Introduce a ‘coloured’ active speaker

I did wonder that myself, I find the top end really nice and warm but the bottom end is really bassy... and it’s the bass that needs drastically cutting...when I compare it with the Q12 the RCF is just all bottom, the Q12 is nowhere near in the bass end and goes much higher in frequency also.
The Matrix Q12 uses the Celestion TF1225CX with a passive crossover, no DSP correction. The TF1225CX lacks bottom end (cut-off is ~150 Hz) and has jagged HF response. It's not flat, and so it shouldn't be your standard for measuring what's flat.

Your RCF TT08-A is your best bet it sounds like. If your tone is bassy through the RCF, it's likely you're feeding it a bassy tone. And the top end through it is more accurate than what you'd get out of the Q12.
 
The Matrix Q12 uses the Celestion TF1225CX with a passive crossover, no DSP correction. The TF1225CX lacks bottom end (cut-off is ~150 Hz) and has jagged HF response. It's not flat, and so it shouldn't be your standard for measuring what's flat.

Right! The Q12s are not that flat. The way they sound they tranalate well when you use them like guitar cabinets.
I tweak my sounds at home with an RCF Art 412 faced to my face most of the times. In the rehearse room I have two Q12As in my back. On stage I use IEMs. I use the same presets without any different EQing in these three situations. Once or twice a year we play in a pub, that's also where the two Q12As do an awesome job...they feel like real guitar cabinets, something that the usual monitors don't do.
 
The Matrix Q12 uses the Celestion TF1225CX with a passive crossover, no DSP correction. The TF1225CX lacks bottom end (cut-off is ~150 Hz) and has jagged HF response. It's not flat, and so it shouldn't be your standard for measuring what's flat.

Your RCF TT08-A is your best bet it sounds like. If your tone is bassy through the RCF, it's likely you're feeding it a bassy tone. And the top end through it is more accurate than what you'd get out of the Q12.
I agree, that speaker should be much closer at telling you what FOH is really going to sound like. That is a step above the RCF's that everyone around here is using. I have RCF NXL24s for FOH, and they sound a little dull at home....but when I'm in a big room and I crank up the PA, they are clear, articulate and sound massive.
If the speaker is not broken, then it sounds like your patches are dialed to the Q12 which is not flat.

Maybe start with a single patch from scratch, just to see what you can get out of the RCF.
How does music sound through it???? If it sounds excellent, and guitar recordings sound great, that's another indicator that it's something with the preset.
 
You never know exactly how flat the PA of the next gig will display.
So it's better to try your presets on different systems anyway. Good presets should sound good everywhere. If your presets fail somewhere, they are still not good enough yet and need some more tweaking. One perfect FRFR monitor as the only monitor for tweaking will not save you from disapointing presets. It will maybe make tweaking faster, but a coloured monitor that you 'know' will not be worse.
BTW there are FRFRs available with 8", 10", 12", 15", will they all do the same job only because their response is flat?
 
The less coloured your monitor is the more systems will it translate to. The same with studio monitors and rooms. Nothing is perfect, but you can get close.
Knowing your gear helps, too, sure.
 
Right! The Q12s are not that flat. The way they sound they tranalate well when you use them like guitar cabinets.
My personal preference is to do the tweaking on the Axe-Fx and use neutral speakers, rather than using "guitar cab like" speakers with whatever its baked in sound.
How does music sound through it???? If it sounds excellent, and guitar recordings sound great, that's another indicator that it's something with the preset.
I agree, this is a good indicator.
You never know exactly how flat the PA of the next gig will display.
So it's better to try your presets on different systems anyway. Good presets should sound good everywhere. If your presets fail somewhere, they are still not good enough yet and need some more tweaking. One perfect FRFR monitor as the only monitor for tweaking will not save you from disapointing presets. It will maybe make tweaking faster, but a coloured monitor that you 'know' will not be worse.
BTW there are FRFRs available with 8", 10", 12", 15", will they all do the same job only because their response is flat?
I agree with @merlin17. Sure, you have to tweak at the venue, but starting off from a neutral place translates best.
To make it applicable to the current discussion, tweaking my presets on a Q12a, with its cutoff at 150 Hz and jagged HF response, will not help them translate to more PAs. Probably the opposite.
 
