Well, just took the plunge

Post #310,371 by jake123 7/2/09 2:01:18 AM Reply	Well, just took the plunge I'm buying a PA. Picked up a Mackie CFX16 MKII on Monday. Got a pretty good deal on it; $700CDN with all taxes in. I got it at a local store... I'm beginning to think that the local music stores want my business... I keep getting sweet sweet deals. http://www.mackie.co...MED_CXF16mkII.jpg will take you to a 218 KB picture showing you the layout. I managed to find one cheaper online, but it was only forty bucks less and I'm sure that shipping would've eated that difference. Most of the online stuff was in the 775 to 925 range after all is said and done. Also got a couple of Shure SM58s. I need to get some more cables, and I have yet to buy a good power amp for it. I'm borrowing one for now from a friend of mine... going to be buying my own next month. I own a couple of JRX100 (they're 500W JBL wedges... can do either as monitor or for front of house). Took it out for the first time last night for a gig in a small bar about 45 min north of here. Going to take it out tomorrow night for an open mic I'm hosting at a local bar. This rig is really going to be overkill for the open mic gig, but having the PA is going to get me an extra fifty bucks a gig there... and I might be able to rent it to some other people that play there. Plus, it'll be big enough to handle band work for small venues, and I can expand later with some bigger stuff for FOH (er, that's Front Of House, meaning the stuff that points at the audience rather than back at the performer; those are called monitors). I can then turn the JBLs and the power amp I'm going to get in a month into the monitor rig. I'm planning on buying a big enough amp that I can handle up to four of those speakers, which will allow me to send two separate monitor mixes to two speakers each. I was playing around with it and my acoustic guitar earlier tonight, listening to it via the headphones. It sounds really really good... really clean once you set up the gains right, the built-in reverb sounds really good, overall it has excellent sound quality. It's true what they say about the quality of the pre-amps making or breaking a mixing board, it seems. I also discovered that I'm a better singer than I thought I was... seems I've managed to bang the vox into better shape than I'd realised. It's also got an automagic sub output, that only puts out things at 75Hz or lower... could be really good for a powered sub. In fact, I'm thinking that the long term solution to FOH is to get some of those new powered JBL speakers... they're quite expensive but I've played through them before and they sound great. Maybe a couple of http://www.jblpro.co...aspx?PId=46&MId=3 PRX515s for the tops and a http://www.jblpro.co...aspx?PId=49&MId=3 PRX518S as a sub. Those, a 2500W power amp and a couple more JRX100s as monitors and ancillary mics and a DI box and I can definitely take a band to 95% of the venues within a hundred miles of here. Shit, that'll be easy, that's only going to be like what, another five grand or so? Bleah. Oh well, one piece at a time... Can you tell I'm excited about it? I mean... it sounds fucking great.
Post #310,375 by Steve Lowe 7/2/09 3:37:57 AM Reply	woot! Gotta love new gear day! Hope it serves you well :)
Post #310,377 by folkert 7/2/09 8:47:28 AM Reply	Those JBLs... Wow, I guess I've been away from Pro Sound to long. Self powered stuff has come a LONG way. Wow, Crown makes the amps in those ... Class D amps to boot. I am blown away. NICE mix board, 12(14(16))x4x1 with Stereo effects loops. Nice!
Post #310,379 by beepster 7/2/09 8:49:42 AM Reply	Re: Those JBLs...are SWEET I've heard them...Mind you...I'm a fan of JBL where others are not. The balance from them suits my ears where others have different preferences. I will choose a path that's clear. I will choose freewill.
Post #310,410 by jake123 7/2/09 2:32:58 PM Reply	Re: Those JBLs...are SWEET I find it has a lot to do with the room their in. Some rooms suit JBLs a lot better than others... there's a bar in Kingston (called Brandee's) where JBLs just seem to suck no matter what... they have a nice spike somewhere in the 2-4 KHz range that just makes the room ring. The main thing I like about the JBLs is their weight... if you're a travelling band, weight has a tremendous affect on gas consumption etc and can make a big difference if you're out on a long haul.
Post #310,409 by jake123 7/2/09 2:30:43 PM Reply	Re: Those JBLs... The thing that's really cool is how little they weigh. A 15" w/ horn and amp built-in can be easily picked up by one person. A nice side effect is that the amp and speaker are perfectly matched, so the likelihood of blowing something out is very very low. I'd have gone powered for the speakers I have now (2 JRX100s by JBL) but I didn't have the dough. If I was wealthy, I'd probably go self-powered for the lot; monitors, tops, subs, etc, but that would run me something like: Lessee... the powered monitors are a grand each, the tops run about 1500 each and the subs are about the same, so... about ten grand in total to have an entire system with powered enclosures. Unpowered, the monitors are about 400 each, the tops and subs are about five hundred each, amp for the monitors about 800, amp for the tops about the same, amp for the sub about the same (those things take a LOT of power at those low frequencies) so about six grand to get the whole thing. OTOH, about three more boxes to carry, and the amp prices are for old style amps, so they'll be heavy. The new class D amps are still in the 1500-2500 per range, depending on power output. Size matters, but... so does weight. Old style will add close to a quarter ton to the total weight, so it starts to matter wrt a trailer and towing capacity. Still, right now money is the limiting factor, so I'm going old style. Hopefully I'll be in a position to go new style when it comes time to take it up to the next level of PA for bigger/better rooms.
Post #310,425 by static 7/2/09 10:54:30 PM Reply	That looks a really neat mixer. Interesting you can send each Group (why do Mackie call them "sub"s?) to either Left or Right; I've not seen that before. I tend to be the only one who will setup groups when mixing for church - to everyone else they're a mystery. And SM58s. They are the bee's knees, the cat's pyjamas and the mutt's nuts of microphones. But I'm sure you already know that! :-) Wade. Q:Is it proper to eat cheeseburgers with your fingers? A:No, the fingers should be eaten separately.
Post #310,563 by jake123 7/7/09 2:43:08 PM Reply	Short for subgroups. As for the left or right... it's a stereo mixer. You can say send a channel to 1-2, assign 1 to left and 2 to right, and then the pan control on the strip will move the source from left to right. If you set both left and right on a given sub fader, then it treats it as a mono signal instead. You can also choose to send them to both left and right. So, you could put the voices into 1-2, and assign both 1 and 2 to both left and right, so all voices are in mono and come out of the centre of the rig, while putting all the other instruments into 3-4, assign 3 to left and 4 to right, and set up stereo imaging for the music. 'Course, most of the time that's not going to matter... but if one were using it to record a live show it might be nice to have it come out that way on the tape. sm58s... main reason I'm interested in those is because they're relatively cheap, can take a beating, and are readily found and replaced if needed, meaning that one will end up with consistent mic performance across the rig, which will make EQing a lot easier.
Post #310,568 by Steve Lowe 7/7/09 6:20:06 PM Reply	Re: 58s You nailed it. There are better stage mics out there, for sure - but you can't beat the price/durability factor of the 58. They're built like a tank and sound great even when beat to a pulp. And since they're damn near ubiquitous, most sound guys know what to expect from them.

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