Before Christmas of the past year our band acquired 4 L1’s and 6 B1’s with the intention of replacing our standard 3-tier amplification system. We’re not spring chickens anymore, and hauling all those heavy cabinets around was getting tiresome.

We’re a 6-piece pop/rock/variety band. We play entirely covers – from Elvis, the Monkees, James Brown, and Janis Joplin, to Steely Dan, Sheryl Crow, and Dwight Yoakum. We do a mix of club gigs, generally in 50-200 seat venues, and private parties. At any time, there are 6 instrumentalists – electronic drums, bass, 2 guitars, keys/guitar, percussion, and 5 open mics, up to 4 of which are used at any one time.

After some experimentation, everyone is going direct to the PAS system. The guitars are using emulators (Yamaha DG Stomps and SansAmp preamps). Keys, bass, and drums go direct. Mics are varied – Shure SM57, SM58, and Beta 58, EV N/D757, and an Audio Technica. The Shures are the most used.

When real estate allows, we use all 4 systems, route everything to the PAS systems, and go for it. In some environments, we supplement with house systems or add-on equipment (vocals fed to a powered head and standard PA speakers).

We’ve been very happy with the PAS stuff, but have learned some limitations and workarounds. We’d like to share them here with everyone.

1) We realize that the PAS stuff isn’t designed for our application. That said, they do quite well in most situations. They are NOT particularly good at brute force applications – i.e. when you’re trying to overwhelm crowd noise in a busy restaurant/club setting. You just can’t get them loud enough without causing undue feedback on the typically small stages you’re afforded in those environments. There’s plenty of oomph left, but you just can’t use it.

2) The “cave stage” problem requires a great deal of thought. You have the standard real estate issues – how do you cram all of your people and all of the space-eating PAS gear into some hole in a wall? How do you avoid feedback with all of the proximity issues? How do you get the SPL up to deal with reaching your audience and being heard above table chatter? And, how do you contend with the “beaming” effect and reflections caused by putting the PAS units back in the “cave”? Non-trivial, I tell you. We’ve worked considerably at this one because one of our frequent venues is of this caliber. Finally, we’ve arrived at a configuration we like and that works well. Our solution: put the PAS systems dealing with bass and drums in the center back. Turn them down and crank the high-end EQ. The cave accents the lows; you don’t need as much as normal, and they just get muddy. Put the lead vocal and lead instrument systems as far forward, stage left and right, as you can stand. Turn them about 15 degrees inward, so they spray the stage as much as possible. You’re sacrificing the audience on the extreme wings close to the stage – but at the advantage of everyone else.

3) At high input levels, the PAS systems compress everything from all inputs. Because of the high impulses of electronic drums, it doesn’t pay to put lead instruments in the same unit. We’ve tried – in an environment where a house PA was available – putting just the instruments into two of the PAS systems. Lead guitar + drums + keys is a no-no. Drums+keys is ok.

4) If we’re fortunate enough to be on a stage with enough square footage to handle a band our size and 4 systems, the recommended configuration works fine. Put them 7 or 8 feet behind and slightly offset from the associated players, cant the outer systems in toward the middle a smidge, and crank to acceptable room volume. Works great. Unfortunately, stage designers are miserly folks. Rarely do we see stages with that kind of room (for us, that means a stage about 25 feet wide by 15 feet deep with no side walls).

5) Our most recent challenge has involved a 200-seat, extremely noisy restaurant/club with a questionable house PA system (FOH + monitors). Weekend 1: we used our stock 4 systems and tried line-out feeds of the vocals into the house system. Lots of issues with gain staging – the PAS line outs are HOT. We sorta got that one to work, after a lot of hair-pulling. Weekend 2: we’ve gone to 2 PAS systems, instruments-only (see above compression issues), and vocals to the house. Yuck. 2nd night: We added a PAS tower, put the guitars into it, and fed an aux from the house board into a tower to put some vocals on stage (supplementing the crappy monitors and providing some FOH support to the near audience). More better. It solved the compression issue for the guitars, spread the input load over more systems and air-movers, gave us better monitoring, took some load off the crappy house system, and provided some better vocal coverage to the front-row audience. Why not avoid the house system and just go with our PAS stuff? Real estate: dinky little stage. Loud, loud audience. The combination means we can’t get loud enough to contend with the audience noise without causing lots of feedback. (This isn’t a listening environment – this is an intentionally rowdy eating/party environment where the music is almost an afterthought.)

6) The PAS stuff is light. Our petite female singer can haul in the heaviest piece. But, you have to make about 3X as many trips to the transport vehicles as with a standard rig. The good news is that we generally require only 2 transport vehicles, for people AND gear, as opposed to 4 for the old stuff.

7) Player expectations and on-stage SPL. Longtime players are used to a certain SPL on stage from their instruments. Because of the physics involved with the Bose stuff, you don’t have to be as loud onstage to deliver the same SPL to the audience as in the past. But habits die hard. We have to continually remind ourselves to watch the stage volume; we don’t have to be as loud as we think we do. Luckily, in our environment, everything has a volume knob – even the drums.

