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First PA experience


Bugsgalore

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Posted

I wanted to shout out a thank you to those of you who suggested renting a PA for a wedding rehearsal gig I played this weekend (VS an acoustic amp).

 

I rented a Mackie mixer (DFX 12), some Mackie powered speakers (2 SRM 350), and a shure sm58 (they didn't have a 57). Easy to set up even for a newbie like me. 0 feedback problems. My only comment on the speakers was that they seemed to "Hiss" quite a bit (even with no signal)....this was rental equipment though so perhaps this was from previous abuse/neglect. This also could have been due to my inexperience.

 

The gig went really well, I didn't sing, but rather played some "dinner music" (some classical and fingerstyle steel). got lots of positive comments from folks and people asking if I have regular gigs locally. Don't think I'm ready to quit my dayjob though!

 

Although now I kind of want to buy a PA to play with.....maybe a system built around the JBL EON speakers. Hmmmmm. Voice in my head scripts this for my wife: "Honey really look at it as an INVESTMENT.....the $1500 I "borrow" from Jr's college fund will be repayed many times over from all those gigs." I buy it, but I doubt she would, and that's what keeps us out of debt!

 

 

Cheers,

 

Matt.

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Posted

I come up against that hiss all the time with my Behringer mixer. The only thing I could do was to make sure that the gain an output levels on all the channels that I wasn't using were all turned down completely. Even then, I had to keep the output gain on the main mix low as well to avoid the hiss.

 

Oh well, at least I don't have to worry about clipping! :confused:

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Posted

Congratulations! It's a gas, isn't it?

 

You might lurk around on the Live Sound forum for a while if you haven't already - lots of good pointers there.

 

If you're on a budget, a pair of passive speakers and a powered mixer is probably going to get you more for your buck. I found a nice pair of lightly used Yorkville Elite 12" speakers on eBay for $500, so it's possible to find some good stuff there. JBL Eon speakers were going for a premium there, last time I looked, but I recall seeing some decent speakers from Peavey and Yamaha at a reasonable price.

 

I know, if you work out the costs, you'd probably come out better if you rent for awhile, especially if paying gigs are occasional, but it's tremendously satifying to buy gear, dammit! :D

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