Al Krow

Yes I do own a CMD 121H. A bass rig with PA support is a pretty standard set up, right - so not sure why it would be a bodge? I had a RCF 702 which we used with 310A tops - it was ok, but not transformative. The recently acquired RCF 912As are fine without a sub for our needs; sounded great at a wedding we played at over the weekend and my bandmates described them as a "massive step-up" over the 310As. They did sound good! The 710As are going to be a second/spare band PA for one of my bands, which our singer can also then use for her solo work - portability will be a factor for that and they're not too bulky. My thinking is if we are using them as tops, then for larger venues I can take along the CMD 121H for a bit of additional low end support. Certainly won't hurt.

Thanks John. With regard to your second point, scalability of (b) could perhaps be achieved by using the bass combo in the same position as you'd put the sub woofer ie don't use it as backline but as part of the FoH set up? I guess if you wanted, you could put the kick through both the PA and bass cab (eg making use of a Boss LS2), but if the tops are not having to solely handle the bass, they should have more headroom to handle the kick. (Besides, if drummers want the benefit of a sub I'd be inclined to encourage them to get and store one themselves - I certainly don't want to volunteer to be lugging the thing, haha!)

The QSC's are around £975 each vs £800 for the top of the range RCFs 932A (or a paltry, by comparison, £533 each for the RCF 912As I've got). Are the QSC's a significantly better product than the RCFs?

I'm guessing that @Bill Fitzmaurice's advice wasn't necessarily intended to be applicable to bass cabs in relation to the boundary effect, though? Most of us have our bass cabs and subs on the floor precisely to take advantage of the additional 6dB of low frequency boost Phil mentioned, albeit maybe with a slight bass EQ cut or alternatively with judicious use of hpf + possibly a touch of bass EQ boost to give audiences that meaty low end thump.

Had a quick look at the specs and this unit sounds really well featured - very much Pod Go competition. 11 (GP 200) vs 6 fx (Pod Go) blocks available, drum machine (decent?) which I don't think the Helix units feature, and same number of fx patches (256). What are the filter and synth sims like - would you rate them as being "usable"?

Does that qualify them as unsound injuneers then? Just asking for a friend...

Wow - that last sentence got me to sit up and take notice!

Intuitively that all makes great sense. Interested why you prefer two 15s over say two 12s plus a decent sub? The last sentence seems, on the surface, to chime against the often repeated mantra on this amps & cabs forum that "speaker cone size shouldn't make a difference to a cab's ability to handle bass" i.e. a 10" cone should be able give out the same depth of bass as a 15" cone; it's more about how the cones have been tuned and driver displacement? But then very few of us ever end up using just a single 10" speaker, although a single 12" speaker e.g. a BF SC or BB2 or 12" MB combo are a pretty common set up. But I guess that's maybe more the ability of a single 10" to handle a lot of wattage from an amp, whereas the BF BB2 can comfortably handle the power requirements for most indoor situations.

I take your point @Jack, but my reading of the amps and cabs thread over recent years is that many folk are very happy with a 1x12" or 2x10" cab as backline. Obviously having a decent quality cab with the ability to handle reasonably chunky wattage helps, but I never found my Vanderkley 210s or my BF BB2 or SC 1x12" lacking, or having to ever really push my MB AC 121Lite 12" 500W combo to anything much above 5 or 6 /10. It will obviously also depend on venue size and how loud the rest of your band are, but I can only recall one request to play louder (plenty to turn it down, haha!) for as long as I've been gigging and that was in quite a large (long) venue and interestingly using a bandmates 2x12 PA but which was more budget / far less capable and articulate than the RCFs 310As one of my bands have been using. The 310As certainly won't produce the trouser flapping, though, that @Pirellithecat mentioned above which you'd get with the addition of a sub, or that the 912As I've recently got can deliver.

Both interesting and helpful. Be interested to get your "unvarnished" thoughts on how well the bass was coming through on that little clip I included in my previous post?

No worries - thanks for testing these out for me, and look forward to getting your thoughts The RCF 912As performed really well at a wedding function gig we had tonight. I used them for the first time with my other band that already have a PA (my old 310As) and comment from the drummer was that he felt that the 912As "were a massive step up" - he's got a good knowledge of sound engineering, so that was a big compliment coming from him. He also appreciated that they represented a good trade off in portability vs having a sub. I didn't use any backline and had one audience member coming up to me and asking what bass I was playing as it "sounded great". I should have said the sound he was hearing was coming from the RCF 912As. Instead I said it was an Elrick 😊 I've got a simple workaround for the 710As if they don't handle bass brilliantly by themselves, which is simply to combine with a bass combo for larger venues. I'm sure for smaller venues they'll be fine, just as the 310As have been decently adequate in handling bass (a little phone clip to illustrate - recommend using headphones) in a full rock band setting, albeit without being amazing. Occurs to me that's maybe reversing the accepted orthodoxy of using the PA to support bass-backline by, instead, using bass-backline (when required) to support the PA!

