Driverack PA Experience

I have lots of experience with them. First, they do everything they say they will do. For some people they are great tools. For my system they actually limited the sound of my rigs. We had 4 of them for a while in various smaller and mid sized rigs. All the features involved are extremely useful tools, but none of them sounded up to our standards. We sold them all off after trying them for a couple of months and replaced them with BSS mini-drives in our systems. Keep in mind a BSS minidrive is a little more than twice as expensive and does not offer as many features. However, the BSS does offer EQ, inpout and output limiting, phase control and other standard crossover features. The DBX just always tended to kind of lay a "murky" sound over the whole spectrum. That got even worse when using the EQ and compressors. It even sounded wierd with Midas consoles on the fornt end. We switched everything over to BSS and all of a sudden the cabinets sounded bigger, smoother, and much more pleasent to work with. I have however also used the DBX in succesful situations. I really think that with cheaper speakers it is a tool that will help you out, but with nicer speakers it will actually limit your capabilities. I have no doubt in my mind that a BSS will sound better than the DBX no matter what speakers or other system stuff you are using, but it comes at a cost. I hope this helps some. It's not that I would reccomend against a Driverack PA, but that I would need to know more about the rest of the setup and intended use before I could feel good about it. Also, I buy gear based a lot on waht it will not do and what the shortcomings are. Thos seem to be the things that it is most important to know about gear. At least it is for me when I am putting out rentals:)
 
We have high end Crown amps (one for mains and one for subs). We have EV T18 subs and EV T252+ mains. We have a 24 channel Peavey board. Monitors are handled separately via in-ear.

The board is run mono with a single feed from board to rack gear. That in turns goes to the Crown amps that feeds the subs and mains.

We have been testing a Driverack 260, but plan to move to a Driverack PA unit, which seems more suitable to our needs.

We plan on use the RTA to pink each room and then the onboard EQ for any other needed EQ changes.

Ed
 
Ed Dixon said:
We have been testing a Driverack 260, but plan to move to a Driverack PA unit, which seems more suitable to our needs.

We plan on use the RTA to pink each room and then the onboard EQ for any other needed EQ changes.

Ed
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Ed,
As i know you are not afraid (or too snobbish) to use Behringer gear also have a look at the Berry Ultra-Drive. It is getting a lot of use in the UK with all sorts of PA guys. I have one myself that I use with my various PA rigs and like most of the Berry gear I find it just gets on with its job. I use mine with the latest Ultracurve to give me the RTA etc. and use the AEU/EBS connection between them all for about £400 in the UK.

Tony
 
I have no problem with Behringer gear. I looked at the UltraDrive Pro. However it was lacking the RTA function and also had no multi-band EQ that I could find. Somehow it seems having both of these would be a good thing.

I already have another Behringer RTA unit (the DEQ2496), but it is in the guitar chain and not the PA. To use the Ultradrive Pro would seem to require a second EQ unit with RTA. At that point the cost is back up to the price of the Driverack PA, which goes for about $500.

Rack space is also an issue, and having a single rack space unit that does crossover, EQ, and RTA seemed like the best goal.

Ed
 
Well, it sounds like the Driverack PA does everything you need it to. Personally, being a professional FOH engineer and system tech, I find that "pinking" a room is extremely overrated. No one wants to hear a flat PA, and unless you have a tightly focused line array or are doing a professional permanent install, pinking yields a lot of fairly useless data. Learn to listen to what sounds good and not what a cheap piece of electronics tells you:) The internal EQ on a Driverack is fairly low quality, but can be useful for minor tuning of your cabinets themselves, but when showtime comes and you are fighting feedback it will be far too tedious to use the EQ in a Driverack to your advantage. I would however avoid the Behringer for the pure fact that the DBX just sounds that much better. If I had Behringer crossovers in my rigs I would instantly lose half or more of my gigs, but then I run a rental company and people demand quality, so we are in different boats.
 
