Question for the FOH people

[Jose Mrochek]

How does the RNC compressor perform on live gigs ? Heard good comments from the recording people, I was wondering if people use them for FOH situations, and if they do a good job. Any other suggestions on that price range are also very welcome. Thank you all!

[aussie_techie]

they are great, very transperent and just cant beat them for the price and though its a small ugly box it seems to be quite strong although i wouldnt like to drop a brick on it. only used one live once on FOH, was so transperent i had to check if the thing was on. The major drawbacks for live use are the lack of balanced io which is fine on inserts but no good on main bus and the external power supply, its a pain to have a heap of wall warts in a rack and the little plugs arnt as secure as an IEC plug, having to use a custom rack is an added cost and being limited to only being stereo seems kinda a waste, but hell they are so cheep. it would be great if they would make them 1U with balanced i/o and the option to use them as duel mono. im considering getting a few to use live, racking them together and some sort of single power unit to power several it seems to be the cheepest way to get quality compressors but not sure yet

[tINY]

Those are pretty good points. The sonic character is overkill for most live reinforcement needs... and, then, in any situation where you might leverage it's good points, you probably wouldn't want a wall wart to deal with.

Mostly, on FOH you see comps like dBX 166/266 XL and stuff from Klark Teknik and BSS. There's a lot of buzz about Presonus stuff, but I haven't seen it in a rack yet (though I did see som e Focusrite stuff used).

FOH stuff tends to be driven by tech riders. So, you see a lot of decent, durable stuff that's been out for a while.



-tINY

[Telecastr]

I don't like the Presonus ACP88 - the 8 channel comp. They're ok i guess, but not great. A lot of the better production companies have racks of 160As & XTs and BSS. The 166/266s are decent and cheap, so you will see them lots as Tiny said. Still it seems that a lot of guys use Behringer crap out the butt. I can't stand the sound of a vocal (or anything really) through a composer or autocom.

[username]

I'm suprised noones mentioned Drawmer in this thread!... they're another one that turns up in alot of live racks

[aussie_techie]

those behringer things arent compressors they are just shit boxs, they just make everything sound like crap. the behringer gates are decent on the cheep, not as clicky as the dbx
the 160s sound great, we use them alot on the main bus and lead vocals and bass and of course whereever else if we have enough of them for the show, personly i prefer a prefer something a bit cleaner esp on the main bus but it comes down to what ever sounds good. 166/266 are the work horse compressors but i would only buy them myself if i needed multiple channals straight away otherwise i would save for something better, as i am doing. the 1046 is a great 4ch work horse compressor/limiter and not wasting money on all those channals that dont need gates. we use dbx comps on everything while not the best they are just good goto comps that are affordable in the numbers we need

im not to sure about the presonus stuff but i havnt used them myself, they sound decent but i would take a 166/266/1046 over them. the ACP88 seems fairly cheep for 8 channals, i have heard they can be a pain to use. most of the presonus gear is overpriced here anyway so i bearly look at it.

what exacly do you need the comp on? while the rnc has its drawbacks i wouldnt dismiss it as they do sound great and at a similar price to a 166/266

[Jay Kahrs]

Originally Posted by Jose Mrochek

How does the RNC compressor perform on live gigs ? Heard good comments from the recording people, I was wondering if people use them for FOH situations, and if they do a good job. Any other suggestions on that price range are also very welcome. Thank you all!

Totally.

At the end of the day audio is audio and a compressor is a compressor right? It either does the job or it doesn't.

[studjo]

Live compressors?

Drawmer 251/241
DBX 160
BSS

I don't like the new DBX stuff at all - and I rather not compress than use a Behringer piece (I also don't gate with Behringer) - I just don't use Behringer outboard.

Jo

[Jose Mrochek]

Originally Posted by Jay Kahrs

Totally.

At the end of the day audio is audio and a compressor is a compressor right? It either does the job or it doesn't.

Yes, we assumed this to be the answer. But my live engineer told me it wouldn't hurt to ask so I did. I thank you all very much for your suggestions!! I appreciate your time. : )

[DeadPoet]

Not meaning to hijack this thread, but how many times do live guys see mixers show up with preamp racks (except for the occasional lead vox) ?


Herwig

[tINY]

More and more if they have digital outputs and you're mixing on a digital board. Mostly I've seen this installed so far....



-tINY