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Author Topic: Cerwinvega Vs Labsub  (Read 39561 times)

Pascal Pincosy

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Re: Cerwinvega Vs Labsub
« Reply #10 on: March 06, 2006, 01:56:17 PM »

John Chiara wrote on Sun, 05 March 2006 19:01


I was just curious how the sound company pay was for these kinds of gigs compared to a shorter show. I have never done a DJ gig so I had no reference.



As an engineer for a DJ event, you're not at the board or amp rack constantly. It's easy to go outside and have a smoke or mingle with the crowd. It's more like baby-sitting a teen-ager than an infant. You do have to pay attention to what's going on but you're not "working" the whole time. As long as your limiters are set properly you can pretty much hang out during the event. This aspect somewhat compensates for the longer hours.

Another consideration is that you don't need a FOH mixer, mics, effects, a snake, or more than 2 monitors, so setup time decreases and less gear is needed.

FWIW, as a sound tech I charge a $250 day rate to do a 6-8 hour DJ event here in San Francisco, which is about par for what most companies I know of in the area pay techs for dance events.
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Randy Pence

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Re: Cerwinvega Vs Labsub
« Reply #11 on: March 06, 2006, 03:38:23 PM »

I agree with Pascal.  Pro Sound Web tends to be more live foh oriented, but there is still a viable market for quality sound reinforcement for liveplayback dance dance events.  The hours are just screwy in different ways.
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Bogdan Popescu

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Re: Cerwinvega Vs Labsub
« Reply #12 on: March 06, 2006, 07:20:57 PM »

I did a lot of live events, rock and DJ most of the time.
I would not try to change the LAB's, they go for both, the top's are now my problem.

DJ events are more demanding on the subwoofer.

We have every year a Drum and Bass event called "48 hours" (last year came Aphrodites and Storm from england)
With just 4 LAB's pushed real hard we could disturb people 2 km away. Who knows what DnB is, and 48h continuous night and day show, understands what i am talking about Very Happy ... and it was loud ... and just a few sub's in the world could do the same (C.V. is not on that list)


B.P.
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Mark "Bass Pig" Weiss

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Re: Cerwinvega Vs Labsub
« Reply #13 on: May 21, 2006, 11:39:38 PM »

I would love to subject one of these DJs to 30 seconds of real bass one day, just for fun. It's not real bass, if you live to tell about it. Smile  At "background" levels, there's still too much air moving to allow a CD player to function. THAT'S bass.
Frankly, all the DJ sound I've heard over the years is plagued with that "80Hz peak" and nothing happening much below 50Hz.

Mike {AB} Butler

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Re: Cerwinvega Vs Labsub
« Reply #14 on: May 22, 2006, 11:02:22 AM »

Pascal Pincosy wrote on Sat, 04 March 2006 12:45


What happens when the bass is really thumping? The DJ doesn't feel the need to turn it up louder. The mixer levels tend to stay out of the red. The crowd goes wild, the mix stays clean, and the gear never gets pushed too hard.


Pascal,
Sorry, but in my experience, the DJ's I have met all want the distortion that comes from being too used to overdriving a system. Also, most of them don't think any bass is "happening" when the system is set at 90 - 100 Hz corner - I have to set the LPF for 160Hz!
There are the exceptional few that "get it" (initially), but even they start turning up the system over the space of an hour or so.. and all that bass is thundering away, subs are shredding, V/C overheating.. and the guy can't hear the obvious sounds of sub distress..
Sure, you can put out a system that's economically unfeasable to create "brown notes" if the guy gets too loud.. but that's just silly, bad fiscally, and makes the uniformed guys show up that much quicker to close down the event..
Regards,
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Chris Parsons

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Re: Cerwinvega Vs Labsub
« Reply #15 on: May 23, 2006, 02:13:53 PM »

I'm a DJ that uses LAB subs and to stay on topic for another minute...they blow away anything CV makes.  

There's so much hateing of DJs here.  Yes there are a lot of DJs that don't know their crossover from their eq...but that's not all of us.  I know of many DJs that can keep up with any "pro sound engineer" when it comes to gear.  Additionally I've met a lot of sound engineers that have no idea what their talking about.  So let's stop fighting and remeber what really matters.  That a sound company can make $1200 on a saturday with their 650 rig, rider friendly FOH, and a huge arsenal of mics; and that a DJ can make $1200 on a saturday with a pair of 15+horn's, a couple cd players, and a wireless 58.   Very Happy  Laughing  Very Happy  Laughing  Razz
I can see why you'd get upset...

-Chris Parsons
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Evan Kirkendall

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Re: Cerwinvega Vs Labsub
« Reply #16 on: May 23, 2006, 04:07:16 PM »

Chris Parsons wrote on Tue, 23 May 2006 14:13

 That a sound company can make $1200 on a saturday with their 650 rig, rider friendly FOH, and a huge arsenal of mics; and that a DJ can make $1200 on a saturday with a pair of 15+horn's, a couple cd players, and a wireless 58.   Very Happy  Laughing  Very Happy  Laughing  Razz
I can see why you'd get upset...

