Members MrJoshua Posted April 9, 2009 Members Share Posted April 9, 2009 I generally just run sound for my band at small venues - around 200 people or less. We're a rock group that every once in a while tosses in a keyboard player. At the moment I'm wired up for mono, since my old snake only had four returns on it (mains, subs, two monitor mixes). I got a new snake because I wanted one with a reel, and now I have eight returns. I was planning on rewiring my rig for stereo, but as I look at it I wonder, is there really any point? We don't do anything with stereo effects. I very, very rarely run sound for anyone else, and when I do it's usually a praise & worship service our church runs which is mostly spoken word. I've just never had any call for it. For mains I'm running two Peavey Impulse 1012 8-ohm cabinets off one side of a QSC PL236 (1300W @ 4 ohms into a pair of 500W RMS two-way cabinets). If I went to stereo I'd run one per side, which would give me 800W to each cab ... which is maybe a little higher than I like, but, not unreasonable. Am I better off just leaving it as it is? It wouldn't take a lot of work to set it up for stereo; I'd just need to add one new XLR and one new Speakon to the I/O panel on the power amp rack, and re-route the cabling in the FOH rack for stereo since right now I'm just using the mono out on the mixer and one channel of the EQ, etc... Twenty minutes with a soldering iron that I ought to do anyway, so I can use the other side of the QSC if I need to without getting inside the rack and re-wiring at a gig, plus ten minutes of shifting some cables around and tying things up neatly. But unless y'all can point out some benefit of a stereo rig that I'm missing, I may just leave it alone. Anyway, I just thought I'd get some thoughts from the forum, since pretty much all of y'all do a lot more sound work than I do. I appreciate any input. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members RoadRanger Posted April 9, 2009 Members Share Posted April 9, 2009 I like stereo for playing tunes before/between sets. Even in mono I'd run one cab off each channel vs both on one - easier on the amp. Also that 1300w@4ohms assumes both channels are being used equally - with just one used you are getting more power than you think! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Consume Posted April 9, 2009 Members Share Posted April 9, 2009 My vote is if you CAN go stereo - then do it, then if you WANT to, you are already prepared for it. Essentially I like the idea of "dual mono" meaning, it's stereo, but I have nothing panned. What I want to do is run the effects in stereo without panning the insturments themselves - I figured that should add a little bit of depth to the sound, without trying to create an actual "stereo" image where things are panned too far one way or the other. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Sojourner7 Posted April 9, 2009 Members Share Posted April 9, 2009 You may find that stereo has little to no practical application for the stuff you do. Sure, there are some benefits as said above, but with live stuff I am mono all the way. If you dabble with stereo and start panning stuff to make it sound cool from where you are mixing realize that most people would get an altered version of your mix depending on where they stand. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Crownman Posted April 9, 2009 Members Share Posted April 9, 2009 You may find that stereo has little to no practical application for the stuff you do. Sure, there are some benefits as said above, but with live stuff I am mono all the way. If you dabble with stereo and start panning stuff to make it sound cool from where you are mixing realize that most people would get an altered version of your mix depending on where they stand. Ditto on the above. I do have thesystem at the club stereo but that's only because some of the BE's ask for it that way. I just run it dual mono the rest of the time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members agedhorse Posted April 9, 2009 Members Share Posted April 9, 2009 Same here. I have a large stereo installation that is run essentially mono 99.9% of the time. It's no big deal. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Coaster Posted April 9, 2009 Members Share Posted April 9, 2009 i wire up my amp racks in stereo and run a mono mix. i have an eq for left and right and on rare occasion set them different from each other. every once in a while i will get some idiot that stands RIGHTINFRONT of one of the speakers and its really easy to pan them over to the other one rather than stop what they are doing and explain the full scale feedback happening right in their ear that they are oblivious to. this actually happens quite a bit at non-music events. these tend to be the same people who will bring an entry level wireless mic up to FOH for me to hook up and then when i walk up to the stage 80' away and wire it into the snake they look at me like i killed their first born daughter. "thats not how our soundguy does it" oh, i guess your soundguy has a way for that $120 POS to reliably transmit 80' through 1400 people in a steel building then? i'd like to meet this guy cuz i never been able to get that to work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members ezstep Posted April 10, 2009 Members Share Posted April 10, 2009 "Dual" mono is the way to go, nearly 100% of the time, Joshua. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members BillESC Posted April 10, 2009 Members Share Posted April 10, 2009 Stereo is almost useless as there is only one straight line equi-distant from the speakers where it will really have meaning. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members jwlussow Posted April 10, 2009 Members Share Posted April 10, 2009 Dual mono. If you REALLY need stereo it is available. We run dual mono and rarely, if ever, play with the pan. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members NUSound Posted April 10, 2009 Members Share Posted April 10, 2009 The only time I pan something at 95% of the show I do, it's first to check that the left side mains are on, then to check the right side mains are on. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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