I did a naughty thing. Moxie with 4xOT12s, 2xT39s and 2xT60s

[88h88]

I tested the setup earlier in the day, crossed them over with a 48db per octave slope and felt happier with the sound on all 4 subs than just the T60s alone. In testing the SPL level was hitting over 120db when cranked with room to spare, obviously this was not the sound level for the night despite one particular DJ stepping up to play and immediately redlining the mixer. He got told off.

So yeah, the amp rack contains an IPR 1600 which was powering all 4 tops and a QSC GX5 which was powering the 4 subs. Again praise was heaped upon the sound system by those that have been around and know their shit "Best sound system in the city by far, it's so clear". The most amusing couple of comments were at the end of the night, some young fella had rolled in because he 'knows about clubs' and said the system sounded alright but was missing something. Moxie had finished playing by that point and stepped in to say (paraphrasing slightly) "It sounds amazing, it's loud but the highs are crisp, the mids are spot on and the bass is deep but not distorting, the clarity is unreal." I turned to the young fella as if to say 'you know your shit do you?' and he looked like he'd realised he'd been rumbled. Another case of 'distortion = good'

There was a dude with dreads (ugh) and his mates stood by the subs for about an hour, the T60s were stood up against the wall as this is the best placement for them in this room because THEY'RE SO F**KING HUGE. The T39s were on the floor next to them. For an hour all I could see were these dudes making arms movements like they were trying to figure out why the subs were pointing upwards. I went over and asked them what was up and immediately got "we have a huge stack and point them at the crowd, why have you done this?" and explained that bass being omnidirectional means that subs don't need to be 'pointed' and he just looked at me like he didn't know what I was on about and then seemed to get a little annoyed for some reason. Weird.

So yeah, I have a little video for you of a little wander from the outside of the joint to the inside. The mics on the camera gained down as I walked from the first room into the main room, understandable really as the bass in the main room was chest rattling. And for the record Moxie is an absolute sweetheart and a superb DJ. She said she was playing Halloween in Birmingham and offered to add us to her guest list...




She ended the night playing some disco shit and it was tiiiiiight. She's a very versatile DJ.



A couple of testing videos for your trouble too.

[Ryan A]

Shame on you

No but really it sounds great with high quality sound. What kind of camera is that?

[88h88]

It's a great little camera, auto focus is slow on video in low light but whatever. It's a Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ7, a good few years old now...

[Titanium Hand]

Nicely Done

Looks like a good night.

Did you need / use, any type of delays?

This Moxie Bird, did you take a peek at what she was running?

Again, well done 88H88

[88h88]

No delays, I couldn't hear any issue with the sound as it was so just ran with it. There may have been a delay on the tops from prior setups, I didn't actually check that... The subs were on the left wall as you see it in the videos, sat out in front of the tops by 4/5ft as the stage is wedged into the corner. Now that positioning is all set I can spend some time fiddling with things.

I'm actually amazed at how well the DEQ tamed the room as it's bricks on bricks so the first time we did this for the pre-party I was expecting a ridiculous amount of reflections. Strangely not though, all I can say is I'm impressed with that little box of tricks. It's gotten to a point where all I do is turn up, put the speakers in, tweak a wee bit and then just set the volume. I didn't even look at the rack after setup. My housemate came down to help out with the setup and as an electrician was interested in finding out how much juice the rack sucked down in total. He brought some testing kit that the rack connected to the mains through and at full whack maxing out the SPL meter on the DEQ at over 120db it was eating through about 700w. Ridiculous.

Moxie runs Serato Scratch Live off a Macbook Pro and carries around her own audio interface to go along with it. She just wandered up as the previous DJ was finishing up, got a track spinning on loop and set herself up.

We have Tessela next on the 15th of November, I expect the sound system to get a good rinsing. Hackman on the 13th of December, again a good rinseout I imagine. Then we're doing NYE at the same joint so I'll set up, play some tunes and then probably fuck off early before midnight (because I hate NYE).

[osse]

Sounds great in the vids!

