Help me with my first PA system

[mr2good]

I got some great advice in my thread about needing a PA system in the acoustic forums. My PA Thread

 

I wanted some more detailed advice on actual PA heads and speaker combinations that would work best for me and my buddy.

 

The set up we want to go with is a PA head for two vocals and two acoustic guitars, run through two 12" or 15" PA speakers.

 

The bassist recently purchased a peavey setup stack with 2 10"s and an 18". He does not have a bass head yet, but on the back of the stack peavey says the rms is 200 watts. He is probably going to get a 200-300w peavey bass head.

 

The drummer is not going to be mic'd.

 

Would that setup work for our warehouse and playing small bars?

 

For our PA head I am looking at something like this Yamaha EMS686s or like this Peavey XRD 680

 

As you can see, I can get a 2x400 watt yamaha for the same price as a 2x300 watt peavey. I have heard overall Peavey is better and that the extra 100 watts on the yamaha doesn't necesarily mean it will sound better or be louder.

 

Any other ideas on a PA head that would fit our needs is greatly appreciated.

 

As far as having monitors, we dont have an idea for that yet. Probably just going to use acoustic amps. Is the dual amp mixers used strictly for monitors? Like, one amp for mains and one for monitors or would I bridge the amps to get 600-800 watts to my mains? Is it possible to play out with no monitors?

 

Let me know how you think this set up would work, also, can you reccomend some used PA speakers that would work well for this setup? Is it realistic to have a setup like this one and have it sound good enough to play out at small bars with? I'd like to keep the speakers in the $3-400, and I am willing to get used equipment to save money.

 

Thanks for the help,

 

Matt

[GCDEF]

I believe you're being somewhat unrealistic and setting yourselves up for failure. I'm not one of the guys here that feels you can't touch workable PA for

 

The heads you have mentioned would be okay for two acoustic guitars and vocals in a coffee shop, but for a real band with drums and bass, they're going to be barely adequate for minimal situations.

 

Firstly, if you don't mic your drums, your entire mix has to be centered around what the drummer is doing. You'll have no control at all. Unless you're playing background folk music, you'll at least want the kick miced to add a little authority.

 

Second, if you go with six or 8 channles and decide later you want to mic the bass and drums (you will decide to mic the bass and drums), you're screwed as you don't have the capacity in your mixer or the power to do it.

 

Third, I regard monitors as essential. If you have your main speakers in front of you pointed at the crowd, you'll have absolutely no chance of hearing your singing if you're standing next to a drummer. I certainly wouldn't want to perform that way. Most powered mixers allow you to run full power to the mains, or divide the amps between mains and monitors, but you only get one monitor mix. Again, once you bring a drummer into the picture, you need quite a bit more power than those mixers will provide.

 

Personally, I'm in a 4 piece rock band. I use a Carvin C1644P powered mixer, which is 16 channels and 4x300 watts and 4 monitor mixes. It works for small clubs where a lot of volume isn't required, but for any decent sized club or a place where the crowd wants to feel the floor shake a little, we bring out the powered subs and bigger amps. Even in the smaller, quieter settings, we usually bring one sub just to fill out the bottom octave.

[Craig Vecchione]

Peavey SP2's are among the best speakers in the $400 area. If available in your area, also check out Yorkville. JBL MPro 400 (not 200) series are good, but a little above your price. Yamaha Club are very common. The 12" and 15" are good vocal cabs, but their subs are weak. EV Eliminators are in a similar situation...great vocals, but you'll want to find a different brand sub.

 

Avoid the 2x15+horn arrangement. Despite marketing hype otherwise, they will not replace subs, and 90% have muddy vocals and inadequate highs.

 

Avoid the temptation to go cheap with monitors. In fact, you may be better off buying four decent wedge monitors; use one pair for monitors, one pair for mains. Then get mains, and subs as you can afford them, and use the 2nd monitor pair for monitor use.

[Singin' Dave]

mr2good,

 

I'm in a 4-piece band similar to the set-up you describe here and in your post on the acoustic forum, and have gone through much of the decision making that your are doing right now. In HCLF terms (and I really respect the opinions put forth here-visit every day), my set up is bare minimum to insufficient for playing 50-75 person small bars (which we do), but it work for us now (as anyplace larger we woulod play in Chicago has a house system).

 

Since, it's Friday and things are slow, I'll take some time and describe our set-up followed by comments/advice to help your search.

