Anyone using Red Sound FRFRs?

[LiamH]

I've noticed that many players seem to really enjoy their red sound speakers. However, when I purchased the stereo bundle with MF10's over a year ago, I found that I couldn't work with them. I was tweaking them on gig-volume but the mid hump and overall coloration was just too much for me. Usually, my presets translate well on most audio systems, and if the monitors are of decent quality, I don't mind using them during rehearsals. While it might not be the most enjoyable experience in terms of feel, I can handle it for a couple of hours with a bit of EQ. I was looking for a good solution for situations where I couldn't use IE-monitoring and expected the MF-10's to solve that problem so that I could retire my amplifiers for live use. However, it was far from plug-and-play, and when I tried to tweak my presets to make them work, I couldn't really settle with the sounds I was getting. When I finally came somewhat close, my presets sounded pretty much unusable on my studio monitors. Reviews suggested that I might need to do some tweaking (of course you need to fine tune stuff), but I felt that the sound from the speakers and what I recorded at the same time were very disconnected sound-wise. I really wanted them to work, but despite my efforts, I had to let them go. Perhaps they're more suitable for high gain players? I mainly dabble with the slightly saturated cleans and the "bluesy humbucker lead" area. What am I missing?

I don't think you've got too much wrong there, aside from hoping what comes out of PA speakers might directly translate from the way you set up for a good sound from the MF10s. They are very different beasts, so can't really be expected to behave in the same way.

I think I have landed on the right intent, but I'll try to remember to let you know if the plan doesn't age well. I don't use particularly high gain most of the time either, but I don't think that's really the issue.

I've been setting up presets to work with the MF10s so far, meaning that I don't really need to tweak much between rehearsals and gigs in terms of my own backline. I'm so far just sending mono to front of house from there, but I am having to set the EQ on the PA to compensate for a couple of things. Remember, no FRFR is truly FRFR, and the deviations all have a reason.

First of those is that the MF10 is very much a "closed-back guitar cab-alike" FRFR. Surprising bottom, great mids, top end is there, but the really glassy, "breathy" highs don't really come through. The trick for me is to do the same as would do with a 4x12, which is to over-compensate with amp treble and presence controls so it has the bite that I want on stage. For me, it makes sense to do it this way around, as it means my stage sound feels very naturally analogue amp-like, and if I'm using a little feedback on louder settings it behaves pretty similarly to a 4x12 or 2x12 combo.

Second deviation to understand is your PA system voicing. We use a pair of RCF ART 732-A Mk 4 sitting on top of a pair of Mackie Thump 115S subs. They are voiced to make sure vocals are clear and audible, and kick drum and bass guitar move some air without sounding harsh. So they tend to enhance the really high top end, and boost the very low end quite a bit (typically below guitar frequencies), but have a lot of the mids sucked out to stop vocals sounding boomy, or kick drum or bass guitar getting too harsh or resonant. (I need to pull out around 350 Hz on the kick drum, 700-1kHz on bass guitar when mixing on many rigs, but really don't need to do so much with this one, so I am guessing this rig is a long way from "flat response", despite being pretty "full range". Sounds great for album recordings with electric guitar, but...)

The first time I ran presets set up for the MF10s through front of house I was horrified. The combination of variances from FRFR of the 2 systems meant that the sound felt thin, brittle and lifeless. For the first gig I tweaked a little, but decided to run loud as hell on stage so the PA didn't need to do so much with guitar, as I was short of time in the soundcheck.

For the second gig using guitar through FOH I pulled out a load of top end with a shelving filter, and it was a lot better. The next job will be to fine tune the top end, and figure out where to boost the mids to get more body back into the overall PA sound if needed. I'll most likely do that in the rehearsal studio on my own, so I don't feel pressured by the rest of the band getting bored by my need to experiment. I'll set up with PA speakers and MF10s both facing me from the same direction, so I can switch between the two of them, or mix them together, and make sure they match (nicely rather than perfectly).

In short, I don't think you are missing anything, more that you are noticing the same things that I have. The only real difference is that you were using presets set up for audio system and monitors, and hoping to tweak them for MF10s. I've gone the other way round, principally so I have a backline tone I know I am happy with. But actually, I end up with a lot more EQ options between the Axe FX output and the PA input. That was kind of accidental, but with hindsight I think it is the way to go.

Liam

 

[Funkmaskin]

Thank you for such an elaborate answer! Yes, I was expecting to use my existing presets (with some tweaking) and was kind of baffled at the fact that I couldn’t. The last 10 years (at least) IE monitoring has been the norm for me and the mf-10´s was just a solution for the somewhat rare occasion’s where IE, for what ever reason, was not the best option. Running a eq‘ed line for monitoring and my regular presets untouched to FOH was the intended use but I felt that just slapping an eq on my monitor mix didn’t solve it, I had to adjust amp settings, and running two independent amps was not an option for both practical and CPU reasons. I do a lot of mixing, my home studio room is acoustically treaded, I have several different high end headphone options to listen through, and my live presets generally have sparse information below 100- and above 5000 hz to make things harsh or too boomy (almost) no matter what the pa-voicing might be. I have pretty mid-heavy sound to begin with (close to “honky”) so I think the red sounds is just a bad match for me. I’m planning to invest in some high end, active stage wedges but they are just so darn expensive. Well, I still have a couple of amps left to save the day

 

[sb-SG]

@Funkmaskin - agreed great response form @LiamH and excellent advice throughout from others as usual.
Here's my use case, far less detailed but puts me in total agreement....
I switched a pair of decent monitors in one room and replaced with an MF-10 pair and was blown away with the instant improvement. Did the same thing with another MF-10 pair and had to spend several days tweaking eq on the Axe FX to control the highs. Thing is that I was seemingly OK with the original monitors in both rooms but the straight substitution in one room worked and failed in the other.
Sounds a lot like neither room had had enough time spent to optimise eq pre MF-10 () but they have now. Same presets and wildly different room acoustics but with 2 opposite outcomes (until properly eq'ed). Room acoustics.
And whereas I am normally totally in the world of high gain, the MF-10s have really encouraged me to work with clean tones.
But whatever the context I still don't hear a dark speaker - very much frFR. I am definitely very happy with the MF-10 performance.

 

[blaggers]

thanks - I posted the preset a while back - if you search my posts you should be able to find it if you want to give it a spin. I think it's the Superverb with Tyler Grund's JBL E130 IR. Those MF10s are pretty sweet - I'd love to try 4 (two stereo pairs). Only things I'd change on them is the protruding knobs, and would be nice if you could just double the signal from one channel to the other if you're running mono, rather than having to run a separate XLR to each channel.

Thanks for posting it. Heres the post for those that want to get Garys preset - https://forum.fractalaudio.com/thre...er-reverb-patch-happening.188348/post-2338707