Connection Questions

[abbo69nz]

SO I am Looking to add some basic rack units to our setup, We Are a 2 piece(Vocals and Guitarist and Drummer), and thus far we run everything through a Mackie ProFX22 Mixer to 2 Mackie Thump PA Speakers.
Was Looking To Add a compressor just to smooth out the vocals and possibly the kick drum, My Mackie Board has a compressor built into 4 inputs on the mixer but It doesnt seem to do bugger all to the signal and it has no adjustabilty.
Also Looking to add a unit capable of some good vocal reverbs and such, (guitar is fine as we have a effects unit sorted to handle that)
Would a Feedback Eliminator be a worhty purchase? Do they Color the sound to much to use on mains mix?
Was looking at the DBX 166xs compressor... any feedback on this unit?
Or would something like the DBX DriveRack
DBX DriveRack PX Drive Rack Speaker Optimizer EQ Compressor Feedback Eliminator | eBay
Would that be a better all in one solution and then just purchase a reverb unit on top?
Everything Will be mixed by us on stage (not ideal obviously but that is all we have available)

Finally How Does this equipment connect together with the mic's the mixer and speakers, does it daisy chain from each rack unit then through the mixer and then to the monitors?
any help would be awesome
thanks muchly

 

[bouldersoundguy]

If you have problems with feedback on the main mix then you have some sort of fundamental problem you need to address before resorting to automatic feedback suppression.

"Automatic" feedback suppression works best with skilled supervision. It's best to set them at soundcheck and lock most of the filters so they don't go resetting themselves during the show. Leaving one to three filters on automatic could be good or not depending on the situation. I wouldn't recommend leaving automatic feedback suppression on a fully automatic setting. Most likely you'll be better off with a traditional 1/3 octave eq.

If your compressors aren't doing anything maybe you're not operating them correctly. Turning the knob clockwise compresses more, opposite of many other compressors.

Compressors from dbx are generally pretty good for live use. I've used the older 166 models which are fine, and the newer versions have more controls (which may be an advantage or not). But compressors also need skilled operation. There are no generalized settings, they are all specific to a given source and mix. And, (as I said before) you don't have the proper perspective from stage to make adjustments appropriate for the mix out front. In that case your results probably won't be any better than with the built in compressors on your mixer.

 

[abbo69nz]

cool man thanks for the advice, appreciate it! I have much to learn!