Powered FRFR Cabs - Educate Me

[warwickhunt]

15 minutes ago, Bill Fitzmaurice said:

IMO the 'Everything through the PA with no backline' pendulum, as opposed to huge backline with PA for vocals only, has swung too far. I started downsizing the backline, upsizing the PA, back in the 80s, based on the premise that the backline need only be large enough to have sufficient stage volume to allow one to get their preferred tone and feel, while the room is driven by the PA. That means no 810s, no Marshall stacks. Not even Vox AC30. But it doesn't mean no amps. As in all things the best results are had when one practices moderation.

For a lot of years my backline was a very good quality 250w 2x10 (vertical) combo, things started to get noisier and I started upping my cabs to keep pace.  I peaked at 500 - 1000w (seriously never fully utilised) and a pair of 2x10s (again vertical array) but we seem to have suddenly leapt to this 'silent stage' scenario where the PA is the be all and IEMs are almost mandatory.  I still feel that I'm way more comfortable with my Thunderfunk on tick over, a cab tilted or raised and attenuated ear plugs but when members of the band are Helix/Tonex etc and no way for me to hear them other than standing stage front near a PA cab.... hmmm something has to give.    

[BigRedX]

57 minutes ago, Bill Fitzmaurice said:

IMO the 'Everything through the PA with no backline' pendulum, as opposed to huge backline with PA for vocals only, has swung too far. I started downsizing the backline, upsizing the PA, back in the 80s, based on the premise that the backline need only be large enough to have sufficient stage volume to allow one to get their preferred tone and feel, while the room is driven by the PA. That means no 810s, no Marshall stacks. Not even Vox AC30. But it doesn't mean no amps. As in all things the best results are had when one practices moderation.

 

But if you don't require your backline for your tone (I don't) then what is the point of it?

 

Most guitar and bass cabs are far too directional to act as monitoring for the whole band unless they are positioned pointing across the stage rather than out at the audience, and almost no bands do this. Once one of your band members wants to hear more of a particular instrument in their monitor you might as well dispense with the backline and use the foldback to monitor the instruments on stage. When each musician can have exactly the mix they desire from either from the foldback speakers or IEM system.

 

Personally I'm not a fan of needing "volume" to get the right feel - it always seems to be as thought there is a problem with the songs you are playing if this is what is required. 

[Bill Fitzmaurice]

41 minutes ago, BigRedX said:

But if you don't require your backline for your tone (I don't) then what is the point of it?

The same point as listening to music and TV on my home theater speakers as opposed to headphones. I prefer the ambience that you can't get with phones. As for monitoring, I've been monitoring all of our instruments through my floor wedges since I had a console capable of doing so, with a single feed. We've never had the desire or need to use individual feeds. It might not work for you, but it works for us.

[warwickhunt]

39 minutes ago, BigRedX said:

 

But if you don't require your backline for your tone (I don't) then what is the point of it?

 

Most guitar and bass cabs are far too directional to act as monitoring for the whole band unless they are positioned pointing across the stage rather than out at the audience, and almost no bands do this. Once one of your band members wants to hear more of a particular instrument in their monitor you might as well dispense with the backline and use the foldback to monitor the instruments on stage. When each musician can have exactly the mix they desire from either from the foldback speakers or IEM system.

 

Personally I'm not a fan of needing "volume" to get the right feel - it always seems to be as thought there is a problem with the songs you are playing if this is what is required. 

 

I don't need my backline as a tool to get a particular sound (though I defo prefer the sound of certain amp/cab combinations) and tbh I've been impressed with the results from a Sansamp or the NuX MLD pedal.  However, it isn't volume per se that I get a feel from but more that the closed in/isolation and almost lack of staging/placement in a mix takes any 'feel' away from my playing experience.  

 

I'm not giving up on IEM etc as I love the fact I turned up at the last 2 gigs with a bass, a pedal and some leads and I didn't care if the car park was 200m from the venue.  I'm going to see if I can sort the EQing issue and spend time trying to get a better balance of instruments and sound staging but this does seem to be a case of creating solutions to problems that haven't existed till recently.  

[JohnDaBass]

2 hours ago, Bill Fitzmaurice said:

IMO the 'Everything through the PA with no backline' pendulum, as opposed to huge backline with PA for vocals only, has swung too far. I started downsizing the backline, upsizing the PA, back in the 80s, based on the premise that the backline need only be large enough to have sufficient stage volume to allow one to get their preferred tone and feel, while the room is driven by the PA. That means no 810s, no Marshall stacks. Not even Vox AC30. But it doesn't mean no amps. As in all things the best results are had when one practices moderation.

