Accidental FRFR experience

[EBS_freak]

3 minutes ago, Chienmortbb said:

 I agree that there are many tops from QSC, RCF, Yamaha that work for bass but not if vocals, guitars and drums all go through them.

I cannot agree with this comment.

[intime-nick]

yeah, our (relatively small) Yamaha PA is more than capable of putting the entire band though it - e-drum kit, bass 'n' all

[Chienmortbb]

17 minutes ago, EBS_freak said:

I cannot agree with this comment.

You don't have to. It is my view and your's is just as valid as long as it is from personal experience.

Edited December 6, 2019 by Chienmortbb

[Gottastopbuyinggear]

Question to @funky8884 and @AxelF - are your drummers using e-drums?  If not then do you mic up the drums to put them through PA and/or IEMs?

[EBS_freak]

47 minutes ago, Chienmortbb said:

You don't have to. It is my view and your's is just as valid as long as it is from personal experience.

Yup, that's generally how opinions work.

[EBS_freak]

4 minutes ago, Gottastopbuyinggear said:

Question to @funky8884 and @AxelF - are your drummers using e-drums?  If not then do you mic up the drums to put them through PA and/or IEMs?

I haven't been name checked but have done both.

Minimum for acoustic kits for IEMs is generally a kick and an overhead condenser - although it's also good for a simple way of micing up for FoH also. Simple, bass drum mic and then a condenser on a stand behind the drummer, high, reaching across the drummers right shoulder pointing towards the snare. This is usually enough to get a good all over sound of the kit and hats.

The more you start micing up, the more fun you can start having in your inear mix though... but that all takes time, channels - and maybe overkill, especially if you are in a small venue and not really sending anything out through FOH.

[BigRedX]

On 05/12/2019 at 11:56, EBS_freak said:

And then the final stage is when you take a monitor rig that you split to foh. Silent stage, all on inears.

I think the mindset is finally changing.

I remember at the beginning of gigging career, sound engineers would tell me, "let the PA do all the work". I scoffed. Stupidly. Of course, he was right... but I had a band new Fender Twin that I wanted to crank.

I know, I know...

I'd love to switch (along with the rest of my band) to IEM, but IME if you are not running your own PA you simply don't know what the monitoring facilities will be like at every venue. While most will be digital with multiple sends you can't guarantee it.

With digital desks, I've seen bands we've shared the bill with interface their IEM with varying degrees of success. However not every venue is so well equipped. We've just done some dates with B-Movie and the one support we couldn't do in Leeds, the PA was reportedly controlled from a 16 channel analogue desk with one monitor send. I have no idea what we would have done if we'd turned up there with no backline and IEM...

 

[nottswarwick]

What pre Amps are people using generally?

[mrtcat]

1 hour ago, Chienmortbb said:

The problem is that two 12 or 15" PA tops of most brands are a compromise. I agree that there are many tops from QSC, RCF, Yamaha that work for bass but not if vocals, guitars and drums all go through them. We some times use some Alto 18" subs with the Alto 12" tops and that works quite well. Lots of headroom and I barely have my amp on when we use those, but they are impractical for most pub and club gigs.

From experience I've rarely found any tops from QSC, Rcf or Yamaha that can't cope with a whole band and bass through them unless you really stick to their entry level gear. Using a hpf wherever necessary in your mixer can really free up some headroom.

[EBS_freak]

9 minutes ago, BigRedX said:

I'd love to switch (along with the rest of my band) to IEM, but IME if you are not running your own PA you simply don't know what the monitoring facilities will be like at every venue. While most will be digital with multiple sends you can't guarantee it.

With digital desks, I've seen bands we've shared the bill with interface their IEM with varying degrees of success. However not every venue is so well equipped. We've just done some dates with B-Movie and the one support we couldn't do in Leeds, the PA was reportedly controlled from a 16 channel analogue desk with one monitor send. I have no idea what we would have done if we'd turned up there with no backline and IEM...

 

Split boxes and something like an XR16/18 makes for an easy venue friendly portable monitoring rig. Plug your gear that needs to be sent FOH to your split, one output to your mixer, the other to FOH. As for drums, let FOH do their things as they normally would, just put your own kick and overhead into your monitor rig.

http://orchid-electronics.co.uk/micsplit.htm

[EBS_freak]

6 minutes ago, mrtcat said:

From experience I've rarely found any tops from QSC, Rcf or Yamaha that can't cope with a whole band and bass through them unless you really stick to their entry level gear. Using a hpf wherever necessary in your mixer can really free up some headroom.

