EBS_freak

One of the bands I play in plays to click and they are fed through the IEMs as you are. Things I would suggest is changing the click sound (you already have done this), compressing the click (if you have the desk to do that), eqing the click... You may be right though, the companders in cheaper IEM systems can be pretty poor. I hate what the PSM200 does to bass and the highend. After doing a couple of gigs on a PSM200, I vowed never to use them ever again as my ears just seemed so knkackered afterwards. You may be better not going wireless - you should be able to get something together that removes the radio and compander out of the equation to see if it's the IEM system that is the source of your problems - try a wired solution. I have to say though, with the EW300 and PSM3/900 systems that I use, it's never been an issue - but I appreciate that they are a considerable investment - however they are about as close to a wired connection that you can get. With regards to IEMs, I would always suggesting micing everything up that you would like to hear - and assume that you can't hear anything that you haven't miced up. You can go to town if you like... but for an example, on drums, you could get away with a single condenser over the right shoulder (in the recorderman position, pointing at the snare) and a kick drum - there isn't always the requirement to mic everything up. However, if you are micing everything up for FOH, you can utilise that for your IEMs.

So first ever gig outside of a school band went something along the lines of this... 18 years old - some school Jazz night thing I got roped into (I was playing trombone in the big band - doing all the Glenn Miller-esque stuff). The music teacher knew that I had been messing around on guitars and bass with my mate, who is a drummer so roped me into to perform. Had to rope in a keys player (who was an exceptional classical pianist but hadn't played jazz or boogie woogie before) and a guitarist/bassist. I ended up on bass because we found a guitarist. Only myself and the pianist went to the same school. I can't remember the exact setlist... but there was definitely "Well alright, OK, You Win" was in there because I remember the keys player ripping this cool solo in there. When I asked him where the hell he pulled that from, he said he lifted it from Ground Hog day...! Bass - I was playing my first bass, which was made by luthier Jim Cairnes. Theres a story how I ended up as a custom bass as my first bass... but I think I've already told it on this site before and it's not that interesting. Passive 4 string with 2 single coil esque things (but they are physically a lot larger than the single coils we commonly know). Amp - I was playing through a Trace Elliot SMX300 GP12 that I had saved up for and washed a hell of a lot of cars for. I am pretty sure I would have been playing through the second hand Peavey Black Widow 115 cab that I had picked up because I couldn't afford the matching 4x10 cab that I wanted. Eventually I got the 1048H cab - but I'm 95% certain it wasn't on that gig. There was a minidisc recording of it - I remember getting the minidisc and sneaking off into town into a hifi section of a department store to copy it from minidisc to tape because I didn't know anybody who had a minidisc player. It was a sweaty 40 minutes waiting for the minidisc to play whilst it recorded to tape... I was just hoping that no sales person came along to ask me what I was doing! This is what poor youngsters had to resort to! We actually sounded pretty decent... it was the first and last time that the band played together though... we all went our separate ways to uni shortly afterwards. I did some work with the drummer for a brief period on our return from uni... but thats pretty much it. All change!

The Helix is ridiculously good... as is the Kemper... as in the AxeFx... as is the Bias... It's a great time to be using modelling tech. I would not have said this years ago - I remember when Line6 was pretty nasty sounding stuff when using it live but I have to say that now, anybody that is convinced that they can tell the difference between the sound of an amp and a modeler is really kidding themselves. The flexibility and portability is spot on... and yes, there will always be the purists that want amps and pedals, the ease and portability of the modelers is something that has me sold! (Kemper with remote user here)

There's literally nothing between them - it wouldn't surprise me if they actually shared the same components! So buy the one which looks appeal to you - and maybe the fact that the hd has a powercon may be an advantage or a disadvantage... for some people for example, if you are doing a gig in the middle of nowhere, the chance of finding a spare powercon is quite low... (unless you carry multiple spares of things like that!)

[quote name='Al Krow' timestamp='1506960171' post='3382328'] How much are we talking about for a multi-fx that can match the quality of dirt from a Two Notes or a Pike Vulcan or the clean blend octave down of a COG T16/47/65 or the compression ability of a Cali 76 or even an MXR M87? Can any of them even do it? [/quote] Yes, I'm sure the audience will point it out to you!

