Heads-up: SpaceStation keyboard amp is apparently back

[Tombsalley]

Hammonddave:

Flat power and stable freq. response?

Can you elibriate on this? not sure what exactly you mean?

thanks!

[garnermike]

As I've said a few times here before, setting the sub-woofer (or bass combo amp) post-SS, via a simple and direct connection (straight out of the SS's sub-link and with just enough volume on the sub-woof/bass amp to hear its contribution) is the more convenient and more than adequate way to go.

 

Also, for those of you who use a sub-woof/bass amp with your SS but report that you can't hear the SS sound, here's something that I do in positioning my set-up that helps me appreciate what they are projecting.

 

I often use and place (when space will allow) the SS and my linked bass combo as if the they were just two mono amps---one on each side (L & R) of my keyboard seat and angled up toward my ears. It's not so much a stereo effect that you'll hear, but it is a cool sounding experience and satisfies my need to hear them --- all the while knowing (trusting, actually) that the SS is working its stereo effect magic around the room. I fully acknowledge that this runs counter to the advice to get the SS farther away from you so as to let the "bloom" reach your ears. But it satisfies my ears, so I often do it. Suggest you try it; can't hurt, can it?

[TimA]

I am stugling a little bit with the 2 SS situation. However I am making some strides

in countering issues. Some of it is user error. But, i must omit I miss my Yamaha DSr112's at times because I know what they can do and it is easier to adjust

what I am looking for. My original idea with these (SS) was to make things simpler and

cover all the bases with very little set up. But,lately I find it overwhelming to adjust

and try to get the right placement on real gig situations. And the louder these have

to be pushed to cover the further away from them you should be! These get loud!

 

I had complaints last night that it sounded muffled on some songs but really clear on others/I believe it to be user error because of some light compression(sub outs &mains) I tried. I don't think they like compression. So, I removed it for the last set,a bit better.

I haven't given up but, If I can't get it right soon,I may have to admit defeat and consider using a single SS as our monitor and search for a pair of mains.

How are you splitting into two equal stereo signals, could that be an issue? Also, I know with guitar amps there are ground loops and such unless you can isolate the split signals.

[J. Dan]

Hammonddave:

Flat power and stable freq. response?

Can you elibriate on this? not sure what exactly you mean?

thanks!

 

I'm not Dave but I think I can elaborate. They sound different when you crank them up. Some have characterized it as getting "honkey" in the mids.

[HammondDave]

Hammonddave:

Flat power and stable freq. response?

Can you elibriate on this? not sure what exactly you mean?

thanks!

 

I'm not Dave but I think I can elaborate. They sound different when you crank them up. Some have characterized it as getting "honkey" in the mids.

 

Exactly. To me this is the acid test of a good speaker. They may sound great at 3, bit do they sound the same at 7? I have had some good luck with this with the EV's. I felt the QSC's started to lose their accuracy the louder they got.

[Brettymike]

You don't have to protect the 8" speaker unless you're trying to overdrive it. As has been previously mentioned, you can't expect the SS to compete with a stack of Marshalls.

 

When you stress a small cone speaker w/ low frequncy content it cannot properly handle...

You might get these "farting" sound a few other mentioned before.

 

 

A.C.

 

Do you mean that the next time I fart on stage I can blame it on the speaker? They already smell of marijuana (due to some strange glue EV used).

 

So when someone tells me that I stink, they are really talking about the speaker as well?

 

We always put ours through the mike every time at band practice at least :D

 

Hey listen folks, way back on page so & so , that "farting" sound sometimes reported was a simple fix to block one of the 1/4" ports at the back of the ss....

Brett

[Alan Steinberger]

...that "farting" sound sometimes reported was a simple fix to block one of the 1/4" ports at the back of the ss....

Brett

 

Boy, did I misread that post. Amazing how one's mind tries to fill in missing letters...

[Tombsalley]

I use linked aux send from my Dl1608 and set it to post I set up a mix

I do have to balance the two stereo outs to taste with 2 master volumes.

