Hybrid Bass-amp/PA

[RoadRanger]

So, today's project is to rack up a $235 Behringer XR12 with a $249 Behringer NU4-6000 primarily as a bass amp but also to mic the kick through when the PA can't support it - and to run as a PA for smaller gigs.

 

For Bass the XR12 will offer me separate EQ for the stage cab and FOH, the usual studio compressors to choose from, an overdrive, and enough mic and line inputs for most of my projects. I really hate shelving controls on a bass amp, and have become used to having HPF (pedal and/or the bass head) and LPF (either the cab itself or a pedal).

 

The XR12 has 12 inputs total and 6 outputs that can be MacGyvered to do other than what they are labeled as (Main L, Main R, Headphone L, Headphone R, Aux1, Aux2). It appears I can get four monitor sends. mono main out, and mono sub out. Strangely enough the mixer has the same number of internal channels and buses as the XR18.

 

Will be a PITA as a bass amp with only iPad control but I have a small MIDI controller (Behringer BCN44) that should give me what knobs and switching I'd want, maybe attached to my mic stand ..

[RoadRanger]

Wow, 20 hours since the last post in this subforum . Anybody still here?

 

Anyways it arrived yesterday and I got to mess about with it. Nicely built. I did find that the Hi-Z instrument inputs suck eggs as their gain only goes up to +20db vs the +60db available on the XLR combo jacks. Cranked to the max I'm about 6db shy of what I'd want with a fairly hot passive bass. I can probably get some more virtual gain from the comp if I need it. Also that doesn't bode well for my plan to use some of the line inputs for the hotter mics like the kick and guitar amp.

 

You are limited to one insert effect on a channel but can MacGyver that using a bus and inserting a second one there. It actually has all the virtual channels and buses of the XR18 so you can double patch without burning a real input and even if you MacGyver the headphone output into a pair of monitor sends you still have two spare buses . Kinda weird that you can purpose buses as either send buses or subgroups - that would make the XR18 needing another 2-4 IMO.

 

I tried some of the FX that I'd use for bass - the tube OD, the 1176 comp, the pitch shifter. All sounded fine .

 

The LPF slope is kinda lame on the PEQ but you can burn two of the PEQs to make a decent one. The HPF seems fine. I've declared a pogrom against shelving controls on Bass amps but do understand from chatting with a couple makers that the unwashed rabble wouldn't buy one without them and having an adjustable HPF and LPF would really confuse them .

 

The control apps are still a bit rough and don't work the same on the different platforms. They did just update the firmware a couple days ago and I suspect app updates will soon follow? Still fairly easy to get around on.

[StratGuy22]

Good stuff! Hope it works out

[RoadRanger]

At the very least it will freak people out . I do have a 6U shallow plastic rack so I might rack it up with that four channel NU4-6000 and an NU3000 I already have just because I can and so I can run all passive cabs if I feel like it. That'll give me one amp channel per output. I do bridge the NU3000 into my pair of TH-Mini's for outdoor gigs so I can always still do that and bring active tops

[RoadRanger]

I did find that the Hi-Z instrument inputs suck eggs as their gain only goes up to +20db vs the +60db available on the XLR combo jacks. Cranked to the max I'm about 6db shy of what I'd want with a fairly hot passive bass. I can probably get some more virtual gain from the comp if I need it. Also that doesn't bode well for my plan to use some of the line inputs for the hotter mics like the kick and guitar amp..

Yup, you can get +25db of makeup gain in the comp so all inputs should be usable with mics . This reduces the 24 bit dynamic range of the input converters down to ~20 bits but that's fine for just live sound .

 

BTW the XR12 can only record stereo to a USB drive, you can't use it as a recording interface for your DAW - not something I care about but others have been disappointed especially as their market literature shows it next to a computer running a DAW .

[Pro Sound Guy]

"MacGyvered it"

[Bufalo]

I've done a similarly hacked setup myself. I typically use a Tech21 VT Bass DI Box, and I run my band's sound through a DL1608. I also have that same Behringer 4-channel amp for monitors. If I'm not using all four channels for monitor mixes, I'll feed just the bass signal to one of the aux outputs of the DL1608, run that to an unused channel on the amp and power up a bass cabinet for my stage amp. It's a bit... Redundant? Sure, but it works with carrying just a little bit less gear.

[dedmeet]

The sound guy in me thinks this whole mess is kind of cool. The bass player in me thinks it is way too #$%^ing complicated. But, hey, to each his own. My bass rig is dirt simple: Bass -> Hartke LH500 -> Hartke 2200 Pro.

 

 

 

 

[RoadRanger]

The sound guy in me thinks this whole mess is kind of cool. The bass player in me thinks it is way too #$%^ing complicated. But' date=' hey, to each his own. My bass rig is dirt simple: Bass -> Hartke LH500 -> Hartke 2200 Pro.[/quote']My fav rig is probably my little Ashdown CTM-30 into a Peavey 410 TVX somebody gave me (stupid heavy and tweeter smoked). The 30 watts isn't loud enough for most gigs tho - main gigging amp is an Aguilar TH-350 into one or two 25 lb RevSound RS115X's - Woo !