-Chris Parsons



And thats why DJ's suck. Very Happy


Evan
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Pascal Pincosy

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Re: Cerwinvega Vs Labsub
« Reply #17 on: May 23, 2006, 05:07:34 PM »

Mike {AB} Butler wrote on Mon, 22 May 2006 16:02


Pascal,
Sorry, but in my experience, the DJ's I have met all want the distortion that comes from being too used to overdriving a system. Also, most of them don't think any bass is "happening" when the system is set at 90 - 100 Hz corner - I have to set the LPF for 160Hz!
There are the exceptional few that "get it" (initially), but even they start turning up the system over the space of an hour or so.. and all that bass is thundering away, subs are shredding, V/C overheating.. and the guy can't hear the obvious sounds of sub distress..


I'd suggest a few things for you:

First is to make a habit of telling the DJ's to turn it down every time they red-line it. I have my DJ's well-trained. I usually just have to give them the "evil eye" and they'll bring it back in line.

Second is to use a good multi-band limiter like an Aphex Dominator II, in order to cover yourself from accidents and live electronic acts, and also from artists who peg the bass EQ or those super bass-heavy tracks.

Third is to use the AVC2 from Formula Sound to control overall gain into the system. This way they can clip the mixer but not anything else.

Fourth is to get some killer mid-bass cabinets. Now you can provide the punch that "seems" to be missing from a system with clean sub-bass.

It's true that dealing with rank amateurs can be difficult. You really have to keep a close eye on the levels and not be afraid to be forceful in your requests to turn it down. For the most part though, the DJ's I deal with these days either have many years of experience, or are international stars.

It doesn't take most DJ's too long to figure out that if you redline the mixer and don't listen to the engineer, that you get turned down and limited to hell. When the crowd starts to complain about the sound I tell them to talk to the DJ.  Twisted Evil A few complaints from the crowd and the DJ will usually figure it out. I've found most DJ's care more about their set sounding good than being loud. Show them what a badly clipping mixer sounds like and they'll be more interested in watching their levels in the future.
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Miguel Castro Rios

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Re: Cerwinvega Vs Labsub
« Reply #18 on: July 03, 2006, 09:51:34 PM »

Chris Parsons wrote on Tue, 23 May 2006 14:13
Quote:


That a sound company can make $1200 on a saturday with their 650 rig, rider friendly FOH, and a huge arsenal of mics; and that a DJ can make $1200 on a saturday with a pair of 15+horn's, a couple cd players, and a wireless 58.      
I can see why you'd get upset...

-Chris Parsons


$1,200 !!!!!! insane!! .. .well I don't kno, where I live, a DJ don't make more then $400... some good ones make 500 but 1,200?!?!?!? no F*ing way!.

now, sound companies, HERE where I live, the most economic one was 1,000..  now if you want a meyer rig, or kf850 ... it's 4,000 or 5,000 ..... I don't know where you get your numbers from, don't get me wrong, i might be at the twilight zone..

----- now i've used CV's for a long time, and they are Ok.. NOT great but NOT bad, it depends what you want... for the style of music that i play i need a lot of 70hz, the CV can get pretty loud at that frequency, plus is cheap, and they are long lasting.
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Steve Shafer

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Cerwinvega Vs Labsub = Yugo vs Mercedes Benz
« Reply #19 on: July 04, 2006, 01:09:49 AM »

Darin:

As others have said the LAB Sub is a true pro Subwoofer that will go toe to toe with anything currently on the market-EAW, Turbosound, Meyer, JBL, Nexo...the list goes on.  The real bonus is that it is a DIY project that thanks to Tom Danley's generousity will allow for some serious horn loaded low end on a budget.

If you have the woodworking skills and the tools, build four of them and you will not think of Cerwin Vega again.  As Tom points out in the techincal discussion of the LAB Sub, you have to use multiple units to get the real magic from these boxes.

There is a caveat here that others have alluded to.  If you want distorted, colored, monotone bass (not true sub frequecies), the Lab Sub is going to leave you mighty frustrated and thinking that you wasted your money and your time.  Many DJ's mistake distortion for good "butt kicking bass"  Also, a good many DJ's do not know that the so called "speed" (Tom wrote a great paper on this) and often the "punch" of the subwoofer has very little to do with the subwoofers themselves.  

I have worked on both sides of the DJ vs Engineer situation.  To finance my sound business, I had to do the DJ thing.  The DJ gig made me more take home pay per gig, and that was a good thing as it allowed me to do more of what a wanted and to buy more of the gear that i wanted.

However, good peak stop limiters and the phrase so eloquently executed by Don Trump "you're fired" can be great tools to keep many egotistical, chemically "enhanced" DJ's from ruining your rig.  

FWIW-When i knew that the rig was doing a DJ gig, I added more low end gear so that the rig would not be worked so hard.  Live sound engineers know what DJ's expect and that it takes a lot of solid low end to keep the people on the dance floor.

my .02

Steve S

 
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