Hmmmm. I'll have to check out Mixxx. I know several people who are happy with S1. It's coded by people in Germany i believe, and is known to be stable and easy on the CPU. I reccomended it to a project studio guy down from my studio and he was up an running super quick, and essentially a begginner. I've used it a coupe times on a buddies MacBook and didn't have any issues jumping right in.

I've seen what looks like Adobe Audition on the screens randomly on pro level radio show interviews ect ect.

Reaper is always a good choice too.

One thing about magix software which is phenomenal, is its windows only.

I've experience audition, reaper, and PT, all on the same computer side by side, and audition and reaper ran far more smoothly, and allowed far more processing. So perhaps PT was more feature rich, or perhaps sloppily coded, or maybe both. But I was able to run more instances of the same pluggin on reaper and audition. That and just generally more smooth operation. I like PT software, very much, it's just meant for certain machines and uses by and large.

Midas boards are really cool man. Never used one yet.

kmetal, post: 452380, member: 37533 wrote: Midas boards are really cool man. Never used one yet.

I did use one this weekend.
If you are used to yamaha LS9 or M7CL, the midas and behringer 32 are a pain to work with. Less intuitive menus etc..
BUT they work as well and sound as good when you know them well.
I had to mix an interview in 15min with the midas while working all day on the M7CL and I was shocked. It took me to rewired my brain to make it work.. he he he
But it worked out fine at the end ;)

pcrecord, post: 452383, member: 46460 wrote: I did use one this weekend.
If you are used to yamaha LS9 or M7CL, the midas and behringer 32 are a pain to work with. Less intuitive menus etc..
BUT they work as well and sound as good when you know them well.
I had to mix an interview in 15min with the midas while working all day on the M7CL and I was shocked. It took me to rewired my brain to make it work.. he he he
But it worked out fine at the end ;)

Only worked on Yamaha's a couple times but absolutely love the sound of them. They give digital a good name!! You guys are lucky ducks, those are real consoles. Best sounding show I went to was Hubert Sumlin, late blues guitarist, at an old 1900's era theater, 1,000 person capacity. Just brilliant audio quality. They didn't have much in the rack either so the much of it was credit do the board, performances and acoustics.

The last two shows I went to, (2 different locations, 1000-seaters) the FOH was using Presonus SL's.
I thought both shows sounded great. No complaints at all.
The last show I played ( 700-800 seat venue) the FOH was using a Midas. I stepped out front during a sound check and thought it also sounded great.
Obviously, As important were the cabinet arrays and power that these places were using, but I've been out of touch with what's good for FOH fronts for more than a few years now.
I've mixed FOH a few times over the years - never with my own system but as a walk-in engineer - but I never really was a true FOH guy, (nor did I ever really want to be, either) so accordingly, I didnt keep up to date with what was the best gear. It was just never anything that ever really appealed to me. As far back as I can remember, I always preferred to be in the studio, or to be a live performer.
Dave Hawk (dvdhawk ) does quite a bit of FOH work and system installs, he's actually one of the few guys I personally know who can comfortably move back and forth between studio and live engineering. I'm pretty sure he has a couple different full systems. He'd have to confirm that, and what he uses..
He's also an expert at working with scissor lifts on in-house installs. LOL (private joke ;) )

I know quite a few guys who are as capable and comfortable on-stage as they are at the soundboard, either live or in the studio.

I could probably send out 3 pretty healthy club systems, or half a dozen small systems if I wanted to... but I usually don't want to. I do rentals from time to time, but it's mostly so I can go play virtually anywhere in any band configuration. It's all pretty scalable and streamlined for adapting quickly to the circumstances, but 100% ground-stacked. I don't have any interest in buying, lugging, or setting up the huge lifts needed for flying an array. I did have the opportunity to hear someone else using my exact JBL SRX speaker config (ground-stacked) with almost 40,000 watts of Crown iTech power once (about 3x that of my Crest amps) and it was stunning. Needless to say, that required an insane amount of electricity to do and my days of hauling around heavy 220 mains cable, all the pigtails, and AC distro are long behind me, but I still have all of it. I've got a couple digital SL mixers, basic analog Soundcraft or Mackie consoles, snakes, wireless mixing, up to 9 monitor mixes, virtual FX, racks full of hardware processing - whatever the job calls for. Nothing fancy, just the makings of a good club system for just about any venue. *some assembly required.

