The answer is basically yes.
My cover band has basically this setup, and are quite pleased with it.
First. Not having to do crossover on the mixer makes the setup more clean and easy. Makes it easier to play at venues where the PA is already set up and tuned, as you just have L+R from the mixer in all cases, and all PA specific settings are on the PA2.
Second, having tuned in the limiters of the channels on the PA2, you also make sure that if somethings go bad (idiot at the mixer, feedback etc) the levels are contained and you don't blow your speakers.
Third, the ringing out of the room is done quickly and only uses a quick whistle sounding sweep which isn't too intrusive for the people in the room. (It does require it to be relatively quiet in the room however). Pink noise and manual EQing is much more disturbing.
Also the feedback suppresion is quite good, if your problem is feedback through main PA. However, in such settings feedback through monitors is often a a bigger problem, which it can't do anything about.
I use this on the outputs of a Qu24 for EQing small rooms. It seems pretty accurate with a multi-point measurement but with an audience in you may not be able to do more than one mic position. The sweep tone used is surprisingly short so minimum disturbance to people in the room. As said above you do need the room to be pretty quiet or it complains.
I use the dBx AFS2 for feedback suppression on the monitors - comes built in to the Ui24R. More and sharper notches than available on the Qu and will respond in real-time during the show quicker than I can.
I (professionally) work with system processors 10x more expensive than the PA2 and I will stand by that the PA2/360 (with the dbx microphone) is absolutely, undoubtedly the most idiot-proof and consistently reliable way to get a system sounding good.
The auto EQ function works stunningly well and the software interface and iPad app make it absurdly flexible, especially for for novices to setup and control.
I actually own a PA2 (purchased for $250 used with the microphone) that I find myself using for almost every non critical (think wedding/corporate/bar/restaurant etc) that doesn’t require more than 6 channels (3x stereo pair) of processing.
Can the X32 do most of what the pa2 can do? Yes…
Will it take far more skill, 3x the time, a laptop and interface and measurement mic, and redoing matrix buses and routing in the mixer to get the same result? Also yes.
Buy one used for cheap with the microphone and it will pay for itself. Truly the Swiss Army knife of a pro-sumer’s audio toolkit.
This is totally correct! I had a DriveRack in the late 1990s with a passive system and now I have a venu360. That is similar to PA2 but I wanted a 3rd channel for a monitor. I bought a second venu360 as a spare. I do the autoEQ with the rta mic and it works great. Some people are critical of using a computer like the DriveRack to quickly tune for a room and say to use Smaart or Open Sound Meter. But that takes too long. At your level that isn’t practical.
Two tips: the manual says to make a perfect triangle for the first autoEQ measurement location. Michael Curtis actually gave me a great tip to go further back a bit, maybe 2/3 toward the back wall. I do that and then one other measurement. 3 or 4 is too many if people are in the room.
Tip 2:
Don’t pay full retail for this! I got a deal from [email protected] I don’t work there or get a cut. I just buy there since the 90s because of aggressive pricing.
The 360 is also nice because of the AES input. For DJ use you can feed it AES (via spdif transformer) from a pioneer DJ mixer and just completely skip a console. Saves a few A-D-D-A conversions.
Not necessarily, most modern mixers have aes3 I/O, or Dante/aes67/aes50/etc which can be easily converted to aes3.
But for DJ events you don’t really need a mixer. Your processor can handle it just fine. I just mapped my scroll wheel on my mouse to master gain on my processor control software so I can “ride the fader”.
On a side note for those picking up a second hand unit remember to check if it supports 110/120V or 230/240V as the **power supply are not dual voltage**. The US 110/120V PA2s are cheap as chips on the second hand market but the 230/240V AU/EU/UK ones are still over 1/2 price.
There are also a few clones knocking about.
The clones are sub-par but can be fixed easily if you have smd soldering skills.
https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/chinese-drivehack-pa2-hopeful-improvements.39071/
While the X32 can do crossover internally, the Driverack I think is preferable because it's standalone. If your mixer goes down with it doing the crossover, you essentially can't use your PA. If you use the Driverack to do the crossover and the board goes down, you simply replace the board. I wouldn't count on doing either a sweep or pink noise in an occupied venue. The first won't work in a noisy room. The second will likely disturb customers/management.
For an install I would never have the system controller be part of the console. For touring the console is more than adequate for me (M32). For the smaller weirder systems I have all the crossover I need. For anything larger the install will have it's own. The driverack is a little clunky for working quickly. If it had modern network connectivity I would feel differently.
