Is upgrading my solution, or is there another option?

[Nick Vezmar]

Hello all,

My name is Nick. I'm brand new the forum, so I don't know if I'm posting in the right place, or if I'll even be wording this the right way. Figured I will give it a shot anyways.

To start out, I'm in a rock cover band, I'm a keyboardist and I take care of the sound for our private gigs (weddings, backyard parties, etc). In the beginning we used the mains to cover wind instruments and vocals; unless of course we're in an event hall, where we would use the in-house crew and gear and mic everything. Now we have started mic'ing amps and drums for reinforcement and clarity for the private gigs. Most of the private gigs we get do not have more than 100-200 people at them. We have 2 guitarists, 1 bassist, a keyboardist and a drummer; and occasionally

Right now we have Mackie Thump 15As for our mains. I bought these simply because we're on an extremely tight budget, and I realize there were probably better budget options at the time. Unfortunately we're having some problems with sound coverage, and I've spent several hours on forums and on Google to try and fix issues with settings and placement. Nothing seems to work either way, so I guess what I'm getting at is, do you think that I would need an upgrade from the Thumps?

Here is the spec sheet in case anybody needs it. http://www.mackie.com/products/th-15a/pdf/TH-15A_SS.pdf

Thanks all!

Nick

 

[Tim McCulloch]

Re: Is upgrading my solution, or is there another option?

Hi Nick, welcome to the forums.

Oh boy, there are lots of ways to go with this, so I'll start at the bottom of your post.

Unfortunately we're having some problems with sound coverage, and I've spent several hours on forums and on Google to try and fix issues with settings and placement. Nothing seems to work either way...

Can you describe the coverage problem(s)?

Right now we have Mackie Thump 15As for our mains.

Well, we all make mistakes. Long term, these should be re-purposed... on a distant planet. In the mean time we might be able to get you some more life and/or usefulness out of them. This will depend on your answer to the coverage question.

Now we have started mic'ing amps and drums for reinforcement and clarity for the private gigs. Most of the private gigs we get do not have more than 100-200 people at them. We have 2 guitarists, 1 bassist, a keyboardist and a drummer; and occasionally (you didn't finish this sentence)

I've used a Thump system (with the subs) to do a Nashville act in festival tent. My mission was to not screw my band AND leave the PA intact for the bandless singer/songwriters. There was a LOT of technique involved but both objectives were achieved within the limits of the gear. This brings me to the next question: how much reinforcement do the guitars, bass and drums need? I mean "really need", not "gee, let's put this in the PA mix."

Have fun, good luck.

Tim Mc

 

[Nick Vezmar]

Re: Is upgrading my solution, or is there another option?

Tim,

Thanks for the response. I'll start from the top and work my way down.

Can you describe the coverage problem(s)?

I guess to start out, say for instance on a 12' long x 18' wide dance floor. If we don't play outdoors, most of the event centers we play in for our private gigs have drywall and either linoleum or wood flooring. Everything sounds fine and good until you get to the length end of the dance floor, then all you hear is mostly guitar and vocals. I've tried turning the guitars down on the PA and the amp side; and then drums and keyboard become more dominant and everything else is faintly heard. Everything sounds great in sound check, but as soon as you get bodies in there, something just happens to the sound. I assume that the bodies are absorbing certain kinds of sounds and frequencies over others.

Long term, these should be re-purposed... on a distant planet.

Did you have a planet in mind? Ha. Well we already have spot monitors which work great, and the idea is to not gain any more equipment. I don't have a giant band van unfortunately, so between my truck and my brother's SUV, we managed to get a nice system down where we can still transport the band and the equipment to private gigs.

The idea was to sell them and use the money to procure new speakers, but if you think something can be done with the current speakers, then obviously I will rethink selling them.

How much reinforcement do the guitars, bass and drums need? I mean "really need", not "gee, let's put this in the PA mix."

I'd say if anything the guitars carry nicely through the hall, so it gets the least reinforcement at about 25-30 on the fader, and at about a level 5 on the amps.

The drums muddy up in a hall without reinforcement, so they actually get the most at about 10-15 on the faders. We currently use the Bonham/Johns technique for my drummer, since that's his personal preference, and it seems to work the best.

The bass does get muddy as well, but I think that's attributed to my bassist's legato playing style. He gets between 20-25 on the fader, and about a level 5 on the amp. His is a direct out though, as opposed to being mic'ed.

It's a configuration that after 2 years of trial and error seems to work the best.

Thanks,
Nick

 

[Scott Bolt]

Re: Is upgrading my solution, or is there another option?

Tim,

Thanks for the response. I'll start from the top and work my way down.



I guess to start out, say for instance on a 12' long x 18' wide dance floor. If we don't play outdoors, most of the event centers we play in for our private gigs have drywall and either linoleum or wood flooring. Everything sounds fine and good until you get to the length end of the dance floor, then all you hear is mostly guitar and vocals. I've tried turning the guitars down on the PA and the amp side; and then drums and keyboard become more dominant and everything else is faintly heard. Everything sounds great in sound check, but as soon as you get bodies in there, something just happens to the sound. I assume that the bodies are absorbing certain kinds of sounds and frequencies over others.