Now that's what I believe is the acceptable balanced solution.

Nice little light weight combo producing sensible on stage volume & vibe with great DI to allow the FOH to amplify the on stage performance.

There are some very interesting new options available Fender Rumble 800C, GR Bass AeroTech Full Carbon 800 Combo, https://www.markbass.it/product/mb58r-mini-cmd-121-pure/. Plus your fav amp with a LFSys Silvertone or BF SC, or Two 10.

So a compromise, lowish onstage volume with enjoyable tone, feel and great FOH production.

Have I missed something???

Of course I haven't spent a fortune on supa dupa IEM.

But I really do apologise, I am a 70 year old, olde F**t who absolutely loves playing bass having grown up in the 60's, 70's & 80's and does not get the vibe thro a set of plugs stuffed in my ears ( especially with my tinnitus) .  

Sorry Luddites R Us😂😂😂 

Edited May 22, 2023 by JohnDaBass
Samples added

[BigRedX]

It's obviously less important if you also have to bring the PA to gigs, but for those of us playing venues with in-house systems (originals bands) ditching the backline makes transport a lot more cost-effective. One of my bands gets all our gear plus the band and our roadie/merch seller into a single estate ca. If you consider that the typical guitar combo takes up the same space as a full box of T-shirts, it means more stuff you can sell and less stuff potentially mucking up your sound.

[warwickhunt]

23 minutes ago, BigRedX said:

It's obviously less important if you also have to bring the PA to gigs, but for those of us playing venues with in-house systems (originals bands) ditching the backline makes transport a lot more cost-effective. One of my bands gets all our gear plus the band and our roadie/merch seller into a single estate ca. If you consider that the typical guitar combo takes up the same space as a full box of T-shirts, it means more stuff you can sell and less stuff potentially mucking up your sound.

 

We've done a couple of gigs since I've started to move to IEMs and in itself that was more of a lottery/tribulation!  1 gig the sound guy just gave us access to mix our own aux on our phones/tablets.  On the other gig it was a case of 'What do you want in your mix?'!  Not masses of time to balance stuff out and I frankly didn't want to be relaying messages to him over the PA while we were playing, so it was a less than fulfilling experience.    

 

There's no one right/wrong on this matter as no 2 bands or situations are the same; even having a FRFR in front of me rather than IE leaves me hoping the mix is good enough.

[BigRedX]

From what I have seen with bands not using their own PA, IEMs and what you can do with them is a bit of a lottery. 

 

The plan for my band that have already dispensed with the backline will be to invest in a digital mixer that will allow us to do our own IEM mix and still send individual outputs to the PA with a 90% correct FoH mix on them. Technically all the PA engineer needs to do is push up all the faders to the same place and little corrective EQ to suit the PA speakers and venue and we're ready to go. 

[itu]

6 hours ago, Bill Fitzmaurice said:

That's what it means, but for the most part it's not the case... PA boxes tend to use better high frequency components, which allows a lower crossover frequency. That doesn't make response any wider.

True, and a good point. Quite many combos have only the woofer, so my point was a simplification, as was my short text in general.

[Phil Starr]

11 hours ago, Lozz196 said:

Thanks Phil, yes it`s a back problem and a lot of the problem is bending over amps/cabs to plug in this lead & that lead etc, as well as the actual lifting & carrying, that`s why I want to have as little to set up as possible. Most of my gigs I can do with my Sansamp into FOH but every now & then I may  need an on-stage sound, was just hoping that I can reduce the amount of items to both carry and set up to a minimum. The ideal I think would be Sansamp into powered cab.

We seem to have wandered off your problem @Lozz196 Sorry to hear about your back problems

 

So the on stage sound? Is that just as a monitor for you and maybe the band, or is this to fill the room because sometimes you can't go through the PA? I suppose I'm asking how loud you'd need to be. Also what is your potential budget?

 

A lot of the active PA speakers are quite heavy. I've gigged with an RCF 310 and that's about as small as you can usefully go but they are over 12kg, most are bigger and heavier than that. 

 

 

[Lozz196]

11 hours ago, Phil Starr said:

We seem to have wandered off your problem @Lozz196 Sorry to hear about your back problems

 

So the on stage sound? Is that just as a monitor for you and maybe the band, or is this to fill the room because sometimes you can't go through the PA? I suppose I'm asking how loud you'd need to be. Also what is your potential budget?