Plus compressor (if you know how to use them, otherwise ignore what I just wrote) and a gate for the kick will clean up all those energy sapping lows.

PS don't put gates on your IEMs. You'll make no friends... especially with the drummer.

[Gottastopbuyinggear]

6 minutes ago, EBS_freak said:

I haven't been name checked but have done both.

Minimum for acoustic kits for IEMs is generally a kick and an overhead condenser - although it's also good for a simple way of micing up for FoH also. Simple, bass drum mic and then a condenser on a stand behind the drummer, high, reaching across the drummers right shoulder pointing towards the snare. This is usually enough to get a good all over sound of the kit and hats.

The more you start micing up, the more fun you can start having in your inear mix though... but that all takes time, channels - and maybe overkill, especially if you are in a small venue and not really sending anything out through FOH.

We're strictly a pub band, running vocals and keys through PA tops at the moment, and I get the impression that's a bit removed from the stuff you do! 

I'd be keen to add a sub and put everything through PA, and get some or all of us on IEMs, but I'm pretty sure I'll have a job persuading all the band.  Drummer is strictly old school and won't entertain an e-kit, plus he's a heavy hitter (let's not go down the "get a new drummer" rabbit hole, though - despite being strangers when we got together a few years ago we're friends now, doing this a couple of times a month for fun, so it's not an option).

Not sure what options we'd have for some of us going IEM if we didn't want to mic up the drums.  On the one hand I don't know if we'd hear enough of the drums with IEMs in, but on the other I'd be worried about IEMs not attenuating the drums enough to protect our hearing.  Due to the small spaces in which we usually set up I'm using ACS moulded plugs with the 27dB filters at the moment - I found things were feeling a bit too loud by the end some gigs with just the 17s.

[Muzz]

Although our drummer has an acoustic kit with triggers, for simpler/problematic setups we can use just a kick and overhead pair, and no backline. This is in a lot of pubs. Our drummer is a good one, inasmuch as he has several gears between brushes, hotrods and shedbuilding. The inears are basically plugs with speakers in that you have a volume control over, so not attenuating the drums enough isn't an issue. At a push if he's a proper gorilla (and your 27dB filters suggest so - imagine how loud you all are to the pub punters...), you could just run the guitar, keys, bass and vocals into your inears (including wired ones for him), treat him as background noise and adjust Mix With Mongo accordingly...a half-decent setup would allow you all independent mixes... 🙂

Edited December 6, 2019 by Muzz

[Frank Blank]

17 minutes ago, nottswarwick said:

What pre Amps are people using generally?

I used a Fishman Platinum Pro which was superb for my acoustic basses, although needing to change settings per guitar and song made known twiddling a nightmare so I ended up with a HX Stomp so no shave a range of preamps, effects, amps, cabs, modulators... the list/variables are endless.

[Muzz]

Yup, Stomp here, after a range of others like the ME-50B, MS-60B, B3, HD500X, etc.

[EBS_freak]

Not really, I do all gigs... from big functions to tiny country pubs. If anything, IEMs make even more sense on small gigs where the rooms are just generally not geared up to be sound friendly at all. 

The concept is this - make as little noise as you can on stage. This means there is less to bleed into the vocal mics. The biggest issues you get with bands is that the cymbals tend to bleed into the vocal mics... there's only so much you can do about that... but it doesn't help if there guitar and bass flooding through those mics too. All this does is mess up the mix out front and dramatically increase the change of feedback.

Then everybody complains that they can't hear. They tend to turn up... which makes the problems worse. People slowly accept that... So out come the wedges.... which helps to a certain extent... but adds more sources of noise to the stage. That bounces around, again messing up the mix but also, bounces back into the open mics... and again... increases the chance of feedback.

So in short, no wedges and IEMs instead, means less sound bouncing around. Electric kit reduces stage volumes and also the number of open mics. Of course not everybody wants to go down the electric kit, so the other option is small kit (my drummer uses a 16 inch kick) and dark cymbals. Bass and drums wise (and vocals for that matter) -  if you are using IEMs, you don't need to hear your backline. So run it really low and put it through the PA and let that do the work. In fact, if you can't hear your backline, theres no point in having it... consider a modeller so you can have a silent stage altogether.

All of this gives you less things to mess up the front of sound... and gives a better spread of sound... so no more hot spots where if you stand on axis with a guitar cab you are deafened by guitar... yet if you take 2 steps to the side you can't hear it.