[RoadRanger]

If anyone happens to have an XR12 and wants to see my crazy-arse configuration I have a readme and scene file here:

http://aspinock.com/XR12

[Luckenbacher]

"The sound guy in me thinks this whole mess is kind of cool. The bass player in me thinks it is way too #$%^ing complicated. But, hey, to each his own. "

I totally agree with this... give me something light to carry and simple to setup every time. The idea of having to use a tablet to turn up the volume a pinch or turn down the mids seems tough to me, but maybe you can do that on the amp somehow.

 

I do a markbass 2x10 for my upright and elec bass gigs, and it's light and sounds good-- that's my standard for a bass rig. It needs a small high-pass filter box for the upright's pickup, but other than that it's easy to carry and hard to mess up.

 

But if it works for you then it's the right rig. It sounds fun to be able to run a small pa off your "bass amp".

 

As much as I want to replace my small PA's mixer with an xr18, I'm am holding off just because I don't _have_to do it and I'm not stoked on the idea of bringing my backup macbook.. that means its not even smaller than the mixer I have now. But dang, I sure do want one I almost have my wife talked into it becasue she prefers IEMs and carrys all her scores on an ipad everywhere anyhow.

 

 

[RoadRanger]

Well, I gigged it a couple weekends ago and it basically worked fine - just doing some final tweaks.

I had my two 25lb 400w 15" bass/sub cabs, one on either side with a pair of B208D's on poles on top of them. Four of my coaxial 10" monitors on separate mixes. I had the vocals in the tops only, the kick, keys and MP3 player in both with buses used to HPF/LPF them at 125Hz to the proper cabs. Unusual is that I ran the bass into only the bottoms full range (patched in after the LPF) - next time I'll do that with the kick also as one configuration I need to support is where there is a vocals only PA and mine is just used for bass and kick with only the two 15" cabs. I won't get "click" but not a big deal with the genres I play. The bottoms are OK to about 3K where they start to roll off at 12db/oct.

 

I've got a "care package" coming in from AudioPile with a 3 foot patch cable for the sub amp - I'm too lazy to make a proper one and I know this one will outlive me (and perhaps the human race LOL). Also six 30' TRS to XLRF cables to save me a couple minutes deploying the one footers I have now. The XR12 has six TRS only inputs in addition to the four combo XLR/TRS inputs - and two high impedance TRS/TS inputs that I'm reserving for bass and things like a keyboard or acoustic guitar.

 

Oh, and I bought some two inch standoffs to recess the mixer into the case so I can leave things plugged into it with the front cover on. I think one inch would have been plenty, especially with the shorter XLR bodies. I had a machinist friend (and drummer in two of my bands ) put a hole and 1" ID grommet in one of the rather wide rack ears so I can cleanly pass cables from five of the outputs to the back of the amps. The sixth output goes directly to my active tops - PA is set up mono due to the lack of outputs (and because that's all you need ).

[RoadRanger]

Just thought I'd mention that it's playback from a USB flash drive is limited to stereo wav files and you can't have more that 200 in a folder (including the root directory). You can get super small 8GB drives for under $2.50 from China (I have two now) that fit 12.5 hours of wav music each, and I bought a USB3.0 Sandisk Ultra Fit 32GB one from a US source for under $10. No shuffle play but there are programs available that can pre-append a random number to your filenames so that they with play in that numerical order .

 

Oh - and as always - the AudioPile cables are still the best buy on this planet . I joined a band a couple years back where they were going through about one cable per rehearsal - bought from the BL's buddy's music store. I had him order up some from Mark and no more problems - and they were less expensive too. I told him to find himself better buddies LOL.

[RoadRanger]

NU3000 went teats-up on one channel so I have to swap in a Carvin DCM2004L I already had. Need to get cables for it in first, it only has XLR inputs and my monitor feeds are all TRS or TS. I'll move the present monitor amp (NU4-6000) to the subs and tops duty that the NU3000 was doing. So down to 8KW but up to 8 channels of amplification . If the NU4-6000 ever dies I'll flip them back around and use my Peavey IPR3000 on subs and tops.

 

Unfortunately Audiopile doesn't have 3 foot TRS to XLFM cables or any length of TRS stereo to dual XLRM cable . As this is probably going to be my last PA I wanted all the best cabling . I have four 30' XLR cables and six 30' TRS to XLRF cables for it, all Audiopile, The other two inputs are Hi-Z TRS normally used for bass, acoustic guitar, keyboards, harmonica mic, etc. The sub and mains outs are cabled to the amp with Audiopile 3' XLR cables but I was using a couple 3' TRS cables I already had for the aux outs and a 3' Hosa TRS to dual TS cable for the MacGyver'd headphone out to third and forth monitor send.