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  #31  
Old 07-30-2016, 09:46 AM
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Originally Posted by FunkenBlues View Post
... Why not invest in a wireless mic and guitar system so you can walk anywhere in venue and hear exactly your sound?
Properly set up, a looper can accomplish the same thing.

cotten
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  #32  
Old 07-30-2016, 12:42 PM
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Originally Posted by FunkenBlues View Post
... Why not invest in a wireless mic and guitar system so you can walk anywhere in venue and hear exactly your sound?
Properly set up, a looper can accomplish the same thing.

cotten
And regardless of what you do to self-sound check you still have to trust what you heard out front once you get into performance position and start the show. Especially if you have to make an adjustment once the show starts.

So unless you were part of a band and could periodically head out into the audience from time to time, as a solo act, a wireless sound check would only be slightly better than my sound check (dragging my guitar and mic out as far as the cables allow.) and you'd have all the downsides of wireless (batteries, interference, etc.)

Matt
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  #33  
Old 08-01-2016, 04:11 AM
FunkenBlues FunkenBlues is offline
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And regardless of what you do to self-sound check you still have to trust what you heard out front once you get into performance position and start the show. Especially if you have to make an adjustment once the show starts.

So unless you were part of a band and could periodically head out into the audience from time to time, as a solo act, a wireless sound check would only be slightly better than my sound check (dragging my guitar and mic out as far as the cables allow.) and you'd have all the downsides of wireless (batteries, interference, etc.)

Matt
If you had a wireless guitar system, you can walk into the venue anytime during show to do sound check. Plus it's cool for the people at the gig to be able to walk around and play a ripping lead or heavy chord riff right in front of someone. Makes to show a tad more entertaining in my opinion. I never had issues with interference when wireless and always have multiple rechargeable batteries at hand. Worst case scenario is you plug a cable in if you encounter any issues. I have always played wireless and could never imagine being tethered to a cable. Everyone is different so I could understand why musicians choose NOT going wireless.

Best of luck in all your music endeavors.

Stay healthy my friend!!
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  #34  
Old 08-01-2016, 08:26 AM
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I used to gig in a duo with two SA220's and we started putting one in front of us and one behind us. We would make the front one loud for the audience and keep the back one quiet for monitoring.

O.R. Matt-

If you gig in the Twin Cities I'd be interested in coming out to give a listen.
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  #35  
Old 08-01-2016, 12:28 PM
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Plus it's cool for the people at the gig to be able to walk around and play a ripping lead or heavy chord riff right in front of someone.
You're assuming I know how to do those things!

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Originally Posted by FunkenBlues View Post
Makes to show a tad more entertaining in my opinion.
You're right! Depending on the style of music and the show you are putting on, that could come in handy.

It would be VERY out of place at my show! My music sits sort of in the Gordon Lightfoot, Bill Staines, John Prine style so for me to be doing the Chuck Berry duck walk out in the crowd might seem a bit odd. People would probably remember it though! Especially since I'd be doing while playing G, C and D over and over again!

Kidding aside I would really want to check the vocal/guitar balance and then I'd need the Garth Brooks type headset mic. If I had that I couldn't play harmonica.....I'm probably one who SHOULD be tethered to cables!

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Best of luck in all your music endeavors.

Stay healthy my friend!!
Thank you! Hitting the road tomorrow for two weeks worth of shows so I'm excited! My show Thursday will be the finial JBL Eon One test. If the systems work well there, they will handle all of my shows!

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O.R. Matt-

If you gig in the Twin Cities I'd be interested in coming out to give a listen.
I used to play in the Twin Cities quite a bit years ago. I need to get back down there!

Matt
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  #36  
Old 08-05-2016, 02:14 PM
joeguam joeguam is offline
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Great review Matt, thanks.
I use the HK Elements system and find that it provides quite a bit more benefits than any of the Bose systems. In particular, the ability to raise the line array an extra 2 feet if needed has been critical for me at gigs. Also, even though it has a 70-degree dispersion, each line array set (4 speakers per line array set) allows for the ability to rotate 360-degrees and point them in different directions. This too has proved to be critical in some gigs.

