Rider friendly Pa system for Bands and DJ's

[d&bhead]

Hi Guys, another silly question no doubt,

 

Got a bit of money saved up, but ideally wont spend all of it on a PA system lets say less than £40Kish

 

That gives me £15k to upgrade my desk.

 

Work im trying to shuffle into; Good regional touring bands, some national and a few international.

 

Looking to cater for no more than 3000 cap outside.

 

Obviously im not wanting to make a bad investment, although some systems sound OK and are cheap they just don't appear on riders that I see.

 

The main PA systems im looking at is;

 

F1 Res5 with 218, D&B C series inc B2 or Q series, Turbosound aspect TSW218.

 

What do we all reckon regarding rider acceptability.

 

interested to hear your thoughts.

 

Cheers

 

D

[StevenW2]

If you are considering the Res5s you will need to go 5 - wide in the open air, so 10 cabs minimum.

 

Go for the 21" bass - much more bass for fewer cabinets. F121 are easier to move and can be ratcheted together to make F221s. 21" bass will give you more height for a groundstacked system too - so easier to set up than a flown system.

 

But, by the time you get the amps and processors you'll have spent all your budget!

 

Should be a very rider-friendly system, especially for DJs and dance events.

[TonyMitchell]

Invest £5k in a decent collection of industry standard mics, stands, cables, etc.

Put the other £50k in the bank, or under the bed and hire the optimum configuration of racks, stacks & wedges for the individual jobs as you secure the contracts.

 

You're unlikely to "shuffle into" work around the 3,000 mark, and even if you did, you'd need to put another nought on the end of your PA budget.

 

£40k won't buy you a lot of boxes from the brands you've mentioned, probably enough to cover audiences of ~500.

 

After trading for 12 months, by which time you'll have realised the 3,000 thing was aspirational and never going to happen, look at the kit list for the jobs you have done and possibly invest some of the money into a small PA, but only if the year one depreciation +TCO + convenience factor works out less than the cost of hiring it regularly. Bear in mind if you hire regularly, you'll build up a relationship and secure keener deals. The hire co will also like you as they won't have to mess about with fiddly mics & cables, if you do what I've suggested.

 

Finally, you may get more/better advice on here if you put your real name in your profile, as the likes of "robocop", "d&bhead", etc conjour up unpleasant images of a teenage bedroom dj with big dreams and matching sized ego. Just my 2p.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[d&bhead]

Steven, thank you for input!

 

I find f1 is less frequently on the riders I see for bands, although it's possible f1 corners the dance Market, I'd be interested in having a good acceptable allrounder (not that f1 isn't good for bands, it's just less frequent)

 

tony, thank you for your input, I see how d&b makes you feel like I'm a bedroom dj but d&baudiotecknikhead just seemed like somewhat of a Tongue twister!

 

I Already have plenty of cables, live mics, boundry mics, wireless mics along with some vintage and modern recording mics, so I'm sorted on that front.

 

If I wanted to spend £400k I'd probably go with mla or j series, but I'd say tickling the first green light for less than 3000 people would be somewhat of an overkill?!! Don't you think?

 

If the question was about putting money into the bank, which would you recommend, as cash is depreciating by around 4% a year? So holding cash is a very bad investment and it doesn't make very much noise either!

[TonyMitchell]

The point I was trying to make is unless you have a full order book and know what kit you will need to fulfil same, you will be better off hiring the best solution for each job. You will end up making more money at the end of the year. If you buy, you will probably end up with a less than ideal inventory that you'll do the best you can with.

 

If you have £400k to invest, your bank manager or other professional advisor is probably likely to have "buy a big pile of speakers" fairly low down on their list, unless, as I've said you have a firm order book and business plan that washes its face commercially. Just looking at it from your POV for a moment, I suppose if you bought a container of Q when it first came out and shrinkwrapped & palletised it, you could sell it today for more than you paid! Although being the dinosaur I am, more traditional investments still seem more appealing...

[d&bhead]

Tony, thank you once again for your reply, I am not looking for business advice, although thank you for it.

 

for my sanity let me simplify my question and get back to what I was asking;

 

in which order would you rank these systems as being rider friendly for bands and djs for capacity events of upto 3000

d&b q

d&b c

turbosound aspect

f1

 

any advice based purely on the above would be very useful

 

thank you

[TonyMitchell]

For dance events, promoters & punters tend to favour F1, as it is hyped on flyers & other publicity - clubbers/ravers "know" the F1 brand (and it is very good kit)

 

For live work, d&b and turbo tend to feature more prominently on riders, not because F1 is the wrong tool, but because there is a belief by those that write (or copy someone else's) rider that F1 is just a dance product, possibly the aesthetics encourage that thinking?

