What's In Your FOH Rack

[EastCoastThump]

Another vote for digital. Grabbed a Mackie DL1608 last year, so that one band I work with wouldn't have to haul the singer's flight-cased mixer+rack rig for small gigs. The digital board (w/ reverb, delay, eq, gates, and comps built in) simplified packing, load-in, set up, and sound check. It also reduced our stage footprint, as I can just set it on my racked bass amp.

For low-cost digital mixers w/ 16 mic pres, you've got Mackie, the Behringer X32 Rack, and the QSC Touchmix (not slated to ship until September). If you want to record your gigs, I'd consider the X32 rack or wait to have a look at the Touchmix.

 

[walterw]

One more. Do the six aux/mon sends have their own individual EQ as a component system would?

of course. they also typically let you keep the FOH processing out of them, so you can compress individual vocals out front and have that compression not mess up the monitor sends, unlike if you inserted comps into a channel on an analog board.

 

[jjk2007]

Our system is totally powered. JBL tops and subs and we all run powered wedges. The only thing in our 'rack' is our Line 6 Soundscape. Our singer runs his own vocal effects and we keep things pretty simple. Our PA breaks down into 5 pieces and we can set up and tear down pretty fast. I can't imagine going back in time when we had the racks of FX, power amps, EQ's etc. We complain enough with our current system when we're breaking down at 1am as it is. Lol
We rented a room and set up our system after we got it all together and came up with a usable setting that we could apply anywhere we play. We have made small changes at many of the different venues we play and then save them in the Soundscape. Works out pretty well and we get a consistent sound. Also a plus is being able to mix on the iPad to make changes. So hers a stock photo of what's in our rack.

 

[jjk2007]

Having trouble with the image so here is another pic of what we run.

 

[semiprohooker]

I love the presonus I currently run. Not sure where you are, but if west Texas is near you you're more than welcome to come check it out and I'll be happy to show you how to work everything.

 

[Big_Daws]

yeah digital consoles for the win i think...our band has a mackie DL1608....its amazing...we also just got the new allen & heath QU-16 console....poops over the presonus (sorry...let the hate begin and yes i have had experience with presonus)

 

[nervous]

As I start to do some homework on these digital devices they are indeed very impressive. But, as I fear with things like this, that do so many things with so few buttons and knobs there are things that are not as easily accessible as were used to. Especially live. One of the more obvious things I see mentioned with the Presonus is that the GEQ is that is access is buried deep in a menu somewhere and not so easy to get to.

Anyone deal with this and is the same for the monitor or aux GEQ access?

 

[4Mal]

Worry ? Not in the least. My""".2 and the other local ones have been solid. When I was analog, I wasn't redundant so if a piece failed, well that wasn't good. Happily for me,I never had that happen...

You can use the menu ... Which is actually pretty simple* ... But you won't. You'll use an ipad. Once you get a taste of that... Well it's audio crack... Ain't no goin' home afterwards.

*simple - page down a few times and the main left eq shows up. The channel encoders are now eq sliders. Pressing next takes you to the next eq which is the mains right. You can copy the left settings onto the right. Press next again and it's aux 1... I never use that anymore. The ipad is way, way too convenient...


...and don't sneeze at the channel presets. Pick say channel number 1 for a male vocal. Press the Channel 1 Select then Load, then up to the display and rotary encoder ... we used to call 'em knobs back in the day, but as the Borg would say, " my ass has been laminated ... That was the dyslexic Borg... Anyway crank the knob until male vocal 1 shows up, there are at least 2... Press Recall and the presets loaded and you can start to tweak. Got three male vocal micsto set up. Do the first, then use the copy function to load Channel 1's settings into the other two...
... And most of the presets actually work... And don't get me started on SMAART... That will take a bit longer but man is it worth it.

It took me a few weeks to get it with this board. I didn't slave to it. Just spent a couple of hours an evening for a couple of evenings a week. A month in I was rockin it. A seriously good investment for me.