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Jack's thread on his new Kemper, from which he goes to a powered PA speaker, resurrected some thoughts I have had about skipping toting an amp and going straight into the PA with a DI box. So today at a trio rehearsal (guitar, fretless electric bass and trumpet) I decided to try going into a PA speaker. The trumpeter has a small PA with a couple of QSC K8 speakers:
QSC K8 | Sweetwater.com
I plugged my carvetop with floater in via a Baggs Para Acoustic DI with a reverb pedal in front of the Baggs. It took about three minutes to find a really nice sound with the K8 set on flat; on the Baggs I left most of the EQ flat and rolled off the treble and presence knobs most to all the way and rolled off the mids just a tiny bit). Volume and tone on the guitar were full up. I was really surprised- I expected sterile and dry and instead got a warm, almost acoustic sound with a lot of detail. The K8 had nice body to the notes and excellent clarity for chords. Zero muddiness but not sterile and not at all harsh. It was exactly right for this combination of instruments. I did the whole rehearsal without ever thinking about tweaking my sound again and was very pleased. The experience was not what I expected and the band members liked it too.
At $650 I doubt I will be buying a QSC K8, but the thought of having to tote a guitar, DI and speaker (which weighs just a bit more than what my 12" cab weighs) is tempting. The wider sound dispersion of the K8 was really striking compared to the beamier tendencies of guitar cabs.
Is anybody here gigging with a powered PA speaker and some kind of DI?
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02-15-2015 06:44 PM
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You the Alto 10 which is quite cheap and people love them... if you already have the Bags and a reverb pedal! If you try a DI with speaker compensation (or even better a Logidy EPSI) you will be even more pleased with the sound.
I am gigging with a powered Mambo speaker and a digital pedalboard these days.
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jorge, did you say you're using torpedo cab?
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No Jack, I am using the Logidy Epsi. The torpedo interested me because it has custom IRs and power amp modelling but being mono, much bigger and 3x the price I passed on it.. but it seems like a great peace of gear!
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i wish I could justify it. It would be cool with my showman preamp.
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Yeah - just add a nice reverb and you have another "fender amp"!
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except my showman preamp going into my genz shuttle and my 1x12 open back sound pretty good already.
I thought that compared to the gries 35, my above setup was extremely close. Like 85% close.
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yeah i gig regularly with my duo and for convenience just plug into the PA with 2x powered 12" PA speakers
for acoustic flat top i definitely need a DI before the mixer
but for my ES125 with P90 i can plug directly into a mixer channel
and for my tele i use a boss FDR-1 pedal before the mixer channel
then i just use reverb from desk and desk eq
i get a great sound and keeping it simple means less fiddling... however i do just use 1 sound the whole gig... so no trying to get different tones...long as i get a fat /warm/jazz tone i'm happy
and yes playing into a PA definitely gives you a better spread ....
for really big gigs (where i need a personal monitor i use an amp) BUT i always mic up my amp to PA ...for spread but for small gigs i plug in directly to PA ...
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Thanks, Keira.
Unlike folks like Jack who play a variety of genres of music (jazz, fusion, etc.) I pretty much just play straight ahead jazz and really only use the one sound. Plug it in, tune it up, count it off and go. Clean, warm and fat are what I am looking for. Jack can make good use of the Kemper, I'd find one sound that works and probably never touch a knob again.
But if I found a sound I really liked using a DI and a powered speaker, that'd actually be really cool for the convenience of it. Smaller things to tote around. I'm already thinking ahead to not using an amp at the next gig we'd be using the PA (hearing myself could be a problem as we don't have monitors, we still play acoustically in terms of our interaction with each other and just use the PA to be heard).
I have little experience with PAs, I am almost always playing in places where the horns and drums just play acoustically and the bass and I balance against them. With FRFR speakers, do different PA cabinets sound dramatically different like guitar cabs do? I've only tried the QSC K8 which seemed pretty uncolored. Jorge mentioned the Alto 10 which is also the cab that Jack mentioned in his thread about the Kemper, IIRC. It's less than half as expensive as the QSC.
