Al Krow

Could I recommend the KZ ZARs, which are one of the top of the range KZs...they have been so much better than the entry level ZS10s I had, which almost made me give up with IEMs after using them for the best part of a year, in terms of a less harsh and much more comfortable sound, particularly if you are getting ringing in your ears? If you scroll back, I think you'll find my experience with the ZARs has been mirrored by several others on this thread. I've just picked up a set off AliExpress for around £45 all in for a new band mate who is going wireless IEM.

Well, you've whetted my apetite - may have to return the P2s...could you share the link to the tribute/clone copy you bought on AliExpress please? One of the issues folk have commented about the P2 is about the clip snapping off, is the tribute/copy you bought any better?

They seem to be full price on Ali Express? Have you got a Behringer P2 clone from them? If so, there's an irony in Behringer being cloned and also in you not thinking Amazon are a proper store 😅

That's a really good price! Advantage of Amazon for Prime members is obviously the free shipping, however...Amazon are currently saying a 2 to 5 MONTH despatch period!! Andertons reckon they will have more stock in on Monday (let's see) and a single £2.99 Evri delivery fee, seemingly irrespective of the quantity. I've just ordered a couple for my crew (particularly with our deps in mind). (Something even better value came up spotted by @Woodinblack see below).

Ok wtf is solid foundation vs technical noodling all about?! And why doesn't someone who is as good a bass player as you, use a....😅

This is a really interesting topic. I think a lot of folk have got comfortable with Joyo and Behringer these days? Several of us really liked the Valeton OC-2 clone, particularly with the more compact housing than the Boss, although Boss seem to have successfully shut down production of that even though the package it came was very different to the Boss pedals. And dammit @glassmoon's review makes this a very tempting purchase as they seem to have improved on some of the flaws of the original e.g. the volume disparity of the OGS circuit. Is there a parallel to the live music that we engage in, rather than the electronic most of us don't have the expertise to make, would your same logic apply to Tribute bands? Should they only be allowed to perform with the express agreement of the bands they are copying? Or are they targeting a completely different audience to the original bands in terms of ticket pricing and venues?

I suspect with that approach he wouldn't last too long in some of our bands Dave! You're clearly far too nice!

Cheers Steve, that one's been on my shortlist too, along with decent lighting now that we've got a decent digital desk sorted! Just to clarify it's actually the TS 12S model, right? I think the TS312 is just a normal woofer not a sub woofer? Looks like it comes in at 26kg and delivers a whopping a 1250W RMS. Completely agree about the impact of losing low end in an outdoor gig! We were doing the music for a 10K run and the band were asking why have you got the bass turned up so high on the FoH, so I turned it down to what we might usually have indoors and asked them to stand just a few metres in front of the speakers where the bass had faded to very little and that settled the debate! The FBT 2x8 208SA which @Phil Starr looks intriguing given its light weight (20 kg) and compact size, and hopefully 600W RMS / 129sB SPL should add quite a bit, but at around £1k doesn't match the Alto (around £450) in terms of pricing.

Sounds good Steve. Do you have a pic of your set up and can share the make/model/pricing of your set up please?

@Pirellithecat as requested, some fuller impressions on the A&H CQ18T having spent about 6 hours getting up to speed on it. 1. The interface and menus are pretty intuitive to get to grips with. There's decent online YT hints / tuition plus a detailed manual. 2. In the relatively short time I've spent so far I've managed to get a 'scene' set up with input levels mirroring what I had with my analogue desk, but with the benefit of 4 tailored outputs, which we can tweak when we meet up to gig. So far I've based on what my bandmates typically want in their IEMs e.g. more own vox for the singers etc. 3. I'm loving the fact that you can label all the inputs / IEM outs and save everything as you go along to create a basic template and then make a back-up in seconds. If you're used to creating patches on a multifx starting with a basic template then you will feel very at home with this desk. 4. The 7" screen is great and the dials make it easy to adjust the faders, actually even more precisely than physical faders which was an unexpected capability - I suspect if we had been limited to a touchscreen it would have been the other way around. 5. I've set up the 3 soft keys to: mute the main outputs, mute the IEM outputs and to record / stop multitrack recording. 6. Speaking of multitrack recording - I'm also loving having the ability to record up to 16 tracks at 96 kHz sample rate which can be any combination of individual tracks, plus the FoH output if you also want the latter, and tweak input/output levels via the touchscreen. That feels like a massive step up from an analogue desk (even with multi-track capability like my existing Soundcraft MTK12) where we've need to plug into a laptop and often with glitchiness in terms of not all tracks getting recorded. The one thing I've not figured out yet is whether it is possible is to apply something more bespoke than the low/high/mid EQ adjustments to the inputs? Similarly I've so far only found a one touch button for HPF and compression for inputs, whereas e.g. on the HPF it should be possible to tailor at what frequency the HPF kicks in at? But I've managed to apply a bespoke, albeit global across all the channels, PEQ to the outputs including an HPF cut and a 3dB boost in the lower mids. Obviously the desk needs to be tried out in anger with my band live, but I'm already feeling pretty confident now that I've got a basic grasp of this to get a decently mixed FoH sound and IEM monitoring for us. I'm also feeling less worried about not having physical faders given the mute switches. Anyway fingers crossed!

