Seeking to upgrade from a B rig to an A rig

[Eric Cagle]

Re: Seeking to upgrade from a B rig to an A rig

I appreciate the feedback and reality checks, reading this thread is slowly making the scope of the challenges I'm looking to overcome more obvious. I don't have the manpower to bring out a passive rig. I already half worked myself to death by using a passive rig short staffed. Making a leap back to that wouldn't be sensible for me. A powered system is a must even if it means renting the majority of it. Lots for me to consider.

The main advantage of an active rig is that the amp selection and processing is already done for you. You are kidding yourself if you think you are not going to have to have your own manpower for setup and teardown and you are going after "big boy" events, especially setup. There are so many want to be engineers in my area that I have never had a problem having qualified help with any show, I can't imagine it being any different in Virginia. You don't have to have full time staff working exclusively for you. You just need dependable folks who will show up on time and be professional when you ask for them. I try to teach them as much as I can each show in return. Most go on at some point to work for various companies that have more work than me but all are available anytime for shows with me if they don't have a gig that day. Many of my competitors who are actually friends of mine swap labor with me quite often. I actually worked occasionally with one of the larger companies in town whenever I could just to be on many larger events and still also cross rent both ways today. Be realistic with what is actually required of the folks that work with you. You are not IBM or some other major corporation with stock options and benefit packages. Unless you are huge, and I mean Clair Brothers huge, it is very unlikely that 5 day work weeks all year are even a possibility anytime soon. Plenty of enthusiastic part time help being available as needed is highly likely though.

 

[Tim Weaver]

Re: Seeking to upgrade from a B rig to an A rig

I appreciate the feedback and reality checks, reading this thread is slowly making the scope of the challenges I'm looking to overcome more obvious. I don't have the manpower to bring out a passive rig. I already half worked myself to death by using a passive rig short staffed. Making a leap back to that wouldn't be sensible for me. A powered system is a must even if it means renting the majority of it. Lots for me to consider.

The powered vs. passive rig only has a benefit at the bar band level. Those places where there may not be enough room for an amp rack beside the stage.

When you get into a system where it takes more than 1 top over 1 sub per side, there is really no advantage to going powered.

The work you do to put up a big powered rig is exactly the same as a big passive rig. In fact, I think the labor scale tips toward the passive rig at some point. You WILL have to have a distro. It WILL have to run heavy-ass, expensive cable to every speaker in your system.

Or you can have a couple of amp racks and run one SHORTER heavy-ass, expensive cable to each one. So at some point when you have lots of speakers going for a show there will be a tipping point where passive gets cheaper and easier than powered.


Also, You can't do these shows alone. Start looking for help now, because you're going to need it. And it's nice to sus-out which guy is trustworthy and knowledgable on those small shows. Because you don't want to find out that your patch dude didn't show up on your first big festival!

 

[Tim Weaver]

Re: Seeking to upgrade from a B rig to an A rig

As far as labor goes let me put it this way.

You book a 5 band outdoor festival for a promoter that is expecting 5000-8000 people to attend. These are B or C level national acts, with loosely enforced riders, but are happy to play on PA-du-jour. No hard rock or metal.

You will need maybe 8 per side large format line array cabs or 10-12 medium format cabs. These will be flown from the roof system, using motors rented from the roof company and hung by their riggers.

You will need two 48 channel consoles and a split snake.

You will need at least 12 monitor mixes plus a 3-way drum fill. Maybe 16-18 wedges. (this is where your current powered stuff can find a home)

You will need 60k of standard par can light rig. (folks nowadays want lots of moving lights and fancy stuff, but 60k will do the job)



That's the basics of the system. For labor you WILL absolutely need a FOH guy, a Monitor guy, a Patch guy, and a System tech. Then for lighting you'll need an LD.

That's 5 people right there. And you could stop there if you want them exhausted and doing a poor job at the actual show, because they've worked in the sun all day. Realistically you need probably 4 more "hands". Which are your basic labor force. It helps if they know how to coil a cable, but it's not necessary. Now these guys can get get cut during the show and come back for load out, That saves you money, but the smart thing to do is to charge them to the client and have them load the band's gear on and off stage all day. That way you can keep an eye on them and make sure they are there for load out.

So now you have 9 people in the crew to pull off a basic small festival.

 

[Ernest Graham]

Re: Seeking to upgrade from a B rig to an A rig

Why is a "passive" rig so much harder or require more people. At least enough to be considered.

I am a bit old fashioned and like amp racks much better. if an amp goes out-I can swap it out during the show. With a powered system that becomes much harder and the speaker is out for the show.

Extra amps can "live" in the amp racks. Extra amps for powered boxes typically live in cardboard boxes waiting to be crushed.

