Going ampless...DI?

[mrtcat]

1 hour ago, stingrayPete1977 said:

I'm not sure that's a very fair comparison?! 

Agree with this. Any gig where you go without backline is dependent on decent monitoring. If there's no monitoring then it's not the right gig to ditch backline. By all means have your backline in the van / car if you're going to an unknown venue / pa setup but you shouldn't write off the idea of working without an amp based on that one gig. 

[jimmy23cricket]

I also run a TC BH550 and Zoom. Why consider a DI box when you can use your head as a DI? TC BH Heads don't need speakers connected to operate. What I have recently added is in ears and all it means is that I use the TC head effectively as a DI box (small, light, sounds good!)

I keep my cabs as spare and use where necessary.

Outlay wasn't massive as we are using wired in ear options rather than wireless. So Behringer P1, some cables and some decent quality in-ears. You already have a mixer, so job done.

[jrixn1]

9 minutes ago, jimmy23cricket said:

Why consider a DI box when you can use your head as a DI? TC BH Heads don't need speakers connected to operate. What I have recently added is in ears and all it means is that I use the TC head effectively as a DI box (small, light, sounds good!)

In terms of stage logistics, where do you put your head?  Just on the floor?

Edited June 5, 2019 by jrixn1

[stingrayPete1977]

1 hour ago, NancyJohnson said:

To what, Pete?  In answer to George's OP, this is one experience I'd had and from that alone my boy scout fallback position would always be be prepared.

Sometimes you have defining moments that make you sit up and reconsider how you've done things previously; in this instance it was enough for me to make the decision there and then that I would always carry my amplification to every live show I did.  Unless you're running your own event, with your own PA (and are wholly aware of it's limitations), then expect the unexpected and pack everything, because there's always someone or something that will bite you in the donkey.

You are comparing unprepared ampless to prepared back line. 

It wasn't the lack of amp that caused the problem, it was the lack of monitoring, you're just connecting the two because your monitoring is usually an amp. 

[paul_c2]

Better to have brought the spare kit, than it be sitting pretty at home. 

Better to have the spare kit in the venue rather than in the back of the car.

Better to have the spare kit on stage, powered up and ready to go, than sitting in the corner.

[EBS_freak]

1 hour ago, jazzmanb said:

I like my Radial tonebone which gives the desk my sound ,2 channel,boost,tuner ,loop out etc .It could be used alone but I also have a rig  I can play with on stage to suit me without affecting the front of house sound 

we're too loud a band to ditch the rig but other music the Radial would do fine 

There’s no such thing as too loud a band to ditch the rig. Explain to me why you can’t ditch the rig?

[EBS_freak]

9 minutes ago, jrixn1 said:

In terms of stage logistics, where do you put your head?  Just on the floor?

This has got me thinking. How cool a rig would something like a Boss WL20 into an Orchid Mini DI be? Or even a WL20 straight into the desk...?

[jimmy23cricket]

1 hour ago, jrixn1 said:

In terms of stage logistics, where do you put your head?  Just on the floor?

If need be. Although I have a small soft padded case which it sits in and is quite protected. I can always find a place to perch it or tuck it away.

[NancyJohnson]

2 hours ago, stingrayPete1977 said:

You are comparing unprepared ampless to prepared back line. 

It wasn't the lack of amp that caused the problem, it was the lack of monitoring, you're just connecting the two because your monitoring is usually an amp. 

...but what you need to factor in is to be prepared for every eventuality.  It's perfectly feasible that you're going to play a howler due to inadequacy in the PA set up if you went ampless.

Currently, I genuinely feel that normality is not the ditching of a head and then relying on DI boxes and the available PA.  I certainly wouldn't want to ditch the amp.

[EBS_freak]

19 minutes ago, NancyJohnson said:

...but what you need to factor in is to be prepared for every eventuality.  It's perfectly feasible that you're going to play a howler due to inadequacy in the PA set up if you went ampless.

Currently, I genuinely feel that normality is not the ditching of a head and then relying on DI boxes and the available PA.  I certainly wouldn't want to ditch the amp.

[Cuzzie]

Ha!

effectively your amp head can be a DI box if it is so enabled with or without a speaker load

[EBS_freak]

We established that one! Mind you with the size of some of these class D amps now, they are small enough to be mistaken as just a DI box!

