PA+ with powered speakers

xsession

Hello, this is my first post to this forum. I play in a four-piece cover band which doesn't normally employ a sound man. We use a Carvin 20 channel mixer, 2 Carvin PM12A's as mains, and 2 Carvin LS1801A's as subs. None of the bandmembers are particularly adept at handling sound man duties and, of course, we are all behind the speakers during performance. We've been unhappy with the crossover that is built-into the powered subs and, while looking into the purchase of a dbx outboard crossover, I saw the PA+ as something that could be a worthwhile investment (noting that the PX for powered speakers didn't have a crossover built-in). We haven't (yet) purchased an RTA mic as frankly putting out pink noise at performance volume wouldn't go over very well with most of the club owners we work for.

My question is this: do the factory presets--#48 Custom 2X4 seems like the logical starting point--include crossover and compression settings? Or do I need to apply those manually? I can't stress enough that while we are all experienced musicians, all of us have at best a rudimentary knowledge of all things PA related and any help or suggestions would be most appreciated.

Pat

Dra

#1 - The PX does have a x-over (it is called a band filter). But you will be happier with the PA+.
#2 - With out even looking up what those speaker are I will suggest the subs be set to...
45hz (or 50hz) BW18 - 100hz LR24
set the tops to ...
100hz LR24 - out

Select any preset (I like to start with #1) and set up a custom passive with sub (mono or stereo) which will be a 2 x 4 or 2 x 3.

DRA

xsession

Thanks, DRA.

Any suggestions as to a starting off point for compression settings?

Dra

I am not a big fan of whole system compression. But, if you insist do as little as possible. Limiting is much more useful on each output band.


DRA

xsession

Hey DRA. We finally got to use the PA+ for the first time last night and I set the crossover settings as you suggested. However, the bass guitar and bass drum was still coming out of the tops instead of the subs. This was actually the same problem we were having with the crossovers that are built in to the subs that had me looking into outboard crossovers in the first place. I have to believe we are doing something fundamentally wrong here and I guess the best thing to do at this point is to hire a local sound man as a consultant for one gig to show us how to run our PA. Pretty pathetic, I know, but we don't know where else to turn.

Gadget

Perhaps you could tell us step by step the signal flow... something like this:

Mixer (Presnous 16.4.2) master L/R out (XLR) > driverack PA+ L/R inputs...PA+ High out L/R > tops L/R (SRM 450's) DRPA+ low outs > Crown MA3600 > subs.

This way we can evaluate better what your doing...

xsession

Mixer (Carvin C2040) master L/R out (XLR) > driverack PA+ L/R inputs...PA+ High out L/R > tops L/R (Carvin PM12A) DRPA+ low outs L/R >subs L/R (Carvin LS1801A).

The speakers are active, the crossover built into the subs is dis-engaged. I used a custom 2X4 setup on the PA+.

We are a four-piece RnR cover band: guitar, bass, drums, keys/guitar/mandolin, with four vocal mikes. We call ourselves <a href="http://xsessionmusic.com">X-Session</a&gt; but considering our band-wide lack of PA skills I'm thinking of something along the lines of the "Sonic Numbskulls."

BTW, we played for years using a Mackie 8-channel powered mixer into a pair of 15" JBL cabs but decided to upgrade to something with more power and range.

Dra

Did you set the x-overs yourself? Or just go with what was given?

xsession

I went with your suggestion in your initial reply to this thread:

"#1 - The PX does have a x-over (it is called a band filter). But you will be happier with the PA+.
#2 - With out even looking up what those speaker are I will suggest the subs be set to...
45hz (or 50hz) BW18 - 100hz LR24
set the tops to ...
100hz LR24 - out

Select any preset (I like to start with #1) and set up a custom passive with sub (mono or stereo) which will be a 2 x 4 or 2 x 3.

DRA"

I dialed in those settings and saved them to the preset. Last night was our first gig with those settings and, like I said, we still had bass going thru the tops. I then changed the settings on the fly and was able to get the bass out of the mains but it took everything else, vocals included, out of there also.

To get thru the gig we took the subs out of the PA+ altogether and daisy chained them from an unused monitor out on the mixer, enabling us to manually control what instruments (mainly bass guitar and bass drum) went thru the subs.

Dra

Changed the settings to what?
Something is not meshing here.
Try loading in any listed mains and subs and see if it sounds like you would expect then check what the settings are.

DRA

xsession

I simply turned the data wheel in crossover mode until the bass was out of the mains, but doing so made the settings so drastic that all frequencies were out of the mains as well.

Gadget

So just to get this strait...in the crossover you set (when looking at the Low outs ) the upper left corner of the display a "L" should be highlighted. The HPF is set to 45hz BW18 and the LPF is set to 100hz LR24.

Then highlight "H" in the upper left corner (shows your adjusting the high outputs) and you have that set to 100hz LR24 ... right?

xsession

Exactly. And then I saved the settings to the preset and and those settings were there when I pressed and held the xover button.

Dra

When you say "bass", do you mean low frequencies, or the bass guitar? Trying to get the bass guitar or the kick drum out of the mains is a mistake. They both have elements in the upper frequencies that are very important, and should be there. The fact that when you get the "bass" removed, and you lose a lot of other content, implies that you are creating a hole in your sound. Set the x-over and let the sounds come from where there need to.

DRA