People often use the excuse of not having to run heavy speaker cables-but yet they don't think twice about running heavy power cables. And the difference is ?

Yes there are advantages and disadvantages to each type-but I like to be able to swap gear around easily-while I am on the ground

Forum ate my post.
Take two... this one is not as good but still conveys the same info, sort of.
You are established in the industry where I am an upstart. You have a track record and a pool of familiar resources to draw from. I am still trying to prove myself to people and working alone. As I gather more knowledge and familiarity (plus a crew of trusted employees) I will surely switch back and forth between both passive and active. For now I need the speed, agility and simplicity of active technology while I work to earn a reputation and establish a durable space in the market for my company. You make very good points about the modularity and easy replacement and swapping out of blown parts, but for a new guy just hanging in there simplicity is very important.
I had a passive rig. I sold it and bought an active one. I enjoyed the modularity and fine control I had with it. However, it is riskier to put a noob on a passive system (too much complexity in the amp racks, power distros, too many cables signal/speaker etc etc etc). Speaker cables are a huge PITA that I do not miss. I had thousands of feet of 12 AWG 2 conductor cable carrying it around with me (I sold all of it to one man for dirt cheap!). Mic cables are bad enough! I put my former passive rig (now sold) into a Pathfinder SUV plus a 5X8 trailer. I put my active rig inside of a single mini van. I put my active mini rig (complete with mini subwoofer) inside of a Toyota Corrolla. I can teach anyone to operate my active system (even the X32) without worrying too much about them damaging it and without worrying at all about them hurting themselves. With my passive rig I would have been extremely worried letting a noob muck about on it for fear the rig might get damaged or a processor setting might be changed or worse that they might blow something up literally. Its harder to blow up anything with a QSC powered speaker. Everything from procurement to logistics is altered by choosing one over the other and amplifier racks are not negotiable. I no longer have any amplifier racks AND my passive subs weighed as much as the active ones. No need for heavy processing either. My passive rig sounded like doo doo without the processor and did not get as loud or as remain as stable. My active rig is fire and forget...

 

[Ernest Graham]

Re: Seeking to upgrade from a B rig to an A rig

The main advantage of an active rig is that the amp selection and processing is already done for you. You are kidding yourself if you think you are not going to have to have your own manpower for setup and teardown and you are going after "big boy" events, especially setup. There are so many want to be engineers in my area that I have never had a problem having qualified help with any show, I can't imagine it being any different in Virginia. You don't have to have full time staff working exclusively for you. You just need dependable folks who will show up on time and be professional when you ask for them. I try to teach them as much as I can each show in return. Most go on at some point to work for various companies that have more work than me but all are available anytime for shows with me if they don't have a gig that day. Many of my competitors who are actually friends of mine swap labor with me quite often. I actually worked occasionally with one of the larger companies in town whenever I could just to be on many larger events and still also cross rent both ways today. Be realistic with what is actually required of the folks that work with you. You are not IBM or some other major corporation with stock options and benefit packages. Unless you are huge, and I mean Clair Brothers huge, it is very unlikely that 5 day work weeks all year are even a possibility anytime soon. Plenty of enthusiastic part time help being available as needed is highly likely though.

You'd be surprised what a small hard working crew can accomplish when they are willing to give everything they've got. I'm not saying that it doesn't take a crew just that the demands can be significantly less for some active systems compared to passive ones. There are plenty of talented workers in my local pool, but they are all booked solid so I have to take my time and find the right men for the jobs.
I am the new guy and as such I don't get first dibs on anything and that includes workers. I am trying my best to provide a level of compensation that is competitive with the other local shops. For me it is not finding competent people it is, finding my niche without stepping over the line. If someone is working and we are all friends, if I want to remain friends with both or all of them then I must be careful how I treat people and how I go about achieving my goal of hiring someone.

 

[Tim Weaver]