I got to see the Neal Morse Band (featuring Neal Morse of Spock's Beard, Transatlantic, Flying Colors & Mike Portnoy of Dream Theater, Winery Dogs, Flying Colors) in Pittsburgh a couple weeks ago at a good sized showcase club, and my buddy Bill Hubauer plays keys (and a bunch of other instruments) with NMB. Bill is another one of those guys from paragraph 1, and so is their FOH soundman Rich Mouser, who also operates the Mouse House studio in LA. The NMB is just wrapping up the third leg of a 2017 world-tour, and even though all of the venues they play have a serious FOH console as part of the in-house system, they tour with their own Midas Pro2 series. Using their own console means the FOH mix is very consistent, and all the IEM monitor mixes are perfect every night. The NMB music (video link) is true progressive rock with complex arrangements and intricate time signatures and people switching instruments, so I'm sure having one console through the entire tour makes Mr. Mouser's job much easier. Tons of talent if you like prog and get a chance to see them.

dvdhawk, post: 452432, member: 36047 wrote: I know quite a few guys who are as capable and comfortable on-stage as they are at the soundboard, either live or in the studio.

I could probably send out 3 pretty healthy club systems, or half a dozen small systems if I wanted to... but I usually don't want to. I do rentals from time to time, but it's mostly so I can go play virtually anywhere in any band configuration. It's all pretty scalable and streamlined for adapting quickly to the circumstances, but 100% ground-stacked. I don't have any interest in buying, lugging, or setting up the huge lifts needed for flying an array. I did have the opportunity to hear someone else using my exact JBL SRX speaker config (ground-stacked) with almost 40,000 watts of Crown iTech power once (about 3x that of my Crest amps) and it was stunning. Needless to say, that required an insane amount of electricity to do and my days of hauling around heavy 220 mains cable, all the pigtails, and AC distro are long behind me, but I still have all of it. I've got a couple digital SL mixers, basic analog Soundcraft or Mackie consoles, snakes, wireless mixing, up to 9 monitor mixes, virtual FX, racks full of hardware processing - whatever the job calls for. Nothing fancy, just the makings of a good club system for just about any venue. *some assembly required.

I got to see the Neal Morse Band (featuring Neal Morse of Spock's Beard, Transatlantic, Flying Colors & Mike Portnoy of Dream Theater, Winery Dogs, Flying Colors) in Pittsburgh a couple weeks ago at a good sized showcase club, and my buddy Bill Hubauer plays keys (and a bunch of other instruments) with NMB. Bill is another one of those guys from paragraph 1, and so is their FOH soundman Rich Mouser, who also operates the Mouse House studio in LA. The NMB is just wrapping up the third leg of a 2017 world-tour, and even though all of the venues they play have a serious FOH console as part of the in-house system, they tour with their own Midas Pro2 series. Using their own console means the FOH mix is very consistent, and all the IEM monitor mixes are perfect every night. The NMB music (video link) is true progressive rock with complex arrangements and intricate time signatures and people switching instruments, so I'm sure having one console through the entire tour makes Mr. Mouser's job much easier. Tons of talent if you like prog and get a chance to see them.

Ever use any of the floor standing line array stuff? Last live gig I did that's what the band had, maybe twice I used it, it was yorkville, and only a single array type speaker on top of a subwoofer, on each side.

My aching back liked it, and overall I thought it was decent. I still like the K12/15 series best as far as tops go. But I'm a hack live guy, don't own any live stuff, But I do enjoy mixing live sometimes, particularly these days where the band makes there own monitor/iem mix, on there smart devices. I favor the studio but enjoy both.

The rig I've been using the most lately is probably #3 or #4 on the pecking order size wise. It's a version of what you're talking about, kmetal . It uses a 72" tall x 4" x 4" Vertical Line Array with 20 x 3" neodymium drivers. They're incredibly good down to about 100Hz and actually have a noticeable rise centered at 200Hz that I have to compensate for. I'm told by the guy who builds them, up near Buffalo, that if you stack two of them up (12ft. high), those frequencies move down an octave and the rise is at 100Hz, and they're solid down to 50Hz. And just like the big multi-box phase-coherent flying line arrays, these don't lose as much SPL over distance compared to my conventional JBL speakers, so outdoors these things are awesome. These seem to lose about 3dB per doubling of distance, as opposed to -6dB with a typical speaker. Maybe Boswell can explain how line arrays beat the inverse square law of physics that applies to a single point sound source.