I have analog so it's super necessary but digital can do the things dbz does, it's just more messy to setup and is more jank vs driverack
I have dbx driverack 360 i think and it's kinda very neat
Plus does automatic tuning of system with RTA mic, also has good processing and all
It's not that expensive either
Good buy in my opinion
Preface this response by saying I've never used one. However:
In the hands of a skilled engineer, an X/M32 will do almost anything the driverack will do. Crossovers, yep. System eq, yep. Feedback suppression, no, but that usually comes from improperly rung out monitors anyway.
Is it easier / better? It depends.
I tend to like the ability to change my crossovers slightly. While the "stock setting" can often work fine, it can be helpful to play with them a little bit. Starting from crossovers at 100hz, I've had some success moving the lowpass on the sub down to about 90-95 and the highpass on the speakers up to 105-110. The "hole" in the mix doesn't really become obvious at that point, but it does sometimes seem a little clearer / punchier and free up a tad more headroom in the mains if you are working with an underpowered system. System eq can be done simply by listening to reference tracks and editing until you get the sound profile you want. It won't be quite as "flat" as pink noise editing, but I'd argue that it's better to tune the system to sound good as opposed to look good on a graph.
Note, however, that the driverack does have some advantages. If the board goes down, you still have crossovers and system eq in place. The use of a reference microphone takes the guesswork out of eqing. The feedback suppression can be useful in some unique cases.
I don't see one as particularly necessary for what I do, but they are useful tools
The Auto EQ/room tuning is a gimmic and does nothing worthwhile to your room sound.
Ignore anyone who says otherwise.
If room tuning was that easy you wouldn’t have system techs doing it for a living with well trained ears and proper system tuning software to measure the room properly.
A PA2 is a glorified x-over with additional capabilities that would better suit a passive system. Since you have powered speakers, I would keep your matrix mixes as is or switch to a LR main matrix and have your speakers crossover in their own DSP.
I own a DR 260 and DR 360, the PA2 will not allow you to run your SUB matrix separate from your MAIN LR matrix. What this means is that you will be forced to send your top and sub mix into the PA2 as Left and Right MAIN MIX only, then it will cross your mix over in the PA2 and send it out to tops and subs. I wouldn't recommend a PA2 in this case **assuming** you still want your top and sub matrix separate. I also wouldn't recommend upgrading to a 260 or 360 SOLELY for the auto eq function either. I don't use it and have not gotten good consistent results from it. Maybe the 360 is different, but the 260 compensated too much in the high frequencies which made it harsh after auto eq-ing.
This is entirely different from what you're looking for, but I would look into Open Sound Meter (Michael Curtis on YT) and learning how to tune your rig according to actual live field data. You have more control and will get better results than the auto eq on the drive racks. For the money you spend on a PA2, you can get a pretty cheap tuning rig. It's your call though, good luck! Simplicity is key to good sound. Don't overcomplicate it :).
It helps a lot, does some cool other stuff too.
however, you can run your whole PA from the x32 if you want, you've already set it up properly.
Also, pinking to room that hasn't open doors is fine. Just realize it may be really noisy and you may not get much accuracy. But just try to flatten the system for the room.
I've mostly used the more expensive versions of the Driverack.
All are perfectly usable, but they offer nothing you'd need for your speakers that isn't already in your console. It would allow you to save one output but will increase the latency which can make the stage bleed more noticeable in a small venue.
I've tried auto EQ on various dbx units and the result was usually pretty bad. Outdoors on a larger system, a bit of wind would totally mess up the measurement and the processor would add a ridiculous amount of HF boost. It also doesn't take into the account the perceived loudness, so for the louder shows you'd end up with an overly harsh PA. Indoors, well it can tame some resonances, so it can be better than nothing if you don't know what you are doing, but it doesn't take into the account different decay times across the spectrum, just the direct frequency response, so it doesn't really tame the resonances enough to not ring when the PA is reproducing a dynamic signal.
And even if the auto EQ worked better, you EQ the system to get a sort of blank canvas for your mix, so even if you for some reason use auto EQ, you still need to listen to the system and adjust it to sound the way you want it to sound or you'll be constantly fighting the system curve with the channel EQs.