Did you have a planet in mind? Ha. Well we already have spot monitors which work great, and the idea is to not gain any more equipment. I don't have a giant band van unfortunately, so between my truck and my brother's SUV, we managed to get a nice system down where we can still transport the band and the equipment to private gigs.

The idea was to sell them and use the money to procure new speakers, but if you think something can be done with the current speakers, then obviously I will rethink selling them.



I'd say if anything the guitars carry nicely through the hall, so it gets the least reinforcement at about 25-30 on the fader, and at about a level 5 on the amps.

The drums muddy up in a hall without reinforcement, so they actually get the most at about 10-15 on the faders. We currently use the Bonham/Johns technique for my drummer, since that's his personal preference, and it seems to work the best.

The bass does get muddy as well, but I think that's attributed to my bassist's legato playing style. He gets between 20-25 on the fader, and about a level 5 on the amp. His is a direct out though, as opposed to being mic'ed.

It's a configuration that after 2 years of trial and error seems to work the best.

Thanks,
Nick

Hey Nick.

Welcome to the forum!

My first thought is that your guitars may be too loud. The guitars are quite directional, and if pointed out into a small width venue as you described, will easily beam all the way back to the rear of the room.

See if you can get your guitars to get amp stands. Have them face the amp directly at their head with the amp in front of them on the stand (the amp stands angle the amp toward them). Most guitar players play with the amps behind them and the speaker pointed at the back of their knees. This has the effect of all the sound going past them (thus they think they are not loud enough) past their knees and blasting the audience.

Next, if you are going to mic the drums, get yourself gates for it. The kick and toms should have gates on them such that they don't ring all over the place and muddy up the mix. This one thing will really clean up your mix. In a small venue, you may not need to mic the snare .... and you should absolutely not need to mic the cymbals.

As for the bass, sometimes bass players have too much stage volume. This has the effect of having the bass get re-amplified by all the vocal microphones on stage (and drum microphones too).... and thus you get all that mud out front. You can get a fairly in-expensive quad gate to do this with.

I'll go with Tim here on the Thumps. Not my favorite speaker. What is your budget if you were going to replace the thumps?

 

[Nick Vezmar]

Re: Is upgrading my solution, or is there another option?

I honestly never thought about gating Scott, probably would solve some of the feedback issues too. What are some inexpensive options? And should I have different gates for guitars and for drums?

As far as the amp issues goes...one of them has a Twin Reverb, which can lean with its provided stand. The other I'd have to get a stand for. For drums I probably could reduce the snare mic level, or even just eliminate it all together per your suggestion. The overheads are aimed towards toms, not cymbals.

The Thumps were an impulse buy at best. Our old speakers got swiped a day before a gig, it was a couple of EV SXA100+ that I saved up for a couple years back. I bought the Thumps from a guy at GC that said I wouldn't be disappointed. Well at first I wasn't.

My budget for speakers is going to be about $400-500 per. I was looking at the brand new EV ZLX series, though I'd have to test them out in person first. Sad I couldn't make NAMM this year (family reasons) and wasn't able to check these out before the general public.

Thanks Scott for the help!

Nick

 

[Scott Bolt]

Re: Is upgrading my solution, or is there another option?

I honestly never thought about gating Scott, probably would solve some of the feedback issues too. What are some inexpensive options? And should I have different gates for guitars and for drums?

As far as the amp issues goes...one of them has a Twin Reverb, which can lean with its provided stand. The other I'd have to get a stand for. For drums I probably could reduce the snare mic level, or even just eliminate it all together per your suggestion. The overheads are aimed towards toms, not cymbals.

The Thumps were an impulse buy at best. Our old speakers got swiped a day before a gig, it was a couple of EV SXA100+ that I saved up for a couple years back. I bought the Thumps from a guy at GC that said I wouldn't be disappointed. Well at first I wasn't.

My budget for speakers is going to be about $400-500 per. I was looking at the brand new EV ZLX series, though I'd have to test them out in person first. Sad I couldn't make NAMM this year (family reasons) and wasn't able to check these out before the general public.

Thanks Scott for the help!

Nick

Thanks again,
Nick

Hey Nick,

No problem.

I normally don't recommend Behringer gear since it has a habit of breaking (although I am interested in their new digital mixers ), but I did use one of these for around 4 years without any problems: Behringer MULTIGATE PRO XR4400 Quad Expander/Gate | Musician's Friend

Full disclosure, it did die on me

Also, if you set the attack too fast on it (and several other brands of gates do this too) you get a click as the gate opens. Backing off on the attack fixes this.

These are much better (and much more expensive): dbx 1046 Quad Compressor Limiter | Musician's Friend

And Rane is considered the gold standard ..... but is God awful expensive

You could also get a pair of these and have compression too: Alesis 3630 Dual-Channel Compressor/Limiter with Gate | Musician's Friend

Just a quick question. So you have 2 overheads you want to pick up the toms, a separate kick and separate snare mic?