 

Back to d&b product - C is a twenty year old product, Q is newer technology, much more versatile and significantly lighter. You can pick up secondhand C4 with P1200s very cheaply, in fact its the only current d&b product that hasn't held its value, as a result of the market being flooded with s/h C4 as rental companies moved to J and Q.

 

To do a space for 3,000 properly with Q & B2s, will set you back just north of £200k, including the flying gear but excluding cases & cables... oh, and that excludes monitors.

[d&bhead]

Hi tony, thank you.

 

I have heard all 4 systems at events and I like all of them.

 

I suppose with a limited budget of only £40k for a main foh I would be looking at less d&b than turbo or f1.

 

So would that be a sacrifice of rider acceptability for the amount of boxes and overall volume.

 

It seems turbo or f1 would be a likely choice.

 

Back to the old f1 or turbo argument then!!! Would artists accept either if offered?

[haymere]

For dance events, promoters & punters tend to favour F1, as it is hyped on flyers & other publicity - clubbers/ravers "know" the F1 brand (and it is very good kit)

 

For live work, d&b and turbo tend to feature more prominently on riders, not because F1 is the wrong tool, but because there is a belief by those that write (or copy someone else's) rider that F1 is just a dance product, possibly the aesthetics encourage that thinking?

 

Back to d&b product - C is a twenty year old product, Q is newer technology, much more versatile and significantly lighter. You can pick up secondhand C4 with P1200s very cheaply, in fact its the only current d&b product that hasn't held its value, as a result of the market being flooded with s/h C4 as rental companies moved to J and Q.

 

To do a space for 3,000 properly with Q & B2s, will set you back just north of £200k, including the flying gear but excluding cases & cables... oh, and that excludes monitors.

 

Just in case you are interested, I have a friend with a pair of B2's with amps for sale for £5k

[adamski1010]

Although you're budget may limit you, another name to throw into the mix would be our French friends, L'Acoustics. In my humble opinion many of their offerings are sonically superior than many of the above mentioned brands and you cannot beat them for 'rider friendliness'. ARCs (2) would seem a sensible option for the kind of shows your doing. Just make sure avoid the older SB218/118 subs!

 

I have to agree with the other posters however, £40k really does not buy much in the way of high end PA (especially with LA8s starting at around £5k trade each). Hiring may be a good option to begin with.

 

Kind Regards,

Adam

[abnexo]

Being a touring engineer, being greeting with a pile of C4 and some b2's at a venue, brings a much larger smile to my face than turbo and certainly function one.

 

I see 4 stacks of c4 and 2 x b2 packages including amps (P1200s and A1) around the country for around the 15-18k mark, meaning your 40k could buy you a pretty standard 8 stacks of c4 plus b2s and leave a little money left over to put towards wedges etc.

I can't see very many engineer turning they noses up at C4. It will also, move quite a lot of air at a dance night too. http://www.blue-room.org.uk/public/style_emoticons/default/wink.gif

 

Nexo Alpha and Alpha E is still a rider friendly system too, there must be some of that knocking around second hand nowadays... I'm sure that will be within budget if you power it on crowns or anything other than Camco's...

[RichM]

Putting aside the sneaky feeling I have that you're about to waste/lose an awful lot of money...

Nexo Alpha and Alpha E is still a rider friendly system too, there must be some of that knocking around second hand nowadays...

 

Nexo Alpha would be what I looked at as well. It might be getting a bit long in the tooth but it's still a perfectly capable system and will be known by pretty much every visiting engineer.

[ptrturner4]

have you considered an OHM system? sound realy good for the price, Might be worth a look or a ring to hsl in stoke just my 2 cents!

[TonyMitchell]

have you considered an OHM system? sound realy good for the price, Might be worth a look or a ring to hsl in stoke just my 2 cents!

 

 

...except the OP did specify "rider friendly". I've heard a handful of OK sounding OHM rigs over the years, but are they really rider friendly? They're not in the premier league along with the 3 brands the OP mentioned, but they're also not on the typical "absolutely no bellringer, macky,peevy, blah blah blah" list. Kind of the "Torquay United" of PA brands

[mervaka]

Well that's all rather subjective. It's influenced by what the rider specifies, and in turn that is influenced by what acts he expects to be working with. I run an Ohm TRS system, and it's usually recognised by the touring engineers. The ones who aren't familiar walk away afterwards more than happy with the results.