Members mbengs1 Posted March 13, 2017 Members Share Posted March 13, 2017 how effective is using a PA to amplify a low watt amp like a 20-40watt ? i think this is the way to use rather weak amps in jam sessions with a full band and a loud drummer. is the sound loud and clear? faithful to the sound that comes out of the guitar amps speaker? I'm thinking of getting a PA not only for the vocals but also for the guitars... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members DeepEnd Posted March 13, 2017 Members Share Posted March 13, 2017 In your thread title you're talking about the studio (i.e., recording) but in the actual post it sounds like you're talking about live performance. If it's performance and you use a good mike and PA you'll be fine. We do that in worship every Sunday. Just make sure you have a good sound guy/gal. If it's in the studio, why would you need a PA in the first place? It' would be just one more source of noise/distortion between you and the recording medium. Mike the vocalists and amps. As a secondary consideration, when you say a 20-40 Watt amp are you talking about SS or tube? Clean or driven? A 40 Watt tube amp can produce a fairly loud sound level with the right speakers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members WRGKMC Posted March 13, 2017 Members Share Posted March 13, 2017 A PA should be fairly neutral in what it amplifies. The PA speakers, the PA's EQ and the Mics are designed to minimize feedback so they aren't as flat sounding as what you'd hear through a recording console. The key to any PA system sounding good is to have decent stage monitors because you wont hear much coming directly from the main cabs placed parallel or in front of singers on stage. The Mains are for the audience, the monitors allow the players to hear each other on stage. I'm not sure how much you've played out, but by asking these kinds of questions, it suggests you have little experience in live situations. Biggest problem playing on a normal stage is directivity. Speakers are more like flashlights beaming in the dark and only spread out a minimal amount on the actual stage. Further out in the audience they can get quite a bit wider. You can only stand so far off axis from a guitar cab before your sound disappears. In a small room your sound bounces off walls. On a large stage, that back wall can be a hundred feet away and the timing delay can often be out of sync with the tempo of the music.Standing out on the front of the stage, you may be OK hearing yourself in a straight line with the amp. You walk a few feet over to the other side of the stage and your sound can completely disappear, even when using larger amps. Monitors are the key to being heard evenly across the stage. You don't need a loud amp to have a loud sound in the monitors. Its simply a matter of how loud you can go before you start getting a feedback loop between the monitor and the Mic. On a small stage with highly reflective walls the chances of feedback increase so the actual volume cant be as high. Then you have the vocals to contend with. Guitars cant be louder then the vocals. A monitor usually sits in front of singer and he has the distance between it and his mic. Get the volume too loud, and the sound bounces off the singers face, into the mic and feeds back. The loudest sound comes from the main PA cabs. You wouldn't know it standing on stage however. All that sound is filling the room in front of you bounding around. Its not pointed at you, unless you're just rehearsing that way. What this all boils down to, If your goal is to get your amp louder by using a PA, you have to realize Vocal are supposed to be louder then all other instruments. You can only get the vocals so loud before your mic feeds back in a small room. You could get the guitar allot louder through a PA going direct from the amp of using an amp modeling effect unit, but you can only crank it so high before you drown out the vocals. On smaller systems you can even garble the vocals if an instruments bass frequencies are too great (one reason I like to avoid pumping bass through a PA). Of course, Its good to have some kind of PA to practice your vocals. You cant become a proficient singer unless you practice singing through a mic regularly. Plugging a CD or even a drum machine into a PA is a good way to practice too because it gives you a frame of reference to adjust everything to. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Drummer44 Posted March 13, 2017 Members Share Posted March 13, 2017 We put guitars, bass, and keys directly into the PA, these days. Along with e-drums when using those instead of acoustic. Eliminated the amps altogether. Guitar guys searching for their "special tone" -- if outside the range of guitar controls or the rudimentary effects available from the mixer -- get whatever they want with pedals or Pods or whatever. -D44 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members badpenguin Posted March 13, 2017 Members Share Posted March 13, 2017 Why would you want to in a studio setting? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Voltan Posted March 13, 2017 Members Share Posted March 13, 2017 my first thoughts were of leslie west... sunn coliseum pa head... but I don't think that's where this was goin'... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil O'Keefe Posted March 13, 2017 Share Posted March 13, 2017 how effective is using a PA to amplify a low watt amp like a 20-40watt? Assuming a decent PA system and a competent soundperson, extremely effective - at least in a live situation. In the studio? Why bother? What's the advantage? You don't need more amplitude in the studio than the guitar amp itself provides, even if the amp is only a fraction of the 20-40W you specified. i think this is the way to use rather weak amps in jam sessions with a full band and a loud drummer. But now you're talking about practice and jamming, not studio use. is the sound loud and clear? faithful to the sound that comes out of the guitar amps speaker? I'm thinking of getting a PA not only for the vocals but also for the guitars... If you're running a 20-40W amp, you should have sufficient power available to be easily heard in a practice or jamming session, especially if you have a half-way decently efficient speaker installed. Remember, wattage is only part of the loudness equation! If it's not enough, then I suspect the whole band is probably playing way too loud, but that's your call... if you need to be louder, then yes, a PA system will make it louder, again assuming a certain level of quality and capability in terms of the PA system itself, as well as a basic level of competency in the operator of said PA. However, you also need to take the practice room into consideration too. You can get things so loud (especially in a smaller room) that you can drive the room itself into compression. IOW, there are limits to how loud you'll be able to get everything without dealing with other sonic issues. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members DeepEnd Posted March 13, 2017 Members Share Posted March 13, 2017 Why would you want to in a studio setting? Thanks. I'm glad someone besides me noticed that. I hope the OP comes back and clarifies what the heck he meant. Of course, he probably won't. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil O'Keefe Posted March 13, 2017 Share Posted March 13, 2017 Thanks. I'm glad someone besides me noticed that. I hope the OP comes back and clarifies what the heck he meant. Of course, he probably won't. We'll see if he does or not... I wouldn't be surprised if he doesn't... but I suspect he was talking about a "rehearsal studio" (a rather grandiose term for a practice room IMHO, but not an unheard of term), and used the term "studio" without the adjective. But without it, it's too easy to assume "recording studio" - especially on a music-related site. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members DeepEnd Posted March 13, 2017 Members Share Posted March 13, 2017 . . . I suspect he was talking about a "rehearsal studio" (a rather grandiose term for a practice room IMHO' date=' but not an unheard of term), and used the term "studio" without the adjective. . . .[/quote'] I suspected something similar. Hmm. I wonder if I should say I'm ''off to the studio'' the next time I head to church for praise band practice? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Mikeo Posted March 14, 2017 Members Share Posted March 14, 2017 Remembering the old days there was probably no real PA gear and blues players, just sang into a mic, through guitar amp. Before my time, but it's still kind of old skool kool. On that off note. I know a guy that plays guitar in a local cover band and he uses a Mesa Boogie pre amp, and then send it to the house PA and stage monitors. He says he just doesn't feel like hauling an amp anymore. Effects and the pre are all mounted in one small rack. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members onelife Posted March 14, 2017 Members Share Posted March 14, 2017 Remembering the old days there was probably no real PA gear and blues players, just sang into a mic, through guitar amp. Before my time, but it's still kind of old skool kool. A friend of mine and I each had one of these 25 Watt Amp Kits. My brother played drums and sang so we got him a Radio Shack mic and ran it into the Normal Channel of both amps. We setup on opposite sides of the stage and the amps did double duty for guitars an PA. I thought it was rather innovative at the time and, as an added bonus, building the kit and reading the circuit description inspired me to go to electronics school. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members mbengs1 Posted March 14, 2017 Author Members Share Posted March 14, 2017 Why would you want to in a studio setting? i owned a 20 watt mesa boogie combo back in the 90's. it was a great amp but i blew the speaker when i turned it up to be heard while jamming. i think if i just the volume lower it would not have broke on me. maybe a PA would help me get heard ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members mbengs1 Posted March 14, 2017 Author Members Share Posted March 14, 2017 I mean tube amps but solid state amps too. i have a 10 watt fender frontman. sounds ok, just not loud enough. if i mic it through a PA will that do the trick ? just need to reinforce the sound so a not so loud amp can compete with the rest of the band. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members badpenguin Posted March 14, 2017 Members Share Posted March 14, 2017 Then you aren't using it in a "studio" setting. you're using it in a LIVE setting. COMPLETELY different animal dude. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil O'Keefe Posted March 14, 2017 Share Posted March 14, 2017 i owned a 20 watt mesa boogie combo back in the 90's. it was a great amp but i blew the speaker when i turned it up to be heard while jamming. i think if i just the volume lower it would not have broke on me. maybe a PA would help me get heard ? Maybe putting a more efficient speaker, with higher power handling capability into the amp would be a simpler, less expensive and more reasonable / practical solution? You really should read this article. Wattage is only part of the story when it comes to "how loud" an amp will be. FWIW, I probably had the same amp - Studio 22, right? Yeah, not a bad amp at all... but they were Mesa's "budget" ( ) amps at the time, and they didn't come with the nicer / beefier speakers that their higher-powered amps had. I'd definitely recommend a speaker swap if someone was planning on pushing one hard - and depending on the band, a 20W amp will often need to be running fairly