Yeah - that's a fair point Dave. The CQ12T and 18T are standalone desks effectively featuring a "built in tablet". I guess the lack of wifi on the 12T is a product differentiation point - the 18T is £175 more and for that you get: 6 extra inputs, wifi, an extra 2 FX and 3 additional control dials. Worth the extra (particularly if you get lucky as I managed, and pick up a B stock 18T for only £40 extra!). If everything was available on the 12T other than the extra inputs, there would maybe be a lot fewer takers for the 18T or the 12T would need to come in at a price point much closer to the 18T? Fyi - in terms of the additional FX on the CQ18T, the 4 categories on offer: 1. "easy verb" - 3 vocals, string slap, percussion, drum room, string, brass, woodwind & piano 2. "echo verb" - with different flavours and delay times 3. fully fledged chorus 4. double tracker I'll probably stick to easy verb for the vocals, otherwise there's definitely risk of option paralysis: the desk is actually doubling up as a multi-channel multifx!

Just to clarify - it is listed on the 12T ("App Control" icon)

I've pulled this from the A&H website which seems to indicate that the App control is also available on 12T as well as the 18T. I guess the 12T will be needing a standalone Wifi to make use of the App control.

You gents seem to have much more joy getting your crews to rehearsals, haha! How often do you guys rehearse vs gig? We will hopefully manage to get a rehearsal in ahead of our NYE gig as we are doing that one with a couple of deps, but we've another 8 gigs in the diary before then, so I'll need to get up to speed beforehand and tweak at the gigs. They're all used to IEMs already - so hopefully the only difference for the drummer and guitarist is that they can have bespoke monitor feeds rather than just getting the FoH mix. Ideally they will be able to use the A&H CQ app on their phones to tweak their own personal monitor feedback to suit - is that something you are doing for those of you with the A&H CQ desks / other digital desks?

Back at my desk (excuse the pun!) and had a little bit of time to start getting up to speed on the CQ18T. I'd got a very basic idea of the controls after an hour or so, in particular the inputs and outputs, and reckon should have the same level of functionality on this as my analogue desk and be in a position to use for a gig within another couple of hours. The touch screen is really easy to use and the rotary dials can separately operate the faders (in addition to having option to do that on the touch screen) which gives a greater level of finesse for anyone who doesn't have dainty fingers. The ability to save "scenes" to suit a particular line up / vocalist and have the ability to deliver 6 tailored outputs to every band member, combined with the compact size of the unit seem to be worth the entry ticket on this piece of kit alone. And that's before doing any deep dive in terms of flexible EQ & FX for every channel plus the benefit of a built in router allowing us to tweak settings on the fly from the audience, all of which I will need to get my head around. But I'm already struggling to see how this isn't going to be a step up for our band!

Ooooh that is potentially exciting news! Will be their first new range since, well, we started this thread back in 2017!

Congratulations! Your first BB or long time user?

Great energy - nice one!

I agree that the Boss WL-20 had the cleanest tone of the wireless I've used. Downsides for me were all practical live use ones: - 2.4 GHz and consequent noticeable drop outs (key deal breaker for me); - 'rigid' form factor was not so good eg with Ibanez SR basses; - my older ones had a not great battery life of around 3 to 4 hours, if I remember correctly. The NUX trumps it on all three counts, plus the handy charge case, so whilst I would have loved to have held onto the Boss, it was a no brainer for me to switch. I generally use a cable at home which is where nuances of tone are going to be most prominent - in a live mix I wouldn't be able to notice it, as you have alluded. Besides, I'm too preoccupied trying to get the notes right!

Great topic, following! I kinda feel that lighting is often pretty low in the mindset of many covers bands I've come across, and doesn't get too much air time on BC, but can make a big difference to the live performance experience for audiences when done well. We've been using our pretty basic set up for 7 or 8 years now, and it's definitely time to think about doing something a little more professional on the lighting front. Unfortunately I suspect it's going to be down to the same guy providing the band PA and desk to get the lighting sorted and transported, with my crew 😅

The Lekato 5.8GHz is a decent piece of kit, but a few of us on this thread, who have had both, have upgraded to the Nux 5.8GHz for differening reasons (in my case I found the Nux to be noticeably quieter with a couple of my active basses). I spent a bit of time A/Bing the Lekato WS-50 (5.8GHz), Boss WL-20 (2.4 GHz) and Nux C-5RC (5.8GHz) and settled on the Nux 18 months back and have been very happy with it since. Others seem to have found the Lekato or Boss has ticked the box for them.

Agree with the sentiment Dave: a big part of why we buy a particular amp head must be tied into how its preamp sounds, and on top of that there's the on board EQ on active basses. For those of us, like me, who have gone done the FoH / PA route with no backline or are using a PA speaker (aka FRFR) as our backline, then having additional tone sculpting from a preamp pedal becomes a bigger issue. But even then, having a few choice EQ presets on a multifx can also work wonders and cover a lot of ground.

Was para EQ something you set up on your multifx's (which then obvs gives you the benefit of presets)? Or is there an additional attraction of being able to more quickly adjust the settings on the fly that makes a separate pedal attractive for this?

That does sound really odd, Pete. Any chance it could have been something as simple as one or both of the units being out of charge at the second rehearsal?

Yes, indeed it does John!