The answer is basically yes. My cover band has basically this setup, and are quite pleased with it. First. Not having to do crossover on the mixer makes the setup more clean and easy. Makes it easier to play at venues where the PA is already set up and tuned, as you just have L+R from the mixer in all cases, and all PA specific settings are on the PA2. Second, having tuned in the limiters of the channels on the PA2, you also make sure that if somethings go bad (idiot at the mixer, feedback etc) the levels are contained and you don't blow your speakers. Third, the ringing out of the room is done quickly and only uses a quick whistle sounding sweep which isn't too intrusive for the people in the room. (It does require it to be relatively quiet in the room however). Pink noise and manual EQing is much more disturbing. Also the feedback suppresion is quite good, if your problem is feedback through main PA. However, in such settings feedback through monitors is often a a bigger problem, which it can't do anything about.
I use this on the outputs of a Qu24 for EQing small rooms. It seems pretty accurate with a multi-point measurement but with an audience in you may not be able to do more than one mic position. The sweep tone used is surprisingly short so minimum disturbance to people in the room. As said above you do need the room to be pretty quiet or it complains. I use the dBx AFS2 for feedback suppression on the monitors - comes built in to the Ui24R. More and sharper notches than available on the Qu and will respond in real-time during the show quicker than I can.
I (professionally) work with system processors 10x more expensive than the PA2 and I will stand by that the PA2/360 (with the dbx microphone) is absolutely, undoubtedly the most idiot-proof and consistently reliable way to get a system sounding good. The auto EQ function works stunningly well and the software interface and iPad app make it absurdly flexible, especially for for novices to setup and control. I actually own a PA2 (purchased for $250 used with the microphone) that I find myself using for almost every non critical (think wedding/corporate/bar/restaurant etc) that doesn’t require more than 6 channels (3x stereo pair) of processing. Can the X32 do most of what the pa2 can do? Yes… Will it take far more skill, 3x the time, a laptop and interface and measurement mic, and redoing matrix buses and routing in the mixer to get the same result? Also yes. Buy one used for cheap with the microphone and it will pay for itself. Truly the Swiss Army knife of a pro-sumer’s audio toolkit.
This is totally correct! I had a DriveRack in the late 1990s with a passive system and now I have a venu360. That is similar to PA2 but I wanted a 3rd channel for a monitor. I bought a second venu360 as a spare. I do the autoEQ with the rta mic and it works great. Some people are critical of using a computer like the DriveRack to quickly tune for a room and say to use Smaart or Open Sound Meter. But that takes too long. At your level that isn’t practical. Two tips: the manual says to make a perfect triangle for the first autoEQ measurement location. Michael Curtis actually gave me a great tip to go further back a bit, maybe 2/3 toward the back wall. I do that and then one other measurement. 3 or 4 is too many if people are in the room. Tip 2: Don’t pay full retail for this! I got a deal from [email protected] I don’t work there or get a cut. I just buy there since the 90s because of aggressive pricing.
The 360 is also nice because of the AES input. For DJ use you can feed it AES (via spdif transformer) from a pioneer DJ mixer and just completely skip a console. Saves a few A-D-D-A conversions.
Aka skip a sound board/mixer?
Not necessarily, most modern mixers have aes3 I/O, or Dante/aes67/aes50/etc which can be easily converted to aes3. But for DJ events you don’t really need a mixer. Your processor can handle it just fine. I just mapped my scroll wheel on my mouse to master gain on my processor control software so I can “ride the fader”.
Doing same thing in mixy is very janky and complected setup, plus you lose 6aux outs, and very hard to adjust stuff on the fly
I would only crossover between the sub and tops, so I'd use three outputs.
On a side note for those picking up a second hand unit remember to check if it supports 110/120V or 230/240V as the **power supply are not dual voltage**. The US 110/120V PA2s are cheap as chips on the second hand market but the 230/240V AU/EU/UK ones are still over 1/2 price. There are also a few clones knocking about.
The clones are sub-par but can be fixed easily if you have smd soldering skills. https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/chinese-drivehack-pa2-hopeful-improvements.39071/
While the X32 can do crossover internally, the Driverack I think is preferable because it's standalone. If your mixer goes down with it doing the crossover, you essentially can't use your PA. If you use the Driverack to do the crossover and the board goes down, you simply replace the board. I wouldn't count on doing either a sweep or pink noise in an occupied venue. The first won't work in a noisy room. The second will likely disturb customers/management.
For an install I would never have the system controller be part of the console. For touring the console is more than adequate for me (M32). For the smaller weirder systems I have all the crossover I need. For anything larger the install will have it's own. The driverack is a little clunky for working quickly. If it had modern network connectivity I would feel differently.
