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[Tim McCulloch]

Unfortunately, yes. That's me. Everyone here is right. Bands so far just want to see JBL "Line Array type" system installed at X venue with a hang of 4 per side. I did not make the choice nor do I have the money to! I will play with the JBL prediction software. I did think 4 a side was going to be too much with 60 degrees.... I considered taking 2 and doing an LCR setup with 3 per side and 2 in the middle... all 8 are already bought.

Now the fun part of this. My employer also somehow thought buying 6 used Vertec 4888 boxes ($3500 each) would put us into the next level for our ballroom. Don't even get me started on having 8 VRX932s and 6 VT4888s.... we could have had such better systems for the money...Now I get to deal with deploying that as well with no actual processor besides 31 band eq's, old school 3 way analog crossovers and an X32. Someone put me out of my misery. But at the end of the day we now have "line arrays" and that brings in business.....This will be the subject of my next post! Can't wait to talk about that.

Ivan, you are 100% correct. We have 3 rooms. Our A rig (QRX) is going into our C room, the VT4888 into the A room and the VRX rig into the B room. Before this we only had sound for our B room with the QRX rig. They should have asked me before but someone got too excited with these deals they found and bought without talking to me. Now I certainly will do my best to deploy and operate but will reserve the told you so for a later date....

Thanks for the responses so far.

If they try to use the 4888 without appropriate processing, they will soon be on "do not play this room, the PA is FUCKED" list of every act that plays your circuit.  Seriously.  If your employer does not believe you, PM me with with your phone number and we'll have a little conference call.

This is the kind of shit that gives a venue a bad name...

[Ray Aberle]

If they try to use the 4888 without appropriate processing, they will soon be on "do not play this room, the PA is FUCKED" list of every act that plays your circuit.  Seriously.  If your employer does not believe you, PM me with with your phone number and we'll have a little conference call.

This is the kind of shit that gives a venue a bad name...

+17 for Tim. Sursly. George, he knows what he's talking about.

As a VerTec 4888 owner myself, I don't deploy ANYTHING under 4bx/side. Never. Haven't done it. People have asked, and I said no. (For mains/outfiils/delays; this doesn't negate the use of 1 bx bits for front fills. But I've not needed to do that either; I have VRX for those.) Company here in the area used to deploy 3bx hangs for an art museum's event space. That's it. They had 10 more in their shop, but only sent out 6 for these shows. Apparently (I never went to a show there) it didn't sound very good.........

Regarding the processing that Tim alluded to- you just cannot do that yourself. There's a bunch of HarmanFairyDust® in the settings that Harman provides for All Of Your Favorite DSPs, or the Crown I-Tech amplifier series. You just need that. If you don't use what Harman provides, there is very little chance of you making the 88s sound like they're supposed to-- the reason BEs spec certain PA is that it's a known factor- they know what it will sound like. They can get the tone they want. That's also why BEs generally won't take proprietary/home brew gear- no idea what it is going to do once it's fired up and pounding.

What Tim said: You'll get a bad rep in the area, and find it hard to book shows- both because promoters won't want to use the rig, and also because as people realize it sounds bad (the audience- and they won't know WHAT they don't like about it-- just that it doesn't sound right!) then attendance will drop off, and promoters aren't going to book a show at a venue that won't sell well.

PM me if you'd like to chat more about VRX and VerTecs- we use both 932LAPs/932LA-1s and VT4888s.

-Ray

[John Penkala]

If they try to use the 4888 without appropriate processing, they will soon be on "do not play this room, the PA is FUCKED" list of every act that plays your circuit.  Seriously.  If your employer does not believe you, PM me with with your phone number and we'll have a little conference call.

This is the kind of shit that gives a venue a bad name...

+1,

I can speak as someone who ran such a rig because management didn't want to pay a tech to do a simple firmware upgrade on their BSS Omnidrive V3 to V4 on their 8 per side 4888 rig. Having a VerTec rig was enough. It didn't matter how it sounded.

If it were me, I would let them know you will do everything in your power to get the rig sounding its best with what you have to work with but that the system is incomplete without the proper processing and the expected results may not be achieved. Keep a positive attitude!

[Goerge Thomas]

+1,

I can speak as someone who ran such a rig because management didn't want to pay a tech to do a simple firmware upgrade on their BSS Omnidrive V3 to V4 on their 8 per side 4888 rig. Having a VerTec rig was enough. It didn't matter how it sounded.

