djgorey

Also sampling Madonna, but Papa Don't Preach this time, was Progress ft Boy Wonder and Everybody

And I'm selling a set - have a look in the "For Sale" section.

tongue out icon

That's what I've been saying!! That it's important to set up the correct gain structure!

Very good points - once you go down the passive route, you do have to consider the ancillary costs - crossover, extra amp etc but, IMO, passive will beat active on sound quality any day of the week. I think it's about what you want from your sound system. If you need to get some additional bottom end at cheap price, then I would look around at Thomann and places like that. If you want to improve the overall sound quality of the system and really understand how your PA works, the self-build is the way to go. With some exceptions, if you buy cheap, it sounds cheap. Building your

I agree with daryll except I would go with the speakerplans plans. If you have the skill to build a speaker (I don't!), then I would go for it. The plans on speakerplans.com are by Rog Mogale, founder of Void Acoustics. The speakers on there are far far better than Soundlab or Skytec or just about anything else mentioned on this site. You'll learn a huge amount about PA generally too by joining the forum. Two things though: have a look through the plans and look at the freq. Response graphs to work out what speaker you want - if you go hornloaded, you'll probably need four at least

No you can't! In a specific signal going to an amp, all that is not music is unwanted noise (although some music just sounds like noise to me!). It's not that you have to worry about loud hissing noise drowning out the music (if you have that you do need to worry!); setting the gain structure is about getting the best possible signal out of the equipment you have and maximising amount of music that gets from the CD player to the speakers.

I haven't used one of those before, but if you want to know want current your rig is drawing, then that would seem to do the job. If had one, I would put a sine wave through my amp and see what current that drew. You might find that it is less than expected (particularly when you take into account efficiency of the amp).

+1 - My Martins are switch-mode. Groovy website if you're not too confident about manipulating the two equations of P=IV and V=IR.

Also, one other bit to mention is about the power-on surge. I know most of you wouldn't, but don't plug everything in to a trailing socket and then turn it on at the wall. The surge for everything grabbing current at once will most likely blow the fuse even if under normal running conditions you're nice and safe. For this reason, if there is a power-cut in the venue or you have set-off one of the annoying sound level meters, turn your amps off as soon as so that once the power comes back on you don't blow everything. I've only got (at the moment tongue out icon ) 4.8kw of amps, bu

As you said, there are few mixers where the noise is audible, but the point about setting up the gain structure is that you minimise the amount of noise so you get the best sound quality and the best efficiency from your equipment. Whether or not you can hear it, the noise is there (I can't hear 18kHz, but it's there!). By having incorrect gain structure on your mixer, by the time the signal gets to the amp, the amp is amplifying "noise" rather than music, so you are, effectively, wasting the power of your amp. If you imagine that a good signal has, for example, 80% music and 20%

One thing to note is that with music, you won't get your amp drawing 7A for any amount of time. The only way to get it doing this is to put a sine wave through it. You can generally plug in about 8kw worth of amps into a single 13A socket. Apart from the fuse blowing part, it is always sensible to keep your lights (and definitely smoke machines) and PA on separate sockets (separate rings would be even better) so that you minimise the noise generated by the switiching on/off of the lights from interfering with your PA

This is from the Employment Agencies Act 1973 (as amended) and can be found on the government's website It is clear that paragraph (2) isn't applicable at all as the services a DJ provides is not "for the purpose of finding wokers employment with employers or of supplying employers with workers for employment by them" I would argue that DJs are not "employment businesses" either as we are not in the business of "supplying persons in [our employment] to act for..." Yes, if we have 2 or 3 functions, then we put in another DJ, but the important point is that that is as a consequenc

After changing over to Mackie, my business partner has decided to sell off his Carlsbro rig. For sale we have the following: 1 pair of Carlsbro Gamma Bass Bins (these). They are fitted with 8 Ohm 600w Eminence drivers. One has blown, however, I can supply and fit a new driver at cost if required. 2 pairs (yes, 4 speakers in total!) of Carlsbro Gamma 12" tops. (these). Rated at 300w each RMS 2 x Carlsbro Powerline 2000 Amps (this) As you can see, Carlsbro rate this at 1000w per side at 4 Ohms A big box full of speakon-speakon leads. All this for £700 or may split

This way your amps will last forever (probably), the sound will be as good as the system can make it and, even better, you can chuck a hell of a lot at your speakers because the signal is clean. I'm paranoid too - red means "STOP"!

My "+1" was agreeing with D.X.'s post. D.X.s post was all about setting up the correct "gain structure" for the best signal/noise ratio throughout the signal chain. You want the best signal/noise ratio in order to get the best sound. If, for instance, the input signal from your CD (Rumours by Fleetwood Mac on CD, for instance, is recorded a lot lower than "Tango in the Night") is too low and you do not adjust the input gain, there will be a lot of noise being sent to the mixer. When you up the mixer level, you up the amount of noise and this then goes to the amp. Its the same

+1

Whilst not strictly being one gig, I had one day where I did the following: 11-2 - Lunchtime gig in a hotel 2.30 - 5.00 kids christmas party 6 - 1.00am - evening christmas party 1.30 - 5.00am - more christmas "after-party" chill-out gig

That sounds wrong to me. After all, the Hotel is taking the booking and passing it to you - surely the hotel is not considered an "employment business" or "employment agent". I would have thought that it is a pure contractor/sub-contractor relationship. I would suggest that any dj you use is a pure sub-contractor. If s/he doesn't show up, the hotel can sue you for not providing the service and you can sue the dj

Definitely! Although, feedback can be a problem with them behind you and, of course, you risk more hearing damage, but that's why if you see me at a gig, I spend the first hour of a gig running round the front of the speakers to listen to what they sound like.

I love 'em - Played Personal Jesus once or twice and "Master & Servant" quite a few times at weddings and 80s nights. However, I've also played KMFDM as well!

Right! That makes it a lot easier to advise! Yes, you do it the same way I said before. Flip the headphone dial thingy over to PFL and use the gain on the channel to make sure that the input level is peaking at 0dB and then, during playing, flip it back to output and make sure that it peaks at 0dB, then set your amp level to get the volume you need. I've heard that the newer Pioneers aren't all that. The mixer I want is the Formula Sound FF6000, but, like you, I think I would have to convince the better half that it was for "us"!

Cool - so now you've got it peaking at 0dB on both input and out-put? You never did say what mixer it was! I've got a Citronic 10:4 and that's how I set up my mixer. It's also how it is explained in the manual. The benefit of setting up the input level properly when cuing the track is that a) you know that it should be the same volume as the track that's fading out with the fader in the same position so you don't get any nasty surprises and b) it means that you can trust the out-put meter in terms of volume. This in turn means that you don't keep on turning it up and up as your ears g

Yes you are! The "PFL" (stands for Pre-Fade Listen) reading that you refer to is the input level of the signal coming from the CD or laptop that you have. This and the output reading are two separate things to be considered totally independently of each other. It's all about (as was mentioned earlier) setting up the correct gain structure so you get the best signal/noise ratio possible. First of all, with your faders all the way down (channel and master) play a track with the meters showing the input level. This should be peaking at 0dB so if it is showing red you need to reduce t

I don't know much about Celestion, but, as mentioned before, have seen it on a lot of band stuff (mainly guitar amps). The only thing I would say is that I wouldn't buy any speakers without a published efficiency. The power handling doesn't tell you anything unless you know the efficiency of the speakers. I've got one pair of speakers that has a 300w power handling and one pair that has a 400w power handling and the 300w ones have a higher max SPL than the 400w ones.