 

First, our band consists of:

 

Lead Vox and Acoustic Rhythm - Me

Lead Guitar and Backing Vox (Lead guitarist has a BF Deluxe Reverb and typically a Tele/G&L ASAT - we do not mic his cab)

Bass and Backing Vox (Bass player uses a SWR WorkingMan 4004 head and 4x10 cab)

Drums w/ percussion

 

Our "P.A. on a stick" (which is what you're asking about) consists of:

 

Mackie 808m Powered Mixer (2x~400w@4ohms)

-2 Yorkville nx350 mains (12"x1", 350 watts program, 100db@1m@1w efficiency)

-2 Yamaha Club IV12 monitor wedges

-1 Yorkville ls700p Powered Sub (placed center front of stage/floor)

-1 Rolls Tiny X-Over to send lows to sub and mids/highs to mains crossed over at about 100-110hz

-misc stands, cords and mics

 

We use 7 of our 8 inputs on the Mackie with VERY limited micing of the instruments. Our inputs are:

1: Lead Vox

2: Acoustic Guitar --> L.R. Baggs Para Acoustic D.I --> P.A.

3: Backing Vox 1

4: backing Vox 2

5: Backing Vox 3/percussion (usually an sm57)

6: Bass Guitar (direct)

7: Kick Drum

8: Open (sometimes snare depending on room but the drummer has a brass snare that cracks)

 

So..with all this gratuitous information here are some observations.

We do ok in very small rooms/bars with the one sub pushing out the bass and kick and the mains handling vox and acoustic. We really should have another sub for larger rooms as well as probably 2 more nx350's arrayed for a total of 4 mains.

 

If we hadn't already invested in all of this stuff, I'd say we'd be much better off with an all powered speaker set up (4 nx550's-2 as mains, 2 as monitors - and 2 ls800p's), a passive mixer with 16 channels, cross-over, eq etc., which would have cost us a bit more than what we already have but not ridiculously so. This would allow us to mic the kit properly if need be w/ 3-4 more inputs, as well as mic the lead guitarists cabinet to have much better control over our mix to the audience. As it is, we need to be very sensitive to the drummers and lead guitarists volume, and work our mix to audience around it. Even so ad as you can imagine, our coverage is very limited in this case.

 

So with this set up, we are now we are stuck with 1) working around our limited system or 2) selling pretty much ALL of it off and buying the rig described above.

 

Of course for us, as with many, budget and portability/ease of set up is a maor concern and limitation. BUT..had we discovered this forum and learned a bit before purchasing much of this stuff, I think we could have saved up a bit and aquired the system above which would allow us MUCH more flexibility and probably it would be easier to use. It would last us MUCH longer, saving us $$ in the long run. And it would sound significantly better than what we have now--no question there.

 

So my #1 recommendation (Option 1) is you think about scalability and buy gear that can grow with your aspirations (i.e. the powered spekaer rig desribed above)

 

However, if you are still set on getting the "P.A. on a stick" (i.e. Option 2, a powered mixer that can power both passive mains and passive monitors - and you need monitors w/ a drummer and big bass rig on stage), You should get a powered mixer that can supply at least 2 400w @ 4ohms internal amps as a bare minimum. If you want the bass and kick to be heard at all you need a sub or two. (the 200W Bass amp will be ok for on stage side fill only - it'll be lost on the audience mostly w/ out a sub). You should look at having at least 12 inputs/mic pres on the mixer if you ever want more than just a kick drum (w/ a sub) to carry more than 20-30ft from the stage. Particularly if yo are planning to mic a guitar cab or two as well in the future. 16 channels would be better. The catch is finding a powered mixer with this kind of power and number of channels is extremely difficult and not cheap...

 

As stated before, monitors are a must.....you need to hear yourself clearly and instantly to perform well; your enjoyment of your performance (as well as the audience's) is directly tied to this.

 

My recommendations for Option 2 is:

 

Mixer: Yamaha EMX-5000/20

Main Speakers: Yorkville E12 Yorkville dealers AudioEast and CobraSound are regulars here and will give you the best deals. I know Audioeast ships for free...

Monitors: Yorkville nx350 Lightweight, easy to move, sound good (not as good as e12's)

1 or 2 Powered Subs:

URL=https://cobrasound.com/store/index.php?page=viewitem&manuf=Yorkville&model=LS700P&detail=max]Yorkville ls700p[/url] the ls800p is actually much better, but HUGE box IMO....portability is being considered here

ETC: crossover, stands, mics, cables etc.)

 

All this stuff will run you a bit less than the powered speaker route and is far less scalable. Additional power amps etc. will probably be needed down the road to supplement the internal amps in the mixer.

 

Option 3 is geting a passive mixer and separate power amps, effects and EQ (which is probably better than Option 2 but a bit more daunting to the amateur)

 

Learn from my limitaitons with my current set-up as well as the advice you get here----rent until you can afford something akin to what is recoomended above. You'll be far happier in the long run.