Have you looked into this system in your research?

http://hkaudio.com/products.php?sid=15
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  #37  
Old 08-06-2016, 09:27 AM
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Originally Posted by joeguam View Post
Great review Matt, thanks.
I use the HK Elements system and find that it provides quite a bit more benefits than any of the Bose systems. In particular, the ability to raise the line array an extra 2 feet if needed has been critical for me at gigs. Also, even though it has a 70-degree dispersion, each line array set (4 speakers per line array set) allows for the ability to rotate 360-degrees and point them in different directions. This too has proved to be critical in some gigs.

Have you looked into this system in your research?

http://hkaudio.com/products.php?sid=15
Thanks joeguam!

I'd love to try one of the Elements systems! I looked at those a lot when they first came out. It looks like they have done a much, much better job with their web and marketing materials.

I remember having a very hard time determining what I would need. One sub would power x number of passive tops and then I'd need maybe one more active top and so forth. I'm glad to see that they are selling more pre-packaged systems now. It seems like you could just use only what you need to cover a venue. And the fact that you can rotate the little line array sets is awesome!

Which system do you use?

As for the JBL Eon One, I had my final test show with it on Thursday. I've been doing a concert in the park in Egg Harbor, WI (Door County) every summer since 1999. It's a fabulous spot to play and the biggest area I need to cover with my own sound.

The park is set up in tiers overlooking the marina. I set up and play down on the bottom and people fill in all the tiers like a natural amphitheater with chairs and blankets. Here is the park pre-set up:



Here's another shot from a bit behind and off to the left of where I stand during the show:



And one more from the top tier looking down at my "stage"



I wish I would have been able to stop in the middle of the show and take a pano picture with my iPhone. The park was full!

It's a pretty good size space and if I can fill this with the Eon Ones I know that I am pretty well covered in all of the venues I play where there isn't a house system.

The JBLs where maybe 30' apart and I was right in the middle. I took the one that is on the right side of that last photo (the one that's a bit hard to see) and turned it slightly away from me (as I'm playing) to help cover more of that side of the park.

Vocal mic was an Audix OM-5 and the guitar was a Rainsong JM1000. Plugged those into my QSC TouchMix 8 and took left and right XLRs out to the two JBLs. I had the channel volumes on the JBLs at noon and the master volumes on the JBLs at noon and I had the master volume on my mixer at -17. In other words, I still had plenty of volume to spare and this set up handled this park with ease!

I had a musician friend walk all over the park while I played and he said it sounded great throughout the space. He said he was going to have me crank up the volume just to see what the EON Ones could do but he didn't and it was a nice, enjoyable volume throughout.

I was just a touch behind the systems and I had my little spot monitor on my table so I could hear myself perfectly.

So that's it! These will do everything I need them to do and they do it well.

I'm not 100% happy with my guitar sound (that's nothing new!) so I may tweak that a little bit.

Even with that, I'm really impressed with the consistency of the sound. I know I've mostly been outdoors so that makes things easier but the only adjustment I'm making from show to show is the master volume.

I'm happy!

Matt
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  #38  
Old 08-06-2016, 10:09 AM
CASD57 CASD57 is offline
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You mentioned that with the spot monitor that your old Bose system would've worked as good...
Do you still feel this way after this last show ?
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  #39  
Old 08-06-2016, 10:57 AM
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You mentioned that with the spot monitor that your old Bose system would've worked as good...
Do you still feel this way after this last show ?
Good question! The answer is no! I don't feel that way anymore. I would push the Bose really hard at this show. It would cover the park but I'd have the T1 master volume up really high and I'd have the Bose behind me! I had enough space to get far enough away from the L1 to mitigate feedback and go easy on my ears but with this show, with the Bose (L1 Model 2 with T1 and two B1s) I was always on the verge....

On the verge of not covering the venue, on the verge of feedback, on the verge of it being too loud for me where I was standing, etc.

I guess if I had the spot monitor I could have set it up differently and then things like my volume, feedback, etc would not have been a concern.

I think having two of the JBLs and using them more like front of house speakers gives me more coverage and neither system has to work all that hard to get the coverage. Plus I can set up two of these faster than I could one Bose L1, so that's a bonus!

