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General discussion

Please help me buying dedicated monitoring rack

May 19, 2017 8:06PM PDT

Hi all,

I am trying to build an independent rack for customized monitoring for the band I manage and do FOH for. It will be consisted of both IEMs and wedges. Below are some key facts and then I will describe what I need in terms of capabilities.

4-piece rock band, 1 drummer - 2 guitarists – 1 vocalist that plays the bass as well. Extremely loud stage sound, mainly because of the hard hitting drummer on the cymbals and the loud guitar stacks. Venues we play: from 500person clubs to 3000person clubs to big outdoor festivals. Some have dedicated. monitoring desks, some don’t. Dedicated monitoring engineer at the moment is not available, but will be hired if that has to be done. We are mostly headlining, so I can have more that one hour to setup and soundcheck. Also, in house venue or festival techs will happily care for all our needs, no questions asked. The band is not well accustomed to mixing monitors or what the want to hear or how to describe what and how they want to hear, so I have the responsibility to provide the best monitoring I can get.

These are my thoughts.

Everything must be rackmounted.

The core could be the X32 rack. What router should I buy? Is there something I need to look for when buying a router.

Vocalist needs a stereo wireless IEM feed, as well as a mono wedge feed for safety reasons. I would like the best recommendation for a IEM pack and custom molds. It could go as high as $2000. I want the best model possible, in order to have the best quality possible for the money. I want him to control his mix with his iphone, after I have tweaked the sources on my ipad.

Drummer needs a stereo IEM feed, could be wired, but I want him to be able to control it with his bare fingers. Is P16m the solution here? If yes, is the built in HP preamp loud enough for a hard hitting drummer? What should I look for when choosing IEM molds for a drummer? Should I consider an extra AUX feed from the X32 to a sub next to the drummer for the ultra lows?
The 2 guitarists have their own wedges (mono), one each, so I will need another 2 P16m’s here?

I will have my stage manager operating this system. I will need this to be super reliable, portable and easy to set up. What about splitting the mics? The input list consists of 18 sources/channels (2 audience mics included). What about big festivals, where the mics are already splitted to the FOH and the monitoring console?

What about panning for the stereo mixes? Can I have dedicated panning for the drummer and dedicated panning for the vocalist?

Should I care about the latency of this digital system?

Sorry if this topic has been discussed before. These are the first questions that come to mind, thanks for taking the time to read. I appreciate all feedback!

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