 

Now..back to trying to earn enough money to do the same!!

 

Best of luck to you and Happy Friday!

[dboomer]

I think the underlying theme in all of this discussion is ... define your needs ... WELL!

 

If you buy a vocal/ac gtr system for coffee house or small (>100 people) clubs it can be small and relatively inexpensive. If you are buying with an eye towards expanding, it will be a little more complicated and certainly more expensive. For example, if you ever think of micing drums or bass you'll need to expand the system's power times four as a minimum ... and that won't make it louder, only able to cover the lower frequencies you'll need. Maybe the best way for you would be to buy the small system, use it till you get your money's worth out of it then junk it and buy bigger ... or maybe even rent from a sound co. It all depends on your situation.

 

I think a lot of these "first PA threads" involve how do I buy the expensive system I really need for no money. That can't be done. In your case, I don't see you going Heavy Metal to big crowds soon, so a small system just might be the ticket but you arre the only one that can define your needs. After picking that, buying gear to to it is easy.

[dboomer]

Specifically with your question about the difference between 300W and 400W heads ... if that ONLY is the difference, there's NO difference. That's only slightly more than 1 dB of power. You could make up that tiny amount of difference by simply moving up to a larger gauge speaker cable or even a better extension cord to supply it with AC.

[mr2good]

Thanks for the reply's.

 

I now understand it is not realistic to get a good sounding PA for the money we can afford.

 

We still need a set up for jamming in our warehouse though. Maybe rent equipment (any idea how much this costs?) if we do a big show, but use this affordable equipment for small shows and in our warehouse?

 

If I went that route would a set up like this work? Can we use like 50 watt acoustic amps as monitors for our system? Would we plug them into the mixer? Is this P.A. on a stick acceptable for playing small rooms, like 50-75 people?

 

If i got a mixer that was 2 x 400 could I hook one main up to each amp, and then used our self driven acoustic amps as monitors?

 

We aren't looking to play for big crowds, and like I said, if we did, we could always rent the necessary equipment.

 

Let me know about this approach.

 

Thanks again,

 

Matt

 

BTW, singin' dave. I PMed you before I started this thread, since you already replied don't worry about it, I was just letting you know you may have other undread PMs.

[mr2good]

I am now seriously considering the powered speaker option. This way, since my buddy and I are sharing the system, we can each buy a powered speaker and when we play together with the band hook them up to a mixer and when we play just acoustic we could plug our guitars into just one speaker and it would act like a nice acoustic amp right?

 

What kind of power should I be shooting for? The JBL 15 G2's? The Yorkvile NX20's? Would a pair of those play better over a band than a peavey 6 channel 2x300 watt head and jbl 1500 speakers?

 

We would still be missing monitors if we bought the powered speakers. What is the most affordable solution for that?

[GCDEF]

 

Originally posted by mr2good I am now seriously considering the powered speaker option. This way, since my buddy and I are sharing the system, we can each buy a powered speaker and when we play together with the band hook them up to a mixer and when we play just acoustic we could plug our guitars into just one speaker and it would act like a nice acoustic amp right? What kind of power should I be shooting for? The JBL 15 G2's? The Yorkvile NX20's? Would a pair of those play better over a band than a peavey 6 channel 2x300 watt head and jbl 1500 speakers? We would still be missing monitors if we bought the powered speakers. What is the most affordable solution for that?

 

 

Personally, I still think you're a little off track. I'm not a big powered speaker fan, because you can't upgrade the power or the speaker without upgrading both.

 

I mentioned the powered mixer which I use, which has 16 channels, 4 monitor sends, and power for 2 mains and 2 monitors, or 4 monitors. For $1,100 you get a pretty decent 16 channel mixer, effects, stereo 9 band eq (Less than ideal, but better than nothing), and 4 indpendent power sections. Add 2 passive mains and 2 monitors and you're good to go for small gigs.

 

Later you can add larger amps, subs, other effects or eq without being locked in the way you'd be with powered speakers. You're still looking at around $2,500 to get started, but you'd have something workable and upgradable.

[Singin' Dave]

Thanks 2good for the PM. You were right...I've never really checked those (had one from 1/8/04!)

 

I think that GCDEF is giving you very sound advice for a system that is scalable and will work well for you, but I disagree with him a bit on powered speakers. (Though one look at my P.A. might tell you who to listen to and that would probably be GCDEF...)

