LawrenceH

Being nice to sound techs is common sense I think. But I don't think that precludes me noting that, as it becomes more about driving complex software interfaces, a surprising number of them aren't actually very good at mixing music with their ears. One thing I have noticed, and which was corroborated chatting to a touring engineer for the band of an old friend at a gig this weekend, is that a lot of house systems appear to be EQ'ed for an empty room. He said once the audience turns up, he often ends up having to push a ton of mids through the mains to compensate system EQs. The perils of preset system design.

I believe there are some nuances that tend to get ignored or downplayed when it comes to people's subjective preferences, despite the subject being done to death in other ways. Especially when standing right next to a cab, dispersion matters, and related to that, comb filtering (from multiple drivers) matters. Multiple stacked 10s only sum to a coherent point source well below 1kHz. Above that you're going to start to get lobing. Everyone's heard this when adding a second cab. It doesn't just get universally louder, it gets bassier. Cab shape, especially height, matters. A generic single 15 mounted low down is going to sound smoother than a generic 410 (limited HF dispersal, no comb filtering). The filtering aspect isn't necessarily obvious in a single listening test - but put that cab into different acoustic spaces and you're going to get greater apparent inconsistencies between spaces. I suspect one of several reasons an 810 is favoured is that the comb filtering gets smeared out at a given listening position due to the complexity of the summing pattern. Add to that the use of similar/same drivers across multiple manufacturers and you could easily develop a 'sound' you associate with a particular speaker size. Especially drivers like Eminence with characteristic breakup peaks for particular models. TLDR I believe there are some practical differences in how different size drivers might be perceived standing up close.

As I said, the 15 minute turnaround ones are generally fine. The ones I'm complaining about I'm talking from the perspective of a punter as much as a player.

Nah 15 minutes is often how long it takes as an audience member to get served/go to the loo/go out for a quick cig in between bands! Tbh though those are rarely the gigs where I have had or heard the most egregious issues. Rough and ready is fine, it's when they have no interest in improving the sound as they go within the realms of the possible. The process seems to be (rant time): 1. Get the drums huge as f**k, especially subby reverberant kick with a beater click that sounds like clipping. Add Phil Collins snare. But it's a funk band? Doesn't matter. 2 Sit a thin, heavily compressed vocal firmly on top. 3. Get something else (who knows what?) rumbling indistinctly through the subs (and subs only) to destroy any semblance of rhythmic tightness. 4. Sit back and chat to the lighting guy, scroll on phone, or visibly do nothing for the remaining 45 mins even though the actual music is sounding awful and you can't hear the guitar, keys and bass that between them are providing all harmonic context and melodic counterpoint. 5. (Optional) log on to the livesound subreddit and establish dominance. 6a (Very optional) belatedly notice that two of the instruments you can't hear are trading solos on what turns out to be the second-last song. Turn up the mids your preset had previously carved out until they're actually audible, in time for the solos to end. 6b. Leave it like that for the last song just to tantalise the audience with what might have been. Once in a while though you get someone really good and it's an absolute joy to behold. Suddenly these compact line arrays sound fantastic, the instruments are all beautifully placed in the mix and the vocal is so perfectly balanced it makes you want to cry.

@agedhorse I think you haven't met a lot of the 'engineers' working the rough end of the circuit, at least in the UK. People skills not always in abundance. I've noticed both as a player and a punter that mixing skills aren't either. Even at medium venues I noticed heavy reliance on presets and RTAs, little use of ears or musical understanding of genres. Quite a lot of them come from AV/theatre backgrounds and do live bands as a top-up. Touring engineers that go with bands are generally a different proposition. Though IMO they still rely too much on presets.

Depends how rough you are on your gear but I think the Fender-type grill cloth served well enough for a lot of users. Lightweight, easy to apply, looks classic

It did for these guys

Just to update that I did another reset of the desk and reinstalled the latest version of MixPad, and this time all worked without a hitch. I've set the wireless to 5Ghz in case that was the issue, but really have no clue what was stopping it working previously. Just hoping it never recurs! Anyway, a test and play around with an SM58 and some good headphones leaves me very impressed, things sound good. I will definitely (over)use that double tracker effect. Channel compressors sound very good and versatile, lack of sidechain filtering notwithstanding. I think the app layout could be more versatile but the quick channel presets are good enough starting points that it's worth persevering with, just to build up some useful presets. Those who use Mixing Station, is there a way of straightforwardly transferring Mixpad-derived settings? I notice there are no hardware pads on the mic inputs, has anyone found this a problem in practice with e.g. kick drum mics?

No need, the resistance of even 1mm2 copper core is less than 0.02 ohms/meter. And as John says the amp rating for cable is based on continuous, sustained current. That means running it at that rating for long enough that it reaches temperature equilibrium, and failure mode is by melting the insulation. You just wouldn't ever reach anything near that in a speaker. Given that flexibility isn't that useful or desirable inside a speaker, I just use offcuts of T&E after tripping off the outer insulation

Peter's advice, and courteous patience, is worth a lot more than the price anyone here is paying for it. The only completely foolproof, stable, reliable MIDI I've used that involved a computer was in the days when Atari ST ruled the roost. Sadly I don't think it's feasible to expect ANY MIDI gear to work out of the box across multiple OS, interfaces, device hardware and updates thereof. Especially when you consider how important MIDI is to the OS manufacturer, ie not in the least. Meanwhile I'm having the devil of a time getting an Allen & Heath digital mixer to just talk to it's dedicated (and entirely mandatory) control app, and they are industry leaders with a relatively huge development team. The FI4 manual layout could be done several different ways, but FWIW seems fine to me. It can't be ordered in a way that anticipates every use-case scenario and it seems fair enough that it prioritises basic function for less technically ambitious users, with other info present but less prominent.

Yes, I've installed first v1.2.2 and then uninstalled and installed 1.1.3 on my Windows 11 laptop. However just heard back from the seller that it had the latest firmware so that becomes less likely as an issue. Have put a query on the A&H forum, when I get the chance to be next to it during office hours I'll call their support line, I've read they're generally helpful

I didn't mention but I have also tried v1.1 as I did spot the firmware version might be a potential issue. No luck. Network is not set to connect automatically

Regarding reliability... Received the mixer, did a factory reset and attempted to connect using the MixPad app on an Android device. Error message 'failed to connect'. Repeated with a Windows 11 laptop. Nothing, can't even see the device in the MixPad menu (and using IP address doesn't work). Both apparently connect to the CQ wireless network but that's as far as it goes. Not a great start and exactly what I was afraid of using computers for live work!

I've not had to deal with double-action rods before, but with a single-action with bullet adjustment, I've found clamping the neck up to a slight backbow useful. That way the clamps take up the tension and the nut moves easily to take up the slack. Would that work here?

Thank you - hoping that works regardless of which OS are running the app. Looking forward to getting hold of it and having a fiddle - I've downloaded the app but a lot of features can't be accessed on the demo. Notably, there are no libraries so no presets/quick channels or ability to change FX. The quick channel feature looks fairly essential when trying to throw together a mix in a hurry - what do people do who are using Mixing Station, which I assume isn't able to use those?