How did you get on [...baited breath...]?

I've managed to persuade a fellow band member to get a second band PA so we can share the transport load, which is good news, and having a spare band PA if either of us is not around will be a bonus too. We're looking at getting a pair of RCF 710A Mk4s which seem to have got pretty good rep. and are a bit more compact and a little less spendy than the 912As I've got. In terms of handling bass through these, what are folks views experiences with: a) using them as standalone to put bass through; b) combining with a small bass rig e.g. a Markbass CMD121 combo; or c) combining with a sub; Is it pretty common to consider (b) and (c) as workable alternatives? Are there particular benefits to one over the other?

Really looking forward to your detailed review of the unit and how it stacks up against some of the other multis you've had.

Agreed - it's an all or nothing with the Grp levels in terms of selecting particular inputs or not for inclusion in the mix.

@Jakester / @EBS_freak On a separate note would I be correct in thinking that the Grp 1 and 2 out are a higher output version of the aux out and therefore no reason we couldn't use these for IEMs, and very possibly without the need for a Behringher P2 or similar? In which case this unit is offering: 3 Aux out (mono), 1 headphone out (stereo), 2 Grp out (mono) i.e. a total of 6 "monitor" outputs, which will more than cater for our needs. If we doubled up the 2 Grp, 2 of the aux then, together with headphone out, it would provide three stereo outputs plus a single mono output with the remaining aux out.

Haha - fair! But, Russ, I'm just swimming with the tide, going with the flow, you know how it is... I got caught up with the "wrong sort" on BC (aka Gear-chat) for many years and mis-spent my youth (as a bass-player that is) on all the wrong threads. I mean Accessories and Misc. isn't the obvious place to start is it? And there was no such thing as the IEM Bible thread back then (which I actually read from cover to cover before Christmas in a spare 3 hours I had...).

We've invested in a pair of RCF 912As which can handle bass very well without the need for an additional sub-woofer, so I'm feeling far less annoyed at having to cart the PA to gigs mainly for the benefit of the rest of the band, now that it's doubling up as my bass rig too! Having a desk with enough aux outs to enable us to have individually tailored monitoring is a very nice bonus.

That is super kind of you to sort me out on this - thank you! Now you say stop buying mixers? Hmmm...I'm kinda thinking the opposite i.e. why has it taken me so long to dive into these?! I'm a little gobsmacked at the feature set and EQ options available on my circa £400 Soundcraft Signature 12MTK 12 multi-track recording --> Motu M4 up for sale 3 band EQ with semi para mids with a f-range from 140Hz to 3KHz, and bass EQ centred at a very sensible 60 Hz --> do I really need an EQ pedal any more? Hi Z inputs --> DI no longer required and don't need to stress about balanced outputs not being available on certain multi-fxs Dbx limiter with hard-knee compression --> Nice! Not going to miss my Keeley Bassist HPF starting at 100Hz with 18dB / octave cut. Engage that and maybe add a little bass boost and off we go for non-flubby low end --> Thumpinator now also redundant? I mean, this thing has just paid for itself! And I'm sure @dave_bass5 has got a similar feature set on his Behringer which is sub £300.

Just looked into the QSC TM16. Yes, what a fabulous piece of kit and super compact too!!! But at £1,385 it's one for the future for us, and I suspect my band will balk at spending £1,000 over the Soundcraft Signature we've just got.

This was a good shout btw - works fine (as does using two of the Aux Out) using a 2 into 1 lead to combine. I was just keen for ease of use to see if I could get the output to both my desktop monitors from a single aux out so I can get an idea of what will be being pumped when we're playing live - but @Woodinblackhas very kindly offered to sort me out with a single adaptor to enable me to do that.

Here's a picture of the desk, if it helps folk trying to follow this part of the thread!

Yes I think so. But I would like the ability to hear what's coming out of my aux outs via both my desktop monitors rather than one of them. And I'm wondering if there's an adaptor that will enable that? But I agree that the Group 1-2 outputs do look interesting in what they are bringing to the party!

But not possible to have a single mono aux out --> adaptor --> stereo aux in and drive both desktop speakers?

Thanks for the suggestions which make good sense for a pair of headphones. The other thing I'd be wanting to use one for is to connect the mono aux-out to my desktop stereo active monitors, which have a shared single 3.5mm aux-in on the powered speaker. Is there something short of a £50 Behrigner P2 adaptor for that, so that I can have the aux out mono signal going to both rather than one of the desktop speakers?