 

As an acoustic player, I think you (and your buddy) will always have a use for a good powered speaker each. They will always be a great acoustic amp for you and even if you get into a large band situation, you have a kick ass monitor to bring to the table. I own an acoustic amp (UltraSound 50w) in addition to our little P.A. and have used it as a monitor before, but i was seriously underpowered and did not work well with drums and bass etc. I wish I had bought a good 12" powered speaker instead (yorkville nx550 would be my choice-have had great experience w/ Yorkville products).

 

For the short term, do some listening to different types of powered speakers to find the model you like (you'll probably need to buy these new), get a used Peavey RQ mixer with 12-16 channels for about $300 or so, and you'll have a good sounding base system (you'll need a powered sub and some powered monitors some point very soon if not now) that is easy to set-up, fairly foolproof to operate, and can grow into new roles later in your progression as a band.

 

Again though, GCDEF's suggestion is as good if not better for all the same reasons. (The one advantage of powered speakers is ease of power matching perhaps....)

 

Good Luck..and I'll check my PM's more often!

[whiteshadow]

I'm in a similar situation as Mr2goog, but I REALLY am a newby. I've read the posts, but find most of it confusing. I am in a rock&roll band and need a good little PA setup for practicing (no shows, just garage stuff). I was thinking of either getting an all-in-one PA/mixer/eq and passive speakers (2), or getting a mixer (I was looking at behringer w/ effects and eq) and plugging it into my 90watt tube traynor bassman head (and get passive speakers). Or maybe invest in a seperate power amp instead of the traynor.

 

I'm on a really tight budget for this, so any advice would help (cuz I know nothing!). To give you a rough idea, right now, I have my Adix OM-2 mic plugled directly into the traynor amp, and a cab (with ?brand speakers). It sounds, well, distorted and crappy. are Pwere speakers that good? like someone mentioned, you can't really change the power once you have it. Is it better to invest in seperate parts (eq-mixer-pa-speakers)?

[whiteshadow]

BTW, when I say I need a PA system, it's only for the singer. The bassist, guitarist and drummer are not (and will not) be miced for practices. I think that could change the situation a lot, no?

[Craig Vecchione]

 

Originally posted by whiteshadow I'm in a similar situation as Mr2goog, but I REALLY am a newby. I've read the posts, but find most of it confusing. I am in a rock&roll band and need a good little PA setup for practicing (no shows, just garage stuff). I was thinking of either getting an all-in-one PA/mixer/eq and passive speakers (2), or getting a mixer (I was looking at behringer w/ effects and eq) and plugging it into my 90watt tube traynor bassman head (and get passive speakers). Or maybe invest in a seperate power amp instead of the traynor. I'm on a really tight budget for this, so any advice would help (cuz I know nothing!). To give you a rough idea, right now, I have my Adix OM-2 mic plugled directly into the traynor amp, and a cab (with ?brand speakers). It sounds, well, distorted and crappy. are Pwere speakers that good? like someone mentioned, you can't really change the power once you have it. Is it better to invest in seperate parts (eq-mixer-pa-speakers)?

 

 

Consider a Peavey XR-600G. It's got pretty much everything you need in one box. Add some speakers, best bang for buck budget are probably Peavey PR-12 and PR-15.

 

This is not a very expandable rig due to the inherent limitations of box powered mixers, but it will meet your immediate spec very well. It'll last forever, and you can probably always use a decent rehearsal setup.

[whiteshadow]

Thanks Craig!

[GCDEF]

 

Originally posted by Craigv Consider a Peavey XR-600G. It's got pretty much everything you need in one box. Add some speakers, best bang for buck budget are probably Peavey PR-12 and PR-15. This is not a very expandable rig due to the inherent limitations of box powered mixers, but it will meet your immediate spec very well. It'll last forever, and you can probably always use a decent rehearsal setup.

 

 

If it's only rehearsals in a garage, he may be better off with floor monitors.

[Craig Vecchione]

 

Originally posted by GCDEF If it's only rehearsals in a garage, he may be better off with floor monitors.

 

 

True enough; I was considering that he mentioned EQ and effects re: the Behringer. The Peavey's got two EQ's, Feedback Ferret etc, so it may or may not be more desirable depending on his wants.

[GCDEF]

 

Originally posted by Craigv True enough; I was considering that he mentioned EQ and effects re: the Behringer. The Peavey's got two EQ's, Feedback Ferret etc, so it may or may not be more desirable depending on his wants.

 

 

The Peavey seems like a fine unit. I was envisioning that plugged into passive monitors. Less likely to have feedback issues, that's all.

[Craig Vecchione]

 

Originally posted by GCDEF The Peavey seems like a fine unit. I was envisioning that plugged into passive monitors. Less likely to have feedback issues, that's all.

 

 

Ahhh, gotcha; I thought you meant powered. The PR's can pretty much be used either way. They need a little wedging for close use though.