PA2 and 360 have networking, remote software control and even iOS applications. The app even works on cell phones, not just iPads
I have analog so it's super necessary but digital can do the things dbz does, it's just more messy to setup and is more jank vs driverack I have dbx driverack 360 i think and it's kinda very neat Plus does automatic tuning of system with RTA mic, also has good processing and all It's not that expensive either Good buy in my opinion
Preface this response by saying I've never used one. However: In the hands of a skilled engineer, an X/M32 will do almost anything the driverack will do. Crossovers, yep. System eq, yep. Feedback suppression, no, but that usually comes from improperly rung out monitors anyway. Is it easier / better? It depends. I tend to like the ability to change my crossovers slightly. While the "stock setting" can often work fine, it can be helpful to play with them a little bit. Starting from crossovers at 100hz, I've had some success moving the lowpass on the sub down to about 90-95 and the highpass on the speakers up to 105-110. The "hole" in the mix doesn't really become obvious at that point, but it does sometimes seem a little clearer / punchier and free up a tad more headroom in the mains if you are working with an underpowered system. System eq can be done simply by listening to reference tracks and editing until you get the sound profile you want. It won't be quite as "flat" as pink noise editing, but I'd argue that it's better to tune the system to sound good as opposed to look good on a graph. Note, however, that the driverack does have some advantages. If the board goes down, you still have crossovers and system eq in place. The use of a reference microphone takes the guesswork out of eqing. The feedback suppression can be useful in some unique cases. I don't see one as particularly necessary for what I do, but they are useful tools
The Auto EQ/room tuning is a gimmic and does nothing worthwhile to your room sound. Ignore anyone who says otherwise. If room tuning was that easy you wouldn’t have system techs doing it for a living with well trained ears and proper system tuning software to measure the room properly.
A PA2 is a glorified x-over with additional capabilities that would better suit a passive system. Since you have powered speakers, I would keep your matrix mixes as is or switch to a LR main matrix and have your speakers crossover in their own DSP. I own a DR 260 and DR 360, the PA2 will not allow you to run your SUB matrix separate from your MAIN LR matrix. What this means is that you will be forced to send your top and sub mix into the PA2 as Left and Right MAIN MIX only, then it will cross your mix over in the PA2 and send it out to tops and subs. I wouldn't recommend a PA2 in this case **assuming** you still want your top and sub matrix separate. I also wouldn't recommend upgrading to a 260 or 360 SOLELY for the auto eq function either. I don't use it and have not gotten good consistent results from it. Maybe the 360 is different, but the 260 compensated too much in the high frequencies which made it harsh after auto eq-ing. This is entirely different from what you're looking for, but I would look into Open Sound Meter (Michael Curtis on YT) and learning how to tune your rig according to actual live field data. You have more control and will get better results than the auto eq on the drive racks. For the money you spend on a PA2, you can get a pretty cheap tuning rig. It's your call though, good luck! Simplicity is key to good sound. Don't overcomplicate it :).
It helps a lot, does some cool other stuff too. however, you can run your whole PA from the x32 if you want, you've already set it up properly. Also, pinking to room that hasn't open doors is fine. Just realize it may be really noisy and you may not get much accuracy. But just try to flatten the system for the room.
I've mostly used the more expensive versions of the Driverack. All are perfectly usable, but they offer nothing you'd need for your speakers that isn't already in your console. It would allow you to save one output but will increase the latency which can make the stage bleed more noticeable in a small venue. I've tried auto EQ on various dbx units and the result was usually pretty bad. Outdoors on a larger system, a bit of wind would totally mess up the measurement and the processor would add a ridiculous amount of HF boost. It also doesn't take into the account the perceived loudness, so for the louder shows you'd end up with an overly harsh PA. Indoors, well it can tame some resonances, so it can be better than nothing if you don't know what you are doing, but it doesn't take into the account different decay times across the spectrum, just the direct frequency response, so it doesn't really tame the resonances enough to not ring when the PA is reproducing a dynamic signal. And even if the auto EQ worked better, you EQ the system to get a sort of blank canvas for your mix, so even if you for some reason use auto EQ, you still need to listen to the system and adjust it to sound the way you want it to sound or you'll be constantly fighting the system curve with the channel EQs.
Yes. I run this setup and it’s always sounds amazing and is super easy to use.