Eleven Rack Live Questions
 

Hello, I have a few questions and I've been looking all over for answers, so I joined hoping you guy's could help. I'm a new Eleven Rack user, I've only had it for 2 weeks. I really dig it and it sounds good enough to make me enjoy running direct live with out my normal Amp's and Pedal Board rig. At home, I'm plugging the 11R direct into some Event Reference Monitors and I really love the tones. Live I get to play in different rooms with different systems. The last two weekends I ran it direct with the left out going straight to the board. One system, a smaller one, sounded very much like it does in my Event's. But, this past weekend in a larger room with a much bigger setup, things didn't sound as good. I'm just using whatever monitor they have, until I get my hands on some in ears. I guess I should say, I'm using it in a P&W setting.

Is there certain settings I should be thinking about for running direct?
My Events are really flat eq wise, how should I handle the house eq?

Any 11R live advice would be great.

Thanks!!

Re: Eleven Rack Live Questions
 

If it sounded BAD there are two things I would make sure of right off the bat,
1) You were running Rig Output and
2) Make sure the board guy understands that the signal from the XLR's is Balanced Line Level and NOT mike level.

What I do now is run the balanced out (XLR to 1/4") to a direct box then to the board.

Re: Eleven Rack Live Questions
 

Let me add a #3. Make sure your Rig setting is MONO.

Without a doubt, once your sound heads for FOH, you have to rely on the person on the board. He may have to do things to your EQ to get everything in the mix, and frankly, you can't trust what you hear in the mains in the bigger rooms anyway. Now if you are sure your tone is wrong, take a minute and go chat with the sound guy... ask how he's got you EQ'd as an icebreaker, "So you know how to set your gear in that room in the future..." If you're in one of those volunteer sound guy situations, it may be eq'd like the week before <sigh>... Usually when I set up the 11R with someone new I'll ask them start with the EQ flat, then what they choose to do to it from there is probably out of my control anyway...

I do this too for the moment, mainly because it's dead simple to plug into the front ;) It's still helpful to ask the sound guy to start you with the mic trim down... then ask him if he needs more or less gain from you.

Re: Eleven Rack Live Questions
 

That's what I did to fix it, set the board eq flat it sounded, better but not 100%. Can you explain to me the difference from running XLR to 1/4 with a Direct Box makes?? Right now, I have only tried running XLR's out to the XLR In's on the house snake.

Also why Mono??

Thanks!!

Re: Eleven Rack Live Questions
 

The direct box "protects" your Eleven Rack from phantom power coming from the mixer. You also have the possibilty to pad the line output of Eleven Rack. Good thing as the soundguy might hook it into a mic input.
Soundwise... Shouldn´t be any.

From Eleven Rack manual..
Use caution when connecting the Main Outputs to devices (such as mixers), which provide 48V phantom power over the connection. We recommend that you make sure 48V phantom power is disabled on these devices before connecting your Eleven Rack.

Re: Eleven Rack Live Questions
 

Redhouse, do you have Cabs turned on? If not I suggest you read this thread http://duc.avid.com/showthread.php?t=316313
starting at post #8. Our fellow forum member Moff really helped me with this issue.

Re: Eleven Rack Live Questions
 

OK. Let me see if I understand this correctly...

1./ You setup your 11R patches using studio monitors for reference.

2./ You've played a couple of different venues with the 11R

3./ On the first gig, it sounded fine through a smallish PA

4/. On another gig, it sounded "not good" through a larger system. You tried a flat EQ on the console, which was better but not 100%.

5./ You made mention that you used "whatever monitor they had" at the second gig. You didn't say whether it was the monitor that sounded bad or the main PA...

So far so good?

Based on the above being true:

Some of the input from other members is good advice. You want your rigs to be setup in mono (because you're only sending one line to the board), you want the output set to "rig output" to get all of the amp cab and mic simulations (by default, the XLR outs are always "Rig Out" unless you choose "Rig Out No Cab" for even one of the other 1/4" outs, which will defeat cab and mic sims globally, but that's another story :-)).

Here are my thoughts:

First, if it's just the monitor that sounded bad, it could just be a terrible monitor or bad monitor EQ (if there even IS one). I can't tell you how many clubs I've played with crappy monitors - cheap boxes with everybody in one mix, no overall EQ, etc. Was it blown? That happens a lot too.

But here's more to think about:

If you've set up your 11R to sound great through your monitors (which should be flat response or close to it), in THEORY, it should sound great through a properly EQed PA with its channel strip set flat. If you made it sound great in a small monitor, but it DOESN'T sound good when you get to a larger system, perhaps you "hyped" something when building your patch, to compensate for some sonic weakness in your small monitors.

I'm not picking on your monitors by saying that. Studio monitors are built to be clear and precise so you can hear everything in your mix, both good AND bad - they're not supposed to sound "nice" like home stereo speakers. For example, Yamaha NS10s were the industry standard near-field monitor for over 20 years, but they were notoriously nasty sounding. Very little bass, and sometimes harsh high end (you'll often see pics of them with tissue paper taped over the tweeter to take out some of the fizz). Sometimes when people try to build patches using monitors like that, they'll add WWAAAYYY too much bass to the patch, and roll off too much treble. Funny thing is, those patches might sound OK on a small portable PA, because it's likely to be deficient in the same frequencies. The real "warts" will be evident in a bigger, wider-response system.

