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Author Topic: opinions on my rig  (Read 22133 times)

Robert Brock

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opinions on my rig
« on: June 15, 2016, 01:41:18 PM »

I've been doing studio work for years. I recently fell into doing live sound for some pretty large gigs for a national charity. After doing a few of these gigs I decided to start a company with a partner and go all in to live sound work. What I am finding is that mostly I'm wanted for doing outdoor gigs, so I want some advice on my equipment and possibly what else I should look into. Here's what I currently have:

( 8 ) upper cabs each with ( 2 ) 12" + horn - roughly 15" wide x 32" tall
600 watt program
96 dB/1w/1m
4 ohms

( 10 ) 18" front firing subs - roughly 24" cubes
1000 watts program
101 db/1w/1m
8 ohms

( 2 )  12" + horn cabinets
400 watts program
8 ohms

I'm running the uppers with 2 inuke nu4-6000s, which are 4 channels each with 620/840 watts each channel at 4 ohms. I'm running the subs with 2 inuke nu6000s, which are 2200/3000 watts per channel at 4 ohms (2 subs per channel). The last 2 subs I run chained from the 2 single 12" cabs (they have low passed sub outs) from 2 channels of another I-nuke nu4-6000. The other two channels of that amp are used for monitors. I'm putting 4 tops side by side on each side of the stage (horns at about 7 feet from ground) and 10 subs side by side in a long line under the stage centered. I'm delaying the subs a couple ms to align with tops. The 2 smaller cabs are inboard of the stage stacks pointed inward as front fill.

I also have a dbx driverack pa2 that I'm using for mains. I have several comp/gates for drums, a few 31 band eqs that I use for monitors, and a Yamaha mgp32x board.

I've used this set up for very large DJ type gigs. It was pretty loud on commercial mastered music with the signal just barely tickling the clip lights on the amps....so I'm pretty confident in my cabs handling low crest factor audio. These gigs were 18hrs each...... continuous obnoxious music. I had my doubts about the behringer amps, but I was pleasantly surprised.

So doing calculations I'm worried about having enough spl for live sound reinforcement of a band. Knowing that my system can handle it (and my mixing skills) I plan to do buss compression and possibly a little limiting to bring up the RMS of the live band. So I'm interested in opinions of my setup, and what I may need to change or add to do what I'm trying to do....
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Cailen Waddell

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Re: opinions on my rig
« Reply #1 on: June 15, 2016, 02:09:31 PM »

Deployed per your picture you have enough rig for 4 small gigs and the wrong rig for one big one. 

Model numbers on your speakers might help with suggestions.   The specs as printed above are fairly meaningless in learning what overall level you can achieve. 

That said its always possible your clients requirements in terms of sound quality will accommodate a deployment like this...


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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Robert Brock

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Re: opinions on my rig
« Reply #2 on: June 15, 2016, 02:38:13 PM »

What is it about the deployment that is not good for a big gig?  By big gig I'm referring to a coverage area of slightly wider than the stage, maybe 60 feet back.... probably not "big" by some of your guys standards...
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lindsay Dean

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Re: opinions on my rig
« Reply #3 on: June 15, 2016, 02:44:34 PM »

Unless the uppers are designed to be arrayed,
you will have to get them at the proper splay and height and aim
to prevent some nasty comb filtering.
with out model numbers its just a pretty picture
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Scott Carneval

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Re: opinions on my rig
« Reply #4 on: June 15, 2016, 03:02:24 PM »

What is it about the deployment that is not good for a big gig?  By big gig I'm referring to a coverage area of slightly wider than the stage, maybe 60 feet back.... probably not "big" by some of your guys standards...

Your speakers likely have a horn dispersion of 90ºx50º or 60ºx40º or something similar. A speaker with a 90º horizontal pattern is designed to work by itself. If you place another 90º speaker beside it they must be 'splayed' so that they are covering two separate 90º sections of the audience, essentially giving you 180º of coverage.

Unless you're using 4 boxes with about 30º of horizontal coverage (which I'm fairly certain you're not) you gain very little in db but you gain a lot of interference. It's generally a very bad idea to array your speakers this way. There was a time when it was pretty standard to just pile up as many boxes as you had available, but the audio industry as a whole has come a long way since then. If you need it to be louder than what one or two of your current speakers per side can achieve, then you need to buy one or two louder speakers.
« Last Edit: June 15, 2016, 03:04:51 PM by Scott Carneval »
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Mike Christy

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Re: opinions on my rig
« Reply #5 on: June 15, 2016, 03:05:39 PM »

Unless you have individual instruments assigned to each top, you are going to have HF cancellation/interference with the cabinets aligned like that...

