Re: OT: Racking again (was Re: biz's signal path was Re: Space Station - long, and complicated.)

["William R. Walker," <chillyb@cruzio.com>]

Hi Mark, As far as I know the mini gig rigs are like there rack stuff
weight-wise compared to the carpet covered, or anvil style. Which is not to
say you might be cruising fo a hernia if you filled it completely, maybe
just a less severe hernia. I use ultimate support amp stands, the little
tripod deals, to angle my 4 space racks back at me ( they would probably
hold a 6 or 8 space as well), but I think they might not be enough for your
purposes, The gig rig seem like a good step. You might have enough room on
the top mixer side to put another one or two racks in with the mixer. I can
do this with my skb mixer rack but I'm running the smaller 1402vlz which is
shorter than the 1642. My friend Gary Regina uses on of those folding
waiter tables for getting his rack up higher. I think he got it from the..
um.. er.. Hyatt hotel in Monterey.. I don't think he paid much for it. I
don't know how much weight they will take but he uses a 6 space deep anvil
case fully loaded and has never had a problem. Regarding power 
conditioners:
 Unless you spend the big bucks for a furman AR117, you probably could find
something good and cheap at a computer store. The AR117 has both surge and
brown out protection, about a minute of battery back-up if the power goes
out and you need to turn everything off, and a voltage meter to tell you
whats comming out of the wall. I must say, that my AR117 has been a life
saver on a number of occasions where the power source was dubious at best.
One gig I did down by the beach (never again), all of our equipment was on
the same outlet as the blenders being used by the bartenders, and the sound
was brown (and not in a good Eddie Van Halen way) to say the least. The
bass player blew his amp but my stuff was ok. Another time I was playing an
outdoor festival when the power went out just before the end of our last
song. The drummer and I were able to complete the last few bars as everyone
else was scratching their heads, thanks to my battery back up.
Good luck,
Bill