Monday night I'm playing another challenging room outside of Milwaukee. The best setup for this pub is a traditional system with front of house speakers on stands. The little stage area is surrounded by a maybe 3.5 foot wall and the stage area is small. So having one of these tower type systems behind you isn't good. I feel like the wall might mess with the low end and it's tough to cover the room and be in front of the system.

This is where I think the JBL has another advantage over the Bose. I'm going to try one or two of the EON Ones without the spacer columns (so just the line array section into the sub) and put those on tables to get them above the wall. It should be interesting but being able to shorten these down might be a really good thing!

Matt
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  #40  
Old 08-06-2016, 07:01 PM
sixpants sixpants is offline
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Matt... the posts and pics are really terrific. On-line reviews only go so far.

I am most curious about the durability. JBL's Eon series has been maligned by many different sources. I am skeptical of most sources so I'm not referring to "Dan the Reddit Guy" or Nancy's husband or the like.

I heard the Eon One demo'd at Sweetwater but it was so noisy at Gearfest I couldn't get a sense of it.
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  #41  
Old 08-09-2016, 07:58 AM
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Matt... the posts and pics are really terrific. On-line reviews only go so far.

I am most curious about the durability. JBL's Eon series has been maligned by many different sources. I am skeptical of most sources so I'm not referring to "Dan the Reddit Guy" or Nancy's husband or the like.

I heard the Eon One demo'd at Sweetwater but it was so noisy at Gearfest I couldn't get a sense of it.
Thanks sixpants!
As for the durability, I will hope for the best! I haven't owned anything from JBL before so I guess time will tell. My Bose systems were amazing in the durability department so hopefully a bit of that will rub off on the Eon Ones!

I mentioned in a previous post my potentially challenging show last night near Milwaukee. It's a great pub that I've been playing for years on my way from Door County, WI around Lake Michigan to an event in the thumb of Michigan.

The pub has a neat little stage area with lights. The only downside is that the stage is surrounded by a wall! So when I would put my Bose L1 behind me, at the back of the stage area, I would have to dump a ton of low end out of my vocals. It was also another one of those venues where I would have to push too much volume out of the Bose L1 without being able to get far enough away from the system. So it would be a tough show on the ears!

Last year on this same little tour I had the QSC K10s with me and that was a great set up for this room.

So last night with the EON One I did what I thought I might have to do. I put a high-top table on the side of the stage and put the un-extended Eon One on the table.

Sorry about the quality of these photos! I should have turned on the stage lights! But you can at least get a sense of the space.





It worked really, really well! In fact, I've been frustrated with my guitar. I have a bad habit of lightly dragging my right pinky on the guitar when I strum. I also anchor my pinky when I pick with bare fingers. I've done it since I was a kid. With this guitar, it comes through the EON One sub as a thudding sound. I've been EQing it out but in doing so I lose some nice low end on the guitar.

With the system off of the ground, that thudding was mitigated a bit and I was able to bring in some more low end on the guitar.

Another interesting thing: I knew that I would want the sound to cut through a bit as opposed to being a more surround-like. I was only using one system last night so to accomplish that, I panned the guitar and vocals hard right and took a right out of the TouchMix. Doing that makes the sound a bit more direct than if I had left the pan on both channels in the center and taken a right out of the mixer. So that's another way to taylor the sound to the venue.

Once I got all set up, I just moved my mic and my table to a point where I could hear enough from the EON One without it being too loud and brought up my little spot monitor to give me the detail I need and I could hear myself perfectly!

Matt
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  #42  
Old 08-10-2016, 12:52 AM
joeguam joeguam is offline
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Thanks joeguam!

Which system do you use?

Matt
Matt, I opted to go with the active sub (E110SUBA) which can power two 4-speaker-line-arrays (E4350). I chose this setup so that I could purchase two full sets and have them setup as a left/right mains if needed. Here's a photo, there's an identical set like what you see on the other side of the mic stand.