If you have 90' horns in those cabinets, you may be able to get away with 2 a side, just for coverage, not volume.

To cover a small area, 1 or 2 60' tops a side, properly splayed is normal deployment, but for a larger area youll have to blast the b'jesus out of the people in front to get coverage in the back. Solution: raise the cabinets up and angle them down towards the back.

96db sen speakers really aren't helping either.
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Brandon Scopel

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Re: opinions on my rig
« Reply #6 on: June 15, 2016, 03:07:20 PM »

What is it about the deployment that is not good for a big gig?  By big gig I'm referring to a coverage area of slightly wider than the stage, maybe 60 feet back.... probably not "big" by some of your guys standards...
I would venture to believe two tops a side, splayed correctly with or w/o front fills would be more than enough for 40x60' area.

I own 2 inuke6000dsp and have had good luck with them too. They are pretty noisy so they get used only on subs at this point.

Sent from my VS986 using Tapatalk
(Was writing this before previous response, sorry for the sorta duplicate info.)
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Robert Brock

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Re: opinions on my rig
« Reply #7 on: June 15, 2016, 03:53:20 PM »

The cabinets are literally no-name.... I bought the whole package (8 tops, 8 subs) second hand about 10 years ago.  The specs I have are whats printed on the back, but no manufacturer info.

The horns look like 40x60... but with real world listening they are super directional.  Probably due to poor/ cheap cabinet design I'm guessing.  They are loud and clear directly in front, but reduce in level considerably when off axis. I was hoping this might actually be a benefit in this situation. I have used them in this configuration before--- I too was worried about comb filtering, but when walking around the venue it didn't seem bad at all--- and I'm pretty sensitive to the sound of that.  I could hear some, but it wasn't huge nulls or anything, just slight change in tone while I was moving.  To set the angles, I walked to different positions in the audience area and had a guy on stage aim the cabs while I listened to try and reduce overlap---- I know its not very scientific, but it sounded pretty even everywhere.  They didn't look exactly like the pic above... that's just a cad file that I made to help me figure out stage layout on whatever size stage they are providing. I tried them 2 on top of 2, but i have no way to angle them down so the top two were so high I couldn't really hear them.

As far as my subs, I have not used them this way before.  I read a lot about it, but there's tons of conflicting info out there.  I'm pretty sure I want them together in the middle, but wasn't sure if I was better off like this, or stacking them 4 on 4.
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Robert Healey

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Re: opinions on my rig
« Reply #8 on: June 15, 2016, 03:59:10 PM »

As far as my subs, I have not used them this way before.  I read a lot about it, but there's tons of conflicting info out there.  I'm pretty sure I want them together in the middle, but wasn't sure if I was better off like this, or stacking them 4 on 4.

I"d stack the subs 4 on 4, you have a long enough line under the stage to start seeing the length of the sub array affect the directivity rather than summing.

Your tops are a pretty old school setup. If it sounds good and you're making money, keep doing it, but if it were my rig I would consider going to two per side of a higher output speaker like the KF650Z. There aren't many situations where you could consider the KF650 light or small, but it would probably be lighter and take less pack space than all eight of your 2x12s.
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Dave Pluke

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Re: opinions on my rig
« Reply #9 on: June 15, 2016, 04:00:08 PM »


The horns look like 40x60... but with real world listening they are super directional.  Probably due to poor/ cheap cabinet design I'm guessing.

So, I have to ask, why would you want to go any further in the discussion?

Can you at least open the cabs / pull the drivers to determine what components were used?  As has already been said, they likely were not designed for running side-by-side as shown in your pic.

Quote from: Robert Brock
As far as my subs, I have not used them this way before.  I read a lot about it, but there's tons of conflicting info out there.

Do you have the ability to set different delay intervals per sub (or pair of subs)?  Have you thought about running a cardiod configuration?  There are pros and cons to a center cluster.  I'd expect a lot of rumble on stage from your proposed set up.

Dave

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Re: opinions on my rig
« Reply #9 on: June 15, 2016, 04:00:08 PM »


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