Re: Seeking to upgrade from a B rig to an A rig

Forum ate my post.
Take two... this one is not as good but still conveys the same info, sort of.
You are established in the industry where I am an upstart. You have a track record and a pool of familiar resources to draw from. I am still trying to prove myself to people and working alone. As I gather more knowledge and familiarity (plus a crew of trusted employees) I will surely switch back and forth between both passive and active. For now I need the speed, agility and simplicity of active technology while I work to earn a reputation and establish a durable space in the market for my company. You make very good points about the modularity and easy replacement and swapping out of blown parts, but for a new guy just hanging in there simplicity is very important.
I had a passive rig. I sold it and bought an active one. I enjoyed the modularity and fine control I had with it. However, it is riskier to put a noob on a passive system (too much complexity in the amp racks, power distros, too many cables signal/speaker etc etc etc). Speaker cables are a huge PITA that I do not miss. I had thousands of feet of 12 AWG 2 conductor cable carrying it around with me (I sold all of it to one man for dirt cheap!). Mic cables are bad enough! I put my former passive rig (now sold) into a Pathfinder SUV plus a 5X8 trailer. I put my active rig inside of a single mini van. I put my active mini rig (complete with mini subwoofer) inside of a Toyota Corrolla. I can teach anyone to operate my active system (even the X32) without worrying too much about them damaging it and without worrying at all about them hurting themselves. With my passive rig I would have been extremely worried letting a noob muck about on it for fear the rig might get damaged or a processor setting might be changed or worse that they might blow something up literally. Its harder to blow up anything with a QSC powered speaker. Everything from procurement to logistics is altered by choosing one over the other and amplifier racks are not negotiable. I no longer have any amplifier racks AND my passive subs weighed as much as the active ones. No need for heavy processing either. My passive rig sounded like doo doo without the processor and did not get as loud or as remain as stable. My active rig is fire and forget...

When you get into big-boy PA, almost all of the rigs you'll find are set-and-forget as well. They can be passive or powered. The passive boxes have their own amps with locked-out settings for the speakers you are using. You can easily put an inexperienced guy on a big rig without fear of blowing it up.

He might blow himself up though. Big rigs get unbelievably loud nowadays.

 

[Jeff Babcock]

Re: Seeking to upgrade from a B rig to an A rig

For now I need the speed, agility and simplicity of active technology while I work to earn a reputation and establish a durable space in the market for my company.

I think you are in a FOREST...TREES situation here....

The secret to fast deployment with minimal mistakes has more to do with preparation than with the technology itself. Custom patch panels, cable looms and cable management, multi-pin connectors, proper transport and casing, and a variety of other things that are organizational, infrastructure and planning related will make a FAR bigger difference in how fast you can reliably and repeatedly set up a show than many other factors.

Spending some time thinking and documenting every step required to deploy one of your rigs is a good way to look for places to improve efficiency, whether that be from a physical change of supporting infrastructure to a change in employee workflow. Check out a few major "A" level tours behind the scenes sometime and you'll observe lots of ways to make the IN and the OUT more efficient. There are always places and processes to optimize.

 

[Ernest Graham]

Re: Seeking to upgrade from a B rig to an A rig

I think you are in a FOREST...TREES situation here....

The secret to fast deployment with minimal mistakes has more to do with preparation than with the technology itself. Custom patch panels, cable looms and cable management, multi-pin connectors, proper transport and casing, and a variety of other things that are organizational, infrastructure and planning related will make a FAR bigger difference in how fast you can reliably and repeatedly set up a show than many other factors.

Spending some time thinking and documenting every step required to deploy one of your rigs is a good way to look for places to improve efficiency, whether that be from a physical change of supporting infrastructure to a change in employee workflow. Check out a few major "A" level tours behind the scenes sometime and you'll observe lots of ways to make the IN and the OUT more efficient. There are always places and processes to optimize.

Oh yes I agree that the prep beforehand is key no matter what system you use. A custom rack for my X32 Rack is designed to take the strain off the mixer's input jacks and bring the inputs around to the front of the rack, simple (an xlr patch bay in the front of the rack with xlr jumpers of the appropriate length to reach the input jacks without tooo much slack. Plug and play, no soldering or making permanent connections.). The amp rack patch work you are talking about is great, but it is tedious work and you do not have that with an active system. That's my issue. I have seen people do it quickly and well with both technologies. Not arguing that for sure. For me working alone with an assortment of new faces every time it is easier to avoid amp racks for right now IMO. Over time I hope to change gear at least a few times. Eventually I will get there.

 

[Ivan Beaver]

Re: Seeking to upgrade from a B rig to an A rig

Forum ate my post.
However, it is riskier to put a noob on a passive system (too much complexity in the amp racks, power distros, too many cables signal/speaker etc etc etc). Speaker cables are a huge PITA that I do not miss. I had thousands of feet of 12 AWG 2 conductor cable carrying it around with me (I sold all of it to one man for dirt cheap!)..

You STILL need to have a power distro, and you will need more power cables to replace the speaker cables.

A properly setup amp rack is no more complicated that having to run separate input cables to various powered speaker cabinets. There is just as much chance for an error. The larger the rig gets the more the possibility of errors.

I would not compare the sound of your passive rig to the powered rig. If it is not setup properly or is of poor quality-then that is all it is. There is no reason a powered rig should 'automatically" sound better than a "passive" rig. If one is of poor quality, then that is the loudspeakers design-NOT whether it is powered or passive.