quadcabby

Hi, I play in a 6 piece covers band. 1 Fem & 4 male vox, Yamaha electronic kit & Tyros 5(through a rack mount DI), Spider 2 Valve (DI'd), Peavey Bandit (Micd) and Bass (DI'd). We use an M20d with 2 L3s, 2 L3t, and 2 L2t as monitors for front of stage with a couple of active wedges for keyboard player and drummer. We do mainly corporate and function work as we're too big for most pubs. Had the Line 6 rig for year or so with no problems until NewYears eve when we had a particularly important gig with a good agent coming to see us with a view to pushing on in the new year. Started our first 45 mins set and had a great sound until about 6 songs in, at which point the keyboard channel (linked stereo pair) suddenly started to hiss, Really loud, and no keyboard sound. No matter what I did, other than turn the channel fader down, would stop the hiss. When I checked the trim level it was stuck maxed out even though I run auto trim (Godsend). I turned the fader down and moved the Tyros to another channel and patched the guitars through 1/4 inputs to free up XLRs for the Tyros, and we finished the set. During the interval I rebooted the M20d and the problem cleared. I put everything back to how it should be and we started the 2nd 45 mins. Again after about 5 songs, same problem. Rebooted 3 times before it cleared. Our 3rd set was fine though I did reduce the gain on everything just in case I was the problem!! Question is, has anyone else had this problem or if not any ideas as the rest of the band have no faith in the set up now and want to go back to our old system of Behringer desk with Peavey amps and speakers and I'm getting a bit too long in the tooth for all that weight and wiring!! Happy New Year everyone!

Don't use Zyldian electronic cymbals with the phantom power turned on. I did a mere £650 worth of damage to our drummers kit by using the phantom power to fire up a Behringer DI box for the keyboard player.

Yeah the acoustics are really handy, especially with altered tunings and the banjo works well too. Nice thing about the JTV is that they have the mags on as well. It's funny though that the gear snobbery doesn't stop with the guitars. I run a PA hire company and we've ditched our Peavey rigs and started using the Stagescape and Stagesource gear as it's a no brainer. We can usually show a novice how to get decent results in about 30 minutes!! We get the same reaction to the M20d as we do with the Variax, but why not use the tech if it makes our lives easier. The other thing for us is that using the "Link" and an iPad, we don't need a van load of Speakon cables, and snakes, and if we rent out a system without an engineer then nobody is going to drag the rear end out of an amp by daisy chaining the speakers.

I bought a Variax 500 when they first came out as it saved me so much lugging of gear. Lets face it the average guy on here doesn't have a tech to run on stage with a ready to go "G" tuned guitar for the next number, and then again as you swap to an "A" for the next one and so on!! I now have a JTV and it's even better than the Variax 500, though I did have to polish the frets and do some tweaking to get it where I wanted it. For a gigging muso to me it's a no brainer, but the amount of gear snobs that pull a face when they see me take it out of the case is unbelievable. They normally change their tune (no pun intended) when they hear it. We also use Yamaha DTX drums and our drummer gets the same reaction, with one guy asking why he used a practice kit. Same guy apologised after we'd done the first set complete with timpani and bongoes where needed without the aid of a percussionist. I think we as guitarists can be, and I include myself in this as I still have my '72 Strat and won't sell it as nothing else sounds like it, a little set in our ways. Next thing for me is a 500X so I can stop lugging my Spider Valve around. Great amp but so heavy.