Outboard Treatment For Playing Live

[LucidSFX]

Does anyone treat the tempest with a limiter or compressor? The on board compressor is great but I need to tame the transients on my mixer for playing live. Programmed beats are hard to compete with a polished track. I dont want anything cheap but a stereo compressor or limiter up to $2000 that is totally transparent.

I am thinking of just getting the SP16 from pioneer and preparing my sets there instead of the above option. This way I can prepared my beats etc in advance to match levels...but performing on the tempest is solid so I have a dilemma.

Thoughts?

Yay! I broke 200 posts!!

[onesnzeros]

not sure if this one is transparent, but i remember it sounding good for the price...
http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p2050601.m570.l1313.TR0.TRC0.H0.Xtc+finalizer.TRS0&_nkw=tc+finalizer&_sacat=0

[RobH]

I run mine into a WA76, its an 1176 clone, it gives the Tempest a body to the low drums and sheen on the highs, i have to admit i'll never run any drum machine without it again it makes so much difference to the sounds you can make, compressing in the DAW i never quite captured anything like i manage to with this WA76.

I'm also going to grab a DBX 165a vca compressor and maybe a Vulture Culture Distortion to run in paralell with it but i can't speak for the results you get only what i've heard from artists i like who make tracks i love (like the DFA).

Seriously though, the WA76 is a 1176 style compressor and it goes for like half the price they usually go for second hand new, if you ever heard a really nice booming style 808 kick where the body if the kick becomes more like a bass tone, this baby does that kind of thing, it also has a "all in" settings where u basically press all the buttons in, if you do this and put the release and attack to the fastest you get a kind of slight distortion which was used on a lot of rock records back in the day, im sure its prevelant in dance too i would defo reccommend you go try one out or if u can afford buy one and then sell it if you really don't like it (which wont happen lel).

I bought mine when i bought my Tempest, occasionally i want some stereo so i unplug the WA76 and 5 minutes later i forget the stero and run the WA76 again haha if you send me a project i'll run it through the comperessor for you to have a listen no probs!

(oh im not sure about playing live with a 1176, i dont know much about live rigs tbh i guess it doesn't make a differnce tho a compressor is a compressor right?) Oh and i also missed Stereo, i mean for $2000 you can grab like 4 x WA76, i'm not sure about its tranparency but i find mine adds to the sound in every way thats nice tbh

Also the you can get more authentic 1176's from UA i believe make the original but purple audrio also make some awesome ones but i think they do have more of a tone to them.

[RobH]

Just to add you should all buy a 1176 style compressor. Trust me on this one thing right!

[LucidSFX]

Thanks for the advice

[Trevor Refix]

This may be a bit off track, but if you're looking at spending that kind of coin maybe have a look at the Allen & Heath QuPac mixer. Each of its 16 channels has its own compressor, gate, eq as well as 4 global or in-line fx. Its rack mountable too. Its a big part of my live rig and removed a lot of stress when I added it

http://www.allen-heath.com/ahproducts/qu-pac/

[LucidSFX]

Funny that you should mention that. I seam to be going back to the QU from time to time. So for the compressor which do you like to use most on the Tempest. I believe there is a mode called Auto Punchbag:) A music mag had said it was decent on drums. I've love to hear an A/B of the mixing board. I was thinking that if I go this route I can sell my UFX. I have the Xone DB4 and the FX palate is somewhat taken from the Ilive series too. I really like the verbs. So I am sure the FX with the QU unit are great. What I can tell you is that the drivers were shit for DB4 and so I don't connect it to my computer (since I have a UFX). Any thoughts on the QU drivers? Do you do any tracking with it or as a sound card for mixing ITB?

[Trevor Refix]

I don't usually track with the qupac fx other than some light compression and light high pass on certain things. Oh, and the tempest channel always gets a gate to lower the noise floor

I just use one of the compressor presets in the drum folder and then tweek it to taste for my tempest live set up - can't recall if it's auto punch bag, and not in studio for a day or 2.

For me the fx engines (and many other aspects) come in very handy for live performance - it saves me bringing outboard or pedals and having all those assignable soft keys is amazing. And it's tiny! And has memory! And can record 16 channels right to a usb stick for re-mixing later (for your live sets).

In the studio it's a nice, small footprint and does everything I need it to. I do use it as my soundcard, though I do my mixing on  my daw.

As drivers, I actually "downgraded" from a qu24 and the 24 had some weird distortion issue that would come and go with my DAW fairly regularly. I've had the qupac for a year and I think that distortion thing has only happened twice. Could just be an updated OS too.

[LucidSFX]

Thanks...yeah the noise gate is handy no doubt. I am sold. I need to build a studio desk for my gear...I moved from a house to a condo...sigh...then I'll pickup the Qu16 (I'll look at the pac too). L&M has zero interest this month on financing. So I will most likely take advantage of that!

Great advice bro. Thanks!

[Trevor Refix]

Happy to help. Definitely worth seeing if you can find a qu PAC in stock before jumping on the 16 (cheaper and more compact) to see how it works without the faders - pretty cool how they've set it up. All the same features as the 16 and you don't need an iPad (they seem to really push the iPad angle on the A+H site).

 I don't miss faders at all because I don't do a lot of live mixing of full bands - though I have done it with the qu PAC and made it work.

Alright, now just to reach out to A+H for my kickback...