I'm putting together a solo act consisting of sequences played thru a Roland Fantom X6 while I play guitar and sing. The music is in the Irish Rock category, mostly things by the Shane MacGowan when he was with the Pogues and some more recent stuff since he's been with the Popes.

I played this same music with a 4- to 5-piece band in the Seattle area for 7 years and it went over great in the Irish bars where we mostly played. I'm very familiar with the music so I'm creating all my own sequences so it sounds the way I hear it.

I had my first outing with the act back on May 5th at the Celtic Bayou in Redmond, WA, even tho' I've only got an hour's worth of music at this point. The folks there remembered me from the Dark Molly band days and let me come in to try out the act. I played thru a Mackie SRM450 system, the same one I've had for years, and it sounded pretty good. However, it was impossible to set the sound myself and my dutiful wife, who did sound for the band for years, had to monitor the sound from the front and make adjustments. It's difficult getting sequences to be a consistent volume so frequent master-volume tweaking is necessary. The low point of the gig was realizing that I couldn't handle the sound by myself.

I told my wife what I'd heard about the PAS and a couple of weeks later she surprised me by buying me a single bass module system for our anniversary! (Married the right one there, eh? Of course, I reciprocated with diamonds. It was the only thing I could do -- she really raised the ante on anniversary gifts..Dang)

I set the system up in the living room and it blew me away. It's perfect for my needs and sounds incredible. I set up another hour gig at the Celtic Bayou again for June 9th to try it out. I'll let you know how it goes. Very impressive product, folks. I'm very excited about having total control over the sound. Thanks!

- Jim Bailey, May 28, 2005 -

full thread here

hey jim,

just wondering, is the type of music that your doing consist of fairly heavy guitars, or have you use the system over a fairly heavy rock wall of sound??? just need to know before i own. thanx marty