First time out with my BFM rig at a festival

[Grant Bunter]

Those of you who may have followed my builds would know my rig, cab wise, consists of 4 x BP loaded 20" T39's, 2 x Beta 10A loaded DR250's with melded arrays, and 3 x WH8's with Beta 8a's and melded arrays.
For the festival I also used my pair of POS 15"/piezo direct radiators for drum fill (stacked tweet to tweet).

Powered and controlled by: Soundcraft Spirit live 16 channel desk, DCX, DEQ, FX, EQ's etc, 2 x Jands 920 amps (450W at 4ohms pers side) for subs and Drum fill, 2 x Crown XLS 1000 Drivecore amps (212W at 8ohms per side) for tops and Foldback.

PA for the day's purpose was to cover a mixture of Official speeches, school children performances and 3 bands/solo acts and Emcee for the entire grounds. A tall task for a moderate sized PA situated roughly in the middle of the grounds.

Started setup at 4 am. 1 x DR250 either side of the truck trailer (off a 22 wheeler, about 17m/51' long) Subs stacked and V plated in a 4 cab cluster under one end of the trailer. WH8's (and mikes/mike stands) distibuted about the trailer and the small stage in front of it as required. Everything went to plan. Ready to power up at 7.45am (for 8 am start) when the sparky tells me he's reconfiguring the power. Took 7 minutes, powered up, then a stallholders piece of (faulty) equipment dumps the breakers on the shared circuit twice in 5 minutes.

Recorded music on 10 minutes late but no biggy.
The rest of the day ran smoothly.

On to the review.
Subs HP at 40Hz, LP at 100Hz, crossed to tops at 100Hz. FOH tuned with pink noise/auto EQ and not terribly different from my initial tuning trace based on SPL charts from here.
WH8's HP at 100Hz, EQ faders dropped out from 13K. POS 15's HP at 50Hz.
The 4 x T39's (edit: V plated, thanks Harley) kept up to the DR250's, just, without strain on the system. I'm glad I built the extra 2 T39's. Sound wise, the FOH was exceptionally (crystal) clear in the mids and tops and punchy/well defined in the bottom end and there was no "mud" at any time. Volume levels varied from 80db to a max of 114dB (-5dB on the master faders) at one metre (calculated) as the desk and SPL level mike where 20m from front of stage.
The WH8's provided clear concise foldback.

Plenty of fantastic comments (both from the audience/crowd and performers) made about clarity, "great sound" and well heard over a large percentage of the grounds. Estimated crowd 2,500.
And gladly, about nice mixes as well.

All in all a very very good day for a novice who's never owned a mid sized PA who decided his first opportunity to run it was at an outdoor festival.
Lesson learnt, work on foldback gain structure (I very nearly ran out of legs for foldback due to the way I had it set up), otherwise leave it alone as it ain't broke...

[Bruce Weldy]

Congrats!

Always a little trepidation when taking on a big event. Sounds like you had it under control.

[Gregory East]

Well done that man.

[Grant Bunter]

Thanks Bruce and Gregory.
Trepidation is hardly the word, if I had more time to think about it as I was going along... you get the drift.
Cherry is popped now though.

I should explain, wasn't looking for chest thump in the bottom end, just nice clean punch.
I thought from the outset striving for thump would have been looking for to much.
We'll save that goal for a nice indoor gig where I can corner load!

Also didn't mention entire load in was done by myself. The only setup assistance I required was to raise the height of the DR's on their stands. They ended up with the bottom edge around the 6' mark. I might look for some winchup stands, so I can get it all done myself.

Don't have any at festival shots, didn't think to take the camera doh, but a couple of friends might have taken some.

Here's the ute with a fair load on (taken this morning, afterthought):









edit: you can see in the pic just above the remnants of where the tyre and axle left telling marks as they departed a few weeks ago. The black marks on the tray and sidewall.

Couldn't have done it in one hit if it was my gig, ie add drums and lights.
Better look for a LWB van me thinks, maybe even a small truck...

[Titanium Hand]

Awesome Grant,

Sounds like it must have been a wonderful experience for you!

Rig looks great up on the cruiser.

It looks to me like you have two vee plates? Obviously this is so you can split into two v-plated stacks... or is there another reason?

