Hello.....Another Dumb New Guy

[ontime1269]

I have been exploring this forum for about a week. I learned about it from djforums.com from member Mr. Nightro. I wanted to give thanks to Radian, msprague, soundinmotiondj,and Greg Plouvier for answering questions for me.

I'm a mobile DJ in Dallas, TX. My gigs range from house parties to private parties in medium sized rooms up to 200 people. Some of my gigs require a lot of Hip-Hop. Sometimes I have open mic poetry gigs and sometimes gigs that have live performers. The live performers don't have any instruments though. They just give me a CD and perform over their music.

I might be selling my truck soon and need to get a system that is small & portable. I will have to move my gear in a Ford Mustang GT for a while. I have pretty much narrowed down what I think would work for me. I was thinking of either 2 Tall Auto Tubas to go with either 2 Jack 110's or 2 Omnitop 12's. I was also thinking about 2 Tuba 18's to with the same tops. Mr. Nightro recommended the Tuba 24. I could fit it in the Mustang if I had to but I could only do one of those at the smallest width available.

I have always used powered speakers. I just didn't want to ever have to deal with amps. If I did have to carry an amp, my ideal situation would be just carrying one amp and an eq or a driverack type piece of equipment. I just want to carry the minimum amount of equipment that I can. Thanks.

Ok, hear are my questions. Do you think either one of the combos that I was thinking about would work for my situation? Could I get away with carrying one amp to power everything? What is the minimum amount of equipment that I could get away with carrying along with the amp? Also, if anyone has a recommendation of another combination of speakers that may work for me, please let me know. Thanks.

[Israel]

hi friend welcome to our pitstop for knowledge:

sport cars are a PITA to move things on but you may find the way i think that 2 t24 and 2 ot12"s will do the job you can use a single amp to move the subs on one ch and the tops on the other if no licensed builder Bruce Gavin uses a trailer this is an option too

[Gauss]

This is a tetris challenge. I know the front seats don't go very far and so the back seat can only hold slim items, but hey, you've got the whole passenger-side front seat.

Here's a trick you can use to see what will fit: Make cardboard mock-ups. With the subwoofers you choose how wide you want, from very convenient to massive bass.

The good news is you can do it all with one amp. The Crown XTi series has built in sound processing that you can program with a computer. Peavey is coming out with something similar very soon (the IPR model, maybe it's out) but more power and lower price.

[DJPhatman]

+1 on the cardboard mock-ups. Also, you should consider a pair of 16" T39's with the 3012LF. With the back seat down, they should fit, and will go much louder than the T24. Shoot a PM to user "SoundInMotionDJ" he uses T39 Slims with the BP102, is close by, and they work very well for him.

[SeisTres]

if you want a demo of them, just let me know

[ontime1269]

Thanks everyone. It's good to know that everything can run on one amp. And the amps with the built in processing would be the bomb. The card board mocks are a good idea. I think I pretty much already have a good feel for what can fit in that Mustang though. I moved a B-52 Matrix 1000 plus my coffin, lights, cables, stands and everything else in it for about a year. I don't miss those days at all.....lol. I never really considered the T39's. I just figured they would be too big. I went outside to the Mustang with my tape measure and they would actually fit pretty good. I think it would be best to do the slimmer ones though.

Let me make sure of things. If I go with the T39 slims and a pair of Omnitop 12, all 4 can still be powered by just one amp? And if I get the Crown XTI or the new Peavey IPR, I could get away with only carrying one amp and the speakers without anything else?

I've already got a quote by a builder on this forum to build for me but I would really like to try to do these on my own. I'm an extremely amateur woodworker. I don't really fill comportable using saws. I'll admit that they kinda scare me. Especially table saws. I don't own any saws at this time. I think I could make the builds but it would take me a long time and I would screw up a lot. I will probably waste money having to buy extra wood because I messed up. This usually happens to me when I try to build something the first time. The second time I pretty much tend to do things more smoothly. Of all of the saws, I feel the most comfortable using a circular saw, mitre saw, and jigsaw. I don't want to use or buy a table saw at this time if I don't have to. Would I be able to build 2 T39 Slims plus the Omnitop 12's using just a circular saw, jigsaw, and a router as the power tools? Thanks.