It's not just whether you are happy with the latency... it whether the audience go, "what they hell is going on with that bass player... can't even play in time". I get what you are saying about the difference in the sizes between the two units... but I see a shed load of space on that pedal board.

[quote name='Clarky72' timestamp='1506957862' post='3382307'] Its an amazing clean boost my lovely friend built for me. ( I have to say that, he's the moderator of this section of BC ) [/quote] Yeah - that will power easily enough from a battery solution!

PS - whats the storm trooper pedal?

[quote name='PaulWarning' timestamp='1506956218' post='3382288'] everybody knows singers are exempt from buying any equipment, then they don't have to help with the setting up or taking down at a gig [/quote] And they think that they have to arrive literally 5 mins before they go on stage. They still spend 30 minutes putting on their makeup... (thats the guy in my band, the female is worse!)

[quote name='Clarky72' timestamp='1506955276' post='3382275'] [/quote] A Line6 G10 (circa £140) would fit on there quite nice. (Latency <2,9ms) G50 shares the same radio tech, so again, <2.9ms. Total <5.8ms - so well within the range of acceptable! If you were to add the smooth hound to the above board instead of the G10- the smooth hound is the same sort of format transmitter as the G10, you are looking at just over 10ms. For me thats beginning to get a bit too high for my liking. I'm not sure about the latency of the TC, but I'd allow 2ms for that. For any Line6 users wanting to know about latency all the 4th gen is <2.9ms, all the 5th gen stuff (e.g. G70/G75), that is <1.5ms. So things are getting seriously quick in theLine 6 wireless world! Seems that we are beginning to get in the zone where digital IEMs can become a mainstream reality! (Lectrosonics (pay telephone numbers) are currently the only people that I know of that have a product available in that domain). Whats a decent 6m cable work out at? £20...£25? All interesting stuff. Of course, if you want to be uber pimp, then you need to get rid of all your cables and get this battery powered. Theres a thread where we are talking about home brew power supplies that would get something like this running for five hours or so... You'd have to buy some decent batteries and a charger though! To be honest, I'm kinda into all this stuff, so I'd probably do it. Of course, you do realise that the screen on the tuner is begging through a stiletto through it...?

[quote name='fretmeister' timestamp='1506954736' post='3382261'] Please tell me they paid for the PA then? Or even the after show pizza? [/quote] Nope. and err... nope. :-(

[quote name='fretmeister' timestamp='1506954453' post='3382254'] Still charge her. If you broke her mic you'd replace it. [/quote] The singers in my band still don't own their own mics. They use mine. It's funny because it's true.

[quote name='dannybuoy' timestamp='1506951876' post='3382216'] I'm not sure this pedal would be compatible with most expression jacks... rather than taking the voltage supplied by the pedal and feeding it back to the same TRS jack, it supplies it's own voltage to a TS jack, making it a CV pedal. The Dunlop DVP pedals take some beating though. Best action I've felt in an expression/volume pedal, and I only have the mini one! [/quote] You would use an insert cable on the volume in and out sockets. Voila! Passive expression pedal ahoy. Not a lot of people seem to know this... certainly opens up the amount of expression pedals available to you. (e.g. any volume pedal!)

[quote name='TPJ' timestamp='1506951076' post='3382205'] After getting into lap steel recently and reading all about what's involved, I never realised how important a good volume pedal is. Most of the pedal/lap steel guys will use Goodrich or Hilton as they are proven workhorse pedals with very even swell and range. They are both well over £200 new, so if this pedal is a great performer with little or no tone suck then it's sounds a sensible price. I don't know what I was thinking when I bough my Fender volume pedal, my swells are more like shouts [/quote] Indeed - I had a Goodrich for a while... bloody got it nicked on a gig. For pedal steelers, the stuff that we see, they aren't interested in for the reasons you say. The other thing that I am really picky about is how it feels under the foot. I like the feel of the Ernie Ball pedal - but again, that throw is not quite right!

