Roadcasing your precious gear...

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Roadcasing your precious gear...

Postby Martin » Mon Sep 12, 2005 12:53 pm

This is a question for the some of us who don't have our own pieces of earth to build a studio and permanently rack up gear...

I've got a few (precious!) valve preamps etc which i need to be able to take with me to various jobs and studios, and also some gear thats a bit more robust (compressors etc)..

How do you guys go about making your gear portable?

I've looked around some of the rack suppliers and theres cases that have built in suspension which look good, is it necessary?

And anyone had any problems with things like heat when they are racked up into 3U or 5U etc boxes?

any help or stories will be very useful..cheers!
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Postby Kurt » Mon Sep 12, 2005 1:12 pm

I only have one bit of valve gear, a Mesa Boogie 295. It is housed in an SKB case, I drilled a bunch of holes under one of the handles in the case which conveniently lines up with the fan intake on the amp.

The amp is exteremly solidly built, I guess studio gear may not be as robust. The rack has actually fallen off the top of my quad whilst in use and survived. I'va also seen Marshall's get knocked off quads and survive. This has been on wooden stages so the floor has some give.

I think with creative placement of fans heat shouldn't be an issue in any case (the valves in the Boogie get hot enough to give serious burns, even with the lid off uncased) and at least for my gear no expensive suspension is necessary.

I've also never had problems chucking computers or my hard disk recorder (also in an skb case) in the boot and taking them to gigs to record with.
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Postby Kris » Tue Sep 13, 2005 2:22 pm

www.roadcase.com.au

They're good guys.
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Postby Martin » Tue Sep 13, 2005 6:31 pm

6u rack case should be enough to hold 2 x 2u Preamps + a 1u stereo link unit, i'll then have 1 slot to spare

its $330 for a 6u with shock mounting
or $230 without it...

its also only $30 more for an 8u case

wonder if its worth the extra few slots for any extra gear i end up owning??

is the suspension a good idea for 2 avalon valve pres?
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Postby Barney Loveland » Tue Sep 13, 2005 7:57 pm

Just me 2c worth, but I once bought a suspension rack for a bass rig, tube pre and power amp, but the size of the thing was not! worth the extra effort to lug around, so ended up getting a normal rack cut to fit the gear. The case maker had one size, which meant the rack was far longer than needed depth wise? The rack lids were also huge! Talk to them and see if they can show you one, or what it will be like. I sure learned my lesson.
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Postby Damien » Tue Sep 13, 2005 8:13 pm

i use there guys.

http://www.face-lite.com.au/

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Postby Martin » Tue Sep 13, 2005 11:45 pm

thanks for the replies guys, the case would only ever be on the front or back seat of my car when in transit and strapped in so tehres a fair bit of suspension there already, otherwise it will be on my desk here or at work or a job... i think maybe the suspension racks are overkill for my application

might go for the 6u model

[url]http://www.roadcase.com.au/ecomm/Scripts/prodView.asp?idproduct=648[/url]

and just be sure to take care of it, the extra space should be good for keeping airflow around the thing, they can get pretty hot...

its either that or two 2u rack units cause i'm not sure if i'd already want to lug around two pre's if i only need one for a vocal etc...

aaaaah decisions!

[/url]
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Postby Kurt » Wed Sep 14, 2005 12:35 am

The 6U one looks like a pretty good price and having rack stripping front and back gives plenty of cooling options. Carrying multiple cases is a PITA, I'd just stick both pre's in the 6U.
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Postby Damien » Wed Sep 14, 2005 12:25 pm

will this stuff EVER fly...

if it will you need to be aware of the 20-25kg virgin limit and the 35 kg qantas limit.

if the stuff fly's, you may need to have more cases of the correct weight.

also allow for your cables, the length of the jack plugs poking out of the rear and the weight of the cables. most people forget about this stuff and i am always pulling cables out of racks at the airport so we can get stuff on as baggage not freight (big cost differance)...

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Last edited by Damien on Thu Sep 15, 2005 11:20 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Postby Martin » Wed Sep 14, 2005 7:04 pm

flyings a possibility, i'm going to go for two 2u racks

i can carry both at the same time (one in each hand, same as carrying a 6u in two hands) and when i only need to take a good vocal strip i'll take one, and if i need drum OH's or something stereo i'll take both

thanks for the replies! much appreciated
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Postby Kris » Thu Sep 15, 2005 10:58 am

I actually took a bunch of stuff recently to Perth on Qantas. Much to my surprise I only got hit $11 for each piece of extra luggage. 3 guitars, a mac G4 in box, a focusrite red 6 in a rack and another 4 unit rack case full of heavy bits (40kg). All up the excess cost me $66. Now, international, that's another story.
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