I'm very interested in getting a SPL meter with external mic to be able to put in the DJ booth but the mic out @ the dancefloor, to be able to monitor what SPL on the floor... mostly to have a very good reference point for DJ's to relate to. I have unfortunently yet not found a cheap one for this, I don't need flat freq response or very precise metering, price is the main thing here which needs to be low..! What system do you use?

[88h88]

I'm looking for similar myself actually, this place is used for live bands on occasion so there's snakes back to a little room behind where I was shooting footage from. There's little window I could put the mic in during the night and use the snake and a gender changer or two to get it back to the rack.

The thing is even though this was loud as shit people still don't seem to think it is and that's the problem. You could show them how loud it is but if it doesn't 'sound' loud then it isn't.

I mean 4 of these bloody things in ANY room will deafen people...



Deadly loud.

[88h88]

I dunno if the tops were somewhat tamed by the subs but 120 didn't feel like the world was ending for the minute or so we had it pegged. It was soon turned right back down though as it was purely a test to see what power the amps were sucking down at peak.

[Disco-inferno]

congrats Paul, awesome you had the second pair of otops ready in time for this event! I really enjoyed the videos you shot!

I'm still wondering what subs to build. I like the extra power down low the t60 provides on the other hand four t39's at 27" wide stacked and v played would probably get down low enough for most music I play.

How many sheets of ply did you need for the two t60's? I've contacted Baz (colossusxxl) about shipping and rates are fair so I'm probably going to order four lab12's from him end of this month! I think I need about 12 sheets 4x8 for four t60's whereas I would only need like six or seven sheets for the same number of t39's.

[88h88]

Yeah your estimate for the sheets sounds right. With both of mine being 18" wide I used 2.5-3 sheets per sub. 2.5 if you're savvy but I made a few mistakes along the way which ate into my supply.

4 T60s is going to kill, I'm considering stealing the Lab12s from the T39s and building 2 more myself. Overkill perhaps but it's better to have too much than too little, right?

[Disco-inferno]

I dunno if the tops were somewhat tamed by the subs but 120 didn't feel like the world was ending for the minute or so we had it pegged. It was soon turned right back down though as it was purely a test to see what power the amps were sucking down at peak.

most of the time I set up my lows are about 9dB louder then the tops when it sounds balanced, then again 111dB would still be loud for tops.

normal direct radiating tops will give a lot more distortion at these levels 10% isn't abnormal and that makes direct radiating cabs sound loud. otops will stay very clear beyond those levels probably until it really starts to hurt in a confined space like that! moxie was right.

[Disco-inferno]

Yeah your estimate for the sheets sounds right. With both of mine being 18" wide I used 2.5-3 sheets per sub. 2.5 if you're savvy but I made a few mistakes along the way which ate into my supply.

4 T60s is going to kill, I'm considering stealing the Lab12s from the T39s and building 2 more myself. Overkill perhaps but it's better to have too much than too little, right?

Thanks, I found a lumber yard that has decent ply at under 25 euro's per sheet roughcut so I only have to get the angles done. so I think it's about time to stop whining and make with the sawdust

[osse]

Last gig we did we ran a pair dr280 with four corner loaded t30's at almost full tilt, these rigs are really dangerous, as you always want more volume cuz ur ears hardly bleed, but still it harms hearing.. I would not be surprised if we kept conservatively 120 db on dancefloor most of the night with crystal pure sound down to 30 hz. Dangerous? yes. Did people love it? Yes!

I'm always messing around with xover points carefully in every room and setting new limiter settings as this squeezes every bit out of the system in relation with the room, last time we really had to delay compensate the tops but when we did, the sound was totally ridiculous!! Best sound I've heard I think!

If anybody know away for a good spl monitoring solution with external mic and cheap price please contact me:)

[Tom Smit]

Can you get the Behringer ECM8000?

[osse]

Can you get the Behringer ECM8000?

Have it allready, but don't know what to hook it up to! I guess it has toll be calibrated to a certain box to know how much goes in...