My reality of local gigging - the p.a. isn't as good as a high end FRFR and is mono

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DavidE

Power User
One of the things I've thought about is whether to get something like an Atomic CLR or other high end FRFR. Maybe a pair. Then I think about reality and what I'd be playing through at a typical gig. I play in cover bands and have to hire sound for most gigs. One club I play in has a house system with Cerwin Vega speakers hanging from the ceiling and big CV subs under the stage. Sounds great on the dance floor but pretty lousy 2/3 of the way back. The monitors are Behringers with 15s. I think they're working on upgrading those since they're crapping out and aren't worth fixing. About the best speakers I get when hiring sound is a Mackie setup. (A quality FRFR is going to sound better than the p.a.) Nothing truly pro grade, with the exception of a charity gig this year when I got to play solo acoustic through a system with all Meyer speakers. That was a revelation.

One of my reasons for looking at the AX8 is the ability to keep the stage as quiet as possible, so running a high quality FRFR at a volume loud enough for the audience to hear it defeats my reason for going this way.

Playing through the AX8 in stereo is awesome at home. It's so easy to get lost in it and want it like that all the time. But I'm not sure if any of the local sound guys run their systems in stereo. I don't think they do.

Based on my reality, what I'm doing is running the AX8 into a single Alto TS110a when setting up presets for gigging. I also have a pair of the 12s. My guess, and hope, is that tweaking on these will give me similar results in the FOH system and I can easily bring an Alto for my guitar monitor and let my vocal go through the sound system monitor.

I do have a Bose system for my acoustic duo and plan to plug into that when I receive my replacement AX8 after the FAS team is back from vacation next week.

I'd love to hear from others who are trying to gig with a modeler for the first time and how you're approaching it. And also from others who have had experience gigging with their FAS product into a typical sound system.

And yes, having the AX8 for a little bit and now having to wait a couple of weeks for a replacement is torture! ;-)
 
I use TS110As for Preset creation and auditioning with my Kemper... and what I create through those have translated very well to both run of the mill PA to Really high end PA. It's a good "low cost" solution. A Yamaha DBR10 is A step up and $399 not on sale... A Yamaha DXR10 is usually $599 and can be found for less... That's a really good sounding speaker.. then you start getting into CLR money after that.

EV ZLX / Mackie DLM / QSC K10/12 etc...

Lots of ways you can go... if your budget allows... cant hurt to step up a little bit at least.

I do not use a stage monitor... (we use in-ear monitors), If I had to bring a wedge... I'd likely have a Yamaha DSR12 or CLR for myself. In the few instances though that I have had to bring a TS110A for my stage monitor... it has worked pretty well... it definitely played it's role. I'd not use it for back line however.
 
If you're hiring your own sound most of the time, my advice would be to try different sound companies to find one you like best. One thing that helps is to record your shows; we've used a simple TASCAM MP3 recorder back at the board and recorded using the built-in mics (rather than recording a feed from the board). While this isn't perfect, it gives some idea of what the sound guy is hearing and is a decent way to judge if his ear for a mix is aligned with ours, and shows if his PA gear sounds good.

No matter how you develop your patches, and regardless of whether or not you mic a cab or run direct, the sound guy's talent and equipment are going to be major factors in the results. All you can do is send them the best signal possible, and use the best sound company you can.

I've moved to FRFR mostly because it eliminates variables like mic choice and mic placement from the equation; it's a few less variables to worry about.
 
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I try to bring my CLR's to every show.

I play mostly with sub par PA's in various assundry dives n pubs.

I know the CLR is really better than the mains, but having control over my own mix on stage makes a big difference to me.

I use Out 1 for the FOH and Out 2 for the CLR. I use the front panel Out 2 level to adjust my stage volume.

I also have a mono mix from the FOH console back to the same CLR. I usually put the other guitarists guitar, lead vocals, my (background) vocal into the mix from the console. If the other vocals wedges are blarring, I leave the lead vocal out of my wedge and just listen to the bleed for everything else.

I go back and forth on in ears. It solves the stage volume problem but brings its own complexity. Getting a good full band in ear mix is usually beyond the capability of the gigs I regularly do so the wedge is actually a lot easier.
 
the key thing to do is to make great overall tone, like when you listen to a cd, it's will sound ok everywhere.
dont tweak for the box it self.
 