8) Mics need switches again. Years ago, manufacturers pretty much stopped making mics with switches because no one used them, and they were a cost item that could be eliminated. With the PAS stuff at high SPL’s, every open mic is a potential feedback path. We’re hunting for a stompbox solution (I may have to build one cuz I haven’t found anything yet that meets our needs; the ProCo Cough Drop is close, but only momentary). On tight stages, we need to kill everything we can that isn’t being used. Sometimes, if a head isn’t in front of a mic, it is a feedback incident waiting to happen. Going to headsets would probably fix some of this, and improve the real estate situation. We’re looking into that, too.

9) You don’t have a single soundman. Now, everyone has a knob. This requires discipline among the players. You can’t have someone unilaterally controlling his volume, because pretty soon you’ll have everyone tweaking every knob available and your balance will get all out of whack. Set it, and leave it alone. It’s best if you have a trusted set of ears to get out in the audience and recommend needed changes, e.g. the guitar is too loud, crank Sally’s vocals a little, etc. It’s even better if a band member can do this each set.

10) Setup/teardown. First, leave the home plates in the bags. Unzip and fold the cover flap beneath the bag and set the unit in place. Also, remove the control panel cover – it’s gonna break off anyway. Second, wire the mics and feeds and B1 cables and power and remote control cable BEFORE putting in the towers. It is hugely easier, particularly on crowded stages. Third, install the towers and power up. Fourth, fire up your instruments and soundcheck. Fifth, do the gig. Sixth, tear down the instruments and get them offstage. Seventh, retrieve the B1 and tower bags and remove the B1's and L1's from the stage. Eighth, disconnect all the cables from the home plates, and put the remotes and cables in the pouch on the carry bag. Zip up the bags. Ninth, wrap and bag all the rest of the sundry cables on stage. Tenth, haul the stuff out, do the Idiot Check, and go home. Setup takes us about 45 minutes, not counting tuning and soundcheck. Teardown takes us about 30. This is less than half the time it took with conventional systems.

Hope this is helpful to everyone...

Dennis
Bigfoot Yancey
central TX (www.bigfootyancey.com)

Dennis

This is a great write-up that shows a lot of experience, professionalism, creativity and
mileage on our system.

I'm confident that many users will benefit from the "experimental" work that you've already done and written about.

Playing in a 10-piece band, I share your pain about stage real estate. There never seems to be enough space.

Thanks again for a thoughtful and balanced report. There is nothing like real-world feedback.

Hilmar

Dennis

This was a really grounded and practical post. Thanks so much for your effort. I have one comment for you, another question:

1. Caves: Eww. From what I have learned, this is not uncommon in Texas. We have one here in Framingham and it's not fun. The cave defeats its own purpose (Jake LaMotta quote).

2. I found that once you get used to hearing everyone and get it into your playing head that you are hearing a much better version of the mix, things change. I found that changing arrangements makes more sense when everyone hears it. Like for instance, don't step on the vocals and not-playing as an art that never stops giving. Have you had any experiences like this in your band? I know that playing in monitor bubbles and depending on the mix to be "made right" out front breeds bad playing habits. And, as we all know, habits are hard to break, especially ones that have been started ever since we all first started playing amplified.

Beyond this, thanks for your thoughts. Have fun, go play some music.

Cliff:

I don't know that Caves are a Texas phenomenon, but they sure do seem to be common here, particularly in older buildings. The famous Gruene Hall, located about 20 miles from me, has one. And, they are a major league pain in the butt as regards PAS setup (I reference other readers to the "Cave Stages" thread I started months ago on this Board.) The last time we played our primary Cave stage venue, we sounded better and heard each other better than ever before. It was almost as good as in one of the environments where we could setup the PAS stuff as designed.

Caves should not be treated lightly by anyone with a PAS-based system. Think before you setup.

And, yes, hearing each other better allows for better playing. Not-playing-as-an-art is a skill that some of our guys have yet to master, but the PAS certainly is a learning aid. Some more of that will come with time (I hope). We've started a $1 per clam fine... you can hear the clams better now! Ooops. Better practice up some.

BTW, our drummer is working up in Framingham these days and commuting back for the weekends. Maybe I can get him to drop in on a weekday gig and learn from you guys...

Neutrik makes a switch on an XLR that works pretty well. You could wire those up to your cables. http://www.neutrik.com/content/Products/products.asp?level1id=203_11 & click on FXS.

This is a great post. Especially the practical information about things such as leaving the base in it's case. Duh! This forum helps legitimize the product because people can speak freely about issues.

proco makes a cough drop that has an on/off switch, too. do a search on sweetwater.com that's where i got mine and it works great.

Hi Dennis - I've certainly experienced just about every one of your observations firsthand. I've been lucky enough to avoid the cave stage experience so far, but I can relate to all the others. We've been re-learning to play through this system, and one by one seem to be tackling these obstacles.

