Happy New Year, I’ve just learned I’ll be doing live sound using one of these, and Bose Flexible Array speakers…
Busy reading manuals and watching videos. The biggest piece will probably be four musos, including drums… but I refuse to panic…
S
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Although I can’t be sure, I think I used a Soundcraft console when I worked in Malaysia. When I arrived there the school was still hooked up to an analogue board, and was placed behind a heavy window in a room at the back of the theater. My music teacher colleague and I complained quite a lot about this setup, telling our management that we had to actually open a window and stick our heads out of the window to actually hear the sound coming out of the speakers. We came back after a holiday and found a new digital console, in a custom made booth IN the theater. I had so much fun setting the levels for our school shows / concerts, and loved the way you could set presets for any events.
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Once you get the hang of those digital consoles, they’re a breeze to use. I love my Behringer XR18.
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Cheers,
I guess my main fear is I will end up in a feedback situation, then sit staring at this Las Vegas rendition and have no clue about what to do…
If there’s vocals, I think there’s a trick with EQ to take out 400 Hz to reduce the possibility of feedback. Of course, mic and PA speaker placement (and singer mic technique), plus the room, has an influence too.
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My colleague had a great routine in soundcheck to stop feedback… If I could just remember what it was…
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Thanks mate, that’s brilliantly helpful…
S
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He probably meant to say…
Mute everything but a single vocal mic, put a big cut (12dB or so) into the low mid/ high mid region, and sweep it around the frequencies, while pushing the mic into feedback.
Then when you find the center point of the loudest one, (where the feedback stops), stop there and back the cut up to about 6dB or so.
Then move on to the next mic.
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That’s my middle name - Brilliantly Helpful!
I was only considered a helper on the sound board, and I was mainly involved in setting up the instruments and mics. Later I would work on the console itself. If I remember correctly, he would bring up a band / singer / act and then get each person to play or sing into their respective mics. He would set the channel volume to way over zero - I can’t remember if he pushed the fader to the maximum level, but while the channel level was up high, he would adjust the gain of the channel until he heard it feeding back. He would then adjust the gain until the feedback was gone, and then pull back the channel level back to zero. He would keep adjusting like this until in his own words “that mic will not feedback in a million years”.
I think he would set the gain to feedback, and then pull back the gain and only use the channel fader to control the level (which is what you’re supposed to do obviously). Somebody else more qualified will surely correct whatever I’ve got wrong in my description, but I think the idea is that you set the feedback threshold with the channel level set up way too high, pull back the gain, and then be safe in the knowledge that even if you push up the channel level you’re not going to hit the threshold.
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That Bose system is probably going to be pretty underpowered to do anything with acoustic drums played with any kind of conviction.
If you can, change it to something like 4 (FOUR)
of these, and any kind of sub you can find.
This will give you the vocal level you need, and a little bottom end to fill out kick drum and bass.
If you cant change it, just add a pair to FOH - or use them as floor monitors for the bands’ vocals.
oh, and he was definitely pushing the volume while CUTTING the EQ. Anything else is just pushing up the volume (gain or fader).
Yes, it will be a special setting that’s based on “not-heavy-drums…”
As in, the first is a “ukulele festival” and the second is a jazz-and-blues festival…
The idea is I’ll be learning from an experienced guy… as an understudy… but he’s allegedly “difficult” in some ways…
I will type up these notes as a “cheat sheet” - thanks…
S
ok, no probs- I find it hilarious that Bose put 8 x 3" drivers in a biamped box with a 12" driver and call it a PA cabinet…
In the good old/bad old days of Bose 802’s and 302’s, you would get eight x 4 1/2" drivers in a box
http://www.drinklemann.co.uk/802.html
Usually you need 4 of these passive boxes to match up with a pair of 302 subs with loaded with 2 x 12’s.
http://www.gbaudio.co.uk/data/302.htm
And if you didnt have the controller - everything would sound like total shit, that tells you something right there 
Anyway, there are better ways of spending $2.5k on active PA speakers - as I have previously mentioned. 
Get a Real Time Analyzer app on your phone. They’ll tell you quickly which frequencies are peaking.
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That’s a cool tip, thanks…
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