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Monitor/ PA Rig


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Hey guys,

 

So the little garage band that I'm in is playing our first gig in two weeks and are trying to figure out our PA/ monitor setup. Some band/ equipment info:

 

Guitar (me)- 50 watt Soladano lucky 13

Bass- 100 watt ampeg tube amp through a 2X10 and 15 cabs

Drums- typical rock setup

Guitar2 and vox- run through a 125 watt Crate acoustic amp

Percussion- Bongos and congos

 

have acess to a keyboard amp or two and a Mackie 1202 mixer and plenty of mics from sm57's to Lawson tubes!

 

The gig is a housewarming party in the backyard of our bassist, we are typical garage rock, nothing out of the ordinary.

 

So as far as what the audience is hearing I'm thinking that the acoustic guitar and vox will need a keyboard amp to supplement the crate. I'm not really worried about the audience hearing the percussion so thats an after thought (but if anyone has any good ideas let me know, were just limited in our setup so . . . )

ANd everything else we will just mix from our amp volumes during a soundcheck. Comments/ concerns/ recommendations . . .

 

As far as our monitors the vox and drummer are the only ones that expressed that they want monitors, should the bassist and I know something that they do?? In a setup like this it just seems that they may be unecessary. But my thoughts were to mic the guitar amp, DI the bass, and DI the Crate gtr/vox and run it throught the Mackie 1202 to the extra keyboard amp. Or if we could only get one keyboard amp, hook the mackie up to a cheap reciever and speakers and use this as a monitor system (pretty ghetto I know :) Comments/concerns/ recommendations . . .

 

I would really like to get a dedicated monitor system that we could use in the fututre, but the likelyhood of more gigs is very uncertain (pretty amateur band just starting out) and I don't wnat to drop a bunch of kablingy and never touch the stuff again. But if I did want to spend some money (500$ or so) what should I spend it on? Would a power amp and a pair of monitors be a good start, could two monitors be enough for a whole band to hear or would it just be mudd onstage. As you can see I'm totally lost in the live sound dept. so any help is appreciated! Thanks a bunch!

 

Nick

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Nick, I'm in a "nothing special" band that gigs a bit, so I think I can help you out a little bit. My bass player has a Mackie 808M powered mixer, a couple of 15" Peavey mains, and some Peavey TLM 112 Monitors. The Mackie can drive the mains and monitors separately, and that's what we did on our first few gigs. A couple of us have EV-457 mics that put out a lot of bass, and the monitors were breaking up whenever we really "got on the mics". I thought the problem was in the power department, and picked up a Soundtech PL600M monitor amp with 9-band eq on ebay, brand new for only $235 or so. The monitors still broke up, so I went and bought some PV TM-2s, which are still 12", but have a much higher power rating. At that point, our monitoring problems were pretty much solved, though I'm pondering buying a couple of "hot spot" type monitors for the keys and drummer. BTW, we are only monitoring vocals through the PA at this point. I've tried Sonic hot spots with this system, and they worked well. PV has evolved the TM-2s into TM-2Xs, and they sell for around $240 apiece. Of course, there is always used stuff around. Two wedges may be enough, but if you're drummer wants one, you'd only be left with one for the front line. If your drummer can live without it or you only need one in front (one lead singer, perhaps), then I think you could easily put a monitor system together for $500 or so used, $700 - 1000 new. Of course, you need a signal to feed the monitor system with, and that usually comes from a FOH (Front Of House, the system that the audience listens to). P.S. - I suspect that the Mackie could power my monitors and the main speakers, but I still bring my amp so that we can dedicate both amps in the Mackie to FOH.

 

[Edited to add] Whoops, those monitors should be TLM-2 and TLM-2X, not TM-2 and TM-2x. I'll get it straight one of these days.

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$500 will get you a small-ish amp (the beginning of the QSC RMX series) and a pair of wedges, used.

run the mackie's main outs to the amp and speakers, aim them at the audience.

run an aux out to the KB amp, and use it as a monitor.

 

i'd setup differently though...

- dont mic the gtrs. they're plenty loud, PLENTY.

- dont run vox2 into the crate, run it straight to the mackie. more control over the mix, easier monitoring/routing.

- mic vox and mebbe percussion, DI the bass but DO NOT use the abovementioned PA to amplify the bass - you'll eat up headroom like a crazy mofo. let the ampeg do the primary amplification, and the house speakers should have just enough bass to be heard but not felt.

- dont run anything into the monitors except vox.

 

i wouldnt recommend the cheap receiver/speakers option because i've seen plenty of speakers blow up because the drivers weren't matched right (i.e. the internal crossovers were done up wrong). you'd be better off borrowing (mebbe even renting) a powered speaker or two, if you dont want to spend all of the $500.

 

all this IMO... hope it helps.

 

AS

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