We used the driverack 260 for just one job, and it was mostly a lost cause. Not so much the driverack issue, but the pilot who managed to ruin a fairly good starting EQ by trying to tweak it from behind the mains.

The one thing menioned that made sense was the difficulty in changing the EQ in the Driverack PA during a performance. Clearly a manual 31 band would be much easier.

Given our gear, there seem to be a few choices:

1. Single rack unit like Driverack PA For main/subs control and RTA/EQ
2. Separate crossover and EQ/RTA units
3. Some other combo not yet suggested.

Ed
 
Wow. Thanks for the thread. Maybe my techy-slut' skirt will be showing, but this is some very cool insight.
And I'm not even in the market.. :D
Wayne
 
from my limited experience with the Driverack PA, i don't really like it much. the eq seems very basic, and i especially don't like the lack of PC control. the 260 is a much more powerful tool in my opinion. I own an old P166 laptop just for setting up driveracks. The PC interface makes it much easier to get around on.

and I agree that you don't NEED an RTA and pink noise. i've had to bail people out who've blown horns trying to get them flat using pink noise. using your ears is much quicker, and more relaible.
 
xstatic said:
I would however avoid the Behringer for the pure fact that the DBX just sounds that much better. If I had Behringer crossovers in my rigs I would instantly lose half or more of my gigs, but then I run a rental company and people demand quality, so we are in different boats.
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Normally I don't respond to such rubbish but!!!

I very much doubt than in an audience of say 5000 people even 1 would be able to pick out a DBX from a Behringer if they were both set up correctly. The faults in the PA stack, even if it was say of Meyer quality would dwarf the faults in the X-Overs.

If you did have behringer X-Overs in your racks you may well lose gigs because of the name but it would have bugger-all to do with the sound.

When people actually do blind tests and can prove some of the rubbish that they write I will begin to think that this Forum may offer more than the pure prejudice that I see displayed in a lot of the post's.

Tony

PS I have also done FOH for over 25 years and have worked with Turbosound, Park & Martin rigs etc. so I have some Idea!!
 
Well, I agree on one point. The crowd would not notice. The crowd rarely knows what is or isn't happening if there is a decent engineer running the ship. Having experienced tons of different setups, I can truly say that your system crossover (especially now adays with all in one DSP powered units) makes a HUGE difference in sound quality. Sure the crowd may not know, but the person who is driving the system will most certainly know since he/she will have to work much harder to make things happen right. The Behringers have this uncanny ability to "muffle" the sound of whatever goes through them. In fact, on a nice rig this would be even more exaggerated since in a nicer rig the cabinets and amps would be capable of outputting all the signal that the Behringer is screwing with. At one point I ordered a bunch of DBX Driverack PA's for some of our lower profile systems. The features looked great, the price was right (since we were DBX dealers). I do know how to setup a system. In fact a lot of people pay me good money to come retune and rewire existing setups. The PA rack was just a constant headache to try and really dial down the system's. The Behringer is even harder. So, we sold all the DBX PA racks off and bought BSS minidrve's. The minidrives cost about twice what a PA rack costs, but sounds 10x better than the DBX or any Behringer. The whole system tunes easier, runs more efficiently, sounds WAY better, and the EQ's are very usable without frequency buildups and gaps, and without making the boxes sound processed.

In reality, Behringer actually has a better reputation in the live sound world than it does in the recording world. I can actually get away with having Behringer gates and comps in a rack, as long as I also have some nicer DBX and BSS stuff in there. The Behringer comps and gates are actually fairly usable in a live setting. Maybe not as quickly and nicely as other gear, but usable and acceptable none the less. However, NOONE will accept Behringer reverbs, multiFX, EQ's, or system processing.

