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Tubes, SS Monsters, and fEarfuls

#141
I return from our underground brethren in the Greenboy forums, and I got my answer.

Cab is absolutely fine. To quote the Spirit of the West, I came a long way to find something that wasn't out here. But I'm glad I did it. Little better understanding of how everything fits together, little less fear. I think that's pretty much why we're all here on TB/earth. I kind of sheepishly feel like I wasted the time of my fellow forumites and the people locally who helped me run the tests, but it's still good to have the matter settled.

Just an amp/taste thing, and there's already plenty of threads on that. Given that, I'm surprised I wasn't able to achieve success with the EQ, HPF and Markbass but it's a fundamentally tricky thing to work on in a gig setting. Based on the problems I was having ie too boomy/overpowering in FOH, wimpy-sounding on-stage, cutting bass and boosting low mids/mids sounds like the ticket, and that's what I did, but then it just sounded middy and lacking in bottom end.

The one damned gig I got to do with the fearful and my CTM300 (all-tube head) before it was benched and factory recalled sounded pretty good, so maybe the Orange AD200 I have coming will really make it come alive as well; transformer highpassing and tube excitation and that sort of thing? We'll see.

Maybe it'll get sold, maybe I'll learn to use it properly, either way the cabs are in proper phase, in properly built boxes, and all the drivers are functioning normally. It was actually really cool running a sine wave sweep through the fearful and then through the Genz benz 610 I've replaced it with in the interim, very different sounds.

If anyone can suggest what I'm still doing wrong tone-wise (see the post #113 for full details), I'd love to hear it, otherwise I'll just slowly experiment at my own pace and see where I get to. Thank you all!
 
#142
I finally figured out how to effectively utilize every watt of my vintage Model T with my fearful 66 and there was a lot of usable volume. Nothing beat my newly acquired sunn PB 10 pre with my relatively low (200w) wattage sunn concert slave. It killed the also awesome sounding and LOUD Verellen Meatsmoke/crown 1000xls setup that I was also using.
 
#143
That said, I share the fearful frustration. I got the cab working perfectly after some consultation and tech help from the forums and original builder. Bottom line is that there's many situations where these cabs won't work out if you aren't technically savvy enough to "tune" the thing during line check or the ten minutes allotted for setting up.

When the formula works though? Stand back.

The orange head is a great tube matchup with my 66. That's what my guitarist uses. I had the opportunity to try it out. It was a good match.
 
#144
Thanks for the input BlkHeli; you hit the nail on the head about the having 10 minutes to soundcheck, tune, check your pedals, EQ the room, do it all. Sometimes it's enough, and sometimes it isn't, and when you can't really afford to be making a lot of noise beforehand while other people walk the room for you and you get a nice compromise between stage sound and FOH sound. Like you said, very doable if you account for it, not so much if you don't.

Although that leads me on to a good question; how are most people using their fearfuls mix-wise? Is it in addition to a PA, or is it doing it all, and do you use foldback?

We don't run bass in PA, and towards the end of using the fearful I was running bass in fold, but I really prefer not to if I can avoid it. Can you run a fearful effectively without fold?
 
#146
Here in Nashville, lots of local gigs are very quick, set up and play affairs. No soundchecks and 5-10 minutes tops to dial in your sound. I run FEARLESS cabs, which are a bit different than fEARfuls, but similar idea, and once I learned a couple general eq rules, I've been able to jump in and out of several venues a day with no issues and get the sound I like...I think it's just a matter of settling in with what your gear does. Or maybe the cab just isn't for you :)
 
#149
Wolffgang said:
Although that leads me on to a good question; how are most people using their fearfuls mix-wise? Is it in addition to a PA, or is it doing it all, and do you use foldback?

We don't run bass in PA, and towards the end of using the fearful I was running bass in fold, but I really prefer not to if I can avoid it. Can you run a fearful effectively without fold?
Click to expand...

Time to put my ignorance on display. What is "foldback"?
 
#152
Wolffgang said:
Although that leads me on to a good question; how are most people using their fearfuls mix-wise? Is it in addition to a PA, or is it doing it all, and do you use foldback?
Click to expand...
I don't work at ear bleed volume levels and very seldom on wide, spread out stages.

I'm always connected to the PA these days, but that channel usually isn't up much, if any. Other than some larger rooms and/or outdoors, it's just there in case I don't turn up enough during solos.

I don't like having my bass in the monitors. I "self mix", so (even if the monitors can handle bass frequencies) the louder the monitors are, the more I'll turn down at the amp/instrument.
 
#153
It really depends upon the night. Lately we've picked up a number of shows that are 'smaller', in which case my rig is "FOH" along with it being a monitor. Like last Saturday. My regular bass amp (Monique+IPR power amp) got re-purposed to drive front end and monitors with 15's on stands for front end then 3x 12" monitors for the band. Vocals and some drums in the PA, and all instruments' amps filling the room which was about 200 feet deep by about 60 feet wide. I ran my LMII (backup head) for my rig.

Many gigs I'm in the PA but not in the monitors since soundpeople tend to not want to load bass in many monitors. For big theaters and festivals where there is decent hardy monitor support, I'm not adverse to using it, but its usually along with my rig pushing volume too.

In other news, I'm slowly stockpiling some cash to get another IPR and a cheap yet decent compact mixer so I don't have to downgrade my rig to make things work in the house.
 

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