[Cuzzie]

Yep

Dense me......prob should have scrolled back some posts, but its  defo a valid option as you say, if it’s integral to your sound and cannot be reproduced another way

Edited June 5, 2019 by Cuzzie

[EBS_freak]

13 minutes ago, Cuzzie said:

Yep

Dense me......prob should have scrolled back some posts, but its  defo a valid option as you say, if it’s integral to your sound and cannot be reproduced another way

What is it that people’s amps are doing that people think it is integral to the tone? If you go DI and it’s pre, then the amp is generally doing nothing. If you are doing post EQ, the sound engineer is going to take that signal and carve it anyway to fit in the mix...

If you are talking about power amp/valve grind/saturation then that’s not part of the DI circuit of the amp. I completely get the fx element of it... but the obsessiveness about using an amp for foh baffles me... because whatever amp you use is likely to be giving out very similar on the DI front. It’s only when you get into saturation circuits I can think that you may get significant differences. 

[stingrayPete1977]

1 hour ago, NancyJohnson said:

...but what you need to factor in is to be prepared for every eventuality.  It's perfectly feasible that you're going to play a howler due to inadequacy in the PA set up if you went ampless.

Currently, I genuinely feel that normality is not the ditching of a head and then relying on DI boxes and the available PA.  I certainly wouldn't want to ditch the amp.

I'd only play either with my own pa, a gig where I know I need backline, or one where I need to take it in the van just in case, if I was told there was backline then there wasn't and then there was also no monitoring I'd just pack up and leave. 

[EBS_freak]

16 minutes ago, stingrayPete1977 said:

I'd only play either with my own pa, a gig where I know I need backline, or one where I need to take it in the van just in case, if I was told there was backline then there wasn't and then there was also no monitoring I'd just pack up and leave. 

Sounds like some of the promoter gigs I have dealt with in years gone by.

 

[paul_c2]

There's plenty of situations where there is no PA, and it not needed. A lot of the above seems to assume its omnipresence (and that it will have a free channel, decent monitors, someone can do the necessary setting of levels, etc etc). If this is not a given, then the "dinosaur" technique of actually having an amplifier makes a lot of sense. If you yourself or someone in the band has/brings/is running the PA then it starts making sense to have bass thru the PA + monitor but its still not really a net saving in complexity or number of bits of kit. If its a situation where the FoH power required is so great that you need the PA, then that's the point at which its worth foregoing the amp.

Don't forget, in a gig situation, if it can go wrong, it will. And everything can fail, at the worst time. That's another situation an amp is useful....if the PA blows up, or the monitor (or one of the many wires involved in the signal path....) goes faulty, its there and at least it becomes useful and with a bass, a wire and an amp its fairly little to additionally go wrong.

[stingrayPete1977]

If you are doing the old four bands on the Bill type gigs then you probably need your own monitoring or back line. 

I'm not and a lot of the people that poo poo ampless gigging aren't either. 

[EBS_freak]

9 minutes ago, stingrayPete1977 said:

and a lot of the people that poo poo ampless gigging aren't either. 

Are they even getting out of their bedrooms?

[Woodinblack]

10 hours ago, mrtcat said:

There's a sterling version out now for about £800 rrp 

Yeh, generally around 700, but they don't have that nice roasted neck - and also don't come in any of the great colours she has! 

 

[geoham]

Just a couple of points to clarify from my perspective.

I don’t believe that going ampless is the the best solution in all scenarios, but for the pub band I’m in right now - with a good PA and monitors, and with me in control of it, I reckon it’ll work nicely. I’ve been in situations myself in the past where it wouldn’t be ideal - like a pub with their own PA that only has enough channels for vocals, and a sound engineer who refused to put bass through the monitors because ‘it’d wreck them’, or even my last band whose PA just wasn’t that great.

 

[stingrayPete1977]

^yep

[jazzmanb]

23 hours ago, EBS_freak said:

There’s no such thing as too loud a band to ditch the rig. Explain to me why you can’t ditch the rig?

Because I don't want in ears  and if I use a monitor I may as well have a rig .On top of this 80% of time i'm within two feet of a naturally loud drummer 

[EBS_freak]

1 hour ago, jazzmanb said:

Because I don't want in ears  and if I use a monitor I may as well have a rig .On top of this 80% of time i'm within two feet of a naturally loud drummer 

So essentially, you could ditch the rig, it's just that you choose not to.

[jazzmanb]

18 minutes ago, EBS_freak said:

So essentially, you could ditch the rig, it's just that you choose not to.

You need a job 

 

Edited June 6, 2019 by jazzmanb