[Radian]

Would I be able to build 2 T39 Slims plus the Omnitop 12's using just a circular saw, jigsaw, and a router as the power tools?

Absolutley!!

..And the router will make your cabs look real professional. You'll need to make a couple of sleds for the circular saw, pick up a framing square and a handful of adjustable clamps along the way, but you can certainly get very accurate cuts this way.

[chunkylover73]

The only aspect of the build that might be tricky without a table saw is cutting the piezos for the OTop12s. To remedy that, check out speakerhardware.comwhere you can buy a pre-fabricated melded array.

[ontime1269]

Hello again

I ordered the CD. I read through all of the plans and decided to go with a Tall Auto Tuba for my first build. I thought that I would start small and see how it goes before tackling any of the larger stuff.

I bought a set of power tools this past weekend. Got a pretty good deal on a used set of cordless Ryobi power tools at a pawn shop.

I probably shouldn't have but I started with the sawdust. I know I shouldn't have done this either but I cut all of the panels to the exact measurements per the plan. I did pretty good though. All of the cuts are pretty close. I messed up on a couple of panels with angle cuts and had to re-do them. I didn't measure correctly on them at first. All I have left to do with cutting is to cut out the driver access door and the driver hole. Kinda nervous to do those.

The only problem I'm having with the plan so far is with the panel that the driver fits onto. The plan calls for this panel to be 12 9/16" x 14. The 12 9/16 part is too long to fit properly per the plan. I'm assuming that I'm supposed to trim that according to the size of the speaker I'm using. Would that be correct? One other question also. Should I cut 1 or 2 driver access holes for this design? It doesn't really say in the plan. The plan does call for 2 with the regular auto tuba though. I just ordered the MCM today. Can't wait for it to get here.

Here are a couple of pictures. Nothing spectacular. Will add more as the build progresses.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ontime/4288655867/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ontime/4288655891/

[Gauss]

Nice. Even if some of the panels aren't perfect, the PL Premium will fix it. I would suggest stacking your panels flat to avoid any warping of the panels.

[Tom Smit]

(I saw two turntables, but where is the microphone?)haha

[SoundInMotionDJ]

+1 on the cardboard mock-ups. Also, you should consider a pair of 16" T39's with the 3012LF. With the back seat down, they should fit, and will go much louder than the T24. Shoot a PM to user "SoundInMotionDJ" he uses T39 Slims with the BP102, is close by, and they work very well for him.

+2 on mockups. I used 1x2's for mine...I happened to have a bunch of those laying around and not a lot of cardboard.

I do have T39S @ 14"...and they do work really well for me.

--Stan Graves

[djwoo]

The only aspect of the build that might be tricky without a table saw is cutting the piezos for the OTop12s. To remedy that, check out speakerhardware.comwhere you can buy a pre-fabricated melded array.

Is very easy and relatively safe cut the piezos with a jigsaw for a straight array, just make a jig. For a crossfire array is a little more difficult.

[SoundInMotionDJ]

Is very easy and relatively safe cut the piezos with a jigsaw for a straight array, just make a jig. For a crossfire array is a little more difficult.

Without a table saw, I would get a good quality hand operated miter saw like this:

http://www.sears.com/shc/s/p_10153_12605_00972686000P

That will make cutting even the melded array safe, and accurate.

--Stan Graves

[PaulNYC]

Is very easy and relatively safe cut the piezos with a jigsaw for a straight array, just make a jig. For a crossfire array is a little more difficult.

Without a table saw, I would get a good quality hand operated miter saw like this:

http://www.sears.com/shc/s/p_10153_12605_00972686000P

That will make cutting even the melded array safe, and accurate.

--Stan Graves

I bought that saw for the melded arrays, and did not like the saw. The saw didn't cut square for me.