 

 

[Tombsalley]

I believe that might be the case. So,first thing i did was to remove the compressors that i had on the sub mix and mains. The second I set the graphic eq's to a small bit of the smile face curve to take out any harsh mids and mid lows. So far that has helped but,we'll have to try again at another gig.

[Tombsalley]

i have 1/4' plugs I made from broken connector/cables I stripped down as far as I can go. They stay there all the time.

[BlueAndGreen]

Used the new SS3 for the first "get to know each other" jam for a new band that is forming. The 3D effect was evident and it was compliments all around. The Kurzweil Rhodes/Wurli EP's seemed to suffer a lot when I used my EV ZLX-12Ps, but with the SS3 they sounded great.

[Jass]

As another option for a small sub, I just purchased a Yorkville yx10sp. It has stereo ins, hi pass outs, and full range outs (all connections xlr, so 1/4" to xlr cables are needed). I have a local yorkville dealer, and really wanted to shy away from behringer. I've used this setup on 2 outdoor gigs this week where I was also playing left hand bass. Seems to work well filling the stage, then sent full range out of the sub to front of house pa.

Just throwing out another sub option that seems to work well with the ss.

[Jazzmammal]

Exactly. To me this is the acid test of a good speaker. They may sound great at 3, bit do they sound the same at 7? I have had some good luck with this with the EV's. I felt the QSC's started to lose their accuracy the louder they got.

 

This is exactly the problem and it's almost impossible to test this before you buy anything. I wind up buying stuff after reading about users on forums like this one.

 

A perfect example of this is with my pair of Behringer B208's. I bought them about 4 years ago when I had a series of regular small jazz gigs. They really do sound pretty good at low to moderate volume when I'm not playing bass. One gig I had room to spread them about 12 feet apart behind me and I played AP's and EP's only no organ. They sounded very good. But at a smallish bar gig I tried them along with my EV 112P. Initially I had the EV turned off and at a moderately higher volume the Beri's sounded honky and metallic. They were not obviously distorting, I wasn't overdriving them they just lost their sound quality at just a bit higher power level. I immediately turned them down and turned the EV up.

 

This is where the quality of the drivers comes in. I'm sure that Beri does not use the same quality of drivers that JBL, EV, Yamaha and others do. I suspect the quality of the electronics is fairly good, the problem is with the drivers. Maybe the new series of Beri speakers are better, don't know.

 

The Beri's worked fine to give me some stereo monitoring but it was the EV that projected out to the bar. Now the SS does the same job beautifully by itself.

 

Bob

[Doug Robinson]

Last night, I tried out my plan of using my little Line 6 bass amp from the sub out of my SS3 for an outdoor gig, just for kicks. My conclusion is that I don't need it for all gigs, but it sounds nice and fat, especially with big and loud Leslie-swirling chords.

 

However, a funny thing happened: the bassist's amp went out in the middle of a beastly cool blues shuffle and I automatically started playing left-hand bass and saved the day!

[elif]

Years of work went into it but it is clever IMO. I just found out about it a couple of days ago and read through the whole thread. This thing should do well with my Nord SW73.

 

Based on the relative mix between the two mic's (cardioid and fig 8), the M-S mic has a pattern that changes from a figure 8 to two super cardioids (IIRC), then to a single cardioid. There is no reason to think that the SS3 isn't approximating the same thing but in reverse, producing left and right audio with the same pattern. In these images the front of the SS3 would be pointing to the top.

 

[MotiDave]

You don't have to protect the 8" speaker unless you're trying to overdrive it. As has been previously mentioned, you can't expect the SS to compete with a stack of Marshalls.

 

When you stress a small cone speaker w/ low frequncy content it cannot properly handle...

You might get these "farting" sound a few other mentioned before.

 

 

A.C.

 

Do you mean that the next time I fart on stage I can blame it on the speaker? They already smell of marijuana (due to some strange glue EV used).

