread over recent years is that many folk are very happy with a 1x12" or 2x10" cab as backline. Obviously having a decent quality cab with the ability to handle reasonably chunky wattage helps, but I never found my Vanderkley 210s or my BF BB2 or SC 1x12" lacking, or having to ever really push my MB AC 121Lite 12" 500W combo to anything much above 5 or 6 /10. It will obviously also depend on venue size and how loud the rest of your band are, but I can only recall one request to play louder (plenty to turn it down, haha!) for as long as I've been gigging and that was in quite a large (long) venue and interestingly using a bandmates 2x12 PA but which was more budget / far less capable and articulate than the RCFs 310As one of my bands have been using. The 310As certainly won't produce the trouser flapping, though, that @Pirellithecat mentioned above which you'd get with the addition of a sub, or that the 912As I've recently got can deliver.

Both interesting and helpful. Be interested to get your "unvarnished" thoughts on how well the bass was coming through on that little clip I included in my previous post?

No worries - thanks for testing these out for me, and look forward to getting your thoughts The RCF 912As performed really well at a wedding function gig we had tonight. I used them for the first time with my other band that already have a PA (my old 310As) and comment from the drummer was that he felt that the 912As "were a massive step up" - he's got a good knowledge of sound engineering, so that was a big compliment coming from him. He also appreciated that they represented a good trade off in portability vs having a sub. I didn't use any backline and had one audience member coming up to me and asking what bass I was playing as it "sounded great". I should have said the sound he was hearing was coming from the RCF 912As. Instead I said it was an Elrick 😊 I've got a simple workaround for the 710As if they don't handle bass brilliantly by themselves, which is simply to combine with a bass combo for larger venues. I'm sure for smaller venues they'll be fine, just as the 310As have been decently adequate in handling bass (a little phone clip to illustrate - recommend using headphones) in a full rock band setting, albeit without being amazing. Occurs to me that's maybe reversing the accepted orthodoxy of using the PA to support bass-backline by, instead, using bass-backline (when required) to support the PA!

How did you get on [...baited breath...]?

I've managed to persuade a fellow band member to get a second band PA so we can share the transport load, which is good news, and having a spare band PA if either of us is not around will be a bonus too. We're looking at getting a pair of RCF 710A Mk4s which seem to have got pretty good rep. and are a bit more compact and a little less spendy than the 912As I've got. In terms of handling bass through these, what are folks views experiences with: a) using them as standalone to put bass through; b) combining with a small bass rig e.g. a Markbass CMD121 combo; or c) combining with a sub; Is it pretty common to consider (b) and (c) as workable alternatives? Are there particular benefits to one over the other?

Really looking forward to your detailed review of the unit and how it stacks up against some of the other multis you've had.

Agreed - it's an all or nothing with the Grp levels in terms of selecting particular inputs or not for inclusion in the mix.

@Jakester / @EBS_freak On a separate note would I be correct in thinking that the Grp 1 and 2 out are a higher output version of the aux out and therefore no reason we couldn't use these for IEMs, and very possibly without the need for a Behringher P2 or similar? In which case this unit is offering: 3 Aux out (mono), 1 headphone out (stereo), 2 Grp out (mono) i.e. a total of 6 "monitor" outputs, which will more than cater for our needs. If we doubled up the 2 Grp, 2 of the aux then, together with headphone out, it would provide three stereo outputs plus a single mono output with the remaining aux out.

Haha - fair! But, Russ, I'm just swimming with the tide, going with the flow, you know how it is... I got caught up with the "wrong sort" on BC (aka Gear-chat) for many years and mis-spent my youth (as a bass-player that is) on all the wrong threads. I mean Accessories and Misc. isn't the obvious place to start is it? And there was no such thing as the IEM Bible thread back then (which I actually read from cover to cover before Christmas in a spare 3 hours I had...).

We've invested in a pair of RCF 912As which can handle bass very well without the need for an additional sub-woofer, so I'm feeling far less annoyed at having to cart the PA to gigs mainly for the benefit of the rest of the band, now that it's doubling up as my bass rig too! Having a desk with enough aux outs to enable us to have individually tailored monitoring is a very nice bonus.