EBS_freak

Nope - I don't know why but ACS just don't nail it. They never have the headroom that bass players crave. They are OK to for listening to music but I have been underwhelmed, like many, by their use as a monitor - which after all, is their primary market. I would always advise a quad for bass too - that's treble, mid, with dual bass drivers. Probably worth noting that the 3 drivers approach when it comes to the UE6 is a bit of a special case. The UE6 is a hybrid design - so has two dynamic drivers and one balanced armature. Typically custom IEMs are built around balanced armatures. The UE6 is currently unique in the fact that its a hybrid custom at a very competitive price point. The dynamic drivers offer great bass response and high headroom however, they do sacrifice a bit of clarity that is associated with balanced armatures - as such, they are said to have a warmer timbre than balanced armatures (which may be more to some people's liking anyway). The highs are still catered for by the UE true tone balanced armature (to maintain all that air, sparkle and detail in the top end). So in sum total, this gives a triple driver that has extended headroom and bass response (which is why the UE6 is such a good match for drummers and bassplayers) that is more akin to a quad balanced armature setup... but at a cheaper cost than an equivalent quad driver balanced armature. This is quite a crucial difference - the UE6 is not directly comparable to other triple driver custom IEMs. Bleeding in the outside is the last thing that you want to do... especially using the ambient valves. Good bass response requires a good seal. The second you break this seal and allow the outside world in, you begin to lose all your bass... which is a shame as it's the bass response you pay all your money for. ACS' system is different - it's like the Sensaphonics system - in that it keeps the seal and has tiny mics which is then mixed with the monitor feed from the desk to give you the sound of the outside without breaking the seal on your IEM. If you want to achieve similar with an IEM, use an ambient mic/s at your desk and blend that into your monitor mix. A lot of people seem hell bent on ambience - in reality, a lot of people, once they venture into IEMs, get used to the sound... or if you have a lot of open mics on stage anyway, you may not care for a dedicated ambient feed. In fact, in the thread, we also talk about other solutions- like using a Zoom h6 for example, as an all in one ambient mic, monitor feed mixer, more me mixer and headphone amp in one. To be fair to ACS, if you were working in the theatre as a vocalist, the Live system is extremely good - it just doesn't cope with high SPL environments... like bands. The mics tend to distort.

ZT ZS10 (4 BA, 1 Dyn), ZT AS10, (5 BA) UE900s (4 BA), BQEYZ K2/KC2 (2 Dyn, 2 BA), are probably your go to multi driver universals without breaking the bank. (well, maybe the UE900 is a bit more pricey!) I'd take all of those over a Shure 215-535 for live monitoring purposes. If you want to spend more than that, don't on a universal. Go for a UE6 or explore what Lugs can do for you (they have recently gone 3d printed shells now so are really gunning for the big boys)

To be fair, the 610 and 810 are still very popular stateside... and Sweden and Germany.

OK - but the difficulty is setting the maximum and minimum positions of the servo/motor - and the position of that in relation to the pot that it is attached to. It's not as easy as putting the servo on the pot and telling the microprocessor to go - here, learn this.. as the microprocessor has no concept of the positions possible on the pots on the fx pedal, particularly if those pots on the fx pedal are moved by hand. I do have a potential solution for you however...

Obviously - but it's understanding the MVP which is key... the Mk1 is the maker or breaker.

Teensy is a good call. PS Have you any idea how you are going to be saving settings? For example, you may want to think of stuff in terms of banks and patches. Maybe each bank having 4 presets. If you then said had a support for 8 pedals with say, 3 variable controllers, thats something like 96 bytes of information per bank. Be wary that some microprocessors have relatively small EEPROM. For example, taking this example, that would give you only 5 banks. A lot of people will use a bank per song... so be mindful to get something that can handle this sort of memory requirement. This is also assuming fixed values... you may want some movement (which would be really cool and certainly something that I'd imagine would be really cool - imagine a tremolo effect for example, by turning a volume pot up and down) Before going too far, get some requirements nailed down from the guys that are going to use this. Additionally, been thinking about this, not sure that servo is the best option for this - you may want to look into stepper motors. Shout me if you want some more info.

What’s your microprocessor of choice?

I checked out my friends Boss at the beginning of the week. Seems robust enough, especially for the price. Can’t complain really - and if you like the “bug” approach to wireless (I’m personally not a fan - I would put it on a cable and have the transmitter unit in a pouch on a strap), it’s got to be one, if not, the one to go for.

I’m stumped. Any ideas?

12 pounds a year doesn’t sound right...

Don't suppose anybody could clean my car? I mean, I could do it myself.... but why should I?

No - and thats where the fun begins - securing the servo so it can bit to all pedals, that's where things start getting complex. The "third hand" is actually a very good method, having used one - but very clunky for controlling multiple channels. Interested to see how you progress... especially for something universal.

PS - the only reason I'm in the know on this - I've already been there. I can also give you the heads up that trimming the pots by the controller is key - thats the gotcha. Not all pots are equal in the amount they rotate.

Indeed - the servo element can be almost directly attached to the pot. I take it that you have seen this? -

A more analogue take on the stompenberg! https://www.thomann.de/blog/en/stompenberg-effects/

I'm guessing you are implementing something along these lines - with a servo/motor instead of the impression pedal?

I've got a specific use case. Don't want a load of power supplies, plug sockets and the like. I'm looking for as small as possible... whilst having a lot of 9v power on tap.

Got it -

Here's some pics - hopefully gives you an idea of size, quality etc.

Quick question... is anybody using an aftermarket power supply and using something that is rated than less that 3A? That seems quite a draw at 9v.

That is correct... yes.

I've never really trusted the pedal train soft cases anyway...

Yes, they are defo a nice option for covering a lot of space. I run a very wide stage set up so getting a nice spread of colour across the stage is always quite difficult. Like all lighting, haze is key (but it's getting more difficult to allow venues to allow you use it!). The danger of moving heads is that without haze, they just tend to look like spots on the wall... like the mysterons are around or something! (Sorry to all those too young to get the reference) Beams in haze are bang on.. Especially when they are co-ordinated. Speaking of co-ordination - its a shame that the inbuilt automatic shows on these moving washes has a flash... it's otherwise quite tasteful.

That notepad would get my vote 🙂

Yes - It's defo a wash - akin to a moving par can. I think I found some specs somewhere that suggested the output angle was 45 degree... so not something like a beam which would typically lie at something like 6 percent. The light is very defined though - probably brighter than the tripars I have (that are the closest thing to compare if to LED wise).