mixing front and rearloaded cabs for live setting

[van hellion]

anyone do this? i like my rearloaded cab but am thinking of purchasing a new frontloaded cab and running them side by side. anyone try this? would it be best of both worlds? oh both cabs are diezel cabs loaded with v 30's.
peace
Andy W

 

[i.ak]

I do. Even though, at the current moment I am not that actively involved with live shows. I use two 2x12" cabinet from which another is rear and other is front loaded. The cabs actually have two rather differently voiced speakers (V30 Vs. P50E).

I recommend spending some time searching the best possible mics for both cabs. Also, naturally the speakers themselves have huge impact to the end result, which of course needs to be taken into account when selecting the mics and mic placement.

What I do is that I take the bass and "grit" from the front loaded cab (VHT 'Fat Bottom' with P50E) with more "scooped" and "edgy" mic placed on an angle more towards the edge of the speaker. Then I use i.e. Sennheiser e906 for the rear loaded cab (Rivera K212 with V30s) to capture the middle and definition. Then it is all about mixing those two sounds in most suitable manner.

At least this configuration works fine for me, but I guess that it is worth mentioning that I use seven and eight string guitars (F# = approximately 46 Hz) and thus the sound I am after might not be "the most common guitar tone". At least I like to think that my end tone has large amount of punch and clarity in it. By the way, I use VH4 which is already well known from its tightness and focus.

 

[van hellion]

very cool, thank you! i have several cabs but i keep coming back to v 30's my ears just hear them as the sound. i dont know if that makes sense. let me try again, i seem to hear the differences in amps best through vintage 30's so they are kinda like a neutral setting you know? i think im gonna pull the trigger on a new diezel front loaded 4 x 12 for my live rig. should be cool mix with my rear loaded cab. thanks again and if anyone else would chime in that would be very cool!
peace
Andy Wood