CHINNOR BIKE DAYZ XV

[John Bell]

This year looks promising, as Wycombe MAG are in the process of buying a bespoke stage, which will be professionally erected for them.

This is the line up of bands for Chinnor 2011.

FRIDAY 1/7/11

(main stage)
Energy
Woozy Blues Band
Black Rose
Riffheads

(late night live lounge)
The Heist

SATURDAY 2/7/11

(main stage)
John Otway
Kindred Shins
Cinemawave
BBBB (Bare Bones Boogie Band)
Burn
Good Ol Boys
PFJ

(late night live lounge)
Brothers Grim

www.wycombemag.co.uk/chinnor.htm

I will be there again, with my bigger rigs.
If you are into bikes, camping, good food, good beer and of course great live music, come and join us for a brilliant week-end supporting a great charity.

www.tvacaa.org/Events_Diary.php?eventId=242&referer=%2FEvents_Diary.php

Any newbies who would like to lend a hand, please reply to this thread.

Cheers, John

[John Bell]

What a fantastic week-end.

A magnificent main stage, erected for us by UKStageHire, brilliant weather, superb bands, 1,000 bikers with some magnificent machines, loads more biker related stalls, plenty of portaloo's, 4 excellent food trailers, a bigger beer marquee with great real ales and a low flypast by the Thames Valley and Chiltern Air Ambulance.

I had loads of big-up's from the bands for the FOH and monitoring sound.
The new JBL MRX515's and the new Crown amps sounded way better than I had expected.
The PSS2400 sub's amp, kicked ass without overheating, as I made sure that it didn't get even a sniff of clipping.
The LED bigger stage lighting rig looked the business, even though I had to use 2 winch stands rigged behind the FOH cabs on stage and the other 2 on the ground behind the stage at the back.

A huge thank you to my crew, Andy, Bill and Jason, who worked tirelessly though out the weekend and gained great respect from the bands.

There were at least 2 professional photographers on site, who took loads of great pics, so I will post some when I can get a disk from them.

The new 20x20 foot stage is now a permanent part of Wycombe MAG's hardware, thanks to an extremely kind donation and is available for hire.

Cheers, John.

[John Bell]

I did have a problem with 2 of the new JBL MRX515 cabs, so I sent this mail to Tom Lureman, Crown Tech Support at Harman.

"Hi Tom,
I used my new 4x JBL MRX 515's and 2x Crown XLS2000 amplifiers and the Crown XTi2000 to power my 2x SmartSound LP115 15" cabs at the Chinnor Bike Dayz XV outdoor charity event over the week-end.
The sound was amazing from this light weight equipment.
However I did have a problem.

I set-up the XLS2000's in bridge mono high pass 56hz for the 4x 515's and the XTi2000 in stereo high pass 56hz for the 2x SmartSound cabs.
I had the XLS2000's backed-off 2 clicks from full on and the -10 led's were on steady and at no time were any amps driven into clipping.

I had 4x SmartSound 18" subs powered by my PSS2400, cut-off above around 70hz via a 15 band stereo graphic, as my active crossover died shortly before the gig.

The kick drum sound was like gated cannon fire and the overall sound from the 5k FOH rig was amazingly clear, loud and well defined and I had big thanks from all of the bands for the sound.

On the second day, 2x of the MRX515's (1 each side) developed a resonating vibration noise, so I raised the high pass filters to 79hz which helped a lot, but tamed the kick sound.

I have not removed any part of the cabs, but 1 of the cabs sounds like loose wiring tapping the back of the cab when you shake it and the other must have lost a captive nut from the HF unit, as I can hear it rolling around the bottom of the cab and the HF unit rattles when you hit the cab with your hand.

Would it be OK for me to fix these faults myself, as apart from that, they are fine?

Is this problem due to the way I set-up the high pass filters and amp volume levels, or is this a manufacturing fault?

Thanks for any advice, John Bell."

I will post his reply.
Cheers, John.

[John Bell]

Tom passed my query onto Everett Watts, the Tech Support for JBL Professional at Harman, on the west coast.

We spoke over the phone and I asked him if I was driving these cabs too hard or too low, with the Crown XLS2000 amplifiers.

Everett said that I was using them correctly and suggested that I remove the front grill and woofer and just re-fix any loose items.

I did state that I had stacked these cabs directly on top of my 18" subs and that I had to "Blue Tack" them to stop them vibrating off.

I also mentioned in conversation, that these cabs were assembled in Mexico, but he made no comment.

I will have to get some form of acoustic decoupling feet or pads before I use this 5K rig again.

Cheers, John.

[John Bell]

I have just received this mail from Bev Cort, the PR & Merchandise Rep, Wycombe MAG, regarding Chinnor.

"Hi John
On behalf of the club we'd just like to say a really big thank you for all your help at the rally last weekend.
We couldn't do this without you and really appreciate your professional touch with the sound and lighting.

Everyone commented on the stage, but it wouldn't look anything without the lighting.

The Good Old Boys told Paul that they thought the sound man (John Bell) did a brilliant job and that he was one of the best they'd worked with."

www.strawbsweb.co.uk/related/gob/gob.asp

It's great to get thanks like this and The Good Old Boys were the most professional band of Chinnor Bike Dayz XV.

Cheers, John

[John Bell]

I finally found the time to have a look inside my 4x JBL MRX515 cabs.

The crossover unit had completely fallen off the inside of one of the cabs and I could only find 3 screws laying in the bottom of the cab.
I replaced the missing one and repositioned the crossover, as the screw holes were reamed.

All of the cabs had loose compression drivers, were they had started to unscrew from the horns.

I also taped the loose wiring to the bracing strut in each cab, as the cable tidy loops (1 per cab) were not up for the job.

The cab internals must have literally shaken to bits, but at least they are OK now and don't rattle any more.

I did get a reply from Everett Watts, the Tech Support for JBL Professional at Harman and he suggested that I put isolation pads on top of the subs and stack the JBL's on top.

Cheers, John.

[John Bell]

This is a link to Smiffy's pic of my FOH at Chinnor XV
www.smiffy.com/mag/pages/IMG_0148.htm

This is a shot of the stage, with me firing-up the amps.
www.smiffy.com/mag/pages/IMG_9968.htm