 

So when someone tells me that I stink, they are really talking about the speaker as well?

 

They smell like marijuana because you brought them in your van ...

[MathOfInsects]

Aspen, I know this is a pipe dream right now, but:

 

For me, the only meaningful downside to this cabinet is the distance aspect. It sounds best 6 or so feet away from you. But that means that you can't play and adjust at the same time. I find the shuttling from keyboard to box and back, rinse and repeat, to adjust for the room less than practical, especially in new rooms or new groups. And if something is hinky halfway though a set, it can be even more difficult to find a good moment to get up and walk back to the box to trim it even more.

 

I do use a personal mixer, but often the only adjustment needed is local to the box itself, not to FOH sound, so EQ at the mixer isn't always a solve.

 

BUT this could easily be addressed with a remote panel that controls the same aspects as the four knobs on the back of the box. The ability to adjust width or speaker EQ on the fly would be a massive benefit for the gigging user of this monitor. (Particularly if, like me, your gigs, rooms, or bandmates can vary by the week or the night.)

 

Is this within the realm of feasibility? It doesn't need to be wireless, it doesn't need to be fancy. It just needs to remotely adjust the same parameters as those four knobs. I'd gladly pay extra for this capability. Given that the box is virtually required to sit more than leaning-length away from you, it seems like a logical next-gen addition to the fold.

 

SS3.1 perhaps?

[Alan Steinberger]

...BUT this could easily be addressed with a remote panel that controls the same aspects as the four knobs on the back of the box.

 

A really good example of that would be the remote from the first generation of Bose L1 systems. It connected via 7 pin MIDI cable, and offered only tone and volume controls. I think I might still have one kicking around - I'll bring it and, for contrast, a Bose T1 (far more elaborate remote) over to Aspen's shop one day.

 

In the meantime, has anyone experimented with varying the send to the two SSv3 inputs? I wonder if increasing or decreasing the right side relative to the left (or simply panning one's mixer output) would affect the perceived width.

[niven8]

Hi,

I'm still trying to work out what sub I'd like to buy to use with my SS (it'll arrive in July sometime..from Thomann in Germany).

I stated before that I'm confused by EVs ZXA1..I think it's full range and the tops have a low pass filter....however, I've come across this Alto TS Sub12...v inexpensive, never heard of them before...but it has a high pass at 80hz...I'd be grateful for any comments re the consequences of using this sub in lieu of the

Behringer 1200....I think two answers would be v helpful...into sub first and the results....and into SS then into sub and the results.

Sorry if it's a bit boring for some folks, but it would be helpful.

Regards

Niven8.

 

 

[HammondDave]

Last night, I tried out my plan of using my little Line 6 bass amp from the sub out of my SS3 for an outdoor gig, just for kicks. My conclusion is that I don't need it for all gigs, but it sounds nice and fat, especially with big and loud Leslie-swirling chords.

 

However, a funny thing happened: the bassist's amp went out in the middle of a beastly cool blues shuffle and I automatically started playing left-hand bass and saved the day!

 

Bravo! This happened to me on several occasions. The last time was on an opening song for a large outdoor concert where the back line bass amp just blew up and I immediately took over. The bass player did not know if he was still active or not as I was playing the parts, and my EVs that were monitoring me were deep enough to cover the bass. Boy, was he surprised!

[MalH]

Has anyone tried a home-built solution? I'm thinking it wouldn't be hard to create the R+L and R-L using hardware (with a phase-invertable mixer or cross-wired cable) or software, but am thinking I'd need two side-firing speakers wired out-of-phase pointing left and right, since a standard PA wouldn't have much out-of-phase sound coming out the back.

 

i.e. a stack of 3 speakers:

Centre speaker: R+L

Left speaker: R-L

Right speaker: L-R

 

The L&R speakers would not need to be full-range, like the SS.