 

A lot of the active PA speakers are quite heavy. I've gigged with an RCF 310 and that's about as small as you can usefully go but they are over 12kg, most are bigger and heavier than that. 

 

 

Thanks Phil, just one of those things, need to adapt to it, luckily it`s muscular rather than anything more serious.

 

Whatever I end up with will be for on-stage sound at venues where there`s lack of on-stage monitoring - any places that have a monitor for each of us and it`s ampless/Sansamp from now on, so it`s just a contingency item.

 

Budget wise it costs what it costs, I`ve lots of gear I need to offload which more than covers what I`ll need - in the interim my RM500 & Barefaced will cover me. As a few of the posts have suggested I think GR Bass Aero Cube or the new Markbass MB58 CMD121 are where I`ll likely end up, both are small/light and powerful enough, I had the regular Markbass CMD121P before and it was plenty good enough. Given that hopefully I won`t be needing to use it I`ll prob go for the Markbass as it`s the cheaper of the two.

[Muzz]

Bear in mind (and I may be wrong, never having heard it) that the Markbass won't be anywhere near FRFR...let us know how you get on... 

[Lozz196]

36 minutes ago, Muzz said:

Bear in mind (and I may be wrong, never having heard it) that the Markbass won't be anywhere near FRFR...let us know how you get on... 

Of course, good point, I’d forgotten about that, makes the GR Bass a bigger contender now.

[la bam]

For me, frfr is only used as a fresh canvas to colour.

 

I've gone iems in one band and whilst the other bands are still in rehersal I'm going to talk them into it, but I'm currently at rehersal going straight into the pa.

 

If it helps the very best addition to the sound through the pa is a fantastic 8x10 sim I found. That added (to of all things) a behringer bdi21 gives a fantastic sound.

 

The pa we use isnt cheap - yamaha dxr15, but it's good. Around £500 per speaker.

 

So, if I had to get an amp for any of these bands I'd just get one of them and plug my pedal board into it.

 

Or, to be fair I'd probably end up putting everyone through it and have it as a personal monitor for myself.

 

QSC, RCF all great, but with yamaha you want dxr or dsr. Dont get lesser ones as they are a different quality.

[la bam]

1 minute ago, la bam said:

For me, frfr is only used as a fresh canvas to colour.

 

I've gone iems in one band and whilst the other bands are still in rehersal I'm going to talk them into it, but I'm currently at rehersal going straight into the pa.

 

If it helps the very best addition to the sound through the pa is a fantastic 8x10 sim I found. That added (to of all things) a behringer bdi21 gives a fantastic sound.

 

The pa we use isnt cheap - yamaha dxr15, but it's good. Around £500 per speaker.

 

So, if I had to get an amp for any of these bands I'd just get one of them and plug my pedal board into it.

 

Or, to be fair I'd probably end up putting everyone through it and have it as a personal monitor for myself.

 

QSC, RCF all great, but with yamaha you want dxr or dsr. Dont get lesser ones as they are a different quality.

 

I forgot to add..... most of these higher end speakers also have a kind of mini mixer on the back now, so you can always add in other instruments in there for yourself if needed.

[Al Krow]

@Lozz196 hey Lozz - here's our band set up outdoors at the weekend with everything going through a pair of RCF 912As, other than guitar. So no bass backline at all - I've got the bass going through just a Zoom B1-4 into the desk - super easy set up.

 

@Pirellithecat - thought you might be interested in this clip, too, as you decide on which RCF 12"s to go for, if you've not settled on a pair already?

 

[Pirellithecat]

That sounds great Al!!  Great band .... great sound. 

Recently , moved to "damn the Torpedoes" mode and bought the RCF 932's plus 705asII sub !!   Just as I was thinking I might have overdone it, it turns out weekend gig is an open air event (in a field and with no organiser provided PA).   I'm taking the new AND the old as we will need all the beans we can muster!!     I'll let you know.........

Edited May 24, 2023 by Pirellithecat

[Phil Starr]

8 hours ago, Al Krow said:

@Lozz196 hey Lozz - here's our band set up outdoors at the weekend with everything going through a pair of RCF 912As, other than guitar. So no bass backline at all - I've got the bass going through just a Zoom B1-4 into the desk - super easy set up.

 

@Pirellithecat - thought you might be interested in this clip, too, as you decide on which RCF 12"s to go for, if you've not settled on a pair already?

 

Love the band Al