Please forgive me if this redundant or even in the wrong subforum. But does anyone have any experience playing an 18v bass with the Behringer P16s ? If so, please let me know how well this is working or not working. My music director is pushing to get these for our church. I haven't had any experience with these personal mixers and my MTD is 18v. So, I need to know before I sign off on purchasing this system. Thanks!
I'm trying to look it up for you, but I'm a bit confused by what you're asking. I see a P16M, a P16I and a P16D, but none of them actually connect to any bass of any kind at all. I think you're talking about the P16M because you said personal mixer. That one needs at least two intermediary devices between your bass and the personal mixer. So if the mixer you're using (the one that sends the signal to the interface which then sends the data to the P16M) is compatible it shouldn't matter. The electrical signal from your bass doesn't ever touch the P16M unit. It has to be digitized first.
Wow! I can see how messed up my question is now, LOL! But I think you nailed it. My apologies, and thanks for helping. I'll explain it correctly now. 1) We have wedges and speakers as our monitors. But the stage noise has gotten ridiculous, especially coming from the Hammond B3's Leslie. So we are strongly considering buying the Behringer system which would include the P-16M's (just like you said) for me, the organist, the keyboard players, and drummer. 2) I believe he said the Behringer X32 would be the main mixer, and some other devices in between. But at the end we would get all the instrument tracks back to our individual P-16'Ms for us to personalize for what we want to hear through IEMs. 3) I know I have had clipping issues before with this bass, so I was just wondering if my hot signal will cause any clipping issues with all the A/D/A conversions in the Behringer setup? And thanks for your patience, because I'm really trying to learn if this would be good for me/us before I tell them to buy it.
I'm looking at the page for the x32 it seems like you shouldn't have any trouble with your setup due to the high voltage of your preamp. Worst case scenario you have to turn it down a bit to keep it from distorting. You can do this at the instrument at the mixer or both to decrease the levels to get a clean signal to the interface. Normal everyday mixing stuff. Really regardless of what mixer you end up with I don't think you'll have a problem. Mixers can generally handle much hotter signals than even an 18v preamp can put out.
Ok, I was told to keep the bass's preamp volume maxed (for best signal to FOH), and adjust your amplifier levels for what you want to hear out of your individual bass speaker. 1) was that wrong? 2) if it's right, will it not apply in this situation here?
You should do whatever your engineer tells you to do. They know best for your setup. They'll be able to work with the signal from your bass. I can't give you advice for how to work with your equipment. I can only tell you that it is compatible.
Thanks, you've been a tremendous help. I'm going to go ahead an sign off on them buying this system. I will be posting more as I gain experience with this setup.
Compatibility is not an issue. My church uses X32 with the P16Ms. If you're clipping at the board it would suggest the gain levels are not being set properly. I've been trying to educate our folks on the need to check gain levels every week. I run an active DI to the board and the other bass player runs a passive DI. I always have to remind them the the gain level wii be too high if the other guy played the prior week. Are you ditching the wedges and going in ears? Are you also going to the S16 digital snake? We have no amps on stage. All instruments/DI and mics feed into the S16, S16 feeds the X32 where we route the channels pre eq back to a box on stage that distributes the signal to each of the P16M where we have control of our own monitor mix. The P16M can be used with headphones (which is what we use) or to feed a monitor.
Yes, we are ditching the wedges, and going to the setup you mentioned with the digital snake. And thanks for that gain level tip. That might be something I'll have to educate our guys on too!