LostInSpace said:
If you're hiring your own sound most of the time, my advice would be to try different sound companies to find one you like best. One thing that helps is to record your shows; we've used a simple TASCAM MP3 recorder back at the board and recorded using the built-in mics (rather than recording a feed from the board). While this isn't perfect, it gives some idea of what the sound guy is hearing and is a decent way to judge if his ear for a mix is aligned with ours, and shows if his PA gear sounds good.

No matter how you develop your patches, and regardless of whether or not you mic a cab or run direct, the sound guy's talent and equipment are going to be major factors in the results. All you can do is send them the best signal possible, and use the best sound company you can.

I've moved to FRFR mostly because it eliminates variables like mic choice and mic placement from the equation; it's a few less variables to worry about.
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I've done that and eliminated a few that way....
 
barhrecords said:
I go back and forth on in ears. It solves the stage volume problem but brings its own complexity. Getting a good full band in ear mix is usually beyond the capability of the gigs I regularly do so the wedge is actually a lot easier.
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My biggest gripe about In Ears is that other band members absolutely cannot communicate what their needs are... Me and my dummer get it... and can express exactly what we need to each other and to a house/hired sound man... My bassist and other guitarist / singer... are extremely non-technical (painfully so) and can't let you know if they need less or something/more of something, they are pegging the limiter or what... I have to take their receiver and actually listen and do it for them. We use a out own mixer and give FOH a feed off a splitter when we play at places with a house PA... simplifies it and the house doesn't do squat for monitors.
 
3dognate said:
My biggest gripe about In Ears is that other band members absolutely cannot communicate what their needs are... Me and my dummer get it... and can express exactly what we need to each other and to a house/hired sound man... My bassist and other guitarist / singer... are extremely non-technical (painfully so) and can't let you know if they need less or something/more of something, they are pegging the limiter or what... I have to take their receiver and actually listen and do it for them. We use a out own mixer and give FOH a feed off a splitter when we play at places with a house PA... simplifies it and the house doesn't do squat for monitors.
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These days I try to use sound guys who have boards that will let me make my own monitor mix. Since I sing and many in the band get louder and louder.... it's become pretty crucial for me to have that control. I have my own set of in ears, but haven't been able to make them work well for me. The inability to communicate with other band members and audience members can be a big issue.
 
In my experience in the regular low rent gigs I do most often, it's just too complicated to get 4 different in ear mixes right. We just can't make it happen.

We try and put the least possible into the wedges and everyone relies on the bleed to get their stage "mix".
 
barhrecords said:
In my experience in the regular low rent gigs I do most often, it's just too complicated to get 4 different in ear mixes right. We just can't make it happen.

We try and put the least possible into the wedges and everyone relies on the bleed to get their stage "mix".
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We use backing tracks for keys/Synth/horns and bullshit like that.... about half our night uses them. Not much of an option of not using them as we all need the click track...

Drums are the only stage volume that we have... and we do have ipad/iphone Aux mix control of 4 stereo aux mixes. We add a condenser mic high up above the drum kit into our ear mix... with that we can actually hear each other on stage. we don't talk much to each other though... it's just song, song, song with a little pre-planned banter... and then song song song again.. We'll knock out 45-50 songs in a 4 hr show.
 
I am planning to use a ZLX12P speaker for gigs. Not sure how guys are using 2 CLR's or any other FRFR speakers at a gig without blowing away the rest of the band. Even the Alto 110A is pretty loud. Wish someone would make a FRFR speaker\cab with 2 amps\2 speakers in one box. Yea, you would loose the stereo separation, but unless you are playing a big stage its going to be a few feet away anyways.
 
chrisjnyc said:
I am planning to use a ZLX12P speaker for gigs. Not sure how guys are using 2 CLR's or any other FRFR speakers at a gig without blowing away the rest of the band. Even the Alto 110A is pretty loud. Wish someone would make a FRFR speaker\cab with 2 amps\2 speakers in one box. Yea, you would loose the stereo separation, but unless you are playing a big stage its going to be a few feet away anyways.
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I'd advise mono monitoring and stereo for FOH only.... (I'm a 100% mono for live use kinda guy though.)
As long as it's summed well, you don't lose anything other than the stereo image... and for monitoring that's a little self indulgent for my tastes... (not saying don't do it if you really want to.. just seems over kill without the separation needed for that stereo image.)
 