Perhaps you use a bottom one in the four pack?

114dB would have been plenty loud.

Overall, were you all smiles for the most part of the day?

Nice work

[Grant Bunter]

Thanks TH,

Hmmm I was a picture of concentration most of the day.
But smiling on the inside by the last act.

My experience with truck trailers in the past was that you couldn't go 40" high under them, so I was planning to go 2 x 2 side by side with a V plate on each.
Obviously newer trailers are higher (no wonder more of them tip over), but that let me go 4 in 1 with 1 V plate and ample room to get my hand in to wind in my plastic handled bolt doovies. And being higher, they put all sorts of crap under them in the middle, where I was going to puts the subs, so they went to one end.

It was a good experience! I ended up switching around 3 channels with mike inputs (so I could get 19 channels out of my 16 channel desk) and swapping out one monitor lead to get the show done. Speakons made that easy as, hot swapped it.
I learnt more about my desk, what I needed to concentrate on later to move forward, and most importantly, that I could do it and do it well...

[Tom Smit]

I'm really glad for you, Grant! Way to go!

[Grant Bunter]

Tom,
Thanks heaps!

I can't take all the credit. I now firmly believe that Bill's designs are in a class of their own.
I've listened to and helped set up hundreds of different PA's over the years that could be put into a similar class of what I have and this rig is a world apart. Certainly untouchable for the money it cost me to put it together.
I'm not overly attached to the rig just because I built it, though I am proud of how it came out. In my mind DIY was the only way a PA was affordable.

Thanks Bill!
Your designs made a novices job very easy.

Time as well to say thank you to all who have contributed in any way on my PA learning journey so far, positive or otherwise. Thanks to your valuable inputs, I am not any where near as clueless as I was. This is a great community.
Still plenty to learn though...

[Grant Bunter]

Good news, just checked with a friend who was there.
She took heaps of pics, so when I get them...

[Harley]

Well done Grant. Reading the first post only, I was going to suggest you v plated the T39s, but the pictures told another story!

Maybe pop some 3012LF's into the T39s at a later stage ?????

[JonoSkip]

Grant, congrats to you for your success! Really stoked for you mate, glad it went well. Looking forward to seeing more pics. Here's to more great gigs in the future.

[Grant Bunter]

Harley,
Thanks!

Converting to 3012's? I know your a late convertee to them, it's certainly a consideration. Having said that they also require more volts which also = another more powerful amp. When the 3010lf's are finally put out that was half a thought as well. Either option would require some serious chopping.
I'm in for around $9G so far. I know in the greater scheme of things that's pretty cheap for a PA, but

For the present time I think I'll plod along with the BP loaded cabs.
Hell I have 4

Jono,
thanks mate!
Yes, another 1/2 dozen good gigs and I could afford some 3012's lol

[Grant Bunter]

Righto,
More pics!
Thanks to Kris Daley Photography (Had to crop them to be allowed here, so the degradation in quality is not due to the photographer).

Stage set, small front stage ready for Official opening, recognition of traditional owners of the land and the School(s):



The "sound booth":



Messing with the DEQ, tryin to pre prep:



Are they working? Ah, yes! Recorded music down low just after power up and before pink noise:



Back to the desk. A picture of concentration? Or a man on a mission? lol You decide:

[Bas Gooiker]

Awsome Grant...
Finally all the hard work is finished and you get to enjoy the fruits of your labor. Hopefully many events will follow.

[Grant Bunter]

Awsome Grant...
Finally all the hard work is finished and you get to enjoy the fruits of your labor. Hopefully many events will follow.

Thank you Bas.
Hard work finished? I think not lol. All us DIY'ers are tinkerers and we're never done.
There'll be an amp rack to build (or maybe purchase) for the XLS's/DCX, and I reckon some road cases instead of the crappy plastic tubs. And one for the big and small multicore.
Then there's tidying up the lighting rig.

And not to far away is a second revision of my vintage drum kit. I just found a matching 22" kick to my 1972 Pearl kit, instead of/as well as the 20" kick I already have, but it needs work. Some fellow who was probably at Woodstock when it began got to it with a paintbrush. Sadly the result was probably better under the influence of one chemical or another...