hard to keep up - again, depending on the speaker you have in it. I have a Princeton Reverb II, and it will kill any Studio 22 with a stock speaker in it in terms of maximum SPL - simply because of the factory stock-optional EVM 12" it has in it. More efficient speaker = louder. And you'd have a heck of a hard time blowing an EVM 12 with a properly functioning 20 watt amp... Look, there's nothing wrong with running an amp into a PA in situations where it doesn't provide enough SPL or coverage on its own - that applies to live situations and it could even work in a rehearsal situation... but it's certainly not necessary in a recording studio where you can record at any SPL level you need to; from something as loud as a jet aircraft taking off to something as quiet as gnat farts, a good engineer can capture it in a quiet studio. But you really shouldn't need to resort to the PA for practice if you're using a 20W amp with a decent speaker in it; if you don't have a good speaker, and the PA's already sitting there, by all means, put it to use. But if you don't already have a PA and the band plays instrumentals (IOW, you don't otherwise need a PA), then put your money into a better speaker for the amp, or get a bigger, more powerful amp. All three are reasonable ways to "get louder." Buying a PA that you otherwise don't need just to make an amp louder for rehearsals isn't IMHO. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members hellion_213 Posted March 14, 2017 Members Share Posted March 14, 2017 In a live setting, I have mic'd the amps and ran them into a Powered Peavey mixer, more for dispersion than volume though. And most live settings, especially outdoor, you generally want to do the same. In a typical band rehearsal setting, with an acoustic drummer, a 20w amp will struggle, unless, as Phil said, it has an extraordinary speaker. Are you having trouble hearing yourself? Is the drummer having trouble hearing you? A PA can be great for running monitors to the drummer and singer. But then, so can a more appropriate amp, or boosting the mids. Remember, live settings do not translate with recording settings. I love to record scooped, and depend on the studio producer to adjust levels appropriately, but practice and play live with the mids boosted to cut through. Your issue may be more in line with this school of thought.volume hasn't changed, but the perceived volume has, as more of my tone is allowed to carry and not get swallowed up by the drums and bass. In rehearsal, it can mean the difference between being heard with the post on two or the post on four. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members bluesmann Posted March 14, 2017 Members Share Posted March 14, 2017 I just bought a sennheiserE906 to mic my amps and haven't tried it yet. I've always used a shure 57 in the past when I need it. I use a condenser when I'm recording a AKG c1000s I don't have a pro recording system just a rinky dink boss br864 but its ok for what I do. live I set the mic just off center a little bit, rate on the grill so I don't get that sizzle in the treble. setting the monitors equal with the amps stage volume. That works for me. But do experiment. I've heard of people using two mics with one doing ambient micing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil O'Keefe Posted March 14, 2017 Share Posted March 14, 2017 I just bought a sennheiserE906 to mic my amps and haven't tried it yet. I think you'll like it. The E906 smokes the E609 IMHO. But the real winner is the old MD409. Killer cab mic. Check out these comparison clips over on Gearslutz: https://www.gearslutz.com/board/so-m...dio-clips.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members onelife Posted March 14, 2017 Members Share Posted March 14, 2017 I'd love to put an EVM10 in my Subway Blues - it's too easy to carry around the way it is now. I actually did that with an EVM12L and a nice portable 100 Watt Solid State Fender Montreax. It was great until I got home at 3am and had to carry it in from the back of my car. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members onelife Posted March 14, 2017 Members Share Posted March 14, 2017 I'm quite happy with an e609 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members bluesmann Posted March 14, 2017 Members Share Posted March 14, 2017 I got it playing flat on the 906 was good. I liked the mid on the 409 better Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members thatsbunk Posted March 14, 2017 Members Share Posted March 14, 2017 I've gigged (even outdoors) with a Princeton & an E609 without problems... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members DeepEnd Posted March 14, 2017 Members Share Posted March 14, 2017 I mean tube amps but solid state amps too. i have a 10 watt fender frontman. sounds ok, just not loud enough. if i mic it through a PA will that do the trick ? just need to reinforce the sound so a not so loud amp can compete with the rest of the band. I'm copy/pasting this as a quote instead of a comment so others can chime in. First, a 10 Watt SS amp won't be loud enough in even a practice setting no matter how good it sounds. I know you have a few other amps like a 60 Watt 3X10 Marshall. IIRC you have a Bugera of some kind as well. Unless it's truly huge, you might as well practice with the same amp you're going to be performing with or at least something similar. As Phil says, a tube amp of reasonable Wattage and a speaker with fairly high SPL should work for you. EV is always a good choice but Eminence makes a number of 12" speakers with SPL's of 102-103dB that won't break the bank. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil O'Keefe Posted March 14, 2017 Share Posted March 14, 2017 Yeah, the mids on the 409 are all kinds of punchy. I like that in a guitar mic. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.