My gigging setup at this point is a Raezer's Edge 12" cab and either a Clarus 2r or a tweed Deluxe clone head modded a bit from the original. The Clarus is a bit sterile so I patch a SansAmp GT2 into the effects loop to give it a little more heft. My load in and out is one trip and not exactly burdensome so there is no really a driving need to change. But the QSC and Para Acoustic DI had as much heft and was as warm as the Clarus/SansAmp/RE combination. I was really surprised by how well it worked.
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I must admit I'm intrigued!
I've already got a Sansamp Acoustic DI & those Alto 10s are not expensive at all -- especially compared to nice guitar amps. I may have to give this a shot! cheap enough experiment compared to amp shopping . . .
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Yeah and you get 500w of headroom and it will work with your acoustics too
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I sometimes run my AI Clarus right into a mackie PA speaker. Sounds as good as any extended range guitar cab I've heard from RE, Henriksen, etc. any only cost me $140.
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I went down to GC to check out the Alto 10 today. Didn't realize there was a fan involved -- so I guess that rig would be performance only. . . ?
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Wow. The EPSi is impressive but about 1000% overkill for my needs. I would not have the patience to work my way past about the first three sound profiles.
Originally Posted by jorgemg1984
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To the folks that use the Altos- how loud is that fan once it gets going?
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I did a few gigs with my Ethos overdrive (clean channel) straight into a PA - sounded great (175 - swing/bop stuff). Different feel because of the FRFR speakers. A 'real' amp has more whallop to the sound - it feels more punchy and immediate. The FRFR feel may take a little bit of getting used to, but for me, no biggie.
From an audience member's perspective, I think there's a lot to be said for running the guitar into a PA (either direct or miking an amp) to disperse the sound in the room more evenly.
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The EPSI is a little hard to get at first... you need to buy IRs, packs come with thousands of files and then you need to edit them with a number so the unit can read them. It took me a few days to do that and now I have a printed pdf of the speaker cabs on the gear bag. As usual I tend to use the same IRs the most but it sounds so good I don't care. Originally Posted by Cunamara
If you want to get one talk to me and I'll make the whole process much easier to you... MUCH easier
Anyway the sound is out of this world, beats any analog unit like Tech 21.
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i didn't even know it had a fan until you told me but for recording you would just go direct anyway Originally Posted by Cunamara
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I don't think you can attribute the diff between the ethos direct and the FRFR to a "real amp". The ethos doesn't have amplifier and/or speaker simulation. It's just a low pass filter. Very basic. All it's doing is filtering out the high frequencies which would sound buzzy when overdriven. Originally Posted by 3625
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You mean the Ethos' 'speaker sim output' is a low pass filter? Fair enough. However, it's pretty noticeable plugging the Ethos into the front end of a guitar amp as compared to a PA - PA was more spongy with less punch. Originally Posted by jzucker
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Do you guys use this setup at home too or just gigging?
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Both!
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jorgemg1984, what amps/modelers are you currently using?
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I am using an analog / digital rig.
The very simple version an MS100BT (tuner, parametric eq, overdrive, delay, reverb and an rc booster as my "preamp") and an epsi for cab speaker simulatior.
The big version is MS100BT (tuner, overdrive, delay, reverb), Fromel Shape EQ (mids only), low cut passive pedal (does the opposite of a tone control of a guitar, my Guild is bassy), Barb EQ (blackface preamp) and EPSI (cab speaker simulator). All trough a Mambo PA Cab, I am getting a second one soon.
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Yes, it may have more going on than just that but it's an order of magnitude less than what an amp and cabinet simulator is doing. The ethos is totally analog too. Originally Posted by 3625
The technology of the kemper and torpedo are hugely different and way more effective at capturing the vibe of a real cabinet even through a PA system.
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