A & H zed 12 fx

[jack hale]

I have been asked to do sound for a small band, We have 3 guitars and 3 mics. I was hoping to run the guitars into di boxes then into a mixer. Would the A & H Zed 12 fx be a good choice of mixer? Is there better out ther for the same price and if any one has one is it a good investment ?

 

http://www.dv247.com/assets/products/58006_l.jpg

 

 

Thanks, Jack

 

Moderation: Spelling and punctuation tidied up--in at least one case the spelling was so bad as to make your post difficult to understand. Please use a spell checker and take time to proof read your posts in the future--proper spelling, punctuation and grammar is valued in the Blue Room as clarity is required when discussing technical topics.

[Bobbsy]

The easy part first: the A&H Zed series is well thought of by many of the denizens of the Blue Room. At that price point, you'd have trouble finding a better mixer.

 

As for using DIs on guitars (I assume electric?), there's no good answer to this. From the sound operator point of view, this is an ideal method of working because it gives you a near silent stage with no "stage wash" to contend with in the mix. However, there are a couple of drawbacks from a performance point of view. First, most electric guitarists (rightly) consider the amplifier sound (including distortion, maybe reverb, etc.) to be an integral part of their instrument. An electric guitar via a DI can sound TOO clean and clinical so you might be into needing amp modellers etc. as part of the set up.

 

Second, if you only have a DI and no amps on stage, you may increase your need for monitor wedges so the guitarists can hear themselves.

 

For these two reasons, the more common way of working is to use guitar amps/speakers on stage and mic these to feed them into the main mix. From a sound point of view, the trick with this is to keep the levels from the guitar amps low enough and the speakers aimed appropriately so the level on stage is sufficient but not excessive..

 

Finally, it's not unusual if you have enough inputs to use both a DI and a mic on the cabinet for guitars and then include a bit of both in the mix--but this depends on the sound you're after.

 

Bob

[jack hale]

well they go from there fx pedals into the amp so the amp has a clean sound and the paddles take care of the fx (distoshan, reverb etc) thats why I that the di boxes wold be the way to go

youll have to excuse the bad spelling and grama im dislexic sorry I have used spell check as best as I culd

 

thanks jack