FRFR for Axe FX, vocals, and keys?

mflemi

mflemi

Member
Hi,
This is my first post. I joined the ranks of the enlightened this week with my purchase of a used Axe FX Ultra. I currently use IEM but I'm unhappy with the guitar tone in them so I'm considering a FRFR. The deal is that I also sing and play keys sometimes so I need a good all-purpose wedge. I play in two bands and both use QSC FOH so I'm thinking that using a QSC K10 for a monitor makes sense since there may be a better chance of having my guitar tone sound the same on stage as through the FOH. I was considering a small mixer to feed the Axe, keys, vocal mic, and sub mix of the other guys from the main board to the wedge. Does anyone have experience co-mingling sources into their FRFR and does it adversely affect the guitar tone at all?
Thanks,
Mike
 
I use the Atomic passive wedges with a 50/50 amp and I think the FRFR will work well for what you are doing. So far I have run loops, keys and the Axe through this and it sounds really nice and balanced. Honestly since I have gone FRFR I don't even miss my guitar amps and I have not even tweaked the Ultra out yet so I am sure it will get better.

I just bought the Allen & Heath Zed 10 USB mixer for these different inputs and it is great. Allen and Heath Zed 10 USB Mixer at AmericanMusical.com

If you look around you can find a scratch and dent for a bit cheaper.

Tomorrow I am playing with a full on band so I will report back how it sounds at loud volumes with vox, loops, keys & Axe FX all pumping through this system.
 
Welcome to the forum! :D

You might be better off in the long run with a small mixer - the mackie 402 is a great little chap that will serve your needs perfectly - at $99 you can't really go wrong! ;)

I also use several FR systems for guitar, vocals, and samplers, an electronic drum kit and keyboards - sometimes all at the same time - that's when I use a mixer.
Sometime I just run vocals and the axe thru them, and it's great, no worries.
 
If you are looking for a rack mixer I use a Rane SM-28 8 channel rack mixer. I use it to accept an aux send from the board for my monitors. The output of my mixer runs into my two powered Atomic cabs. My experience with Rane gear has been great. They are very clean and quiet. My guitar sound is consistent whether I have a full mix through my FRFR's or not.


I'm a high gain djent djent meedley meedely meedely type player...

Sent from my iPod.
 
dammit I had a bit of an interesting idea today to use the Axe for both guitar and vocals and going into the QSC KW12 ...I thought it had 3 inputs but only two :(

I was going to send the Mic to the Mic pre of the QSC, then the line level discrete output to the axe input two ..use whatever reverbs and delays there then back into the QSC (unfortunately I thought the RCA and input 2 were seperate from each other...)

take one strip of the axe-fx into the other input for guitar


just nice to have a bit of reverb/effects on the vocals (rather than dry) in a portable rehersal rig

I have used the QSC with an mp3 player runnign into it as well as the axe and it sounded great

if you do work out any tricks let us know thou!
 
Hmmm I just did a search on 3 inputs


QSC KW122 (12" 2-Way) | Sweetwater.com
'The back panel gives you mic, line, and even RCA inputs plus gain controls, right where you need them. You can even mix up to three audio sources internally and daisy chain to another KW122, via the balanced output. '

I just tried putting the axe and an mp3 player into input 2 and it worked fine which means maybe it will work ...

I'm not sure I have the cables to try (XLR to 1/4")...
 
My immediate needs have been met by gear I already owned. I was going to sell my Line 6 UX-8 USB 8-ch recording interface to fund the purchase of a small mixer, but it turns out that the UX-8 works well as a 2 rack space 8 channel mixer. It allows me to mix the 4 outputs from the Ultra, L & R from my Korg Karma keyboard, my vocal mic, and an aux from the FOH. The front of the UX-8 has gain control, -20dB switch, and a high pass filter. I feed the UX-8 stereo output to my Shure PSM IEM and to a pair of QSC K12's. The UX-8 also has a couple of nice features in that it doesn't need to be hooked up to a computer to function as a mixer but when I run MIDI sequences from my laptop I can also use the outputs of the UX-8 to provide L & R plus click track from any of the 6 outputs (outputs 1&2 are use for L & R monitoring). Additionally, the UX-8 has stereo UV meters that helps when setting volume levels between patches.

I'm using mic splitters to feed the FOH my Ultra Output 1 L&R and vocals. Ultra Output 2 L&R and Karma L&R go to DI's that also split the signal. All in all, I ended up with a very versatile rig with the equipment I already had. Except that the QSC K12's aren't mine, I'm borrowing them from the drummer :)

It turns out that there is very little info on the net regarding using the UX-8 in a manner such as this. My hope is that this helps somebody out.

Shotgunn,
It's funny that you mentioned the Rane mixer. I just sold one (before I bought the Ultra) because I never used it. I liked it though!

My Rig.jpg
 
animal said:
dammit I had a bit of an interesting idea today to use the Axe for both guitar and vocals and going into the QSC KW12 ...I thought it had 3 inputs but only two :(

I was going to send the Mic to the Mic pre of the QSC, then the line level discrete output to the axe input two ..use whatever reverbs and delays there then back into the QSC (unfortunately I thought the RCA and input 2 were seperate from each other...)

take one strip of the axe-fx into the other input for guitar


just nice to have a bit of reverb/effects on the vocals (rather than dry) in a portable rehersal rig

I have used the QSC with an mp3 player runnign into it as well as the axe and it sounded great

if you do work out any tricks let us know thou!
Click to expand...

You can always run the keys / vox through the Axe. This allows for some pretty versatile routing / fx options if you set your patches up accordingly.

http://forum.fractalaudio.com/ultra-std-discussion/38291-custom-rack-panel.html
 
animal said:
I was going to send the Mic to the Mic pre of the QSC, then the line level discrete output to the axe input two ..use whatever reverbs and delays there then back into the QSC (unfortunately I thought the RCA and input 2 were seperate from each other...)

take one strip of the axe-fx into the other input for guitar
Click to expand...

Get a LoZ > HiZ transformer type adapter, plug the mic into the Axe FX Input 2. You can output the mix of both the mic + FX and guitar + FX through Out 1.

Last time I noticed, these were about $20 at Radio Shack. I've got a few of those and other brands I've collected over the years along with the HiZ>LoZ adapters that are in my gig bag. They have saved my ass on numerous occasions. I have tested this setup with a SM57 mic, and it works just fine.

You could even go for this, I bought one of these just to get free shipping one time:
ART Tube MP Studio Mic Preamp: Shop Pro Audio & Other Musical Instruments | Musician's Friend
 
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