Micing up the drums for IEM use really isn't an issue. As I say above, it's a kick drum mic and a overhead. They don't even need to be sent out front... they could be sent to just your IEMs.

Also, IEMs dont work like ear plugs. With a decent set of IEMs it's like having your fingers in your ears. The way to think of how they should work is like this - if you want to hear it, you have to put it into the desk and send it to your IEMs. If you don't you won't hear it. Therefore, if you want to hear the audience... point a mic at them that you feed into your monitor feed. Of course, you don't put that through the front of house speakers... but in your IEMs it gives you a sense of the room back... if thats what you want. 

[EBS_freak]

29 minutes ago, nottswarwick said:

What pre Amps are people using generally?

Depends what sort of sound you are looking for - but if you are looking for only toneshaping, straight into the desk and using it's own EQ can yield some very powerful results (especially on digital desks as they tend to be a lot more comprehensive on the stone stack front compared to the analogue world. 

[lemmywinks]

24 minutes ago, Gottastopbuyinggear said:

We're strictly a pub band, running vocals and keys through PA tops at the moment, and I get the impression that's a bit removed from the stuff you do! 

Due to the small spaces in which we usually set up I'm using ACS moulded plugs with the 27dB filters at the moment - I found things were feeling a bit too loud by the end some gigs with just the 17s.

I get the feeling that IEMs would be far more beneficial than you realise, those small stages where everything is a compromise  become the same as any other gig. I do a wide range of gigs and the biggest difference for me is on small stages, certainly those ones where you are crammed in a corner next to an obnoxiously loud drummer.

[mrtcat]

1 hour ago, lemmywinks said:

I get the feeling that IEMs would be far more beneficial than you realise, those small stages where everything is a compromise  become the same as any other gig. I do a wide range of gigs and the biggest difference for me is on small stages, certainly those ones where you are crammed in a corner next to an obnoxiously loud drummer.

This all day long.

A bit like EBS_freak I do everything from big corporate parties to small pubs. IEMS are a godsend in tiny venues where you're all on top of each other.  They allow your sound to be pretty much identical on any stage. 

If our drummer was "old school" and only had one volume level then the only way I could ever work with him would be with IEMS. It let's me control exactly how much of him I hear. A simple overhead condenser and a kick mic works fine. Without IEMS I would just get annoyed that he didn't have the brainpower to see that failure to control his volume not only buggered up the foh sound in a small venue but it also buggers up what everyone else in the band hears.

[stingrayPete1977]

On 05/12/2019 at 13:47, EBS_freak said:

Indeed - entry point for IEM enabled bands is so low now. XR18 desk for example, with P2 and ZS10s...

A 5 driver IEM with plenty of headroom, a XLR and a P2 power amp. Easy rig/wedge replacement for £60 a player all in.

I was chuckling to myself mid way through a song at the last gig as it sounded so good in my ears, especially the vocal harmonies you'd struggle to get even with good wedges and impossible with back line amps as front of house.

[funky8884]

18 hours ago, Gottastopbuyinggear said:

Question to @funky8884 and @AxelF - are your drummers using e-drums?  If not then do you mic up the drums to put them through PA and/or IEMs?

Hi Gotta

Our drummer has acoustic kit with kick miked,

As I have the KZ10’s I get bleed and the vox mice pick up the drums 

I will need to use an overhead on the kit when my customs arrive,

 

[nottswarwick]

are people’s experience of the XR18 generally positive? 
I have use the soundcraft ui24 before and have found the connection via WiFi to be a little unreliable at times...which is a little disconcerting to say the least.

i have to say that looking at the specs it looks ideal for my 2 bands. I drum in one and bass in another, and already have iems and belt clip amp.

[EBS_freak]

40 minutes ago, nottswarwick said:

are people’s experience of the XR18 generally positive? 
I have use the soundcraft ui24 before and have found the connection via WiFi to be a little unreliable at times...which is a little disconcerting to say the least.

i have to say that looking at the specs it looks ideal for my 2 bands. I drum in one and bass in another, and already have iems and belt clip amp.

The inbuilt WiFi on these things are always rubbish. First thing you do is find an external router... Behringer, Soundcraft... whatever.

[Owen]

Splitters so that you can control what is happening on stage through your own IEM rig and let the venue deal with FOH. Slightly more cables to carry, but how much fun is a gig where you cannot hear what you need and the wedges are too loud/quiet/distorded?

https://www.amazon.co.uk/BEHRINGER-ULTRALINK-MS8000-Microphone-Splitter/dp/B016BIDFI8#customerReviews