I am waiting for my AX8, however I can tell you that I currently gig with an Ultra. There is one place I play with regularity and at almost every gig people have told me the house sound is better in the bathrooms then the actual main room! Sometimes there is only so much you can control. Having said that, at the very least I always make sure I have some type of speaker or monitor that I bring for myself that gives me the sound I want to hear.
 
chrisjnyc said:
I am planning to use a ZLX12P speaker for gigs. Not sure how guys are using 2 CLR's or any other FRFR speakers at a gig without blowing away the rest of the band. Even the Alto 110A is pretty loud. Wish someone would make a FRFR speaker\cab with 2 amps\2 speakers in one box. Yea, you would loose the stereo separation, but unless you are playing a big stage its going to be a few feet away anyways.
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Not to be too much of a smartass, but you realize they have volume controls, right? Just because it CAN be loud doesn't mean it must be...
:cool:
 
It's not strictly modelling, but I have been silent on stage for a long time now - I tap a line signal from the speaker out of my tube with a load box, and I run the line signal into Torpedo C.A.B. and from there to the FOH mixer.

Best decission we ever made in the band was to buy our own PA. Our PA (HK Audio Premium Pro) costs about the same as one Axe FX II XL+. One of the other band members bought a mixer (Mackie DL32r) at the price of an Ax8.

We all use in-ear monitors. It works for us, but only because we do it always - Even our rehearsals are with in-ears. We solve the communication problems by having an ambience mic set up, so it only goes to the in-ears. Then, it is only the keyboard and bass players that have trouble getting heard ... but they never have anything interesting to say anyways :p

I will be setting up my presets using studio monitors at home, but I will go to the rehearsal space and set up the PA to make the final tweaks.

I will not be doing stereo for live gigs. I believe that live sound just be mixed mostly in mono, since chances are that most of the audience will more or less only be hearing one side of your PA.
 
I feel for you on the damaged AX8 David, that really is a disappointment after so much waiting!

Like most here, I use an FRFR monitor (RCF) for my guitar, and always have it. Even with the AX8 I plan on always using it unless the stage is just too small, which I haven't run into (thankfully). I also always bring my own rest-of-band-and-my-vocal monitor. Nothing special there, just a JBL Eon 15G2 that I've had for years. It's predictable, and I can control the band mix I want to hear. Occasionally we have to rely on house monitors, and it is always beastly. I have determined most bigger acts have lost all their high end hearing because the monitor EQ is so edgy it's painful. Hate that.
 
Smittefar said:
It's not strictly modelling, but I have been silent on stage for a long time now - I tap a line signal from the speaker out of my tube with a load box, and I run the line signal into Torpedo C.A.B. and from there to the FOH mixer.

Best decission we ever made in the band was to buy our own PA. Our PA (HK Audio Premium Pro) costs about the same as one Axe FX II XL+. One of the other band members bought a mixer (Mackie DL32r) at the price of an Ax8.

We all use in-ear monitors. It works for us, but only because we do it always - Even our rehearsals are with in-ears. We solve the communication problems by having an ambience mic set up, so it only goes to the in-ears. Then, it is only the keyboard and bass players that have trouble getting heard ... but they never have anything interesting to say anyways :p

I will be setting up my presets using studio monitors at home, but I will go to the rehearsal space and set up the PA to make the final tweaks.

I will not be doing stereo for live gigs. I believe that live sound just be mixed mostly in mono, since chances are that most of the audience will more or less only be hearing one side of your PA.
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I have been looking at going silent too... I have heard a few guys who have issues with FOH volume levels when they change presets. How do you know your FOH volume is right between patches?
 
Well - until now, I am just using a three channel tube amp, so levels are fairly easy to set up. However, the other band members actually complain that my levels are sometimes all over the place - I think it is because, the levels are static, and each level will not fit each song.

FWIW, I think, you have a better chance of controlling your level with in-ear monitors rather than standing in front of your own stack or wedge. In the latter two situations, the mix you are hearing is completely unrelated to the sound out front. With in-ears, you can actually have a mix that is fairly close to the FOH mix. Any good in-ear mix should also allow you to have a feeling for your own level in the mix.

When I get the Ax8, I intend to set up presets for each song. That will allow me to dial in exact levels for each song. Of course, levels can only be set, while using the PA.
 
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