lots of extra gigs this past few days... anyway... i like them!
(note, my cables are usually way more neat than this! the 10 foot power cables for the speakers are great! but i need to bring my 1 foot versions for gigs like this! i hate spaghetti on the ground!)
so that's the setup. super small stage for a duo. i typically had my 12" coax RCF NX12-SMA speaker in the middle front of the stage, and it was easy to hear from either side of it. for this gig i bought both CP8 just to try it out. i have my mixer preset to a stereo output and usually just run "half stereo" (meaning 1 output of the stereo pair) and it has worked great for the past year at this gig. i'm in stereo because we use IEMs if for some reason we need to be extra quiet, and we need the stereo panning there. so it was nice to hear my guitar and vocal reverb in stereo with speakers here!
i kept the speaker EQ in the default position. yes, there is a floor monitor selection, but when testing it before with music, it seemed to drop a lot of low end - i still want some of that, so i decided to just EQ it out myself. keep in mind that we are in a restaurant setup, so i'm not cranking it too loud, yet it's substantial. my EQ goal is an even low end, nothing shrill up top, and a pocket for the vocal area so the audience can still hear themselves talk over our music. we are NOT trying to sound "in your face." if you play similar venues, try pulling out some vocal EQ frequencies - you'll be heard, yet for some reason they can still talk without yelling
our setup is 2 electric guitars with piezo (acoustic sound), and we both use effects and distortion sounds throughout the gig. so this is setup primarily for acoustic guitars and vocals to sound good. i keep a good amount of low frequency in my acoustic sound, since there is no bass guitar. my partners typically have their bass set much lighter, and it complements well if i need to play bass-like lines or just fill in the bottom end. so that's why i wanted the low end available, and not cut it out with the floor monitor speaker setting. that said, i do want to try it just to see.
so i started out flat. with the QSC mixer, i already have our channels set how i like for EQ and mix, so i really just had to concentrate on the bus/speaker EQ. there was a lot of bass haha! a lot! these 8s are very full sounding, surprisingly so. i started to pull out the usual 90 - 125 Hz and shape my low strings so theres oomph, but not too much volume compared to the high strings.
once i got this shaped, i felt a bit of "kick drum" frequency when i bumped my bridge. my 12" coax speaker didn't really produce this, because with flat speakers you need to put in what you want. i always appreciated this because it helped to prevent feedback. but this 50-60 Hz region felt really good. so i left in in there. it just felt so natural and no overwhelming.
i swept the mids to find any annoying frequencies there. as i mentioned in previous posts, there felt like a "harsh" area around 1k or so - but harsh only because i'm using these as floor monitors. for mains, this would help projection for the vocals and other similar tones. so i did pull some of that out. the top end was immediately great, i didn't have to do too much work there, and it didn't feel like i was going to feedback any second. i usually had this feeling with the K10 speaker used as a general floor monitor. i felt the high end was so hyped on those speakers. these CP felt smoother up there. maybe because they're lower end speakers? but whatever the reason i enjoyed it.
as far as the volume, i had my mixer sending out about -15 to -10 dB, and the dial on the speaker was set to 9 o clock. 12 o clock is the speaker's 0 mark, and it was already very loud at the 9 o clock setting. so i guess this was made for louder applications too even though it's just an 8. it's rated at 120 dB SPL.
the spread is 90° so i had no issue with the monitor angle even though it wasn't facing directly at my ears. i enjoy the stereo setup, but both of us were thinking that just 1 of these speakers would have been enough sound and spread for both of us. i'll try that this week.
carrying it to the gig was trivial. i have my guitar on my back, a rolling suitcase stacked with a fan and my mic stand in one hand, and i carry the speaker with the other. the NX12-SMA is much heavier and bigger and its handle is designed so that a flat edge rests in your hand - definitely uncomfortable after carrying the speaker for more than 5 seconds. the CP8 was SO light and the top handle has a great feel and curve to it. my partner carried the other one from the car and he was like "wow this is nothing!"
so i guess that's it for now. 1 gig, very successful, loved the sound. just a bit of EQ for the room and it performed and had what i need. keep in mind that this is still an 8" speaker, so there are inherent limits. but maybe the tech has gotten so good that the 8's of today outperform the 8's of 5 years ago or so. very happy with the purchase so far.
very light, very small, easy to hear from all angles, balanced high end, generous low end. $399 each. i'm going to try 1 (maybe 2) at a gig tonight as a main speaker. the hotel i'm playing at is on strike but we're still confirmed to play. so this should be interesting.