Maybe I have not been doing this for 25 years, but I have been doing this for anywhere between 30 and 80 hours a week for the last 8 years. I have worked with over 1000 bands and worked on most every system available today. i.e. Meyer, V-Dosc, JBL, EAW, EV, Turbosound, D&B, Martin, Adamson, McCauley, Nexo etc.... It would be an absolute shame to walk in and find a V-Dosc rig with Behringer processing driving it. In fact, it just would not happen. For one, it is nowhere near being on the list of V-Dosc approved system processing. There is a reason companies like V-Dosc are specific about what consoles and processing you can use. It is the fact that they wan't to insure that EVERY time you hear a V-Dosc line array that you are hearing the full capabilities of what it does. Popping a Behringer in there would greatly reduce the advantage of having a V-Dosc array.
 
Our needs are somewhat basic. We are a local group that plays for most private parties in normally small rooms. There are 7 of us and we normally do not have a sound person. Our goal is to set things up and then leave it for the rest of the gig. We need overall EQ and crossovers for main/subs.

Clearly having a sound person is best, but that has proven to be a challenge in our area.

The person who bought the original driverack 260 is gone and we're deciding what to use now. As with most local groups, $ concerns are relevant.

One can get Driverack PA units for about $400 and Behringer DCX2496 units for about $250. I already have a Behringer DEQ2496 and it has worked well for me (in a guitar rack) without any issues. I also already have a mic suitable for RTA functions.

The weakness of the DCX2496 is no graphic EQ. The display on the Driverack PS is very small and not easy to use.

One option would be to use the existing DEQ2496 just for RTA and then use a separate simple crossover and graphic EQ for main/subs live use.

Ed
 
honestly, using a standard analog crossover with a 2 channel 31 band EQ may be your best bet for being able to do what you need with some ease.
 
You could look for a used Ashley crossover, or a new DBX analog one. For EQ's the Ashley's are pretty decent, but even the low end DBX ones seem to work alright. I admittedly have qualms against Behringer processing, but they are firmly based in experiences with them on repeated occasions.
 
just my two cents:
i never saw that unit before and always worked with 31 band eq's, limiters and stuff...
suddenly it was in my rig during a live PA,
for me it sucked, i didn't have the manual, so i quickly ran trough some presets and hell,
didn't have the time to figure it out,
i don't like tiny digital displays, i prefer working with buttons and faders,
but i bet that if i ever take the time to read the manual it might help me to get a better sound
 
xstatic said:
.

Maybe I have not been doing this for 25 years, but I have been doing this for anywhere between 30 and 80 hours a week for the last 8 years. I have worked with over 1000 bands and worked on most every system available today. i.e. Meyer, V-Dosc, JBL, EAW, EV, Turbosound, D&B, Martin, Adamson, McCauley, Nexo etc.... It would be an absolute shame to walk in and find a V-Dosc rig with Behringer processing driving it. In fact, it just would not happen. For one, it is nowhere near being on the list of V-Dosc approved system processing. There is a reason companies like V-Dosc are specific about what consoles and processing you can use. It is the fact that they wan't to insure that EVERY time you hear a V-Dosc line array that you are hearing the full capabilities of what it does. Popping a Behringer in there would greatly reduce the advantage of having a V-Dosc array.
Click to expand...

I am not saying nor would ever say that the Behringers should be used instead of x,y, or z,. I also can understand the reason for choosing gear that is easier to set-up etc. I can even accept the fact that for large installs and touring set-ups then something with a proven reliability record would also be used but the issue that I have with you is about the actual sound quality.
Maybe you are one of the Golden Ear variety that we read about that can honestly hear incredibly small variations ( not that I have EVER met one who can do it blind) but I still reckon that the Behringers sound quality is beyond rebuke given its intended duties.

Tony
 
I would never claim to have golden ears, but set it up side by side with something better. The differences are not even close to being subtle at all. Believe me, I am used to it. I carry a small Midas console with me and often times even an FX and drive rack when I go into venues with bands that I work with. EVERY time I have had the local house crew be absolutely astounded by what a difference just a Midas Venice and a BSS crossover will do to their system. It becomes a whole different system. And thats just running test CD's through it:)
 
One more thing, ease of use certainly factors in. Time saved is money earned. What good is a piece of equipment if you can't get it to do what you want or it takes 4 times longer than anything else just to get an acceptable sound out of it?
 
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