[DavidParticipant]

As this is a one off gig, I would personally be wary of spending too much extra on subs. I have been playing in a function band that ranges from 5 piece to 7 piece, regularly playing indoors for up to 200 people. We have played for years without a sub and it has worked OK. It would obviously be better with a sub for the kick and keys (when we use them), but with 15s you may get away with it (we use QSC K10s as the mains). Yes, the musicians you are hiring may tell the difference but of the 110 guests at the party 109 of them will not even notice. At the end of the day, you need to put on a good show for them, not the musos you are hiring.

Do vocalists needs monitors, absolutely yes. Can they provide their own? You have the monitor mixes to handle this.

If you are going to mic the drum kit, you can get by with one on the kick and one good cardioid mic over the the top of the kit. We don’t mic the kit at all as we are good at keeping the volumes sensible to get a good balance. There is a great video on YouTube and part way in he shows the difference between a fully mic’d kit and just a sub and single overhead. You can hardly hear a difference. This is it https://youtu.be/qaZBKzgxl_Q and this bit is about 25 minutes in.

So can you get by with the Qu-Pac for a one off, yes would be my answer.

[DavidParticipant]

Personally I think the answer is no, but someone with more knowledge may know better.

The only way I can see it is to use 2 separate auxes panned left and panned right but that would be a real nightmare to keep the 2 in sync together on the faders.

[DavidParticipant]

If you host your images on a hosting site such as Photobucket or the like, then all you need to do is paste in the image tag link. It will be something like [IMG]www.photobucket\fredspictures\image1223.jpg[\IMG]. Hopefully that will work for you.

[DavidParticipant]

The monitors need to powered in someway either by being powered or run from an amp.

[DavidParticipant]

I use an iPad Air 2, which is fab. I have an original iPad 2 as a back up. I also use an Airport Express and it works a treat. I also use the 3.5mm stereo out of the Airport Express into the ST2 inputs on the QU16 and I can then stream music from the iPad to the QU16. That is a real bonus for me 🙂

[DavidParticipant]

I use a set of magnetic tags from here https://store.mixperience.net

He is due to release some new ones with rounded corners very soon

[DavidParticipant]

Here is an update.

We did a marquee gig on Saturday but we didn’t have time to do any A/B checks with the ‘Vocal Boost’ but I did turn it off and it still sounded good to my ears.

Second, we were working with a DJ friend of ours who just happened to have a QSC KW181 sub with him, which he uses with a pair of QSC K12s. He allowed us to link one of our K10s in to the sub and we mic’d the bass drum. Wow, just wow! What a difference. Our friend, as well as being a DJ, also plays piano in a band, so was interested in the result. Whilst we were playing, he experimented by turning the sub off and on to hear the difference and he couldn’t stop telling us at the end what a huge difference it was and that we really, really, really, need to get a sub as the difference was that good!.

Whilst chatting with the DJ, I said that we just couldn’t get anything as big as the KW181 as we don’t have room in the cars, so we were thinking about the QSC KSub. “Oh” he says, “the school that I work at has one of those, you may be able to borrow it or hire it from them to try it out”. Result!!

I thought it might be a bit of an uphill struggle to get the rest of the band on board with the idea of a sub, but now the search is on!

[DavidParticipant]

Cheers Dan. That sounds like a plan. As you say, being inexperienced, we may well have just fallen into the trap of thinking the manufacturer must know best instead of using our ears. Mind you, with the old Mackie mixer it may well have made positive difference. We saw a huge leap up when we moved from SRM450 to the QSC K10s and the ‘Vocal Boost’ may have given us a further perceived improvement in sound. The more I get into this though, the more I am learning to trust my ears more.

[DavidParticipant]

I thought it came in V1.90 or maybe I miss read what it meant. I am a new user after all!

[DavidParticipant]

It is the K sub that I had looked at from a size perspective, but even that may be too big as ll the cars are pretty full already. I need to win the lottery so I can afford a van as well as the car!

Dan – Why do you suggest not using the Vocal Boost switch?

[DavidParticipant]

Hi Dan

I totally agree with you. I am keeping things as simple as possible until I am more comfortable with the Qu. It is very easy to over complicate things and get to the point you can’t quickly get out of the mess you have made, especially when you are playing guitar and singing at the same time. I need to get a good sound at the start and leave it like that with only minor level changes.

Also, thanks for the heads up on the K series speakers. I wasn’t aware of the trick with the switching. I have the vocal boost switch on but not the sub one. I also wasn’t aware of the 6Khz thing either. Although I have been mixing the band for a long time I am new to actually learning how to do it properly, so this type is advice is invaluable, so again, thank you.

I agree that a sub is a must, but it is persuading the others. I have bought the Qu so I can’t afford to spend on a sub as well at the moment. The only thing we have to consider is transport as we all go in our own cars and space is limited so we can’t go too big or it won’t fit. Anyway, that will probably be the next thing to look at.

Cheers

David

[DavidParticipant]

Glad I wasn’t the only one. I just deleted the message. I think it may be possible for an Admin user to block the user and the user’s IP address.

[DavidParticipant]

Sorry for the thread resurrection, but just in case anyone looks again, I can thoroughly recommend Howard at Basesound.

I am in the same boat as the OP, in that I play guitar and run the sound for the band I play in. I have been doing this pretty much by trial and error and what I could find on YouTube and other online resources.

I have just been on the 2 day course and it was very informative and I learnt a lot. He initially teaches everything on an old analogue desk as it is easier to understand the routing etc and then moved on to demonstrate the same things on a Qu-24. It was this that made me take the plunge and buy a Qu-16 (which, hopefully, I will pick up tomorrow). I have then also booked myself a 1 to 1 session with him to delve into the Qu-16 in more depth.

[Author]

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