EBS_freak

Aha! Nice one @stoo - The Nextion upgrade! They certainly give projects the pro looking upgrade don’t they? I haven’t done much tinkering of late. I’ve been tinkering with video controllers and that’s about it. I want to revisit MIDI and DMX controllers. I’ve currently got a 32 switch DMX foot controller on the drawing board!

The inbuilt WiFi on these things are always rubbish. First thing you do is find an external router... Behringer, Soundcraft... whatever.

Depends what sort of sound you are looking for - but if you are looking for only toneshaping, straight into the desk and using it's own EQ can yield some very powerful results (especially on digital desks as they tend to be a lot more comprehensive on the stone stack front compared to the analogue world.

Not really, I do all gigs... from big functions to tiny country pubs. If anything, IEMs make even more sense on small gigs where the rooms are just generally not geared up to be sound friendly at all. The concept is this - make as little noise as you can on stage. This means there is less to bleed into the vocal mics. The biggest issues you get with bands is that the cymbals tend to bleed into the vocal mics... there's only so much you can do about that... but it doesn't help if there guitar and bass flooding through those mics too. All this does is mess up the mix out front and dramatically increase the change of feedback. Then everybody complains that they can't hear. They tend to turn up... which makes the problems worse. People slowly accept that... So out come the wedges.... which helps to a certain extent... but adds more sources of noise to the stage. That bounces around, again messing up the mix but also, bounces back into the open mics... and again... increases the chance of feedback. So in short, no wedges and IEMs instead, means less sound bouncing around. Electric kit reduces stage volumes and also the number of open mics. Of course not everybody wants to go down the electric kit, so the other option is small kit (my drummer uses a 16 inch kick) and dark cymbals. Bass and drums wise (and vocals for that matter) - if you are using IEMs, you don't need to hear your backline. So run it really low and put it through the PA and let that do the work. In fact, if you can't hear your backline, theres no point in having it... consider a modeller so you can have a silent stage altogether. All of this gives you less things to mess up the front of sound... and gives a better spread of sound... so no more hot spots where if you stand on axis with a guitar cab you are deafened by guitar... yet if you take 2 steps to the side you can't hear it. Micing up the drums for IEM use really isn't an issue. As I say above, it's a kick drum mic and a overhead. They don't even need to be sent out front... they could be sent to just your IEMs. Also, IEMs dont work like ear plugs. With a decent set of IEMs it's like having your fingers in your ears. The way to think of how they should work is like this - if you want to hear it, you have to put it into the desk and send it to your IEMs. If you don't you won't hear it. Therefore, if you want to hear the audience... point a mic at them that you feed into your monitor feed. Of course, you don't put that through the front of house speakers... but in your IEMs it gives you a sense of the room back... if thats what you want.

Plus compressor (if you know how to use them, otherwise ignore what I just wrote) and a gate for the kick will clean up all those energy sapping lows. PS don't put gates on your IEMs. You'll make no friends... especially with the drummer.

Split boxes and something like an XR16/18 makes for an easy venue friendly portable monitoring rig. Plug your gear that needs to be sent FOH to your split, one output to your mixer, the other to FOH. As for drums, let FOH do their things as they normally would, just put your own kick and overhead into your monitor rig. http://orchid-electronics.co.uk/micsplit.htm

I haven't been name checked but have done both. Minimum for acoustic kits for IEMs is generally a kick and an overhead condenser - although it's also good for a simple way of micing up for FoH also. Simple, bass drum mic and then a condenser on a stand behind the drummer, high, reaching across the drummers right shoulder pointing towards the snare. This is usually enough to get a good all over sound of the kit and hats. The more you start micing up, the more fun you can start having in your inear mix though... but that all takes time, channels - and maybe overkill, especially if you are in a small venue and not really sending anything out through FOH.

Yup, that's generally how opinions work.

I cannot agree with this comment.

I've got a whole truck load of those things. For a reason. They are awesome.

If the gig is worth it, I reckon the XR16 would be the best bet to slave out to the FoH. Sack off all the wireless stuff on that gig.

The Headrush is primarily geared towards guitarists... so in the requirements stage, I doubt they were even looking at speakers that can handle significant amounts of bass. Again, marketing strikes again... and of course, it doesn't pay them to put in decent speakers for low end frequencies because the vast majority of their target market aren't interested in that. I guess it also depends on the bassist - a reggae player that rolls on all the sub is going to kill a Headrush. I would wager that a straightforward PA cab that isn't marketed as FRFR would actually do a better job for a bassist.

Or a big, decent spec FRFR. You need to compare like for like. You wouldn't gig at any significant volume with a single 10 bass rig... same applies with a PA cab.

Mind you, if you compare it to an Aguilar SL112, which has a hell of a lot less going on inside it, it's not a bad price!

Whats your mixer? Instead of looking at Alto at 280 quid, maybe a XR16 at 260 quid? I appreciate one would be for yourself... and one more for communal use though.

Cant you use your own mixer and slave the LR to the FOH PA?

Lets not forget, that's a single 1x10. There's only so much before physics stamps down it's foot on you. It's probably sounding a bit compressed maybe? DSP limiter - of the fact that the speaker is getting more stressed and less controlled.

....and your ears don't ring afterwards.

Indeed - entry point for IEM enabled bands is so low now. XR18 desk for example, with P2 and ZS10s... A 5 driver IEM with plenty of headroom, a XLR and a P2 power amp. Easy rig/wedge replacement for £60 a player all in.

Historically, I would have agreed... but theres some very capable tops out now. However, if you like the sound of a single cab working hard compared to a big rig that is on tick over... well, thats a completely different discussion!

Indeed - there is still something to said about just turning up with a rig. I've got a dep gig with a band that run the old school method... so I'll be lugging out 2x2x10s (cos I don't know how loud they are or whether they put stuff through the PA etc) and an amp head/powered kemper. I've had many discussion with a friend of mind trying to get him onto IEMs... and he totally gets it. Although he is a bit of a bass whore and plays with so many bands, for him, IEMs just aren't practical as many of the bands he plays with aren't using IEMs and integrating such a system with those existing bands is a bit of a technicality that for him, is just not worth it.

Quite surprised - are you doing an A/B test? Or is a perceived sound in your head that you're looking for?

And then the final stage is when you take a monitor rig that you split to foh. Silent stage, all on inears. I think the mindset is finally changing. I remember at the beginning of gigging career, sound engineers would tell me, "let the PA do all the work". I scoffed. Stupidly. Of course, he was right... but I had a band new Fender Twin that I wanted to crank. I know, I know...

But nobody mics up the cab... they usually mic up a single driver... which doesn't capture the sound of the cab anyway. In a band situation, if you want to capture the sound of the "cab", you are likely to have completely unmanageable bleed. If you want the sound of cab out front, as you know... modeller. Takes the studio sound of the cab on the road with you. Perfect.

It may do... just not at volume! 😛