One of the things we've done is invest in on/off switches for all of the 6 vocals mics on stage. We bought the Peavey mic cables with the on / off switch built in. Once you get in the habit of remembering to turn it off and on, it works great.

Here's a link

quote:

Originally posted by Tom Munch:
Neutrik makes a switch on an XLR that works pretty well. You could wire those up to your cables. http://www.neutrik.com/content/Products/products.asp?level1id=203_11 & click on FXS.

==================
Tom, where can you buy those?

Hi Dennis,

I remember you posts about cave stages, and the collective dismay about what to do. Thanks for your wonderful report.

Thanks too for the encapsulation of all those (and other experiences). We too have struggled with the mic muting question. It takes only a momentary lapse of presence of mind to wander from an open mic. I have thought about trying to find a switch mechanism, but it but if a performer is running straight into Channel 1 or 2, why not just turn down the Remote for the appropriate channel? Okay, maybe it's easier to flip a switch than to turn a knob, I don't know.

Maybe a large dead-man switch that is on when pressure is applied and off when there isn't. Put it directly behind the mic stand so that when someone is in the correct position, the microphone is on.

Maybe somebody can come up with a proximity sensor system for microphones. (infrared like the bumbers of cars or whatever magic they use for theremins?)

I wish that the places we play gave us a little more room. 5-6 feet of stage width per player would be nice. I find a minimum of 8 feet of stage depth, with another 2 feet per player seems to work up to a maximum of say 16 feet.

Mind you, those of us who "pre-field" the environments might have to be more aware of this. When we do benefits, we are often asked "how much space do you need", and "do you need a stage". In those cases, we just need to ask. For me, doing without a stage is preferable to a having to use a hollow one, but some padding under the B1s helps to tame those.

At least we regain the space that used to be occupied by the monitors, and the stands for the Front of House speakers.

We also leave the Powerstands in the cases. They don't get warm. They also don't get scratched up and should you need to do little "nudge" adjustments, it's easier. I also find that it takes much less stage real-estate to setup and teardown that way.

Thanks Dennis!

edit - clarified language about hollow stages
"Remember - you can't put too much water in a nuclear reactor"
- Ed Asner on Saturday Night Live 1984

This message has been edited. Last edited by: ST,

quote:

Maybe somebody can come up with a proximity sensor system for microphones. (infrared like the bumbers of cars or whatever magic they use for theremins?)

Infra-red "human" detector, mutes the mic when there isn't a warm body in front of it.

http://www.optogate.com/

Never tried it, never read any reviews.

acappella,

Thanks.

I'm going to send them an email. I'll start a new "discussion" in the technical section if I hear anything interesting.

quote:

Originally posted by Kenny Carter:

quote:

Originally posted by Tom Munch:
Neutrik makes a switch on an XLR that works pretty well. You could wire those up to your cables. http://www.neutrik.com/content/Products/products.asp?level1id=203_11 & click on FXS.

==================
Tom, where can you buy those?

I bought mine at a Performance Audio in Salt Lake 800 771-8330 or 801-466-3196. http://www.performanceaudio.com/ A quick search on Google shows http://www.mouser.com/index.cfm?handler=displayproduct&lstdispproductid=309065&e_categoryid=44&e_pcodeid=56801 from Mouser & http://www.delsound.com.au/connectors%20neutrik%202%2001.htm from DelSound.

Maybe we could get some mic stands outfitted with XLR in and out on a sensor like we see on urinals and hand dryers in public restrooms. Step up to the mic and it's on, step away and it's off.

The optogate PB-05 is 300 USA dollars.The musicans that use them include Neil Young,Avril Lavigne & Metallica as per their website.

Well obviously I didn't click on the optogate link until after making the above post. $300. seems a little steep, but this could be a great problem solver. Anyone with firsthand experience please respond.

Oldghm

$300!.... Think I'll stick to my $20 mic cable, and old school manual labor (turn it off, turn it on) version.

Although, as a guitarist and being quite accustomed to tap dancing on stomp boxes all my life, the "footswitch" ProCo idea is right up my alley. I checked their website, and it says there are a bunch of new CoughDrops coming soon. One in particular - the Power Mute - is selectable between momentary switching and latching on/off, with green (on) and red (off) led's...sounds very cool. I just hope it's in the same under $50 price range as the original cough drop.

Here's a link

IT sure is alot of money.But would be real cool to have one.The next time i pee in a infra red high tech urinal i will probably start laughing to myself knowing how much that urinal costs which in turn will make everyone else run out of the bathroom.......that could be embarrassing...

I've tried to order an Optogate. No luck. Has anyone else purchased one?

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Kyle-at-Bose,

Hey Kyle,I got a email from the USA contact from the optogate website.You can check into it and see if it pans out.Here is the info i got.
(The price for a PB-05 is $300.00 USD & S&H and available from us.
Regards,
Jerry Gora
Inventor
Patent Holder
Sunnybrook Electronics
email...gekster@comcast.net
(I have done a internet search on optogate and not much info to be found.Kind of strange since this seems like a pretty cool product)