Recording Studio Equipment

I hate to admit it, but this is one product you need to read the manual for – the functions are not intuitive. Like if you want the low pass filter turned off, you “adjust” it to zero, and thats off (plus the LPF led goes out). Same for delay, and other features. Just turning everything “OFF” takes alot of buttons. Then you decide which features your venue calls for from a street vendor to a massive concert hall.

On the bright side you can do ALOT with this small product for very little money.

In large venues, (300 feet or so) there is a time delay from stage to audience. The human ear can pick it up over 100 feet so that’s a good design rule – reinforce your audio every 100 feet, in time sync. If you have multiple speaker sets (stage and 2nd tier for example) you need to introduce a delay to keep them in time sync or else the venue will sound strange – it will have a nasty echo. With this you can program delays by the foot, meter, or ms, up to 2.5 seconds of delay, which is a bit more than a half mile depending on elevation. The resolution is down to the inch in foot calibrated programming so no worries about running out of precision.

Generally you are going to want your speaker system to vastly overpower the speaker so everyone can hear. It means the lips of the speaker generally are not in sync with the audio but people don’t notice tiny lips from a balcony seat. They do notice screwed up audio though. Nobody likes feedback squeals when the performer walks past a speaker, once again the shark comes to the rescue – it has 10 programmable feedback killers – you need to read the manual here because they can self-program by making an impulse noise then cancelling out the feedback from it, and you need to tell the shark how many to pre-program based on the venue, and how many to leave “open” for changes like if the microphone moves into the audience. In this case the shark may kick in 2 or 3 more feedback killers on the fly to prevent feedback and that is its magic feature.

Inputs/outputs are line or mic level selectable, and the fetures go on to the point I’d rewrite the manual here so keep it and read it. There is also a 48VDC phantom power on the mic input – or this can be used between two tiers of speakers for stopping feedback and adding delay. It will not remove delay, so you must draw up a timing diagram starting NOT at the stage inputs, but at the farthest point rearward (like exit doors rear audience). This is why speakers want an IEM or in ear monitor – they can hear their voice without all the delays this way and not be bothered. It’s also a way for the producer to send queues like “commercial break – T minus 1 minute – wrap it up” to the speaker without everyone hearing it. This concept that the most distant speakers get no delay and the stage speakers get the most delay seems backwards, but since there is no such thing as negative delay, its the only way to make a large venue equal at virtually every seat in the house, plus it makes stage based feedback less likely evem if a mic wanders into the audience for some participation – they are free to move about the front speakers without feedback.

Finally – the amazon comment about only comes in packs of 5 pcs is not true. You pay 80 dollars per unit, and if you order 5 units you get a rackmount for all 5. So you could say these are 1/5 rack wide and 2 rack high units in qty 5, how many you order depends on mono/stereo and how many speaker tiers you are driving most importantly. 1 tier per 100 feet is a good MINIMUM (more won’t hurt) – so a 300 foot stage would have 4 tiers, stage level, 100 ft, 200 ft, and rearmost speakers which would need 3 or 4 sharks depending on what features you use on each unit properly programmed with their distance apart. With both TRS and XLR in/out constructing your tiered amplifiers is no problem. No contractor will build the speakers at exactly 100 feet which is why you can input the delay in feet/meters from measurement rather than ms if the architecht gave you 89 feet and 220 feet and 310 feet speaker locations before the rear speakeras at 400 feet. It’s extremely precise (and quite fun sometimes if you put 2.5 seconds into the delay – that can be used in phone system paging to prevent feedback since quick announcements like “peter jones call 4049″ will fit into 2.5 seconds of speach the person making the page wont hear themselves until they have spoken, and there is no chance for feedback either. Wired right it can be used as a poor man’s killswitch for talk shows rather than bleep out offensive content. The possibilities there are endless.

I’ll end this explaining a confusing gain adjustment. There is a rear panel input gain and a front panel DSP gain – THEY are not the same! Use the rear panel gain to set levels, then use the front panel dsp gain to ensure the dsp doesn’t clip. Basically the front panel gain is very small compared to the rear panel gain. This is counter intuitive that the main level gain is on the back and the front gain control does very little, but once they are balanced the performance is spectacular. A good start is mid range on both knobs leave all dsp gains at one point while you set levels with the rear gain, then come up front and adjust each dsp gain. You can see with 4 tiers, you could get 6-8 gain controls **in series**, so the reason the master gain is behind the panel is to avoid someone wandering in and cranking all 4 gains in series to the max and ruining the front stage speakers, thus requiring hours of re-adjustment by a sound engineer to fix it (I’ve been called in to fix these situations – I like the fact that the big gain is on the back where there is no fingerpoken)

If you need onboard effects then this is the box, small footprint with large features, it works great for me and fast shipping and attractive pricing makes this product a great investment.

The item works well, but is for desktop use. It’s not rack installable and the plastic case would most likely get scratched if used on a gig.