Finally bought a PA system!!!

[austikins]

after getting our tax return and paying off some bills, the wife let me invest in a PA for my band. i had been thinking of a behringer system, but after coming to my senses i got the Yamaha Stagepas 300. my band is just acoustic guitar/vocals, bass, and drums so i think it will be just right for our needs. i hope to add electric guitar in the near future, but we dont play venues that need a lot of volume so i dont think it will be a problem. i found a sale price of $428, and after stands, stand adapters, two mic cables, and shipping/tax i only spent $600. should be here in about a week. i cant wait to start playing more gigs because we have our own PA!

 

i do have a couple of questions. if in the future we need more volume for larger venues can i buy some powered speakers and run them out of the monitor outputs facing toward the audience along with the included passive speakers (and/or could we face the passive speakers at us for monitors)? also, if i bought a headphone amp could i run headphones out to our drummer as a monitor? last question... can i use it as a passive mixer running left and right out of the monitor outputs to my lexicon lambda to record with (specifically recording drums)?

[twostone]

First question for larger rooms rent, your stage pass is the wrong tool for the job. First off to fill a large room means micing the band and drums eat up a lot of channels plus you need subs to fill in the lows.

 

Second headphone mix to drummer wouldn't work unless you can give him the exact mix without affecting the FOH and most headphone mixer out is for FOH and PFL don't worry about PFL don't apply to you.

 

Recording, probably just have to use the RCA out straight into your recorder and it's only gonna be 2 track mix , and again it's gonna be what the main mix is. Not sure if the unit has channel inserts but a half insert first click is a direct out on most mixer and just matter of using recording snake to have individual trax to your recorder. I'm not familiar with your unit but anyway hope this sheds a little light for ya and now you have your real x-mas present on the way, whoops hope wife isn't reading this if so, my bad.

[austikins]

 

First question for larger rooms rent, your stage pass is the wrong tool for the job. First off to fill a large room means micing the band and drums eat up a lot of channels plus you need subs to fill in the lows. Second headphone mix to drummer wouldn't work unless you can give him the exact mix without affecting the FOH and most headphone mixer out is for FOH and PFL don't worry about PFL don't apply to you. Recording, probably just have to use the RCA out straight into your recorder and it's only gonna be 2 track mix , and again it's gonna be what the main mix is. Not sure if the unit has channel inserts but a half insert first click is a direct out on most mixer and just matter of using recording snake to have individual trax to your recorder. I'm not familiar with your unit but anyway hope this sheds a little light for ya and now you have your real x-mas present on the way, whoops hope wife isn't reading this if so, my bad.

 

 

i dont understand some of what you said. what do you mean by "for larger rooms rent"? what you said about the head phone didnt make any sense to me. and what did you mean about the insert cable and "first click"?

[flanc]

Twostone is saying if you are interested in a gig that is significantly outside the capabilities of you system, then rent a larger PA or hire a sound company to provide reinforcement.

 

As the "PA Guy" for our band, we assembled a system that works for 95% or better of our gigs. It scales us to about 300-350 people rooms. Above that, I'd need to rent a system, or make significant capital upgrades that likely couldn't be justified from a cost perspective.

 

Your Stage Pass 300 will do fine for corner of the bar/pub kinda gigs. Those kinda systems are easy to setup, small and portable. They do not scale very well IMHO. If you find you band is wanting to take on bigger rooms/crowd, either: 1) Rent (as Twostone suggested) 2) move your Stagepass to the practice room or sell and purchase a larger system that will be an order of magnitude more expensive.