[Aussie_Chicago]

Quick question ? Has anybody here used the SSV3 with a Rhodes, as in a real Rhodes? I have a newly acquired 72' stage73 , and just ordered the supatrem2 stereo tremolo pedal. Wondering if the 8" speaker will hold up ?

 

So I got my 72' stage back from refurb...shout out to Max Brink at Chicago Electric Piano Co, great job, and quick turnaround.I had a chance of trying out the SS at rehearsal yesterday, with a fulltone supatrem2, boy did this thing sound nice. It literally filled the room with the trem on, much fuller and spacious than the trem on my 80' suitcase, I would highly recommend this pedal . For recording or small gigs, this will sound great. However, Im not convinced the SS will hold up on a live gig , it just dosnt get loud enough without breaking up , and Im also finding the mids from the Rhodes sound great, but the lows and highs arn't cutting it, I know , its an 8" speaker, what do I expect .... Im competing with 2x guitars that have a loud stage volume. Ive been using the sk2 with the SS and I have trouble being heard on stage, FOH fine as I feed the desk. Im not sure if I should add ( buy ) the Behringer sub to increase my overall presence, or go back to the Yammy dxr10 which is plenty loud, or get a guitar amp ,but lose the stereo trem.....lot of work to do today to A/B my setups....

[Danny Linguini]

Has anyone tried a home-built solution? I'm thinking it wouldn't be hard to create the R+L and R-L using hardware (with a phase-invertable mixer or cross-wired cable) or software, but am thinking I'd need two side-firing speakers wired out-of-phase pointing left and right, since a standard PA wouldn't have much out-of-phase sound coming out the back.

 

i.e. a stack of 3 speakers:

Centre speaker: R+L

Left speaker: R-L

Right speaker: L-R

 

The L&R speakers would not need to be full-range, like the SS.

Considering how long it took Aspen to research and tweak just to get to this point, I would think the trial-and-error involved alone would be prohibitive, not to mention the likely cost. JMHO.

 

[roygBiv]

I agree sleepngbear

 

I thought about trying to roll my own, but quickly decided exactly that, it would not really be any cheaper, and be very rickety.

 

On top of that, I can say as a proud owner of a SS3, its just feels like a real quality piece of equipment - very small, compact, very solid and well made - those aspects alone are worth a couple of hundred extra, in my book.

[Stephen S]

Yes, I've done this. Used 2 powered speakers, one facing forward (L+R) and one pointed to the side (L-R). I don't have a SS to compare to, but i gather that the result is the same. Depending on your mixer, you can accomplish this with 4 input channels and a couple of Y cables.

[endlessummerkeys]

Keys---- How did you aquire the R-L?

[MathOfInsects]

^ What he said.

 

?

[Stephen S]

There are a couple of ways to do this.

 

I only did this with a single keyboard as an experiment to see what the SS approach would sound like. It requires 4 mixer channels per stereo keyboard, and a mixer that has a polarity reverse switch on each channel. Let's assume that you are using the first four channels of the mixer for one stereo keyboard, and 2 "Y" cables:

 

Mixer input 1 - keyboard channel left

Mixer input 2 - keyboard channel right

Mixer input 3 - keyboard channel left

Mixer input 4 - keyboard channel right

 

Now, pan inputs 1 and 2 to the "left" mixer output.

Pan inputs 3 & 4 to the "right" mixer output.

 

Press the "polarity" switch on input 4.

 

This will give you L+R on your mixer's left output, and L-R on your mixer's right output.

 

There are other ways to skin this cat, too, but they get slightly more complex in terms of wiring.

 

[MathOfInsects]

Got it.

 

That's pretty cool. Thanks.

[MalH]

Yes, I've done this. Used 2 powered speakers, one facing forward (L+R) and one pointed to the side (L-R). I don't have a SS to compare to, but i gather that the result is the same. Depending on your mixer, you can accomplish this with 4 input channels and a couple of Y cables.

 

What speakers did you use and how did it sound, particularly with just a single side-firing speaker? I imagine the largest benefit is a wider dispersion than two angled stereo speakers?