BillFitzmaurice.info

On stage or by your mixer? I am a bit anal as to where my stage racks will go. I am a firm believer (maybe i'm wrong here) in putting stage amps by the speakers to make as short a run as possible from the amps to the speakers. Maybe that's a technique not done anymore, but back in the day we believed if your rack was too far from the speakers, you were losing clean output.

Look forward to hear your replies.
Patrick

There is no right or wrong answer to this. In many cases its easier to rack them with the amps, to reduce the number of return channels required in the snake. General knowledge is that speaker runs should be only as long as necessary, but you really don't lose appreciable output until you start running very light wire over very long distances. My mains cables are 125' and are made out of 16/4, mainly because it's what I had on hand when I made them. They work just fine. I think the voltage loss is less than 2v, and I have more than enough amp capacity to make up for that. Ymmv.

My compressor & limiter are part of the DCX2496...so it also includes the crossover. I also have a DEQ2496. I keep that rack by the mixer...so that I can make adjustments as needed. I have six lines that can run to amps (as needed). The amps live within a 25ft cable run of the cabinets.

--Stan Graves

Interesting timing on this thread,

Usually I have my foh processing in the amp rack, as mentioned to save on multi returns, and to keep it away from other engineers fingers... but yesterday I was doing some tweaking, so I took my DEQ out the rack and patched it in at my desk end. Wow it was so sweet having all that to play with 'on the fly' as it were. Previous tweaking sessions were basically circuit training as I scurry backwards and forward from desk to amp rack, to listen, measure, run, tweak, run, listen etc.
I got so much more done, but I would be very wary of leaving all the xovers, limiters and system eq if it wasn't me running the show. It's going back to live in the amp rack again soon, sigh.

NCcrashman wrote: putting stage amps by the speakers to make as short a run as possible from the amps to the speakers.

I like to keep an Processor's by the mixer, so I have access to them. Delay, Reverb, Comp., EQ's, etc... So, I have control over the overall sounds, at the mixer, and not on stage, 75' away.

I also have been looking into a device to hook up to the XTI amps, and be able to adjust via laptop, using Anywhere USB http://www.digi.com/products/usb/anywhe ... p#overview.

Then I can have control over the amps. I figure, if I am going to do this right, then do it "Right".

Dave Non-Zero wrote:Interesting timing on this thread,

Usually I have my foh processing in the amp rack, as mentioned to save on multi returns, and to keep it away from other engineers fingers... but yesterday I was doing some tweaking, so I took my DEQ out the rack and patched it in at my desk end. Wow it was so sweet having all that to play with 'on the fly' as it were. Previous tweaking sessions were basically circuit training as I scurry backwards and forward from desk to amp rack, to listen, measure, run, tweak, run, listen etc.
I got so much more done, but I would be very wary of leaving all the xovers, limiters and system eq if it wasn't me running the show. It's going back to live in the amp rack again soon, sigh.

I really like to keep mine by my mixer too and I always have. I think proper quality and sized wires/cables as the first poster implied is sooooooo very important. Proper gain structure starts on the stage with the amps and after they are set it's nice to not have to fool with anything on the stage.

Killer replies. Thank you all for your input.
-patrick

Lastcat, check out the cheap USB over Cat5 extended at Monoprice. That's what I've used with my XTIs.

I think a device like this will allow us to do USB over wireless 802.11; I think this concept is pretty cool

http://www.amazon.com/Digi-Intl-ANYWHER ... 898&sr=1-1

14 ports version; http://www.digi.com/products/model.jsp? ... =3609&pm=Y

this way you don't have to have a dedicated computer at the rack.

I use a DBX1066 for FOH in my outboard rack and use a dumb terminal to shoot down my 250' snake to run my DCX2496 with my PC...next will be a Wireless USB Device Server for my XTI's