Right, the Q12A is not the monitor to tweak presets with, it's the one to play and enjoy on venues. It's the one to fill a rehearse room or a pub with guitarsound. You can place it in your back, like you would with a guitar cab. It translates presets there that got tweaked with monitors facing to your face. It has it's own pressure thing going on there that you need to keep up with the dynamics of a real drumkit in the room.

It's totally clear to everyone that studio monitors are not to take out for gigs. They are tools to tweak and to mix sounds.
The other way round, you wouldn't expect that a song got mixed on stage monitors. The producer of a stage monitor never had that purpose in mind when he designed the monitor.

Different tasks, different tools. I'm not convinced at all of the one monitor-fits-all idea.
 
Thanks for the help and advice guys, I honestly assumed the Q12’s were flat?
I will start a new patch using the RCF-TT08a and see what it sounds like in the PA system. It just seems strange having to back the bass right off and ramp up the treble, brights and presence so high - to around 10 past etc.
In my cab settings I normally have the treble frequency set to around 6,100.
In the RCF I take the cut off to its off position (don’t really hear any increase in top end, but I am at bedroom levels.
I still find (and always have) ALL cab settingshave a naisialy tone to them...particularly all 4x12’s. I wish I could get rid of that :-(
 
All these monitors are called 'flat', so are the Q12A and the RCF TT's, but they all are a bit different.
Even unafordable high class studio monitors are never just flat, even when the differences get smaller there, they still all have something unique.

The key to good results is simply to know your tools well enough.
 
Don't tweak at bedroom levels. If you do the treble will kill you at gig levels...

Point well taken, but it’s really the low end that proves to be most problematic with regards to minimum audibility curves aka FM

Our hearing is more linear in the middle frequency range where most guitar tones exist, but for things like deep bass tones there is a pretty big difference in perception at say 40db and 100dB.

See a ton of it with electronic music production where someone might be monitoring on 5” desktop speakers and adds a ton of low end to make the synth bass, kicks etc sound full. Then they hear it on a big system that can actually reproduce those lows and it’s a muddy distorted mess, sounding like dub step when they didn’t try to product dub step lol
 
It's totally clear to everyone that studio monitors are not to take out for gigs. They are tools to tweak and to mix sounds.
The other way round, you wouldn't expect that a song got mixed on stage monitors. The producer of a stage monitor never had that purpose in mind when he designed the monitor.

Different tasks, different tools. I'm not convinced at all of the one monitor-fits-all idea.
The studio monitor vs stage monitor distinction is not "totally clear" to me, or to the various people on this forum (other than the obvious size & max-SPL factors). Depending on the monitor you get, you could use the same one for both. Some makers of monitors intend for multi-use.

For example, a few people on this forum use the CLR for both stage and studio. Its designer has also said that the design has been used in various professional studios, for near-field monitoring and for soffit mounted mid-field monitoring use.

Different tasks, same tools -- if your purpose is same for both tasks.

I'm not saying how you're doing things is "wrong." It obviously works for you. Just offering a different approach.
All these monitors are called 'flat', so are the Q12A and the RCF TT's, but they all are a bit different.
Even unafordable high class studio monitors are never just flat, even when the differences get smaller there, they still all have something unique.

The key to good results is simply to know your tools well enough.
Agreed with the general principle. But I'd still call the Q12a far from "flat," doesn't seem to belong in that category.
 
Point well taken, but it’s really the low end that proves to be most problematic with regards to minimum audibility curves aka FM

Our hearing is more linear in the middle frequency range where most guitar tones exist, but for things like deep bass tones there is a pretty big difference in perception at say 40db and 100dB.

See a ton of it with electronic music production where someone might be monitoring on 5” desktop speakers and adds a ton of low end to make the synth bass, kicks etc sound full. Then they hear it on a big system that can actually reproduce those lows and it’s a muddy distorted mess, sounding like dub step when they didn’t try to product dub step lol

Yes. But in regards to guitar response one tends to put too much bass in the tones when playing alone (worse if playing at bedroom levels) and then get buried (or muddy up) when the other instruments kick in. But what's killing my hearing on stage is overly trebly sounds at high SPL and their masking of the mids.
 
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