If it were me, I would let them know you will do everything in your power to get the rig sounding its best with what you have to work with but that the system is incomplete without the proper processing and the expected results may not be achieved. Keep a positive attitude!

I have had the conversations with the management now and they are giving me a budget for processing needed for some of the systems. Including the RIGHT processing for the vertecs they bought. I count that as a win for the little guy ....

My next questions with the VRX 932s, In that system, we already have them bi-amped with 31 band EQs and active X over and compressors in addition to the X32 we use for FOH. My management wants to know if they REALLY need to buy a Drive Rack 260 for the JBL tunings for the VRX boxes or if I can tune them by ear with the 31 band eq and active x overs and compressors already in place in my signal chain. (If I don't use the cash for the driverack 260, they will buy some extra Senny E935s for bands)

I wanted to see what you all thought, forget about the other functions of the drive rack 260. Would the ability to use JBLs V4 tunings on the driverack make a big difference compared to just using my ears and the 31 band eqs? Like I said, they already agreed to pony up real money for the vertec system but are hesitant about my ear and a 31 band eq versus a driverack with JBL tunings making a decent difference... I myself am curious for those of you using VRX932s with and without the JBL tunings, are they worth it or can you find a sweet spot with your ear and your favorite test tracks for an hour or so?

-G

[Steve Alves]

I do not know about the 260 on JBL but when I went from the 260 to a EV DX-46 on my QRX rig it came to life like you could not imagine.

[Scott Holtzman]

Yes,   a graphic eq has fixed point and a fixed response curve.  The tunings involve specific filters designed not just to alter frequency response but also phase relationships.  260 is dosscontinued.  Too bad you can't get some itechs and do it right.

Sent from my SM-N910V using Tapatalk

[Luke Geis]

My 2 pennies is simple.

The VRX rig will do you well, especially if you have it well processed. I too believe 4 per side is extraneous. 2-3 per side is spot on for a floor level audience. As to the sound? I don't think they sound that great, but they are certainly a better option than many other speakers. With enough work they can sound plenty good. They have a high end cackle that I especially don't appreciate.

The QRX 2x12" is another option I have worked with and again I am not a huge fan. Do they work? Yes. Do they sound great? No. They get loud enough and sound good enough to do the job. It takes a little too much work I feel for them to be a great option.

As to the 4888's I don't have much experience with myself. I have heard several systems that comprised of them though and only 1 of them I would say was good. And that " good " rating is being generous. They sound ok for what they are, but you can easily tell when they were not set up right. The one system that I did hear that was set up mostly correctly, was for a play I attended. It had a " sound ", lets say that, but that sound was ok and I could hear everything well. I left another show I paid good money to see because it sounded so bad; for an idea of how bad they can sound when not set up right.

Interestingly the best sounds I have heard come from an LA system have been from D&B Audioteknic rigs.  Of the few I have directly dealt with and the other few I have been in attendance of the show, they seem to me to sound the best. Having experience with the setup and the prediction software for the D&B Q series, I can say that it is not a very magical thing. Enter the proper parameters and the prediction software tells you pretty much everything you need to know. I have also worked with a few Meyer rigs in my time and I wasn't that impressed with them either. Perhaps D&B is on to something? I had an L-Acoustics Arc system that I worked with once, it was also astonishingly easy to set up and work with. Maybe it is just a Lab Gruppen thing? In either case the processing seems to be where it is at.

[Kevin Maxwell]

For one company I do a lot of work with we use EV QRX212 2 per side over 2 QRX 218 for a series of outdoor shows. I have never been a real fan of them but I am very fussy. I feel that the stock horn orientation doesn’t work well for more than 1 per side. To splay them far enough apart for the horns to work in the standard horn orientation, the 12’ drivers are now too far apart. We rotated the horns and just did one show so far with them like that. This is outdoors and the audience is wide and deep and I think the coverage with the horns rotated seems to be more along the lines of what we need and they seem to work together better this way. We are using a DBX 4800 to control them in passive mode. I would love to try an EV processor if it has the FIR filter setting for them. 

[Steve Alves]

On our QRX212 two per side we have the horns rotated so there is an outer and an inner. We have them marked on the back and still gap them in the front about a fist width.

[Kevin Maxwell]

On our QRX212 two per side we have the horns rotated so there is an outer and an inner. We have them marked on the back and still gap them in the front about a fist width.

That is how we are now doing it also.

[ProSoundWeb Community]