I have 2 different versions, and I liked the old version, but I am loving the new ones. The box is extruded aircraft-grade aluminum and the old version weighed 20 lbs., but they took a lot of watts to get those 20 little pistons pumping. The newer model uses smoother sounding and more efficient drivers, but they add 10lbs. to the overall weight. 30 pounds is still really light by my standards. Horizontal dispersion is 160˚ so if you can see the front of the box, you can hear it. Meanwhile the vertical dispersion is only 10˚ (5˚ up + 5˚ down), so you don't get a lot of sound wasted bouncing around the rafters. Again how they can limit a conical speaker from radiating upward is beyond my understanding. And to top it all off, it's actually difficult to make them feedback. You can point a loud SM58 right at them from 6" away and not get them to squeal. I install a lot of these in churches because of the feedback resistance, and the -3dB per doubling of distance, which means you don't have to abuse the people up front to get a good comfortable volume at the back of a long room. And since there's no compression driver, they don't have any of that blaring, harsh horn sound that usually makes you wince when you walk past a normal 2-way speaker.

I put those guys on top of a pair of Clair Bros. MD-18 subs. I usually prefer a 15" for a single-driver sub because 18s can get a little sloppy sounding, but the Clair cabinet design keeps the single JBL 18" tightly controlled. They would use these for drum-monitors and side or area-fills. It's all about the box design and there aren't many out there with more experience than Clair Brothers. They only weigh 75-80 lbs. and the casterboard latches to the front of the cabinet to protect them in transit. I mounted 2 extra deep 1.375" (35mm) spigots in the top of each sub to hold a speaker pole and a light pole.

The 12-space rack that usually goes with them has a PreSonus RM16 (and router) mounted in it for iPad mixing. I (usually) power that whole rig with 2 Crown XTI-2000s, one for the tops and one for the subs. The mixer and amps share a 20-amp Furman conditioner. Typically that system gets 2 x JBL MRX-512m wedges that are powered by a QSC GX-7, which is fed by a separate 20-amp conditioner, so I can split the FOH and monitors and backline out to 2 different circuits. And there's still an empty space in the rack!

Roll in a small case with cables, the amp/mixer rack, and the 2 x MD18 subs, stick a pole in each of the subs and mount the VLAs on the poles. 2 x power cables, 2 x 4-conductor 12-gauge cables from the rack to the subs, 2 x short 2-conductor jumpers from the sub to the VLA top, and 2 x cables to 2 JBL monitors. Sound Done.

Wireless DMX to the 2 x light bars and the uplights around the drumkit, so all you need is 3 x power. The DMX controller lives in a 4-space rack with it's DMX transmitter and a simple power strip. Lights Done.

Guitar amp, pedal board, vocal mic and stand. 2 x XLR & 2 x instrument cables. Stage Gear Done. Let's Play!!

On rentals I've done straight-up rock and blues bands, church events, bluegrass bands all outdoors with this little system and sometimes I still have a hard time believing my own ears. I hear compliments for days after (and get hired back immediately). It's a pretty good old-geezer system. Nothing is too heavy and there's very little assembly time. I can set it up by myself in just a few minutes. A 5x12 trailer with a ramp door has tons of room to spare. Best of all, it sounds SO good. *Only downside - like any good system, you better know the words. With this kind of clarity there's nowhere to hide if you're mumbling through forgotten lyrics. The same is true of the JBL systems too.

That sounds like a super fun system to play and mix thru.! Really cool. I've used the bose mini line array once or twice and was surprised at what it could do. It had no problem filling a room that I've typically used dual 15" jbl tops or single 15" Yamaha tops, along w single 15" subs. The clarity was there, and the weight is just great. I very much like the new gen PA stuff.

Didn't know they even had wireless DMX, which sounds like a great time saver.!!! Guess that also reinforces my 'hack' status as a live sound guy.

Before I took hiatus I was at the point where the bands were playing places with fixed installations about half the time or more, so packing was light, although each gig brings its own peculiarities, with fixed installs. Dead channels, weird routing, ect. So there's something to be said for having your own system down pact, and knowing it in and out. Even when the band had their own PA I was at the point where I could just show up and mix, having put my roadie days behind for the most part. Part experience, part lazy, part bulging disk, made that an earned merit.