How was your PA last night?

[Phil Starr]

9 hours ago, mrtcat said:

6 gigs in last 14 days, all weddings, and all without noise restrictions (absolute miracle to get so many non restricted ones in a row) and 4 were in marquees (so much better for sound) so we we've been able to use my PA for all.  Its a super simple setup of 2 x rcf 932a and 2 x rcf 905 subs run via a behringer x-air 18. All on in ears. Acoustic drums and i got to use my amp too. Lovely to have full control over sound with a simple PA that just does the job right. Pull up the band's standard scene, short soundcheck, tweak for room and away we go.

Love your set up, I've a pair of RCF 745's with a single 905 sub but I think I'd go 932's if I wanted to go again. Such a fabulous sound from the big RCF compression drivers but the 745's are such monsters to transport and take up too much space in small venues. The 932's look like a great speaker.

 

I can feel your joy, maybe gigging isn't so bad after all

[Phil Starr]

Two gigs in three days for me. Both with my duo and both open air. The first was a fairly small affair at a brewery tap. The brewery is in an industrial unit on a small indusrial estate next to the Henry hoover factory, nice

 

It is nice actually; a really friendly West Country event every Fri. A bit odd but normal for Chard and the beer is fantastic. Anyway PA for this was Two RCF 310's for FOH and a single one for monitors. I can't persuade my partner on iem's but we aren't loud on stage. Mixer is an RCF M18 and we've done so many gigs that no tweaks are needed for an outside gig other than turning up the bass a touch. we don't use back line and drums are programmed.

 

Last night was outdoors in a lively music pub, a much bigger space and audience so we got out the RCF 745's. Two 310's for monitoring and our new lighting set up. Again no tweaks to the M18 mixer other than turning the bass up. The bass tone outdoors with the 745's was fabulous and the vocals are stunning, well the speakers are anyway. I love this set up, you can just relax and concentrate on your playing knowing you've done everything you can and that the sound would be fabulous, or at least makes us sound as good as we can. 

The new lights worked well. We've settled for six identical LED strips all a metre long and mounted vertically on stands. Two static illuminating us and the other four behind us on a sound program. We also use one of the usual four PAR's on a stand running a chase program. Indoors we add a couple of low power lasers to add a bit of movement but outdoors there's nothing to project onto so we didn't bother. I think that's it for us with lighting for a while. it takes us 20 mins to set up and knock down and for what we charge I think its at the top end of investment, complexity and time and we probably do it better than most of the other local bands. it looked good but I think I need to adjust the sensitivity a little lower on the soudn setting as the lights were maxing out a little too often. They looked pretty good for a first outing but I think a bit more dynamic range would make for more drama