Something like this do you? https://www.amazon.co.uk/D-Line-Light-Duty-Cable-Cover/dp/B0078NU4C6

Found myself looking at this on kickstarter - [url="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1213353468/bright-spark#"]https://www.kickstar...8/bright-spark#[/url] This actually looks pretty interesting. I know that expression and volume pedals are not always the most interesting of pedals to get excited over but this is pretty cool... well in my eyes at least. About £200 quid though :-/ Hmm.

[quote name='Oopsdabassist' timestamp='1506944039' post='3382121'] Interesting comment, although I've never actually measured it, I have never noticed any additional latency from my smoothhound over my previous wireless rigs. [/quote] I don't think a lot of people do thing about it to be honest because the argument that is always given is that "its only like moving x yards further away from your amp". Thing is, if you are running digital pedals, digital wireless, digital desks... that additional latency will become more and more apparent. The disconnect of playing a note and it not sounding when you expect it doesn't take a lot of latency to become very apparent. Not all devices are equal - some are highly tuned and get sub 1ms latency... others can be a lot lot higher. As a ballpark figure (and for some players it will be a lot lower), the industry maximum acceptable latency on the signal path is agreed at 10ms - for IEMs you want to be below this. If your smooth hound is taking 8ms... you can see that it's a very greedy device in terms of latency. And in more complex setups, digital snakes, audio over ethernet.... etc... you can see why the latency figures for devices becomes very important! Your system is only as fast as your slowest audio path - as all these things need to be time delayed so you get everything in phase. I do realise that this setup is generally beyond the considerations for most jobbing bands however!

[quote name='CameronJ' timestamp='1506941952' post='3382088'] Is your singer unable to look where she's walking? Surely the rest of the band shouldn't have spend money on a technical solution when the simplest and easiest workaround is for your singer to have a bit of spatial awareness. If you play on particularly dark stages then maybe use lighter coloured cables or tape them with fluorescent tape. Any more effort than that is lunacy. [/quote] Man - have you tried walking in heels? You'd be lucky to stay upright! Maybe the singer is one of those jumps around everywhere and the visuals would be compromised if she didn't? Nothing looks crappier on stage than a load of different coloured cable everywhere... just my opinion.

With regards to a - depending upon what wireless unit you choose to use, you may get results which are/are not acceptable to you. For example, two line 6 units used in this manner will give you less overall latency than say just one single smooth hound wireless unit. Whether you can cope with additional latency depends upon you as a player - and what other digital pedals are in play that will add latency. Its a shame that the latency on the smooth hound is bad - thats the sort of form factor you'd like hanging out the last pedal in your chain. With regards to b - shouldn't be a problem but the additional capacitance will lead to a loss of highs, a decrease in signal strength and an increased chance of additional noise being added to your signal path. Have you thought about having one of those rubber cable protectors that you find in offices to put over the top of the cables to protect them? Think they look a bit ugly... but at least it will save you on cables. What are you doing with regards to power to your board by the way? Are you battery powered - or is there still a mains cable going to it?

[quote name='KingPrawn' timestamp='1506890878' post='3381871'] Great to read your comments. After 20 years of lugging around subsI'm ditching them. Ive bought a pair of RCF 745's. I'll be selling all the sub tops and stands. Happy days. Cheers BC'ers [/quote] Do be sure to report back!

I kinda like the looks of these things... but those are some serious prices that would buy you some serious gear. I doubt those 4x10s have the internals to justify those pricetags.

Do you need subs? No. Are subs good? When used correctly, absolutely. Subs add lows to the mix that you just can't get with tops. As mentioned before however, if you aren't good at mixing and dont know how to use gates and hpfs you are probably on a hiding to nothing. As Pete says, a set of 735s or 745s will do a better job than most other speakers due to the large VCs on the horns that enable the woofer to take care of more of the low frequencies - which in laymans terms, for a lot of people will be enough for you to ditch the subs for the average pub or club gig. They are also light and easier to carry around than a pair of tops with one or two accompanying subs. Do a search on 735s and 745s - there's been a lot of discussions on their merits when used to replace other setups that did have a sub(s).

Sounds interesting. Silent rehearsals are also a bizarre - but somewhat rewarding experience. Being able to hear absolutely everything certainly makes mistakes come to the limelight very quickly! Nowhere to hide! Hope you manage to get a band established. Startups are always the most difficult!