The Fletcher-Munson curve is going to have some effect. Briefly and simply, the human ear perceives sound differently at low volume than at higher volume. At lower volumes, mids are more prominent, but then our ears' frequency response "flattens out" as the volume gets higher. That's why home stereos have a "loudness" button; it boosts lows and highs to compensate for listening at low volume. What that means to users of any modeller is that patches created at low volume will have more highs and more lows than necessary when played back louder. Best answer - always create your patches at or near performance volume.

The other possibility is that the problem lies with the larger PA or the guy who set it up or runs it. If the larger system wasn't EQed correctly for the room, it's going to sound bad, or at least "less than optimal". It may be that the room itself is sonically odd and sounds drastically different in different places, so they've had to find some "middle ground" in EQ so it sounds tolerable everywhere, but great nowhere. It could be that the club mostly caters to a pop/rap/hip hop crowd and is hyped for the dancefloor. Or maybe the soundman doesn't know how to correctly EQ a PA to a room - there are a LOT of hack soundmen out there.

Re: Eleven Rack Live Questions
 

I took the 1/4" outs into a Mesa SwitchTrack 395 stereo tube amp (eight Phillips NOS JAN 6L6WGB tubes, plus four Tungsram NOS 12AX7). Was outside and didn't really need to be miked, because each half of the Mesa puts out 95 watts and there were only a few hundred people. For a big setup, I would want the sound guy to mic the speakers, so the tone he was working with was what I was hearing. My experience with passive direct boxes is they suck the tone out of a guitar: never use them. Maybe an active one would be better.

Each half of the Mesa was plugged into a separate cabinet with a pair of 75-150 watt, 10 inch speakers. The Mesa amp is a "Simul-Class" amp with both Class A and Class A/B output. It could also drive a pair or quad of 4x12 speakers.

I have never played live without my own speakers, and would not be happy with my guitar coming out of a monitor mixed with singers and drums.

Re: Eleven Rack Live Questions
 

First, it's a mistake to think that your onstage sound is anything near what the soundman gets. In fact, it's quite the opposite. He NEVER gets what you hear onstage. You hear your cabinet; the sound guy gets what's being picked up by the mic he's put in front of it (which is never accurate, no matter how much it cost, and regardless of placement). So, he really doesn't get the sound of your amp, he gets the sound of your amp miced, which is sort of a "subset" of the frequencies your amp is producing. Then THAT signal gets further altered by the main EQ and the extended frequency response of the FOH rig - and that's before he's even EQed the channel strip. In short, in this scenario, the sound out front and onstage are nowhere near the same.

Some people have trouble wrapping their heads around this, but the 11R isn't supposed to sound like the amp in the room with you; it's supposed to sound like the amp miced up and heard through monitors (or a PA). And it does that in spectacular fashion. But that also fscks some people up, especially the ones expecting the "amp in the room" sound. You do get used to it, though. After 35 or more years of Fenders, Mesas, and Marshalls, with a plethora of different cabs and 12" speakers, the transition to FRFR didn't take long. I'd been using in-ears for almost 10 years, so it was a no-brainer. Now, I'm quite happy with either.

But I agree you never want to use the 11R in a single-mix, vocal-centric monitor system (BTW, drums shouldn't be in there either). That's why most of us use a dedicated monitor of some sort. The 11R sends a signal to the FOH and your FRFR\in-ears, that includes both a cabinet and mic simulation. If the 11R patches are setup correctly, and both the PA and FRFR are setup and EQed correctly for the room, with a decent soundman, you SHOULD be able to get the same killer guitar sound onstage and out front every night.

DI boxes: If your passive DI is "tone sucking", something's wrong with it or you have a crappy DI. :-) There's really nothing in there to cause "tone suck". It's a simple parallel 1/4" in & out connection, with a transformer to balance the signal and convert it to low Z and make that available at an XLR. Sure, there are some crappy transformers out there, but if it's built correctly, it will be transparent. There are plenty of high-quality passive DIs out there - Radial makes a good one. Active DIs offer a couple of advantages, but mostly, its more about function than audio quality. The DI I use happens to be an old Boss DI-1 active that I've had for 25+years, but I'd use a Radial in a heartbeat. As always, YMMV.

Re: Eleven Rack Live Questions
 

My monitors are Event Reference 8's, they are known for a very flat response and great sounding. After reading up on this, I'm thinking what happen was, a combo of me sending just the XLR outs to the house and the board was set for a mic input not line. I've read in a few places that the sounds I heard match that setup, harsher and more distorted. Both setups have JBL VRX speakers, the larger, two line arrays with two subs. The smaller, just a line array, the monitors are also JBL.

I get to play in the larger room again this weekend, I'll follow the advice given and see what happens.

One question, is the XLR Main out and the 1/4" ones underneath it, the same?? They do the same thing?

I haven't really tweaked any patches, I've been using the SL-100 stock and J45, FX In Front patch with just the bass backed down a bit.