If that is the case, you will want to gate the kick, I would simply remove the snare mic and rely on the overheads which are likely getting plenty of signal from it anyway, then dial in the channel eq for the overheads such that no high frequency is really going through it at all.

I have had decent luck micing drums with a setup similar to this. What kind of mixer are you using?

I am sorry to hear about the loss of your SXA100's. Those are nice little speakers with very smooth vocal range amplification. In your price range, I like the idea of the new ZXA's too, but haven't heard them (and like yourself, I would never buy a speaker I hadn't heard first).

Good luck and let me know how things turn out

 

[Nick Vezmar]

Re: Is upgrading my solution, or is there another option?

Thanks again for the help Scott. I think I'm going to keep my sights on the ZLX, and check when one of the big box stores is going to have them in. Luckily my bands next gig isn't until June, so I think I have a bit of time to procure everything.

And for the gates, do you recommend I use the inserts and purchase return/send cables? Or should I just make an FX loop with that?

Nick

 

[Tim McCulloch]

Re: Is upgrading my solution, or is there another option?

Thanks again for the help Scott. I think I'm going to keep my sights on the ZLX, and check when one of the big box stores is going to have them in. Luckily my bands next gig isn't until June, so I think I have a bit of time to procure everything.

And for the gates, do you recommend I use the inserts and purchase return/send cables? Or should I just make an FX loop with that?

Nick

The ZLX has gotten good reviews, typically saying "it sounds more expensive."

For gates you would use the channel inserts.

I'm skeptical, though, that the drums are the source of feedback.... Sympathetic vibrations, yes, and that should be fixable with a drum key. That said, gates aren't a bad thing to have, although you might find other things to spend the money on...

 

[Nick Vezmar]

Re: Is upgrading my solution, or is there another option?

I wouldn't say that it's feedback in its strictest sense. More like the sound just kind of lingers as a dull hum and muds up the mix. I need a more focused snare and kick sound, so I think the gates would help.

The ZLXs are "supposed" to be in GC by April, so perhaps I could try my luck then and get them tested out.

Nick

 

[Tim McCulloch]

Re: Is upgrading my solution, or is there another option?

A drum key is $10 or less. Good gates are 20x that price, used.

If you were providing for other bands I'd say get the gates, but since you're in a position to work directly with the drummer I think that is a better fix. Acoustic solutions for acoustic problems®.... looking back on your first post, though, I see you guys do mostly covers so gates will probably be needed in addition to better drum tuning.

Here's the real deal, though. Putting the whole band through the THUD pa and getting acceptable results is possible for an experienced mixerperson IF he or she has the full cooperation of the band regarding levels and placement of instrument amps and the acoustic levels produced by the drummer. I got by for the Nashville act (5 piece band in a festival tent) because I used the band's on-stage levels as my primary source of volume and tone (treated it as one big fat input I couldn't change) and brought up the things that needed more level or the coverage provided by the pa. It was obviously in limit from first note to last, too, and mixing against the limiter was something I had to get used to. On top of that, I made extensive use of compression at the input strip (digital mixer). This was for a potential audience area that might hold 200 people.

After following this thread and getting a better idea of your needs and desires, I no longer think the Mackies will be satisfactory. You need subs and you need tops that have enough acoustic output to get over the stage level of the band.

 

[Scott Bolt]

Re: Is upgrading my solution, or is there another option?

I always gate drums if it is at all possible simply because the ring on the toms and kick muddy up the mix substantially. I have had some luck without gating the drums, but only with well damped and tuned drums. The kick was nearly full of padding to keep it tight sounding in the PA.

In your setup, you don't have individual mic's on the toms (as I understand your setup). The best you can do with the overheads is to eq those overheads to prevent picking up the cymbals and snare too much. (focusing on the toms).

I agree with Tim that I would probably recommend subs for your gigs ..... but they are completely out of your budget. The best thing I am aware of in your price range is a pair of ZLX 15" speakers.

 

[Nick Vezmar]

Re: Is upgrading my solution, or is there another option?

If I get a sub, then it'd have to be the cheapest powered sub ever made in the creation of powered subs. But at that point, with the space issue, we'd have to take something out from the set up to accommodate a sub. I honestly wish I had a band van sometimes!

The ZLX's on paper sounds like they could cover what I need. Looks like I definitely have to wait until I can try them out in person.

 

[Scott Bolt]

Re: Is upgrading my solution, or is there another option?

If I get a sub, then it'd have to be the cheapest powered sub ever made in the creation of powered subs. But at that point, with the space issue, we'd have to take something out from the set up to accommodate a sub. I honestly wish I had a band van sometimes!

The ZLX's on paper sounds like they could cover what I need. Looks like I definitely have to wait until I can try them out in person.

Don't do that Save up and get yourself a good pair of PRX618S-XLF's. It will be a game changer.