In this photo, I have the two line array units locked and pointed in the same direction, but it is simple enough to rotate either of the line array units 360 degrees. I normally only use one set of sub/array/array for about 90% of my gigs. I bring out the second set for outdoor gigs, or whenever I want to cover more area (like a larger indoor ballroom for weddings) without having to raise volume and overall SPL of the room.
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  #43  
Old 08-10-2016, 01:02 AM
joeguam joeguam is offline
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Matt
Matt, I've encountered exact gig challenges like this before, and this is where in-ear monitors make their money's worth. The main issue is that with these line array systems (like the Bose or HK units), the sub is on the floor as opposed to on a speaker stand like the QSC's. That stage wall will block all low end frequencies from reaching the audience. Placing the entire PA on a table surely can solve the challenge, however it does not appear as elegant.

Other than when I'm on the big stage (full concert sound production), I only use an IEM in one ear. This allows me to hear the music well enough to sing, and also hear the ambient sounds of the room. If I use the IEM in my right ear and my PA is off to the left in front of me, it provides a nice balance for both ears. For this setup, my SPL levels are not that high, so I don't need much volume in my ear to hear the music sufficiently.

Using IEM's, it allows for the PA to be placed anywhere it needs to be so that it is effective. At a gig like yours in the picture, I would put the PA in front of the wall and directed so that it is balanced throughout the room. (With my HK's, I'd rotate the line arrays appropriately.) I believe you said you now use a small desktop monitor right? Put that PA out in front of the wall and just rely on your monitor. I think you'd get better sound to your audience and it would also look cleaner than a speaker randomly on one of the bar tables.

Good luck.
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  #44  
Old 08-10-2016, 05:23 AM
Dave L Dave L is offline
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I have had the JBL EON ONE for a few weeks. Really nice sounding system. The mixer should be a 4 channels at least.

Matt, you mentioned a porch board bass. I haven't figured out a way to use mine without a mixer. Vocal, Guitar take up the 2 channels and the the shared 3/4 doesn't have the juice to power the PBB on it's own. What do you do?

I guess live I need a mixer anyway in case a friend shows up to sing with me. What small mixer do you guys like for a line array system?
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  #45  
Old 08-10-2016, 07:37 AM
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joeguam,
Great photo! The HK system looks really nice!

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Originally Posted by joeguam View Post
Put that PA out in front of the wall and just rely on your monitor. I think you'd get better sound to your audience and it would also look cleaner than a speaker randomly on one of the bar tables.
The space in front of the wall is the walk way into the bar so that wouldn't work. There isn't room anywhere for the sound system except up on the stage with me. They don't normally have music here. I'm the only one who plays here and it's just one a year on my way through town so we just make it work.

Some friends of mine are regulars here and years ago that asked me if I'd like to pick up a Monday show on my way from Door County, WI over to Michigan. We've been doing it for probably 10 years! I personally know 99% of the people in the bar and they've all been to see me play many, many times.

Usually I would agree with you about stage appearance and making it look nice but this is a show where we just make it work and have fun!

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Originally Posted by joeguam View Post
Using IEM's, it allows for the PA to be placed anywhere it needs to be so that it is effective.
That's what I've been enjoying about the little spot monitor! I have a nice set of IEM's in my gig bag and they haven't seen any use since I got the monitor. I can't believe it took me this long to consider one of these! The sound of the monitor on its own isn't great. It's a tiny little thing. But with the ambient sound of one or two of the JBLs the little monitor gives me the detail I might be missing depending on where I am in relation to the system(s) and it sets up so nice:



Quote:
Originally Posted by Dave L View Post
I have had the JBL EON ONE for a few weeks. Really nice sounding system. The mixer should be a 4 channels at least.

Matt, you mentioned a porch board bass. I haven't figured out a way to use mine without a mixer. Vocal, Guitar take up the 2 channels and the the shared 3/4 doesn't have the juice to power the PBB on it's own. What do you do?

I guess live I need a mixer anyway in case a friend shows up to sing with me. What small mixer do you guys like for a line array system?
Hi Dave,
I haven't been playing my Porchboard regularly. Once a year I do a show where I play nothing but the music of Johnny Cash. I wouldn't do that show without my Porchboard! But I always stand when I play and standing while playing a Poarchboad for a couple of hours every night is tough and while I miss the sound, I feel more connected to my audience without it.

When I did use the Porchboard I ran it through my mixer. I use a QSC TouchMix 8 and I've been really happy with it!

Matt
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