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club P.A. power amp placement?


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In a smallish club, if you've got the main mixer out front behind the audience.

 

Do you put the power amps back there with you or is it better to put the power amps on the other end of the snake at the stage near the speakers?

 

Also, how about a monitor mixer at the side of the stage? Is that better than just using your main board for monitors? If your main mixer is capable...is there any reason not to just use it?

 

Just curious about these few things. Thanks.

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Gererally it's best to have the power amps as close as possible to the speakers to minimise power loss via the speaker cables. This is less of a problem when running into small impedence loads and over short distances.

 

RE monitors, it would depend far more on who you want turning the knobs on the monitor mixes. The ideal solution is to have a competent professional do it from side of stage. Both the FOH guy and one of the muso's are a compromise but can be done quite well by either, imho.

 

matt

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As matt said, put the amps as close to the speakers as practical.

 

The logistics of a separate monitor board can be problematic (splitting mic lines, ground loops, etc), but there he's also correct. A separate monmix can have different channel EQ than the main mix. What sounds good FOH is often less than ideal for the band; lead singers especailly can be made very happy by separating the FOH channel EQ from the monitor EQ.

 

A way to get around that problem is to have extra channel capacity on your main board, and split the vocal inputs to 2 channels - one of which is for FOH, and the other exclusively for the monitors. If your board has enough channels, it's also a good idea to do this with acoustic instruments.

 

Originally posted by type2guy

In a smallish club, if you've got the main mixer out front behind the audience.


Do you put the power amps back there with you or is it better to put the power amps on the other end of the snake at the stage near the speakers?


Also, how about a monitor mixer at the side of the stage? Is that better than just using your main board for monitors? If your main mixer is capable...is there any reason not to just use it?


Just curious about these few things. Thanks.

 

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