Powercab 212 or 2 x Powered speakers for mini-concerts?

[oliviadwyer]

I'm looking for advice for this project: I am planning to perform "mini-concerts". I call them "mini" because it will be in a friend's place, which is basically an a big-enough apartment room for some friends (around 10 top max) as audience and I will play in front of them. So it's not the same situation as a real concert.

I will be playing mainly with guitars + Helix (floor) as a command center and/or (depending on the session and the piece) with a laptop+audio interface (maybe a mixer later), a few additional pedals and maybe midi controllers & keyboard(s).

It is possible that this project will lead to some bigger performance but I'm not motivated at all to try other kinds of performances for now (except maybe through twitch).

Right now I use studio monitors in my home office, so I only need these to work on music or for training at guitar. However I don't intend to move them for this kind of event, it doesn't feel appropriate and I dont want to risk breaking them while moving them.

I'm looking for a good solution for FR/FR speakers when doing these mini-concerts. My friend that will host the event is open to let me get there sometimes to check acoustic etc. but I'm not sure what should work, I lack experience in that domain and I can't get there with everything I have or consider (it's not close, I don't have a car or licence so I'll go with taxi/uber).

Here is the kind of music I will be playing:

• backing track + me playing over with the guitar (for electric-guitar focused stuffs);

• acoustic (with or without backing tracks), with the helix (for effects mainly)

• some synth based background loops + me playing over with the guitar (maybe driven through midi etc.)

• ambient pieces;

• solo guitar focused pieces;

Because of this I suspect I better go with stereo, in particular for the ambient pieces and for having the backing tracks playing in different instruments in different "places" around, to not mush the sound when I play over. I also think I don't need concert-level volume, though I still need louder than what I play in my office as I'm alone in the (small) room.

Here is what I have that could work and what I am considering:

1. I have a BlackStar ID-CORE BEAM (https://blackstaramps.com/id-core-beam/) which basically works well for both acoustic and electric guitars and bass. I used it sometime to get to a friend's place and plugged the Helix headphone output into the aux input of this amp, the speaker felt ok but I couldn't compare to see if it was tainting the sound too much or not (the point of the session was not really the sound so we didnt focus on that). It's also not super practical once I try to work with more than one instruments.

2. I have an old Laney electric keyboard amp that looks weird and there is duct tape around it. I salvaged it at a previous job where it was abandoned in a corner (the job had nothing to do with music). Some people say keyboard amps can be used instead of FR/FR speakers, I don't know about that. One major issue with it is that it seems to taint the tone a lot.

3. I consider getting a PowerCab 212 plus, to have the stereo in one transportable thing. It's not clear to me if the fact that the speakers are close is a bad thing or not for stereo. Like, is that important for ambient pieces? Would that cab work well with a laptop playing other stuffs too + me playing in the helix?

4. I consider getting 2 x "EV ZLX 12P" https://www.thomann.de/fr/ev_zlx_12p.htm Other than the price of doing so (similar to getting the PowerCab 212), the main issue is that getting these would only be useful for these mini-concerts. I will probably not be able to use them in any other ways I planned so far. The main advantages is getting instruments-agnostic FR/FR and being able to put them far from each other (or just not-close).

Any suggestions at what would be a good solution for this kind of project?

 

milestoneapply.com

[bobcoss]

I have played my Helix floor through combinations of tube amps, Headrush 112 Powercab 112+, Powercab 112, and various other powered PA speakers over the years. Some sound better than others, but they are mostly similar to me.   I would buy the best small PA speakers I could afford and a small mixer so you have room to expand in the future.  As your venues grow, you can even use the same speakers as monitors for bigger PA Speakers.  I have taken my headrush 112 speakers and used them as a PA, and I think they sounds great.  But they are going to be overkill for a single room venue.   I heard a headrush 108 Saturday for the first time.  It was strange that the guitarist using it had a fancy headrush board and the venue mic'd his headrush 108.  It sounded fine in the house.  I was very surprised how good the high gain amp modeling sounded coming out of that little speaker .  If you find a couple of small PA speakers like the Headrush 108 you would have the portability convenience, and affordability with room to grow in the future.

 

I hear the Powercab 212+ does some magic to create stereo spread, but I've never heard it.