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  #1  
Old 03-12-2018, 10:42 AM
jdmulli jdmulli is offline
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Default Live Sound Advise Needed

Hello,

Long story short, I've recently been put in a position where I need to purchase some PA/live sound equipment for a band. We are a four piece country, classic rock and pop cover band with drums, bass, guitar, and vocals. We tend to play bars and restaurants with maybe 100-200 people. Our drummer is on the loud side.

I know little to nothing -- closer to nothing about live sound. I have all the speaker cables/ stands and mic cables/stands that I need, but I have no idea about the speakers and mixing board.

I'm okay with buying used. Ideally, I'd like to buy a minimal setup that I can build on over time.

Should I go with powered speaker or would I be better with passive and an amp/s? How much power do I need? Any specific brands to checkout/ avoid?

Any advice is appreciated.

Thanks
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Old 03-12-2018, 11:55 AM
buzzardwhiskey buzzardwhiskey is offline
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For many bars and restaurants, you only need to mic the kick drum. Figure a channel for each vocal, and a channel for each instrument... I count eight channels total. So I'd do a Soundcraft EPM12 or a Yamaha MG16 mixer and marry it to a couple powered speakers from Yamaha, QSC, EV or several others.

To hear ourselves, we've gotten great mileage from pretty inexpensive (and small) Behringer stage monitors such as the B205D.
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Old 03-12-2018, 12:26 PM
Wistah Wistah is offline
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There's a lot to learn here.

The big decisions are what will you use for speakers, and whether you want analog or digital mixing.

Speakers: What is going through the PA? Just vocals, or will you be going direct with acoustic guitars, bass, electrics, mic'ing up the amps, etc? You want head room, and good sound. I'd be looking at 15" powered speakers and possibly subs. The more wattage, the more clean headroom you have. The higher the SPL rating, the more volume you will be able to pump. If you are routinely mic'ing the drums, you will probably want subs. My bar / club modern country band uses 15" JBL PRX series subs and mains and they sound great even with everything mic'ed up. They can cover a big room too.

Mixer: Big decision, do you want old school analog board with knobs, etc, or do you want to go modern digital? The upside of analog is that they are cheaper and easier to use. The downside is that you will need external gear if you want to expand capabilities. Need compressors? Or parametric EQ? Etc? You'll have to pick that stuff up seperately and rack it up. Digital can do it all in one box. But you must control it all with a computer, or an ipad, etc. My band uses Presonus 32 channel digital mixer. It's nice, but big learning curve.

Best advice I have is to go see a bunch of other bands. See who has the best sound dialed in, and talk to them about their rig after the show.

Good luck!
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Old 03-12-2018, 12:29 PM
GmanJeff GmanJeff is offline
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Powered speakers weigh more but typically provide a better solution, with the integrated amplifiers being well-matched to the speakers and eliminating the need for separate power amps or for a powered mixer which, if it fails, leaves you dead in the water. If a single powered speaker fails, you ideally have at least one other to use, and probably your powered monitors, too.

You have to decide if you want to run your instruments through the PA or not. If you don't, you can use a smaller mixer and smaller speakers which don't have to reproduce bass frequencies. Without a sound engineer out in the audience, the mix is unlikely to be better or worse regardless of whether you mic the amps, go direct, or just rely on the backline to get the instruments' sound out there with each musician calibrating their volume to achieve a suitable mix. For smaller venues, I'd keep it simple and would not mic anything as long as everyone is restrained in setting their own volumes.

In addition to speakers and a mixer, you'll need stands for the mixer and FOH speakers, and cabling, so budget for those.
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Old 03-12-2018, 01:01 PM
leew3 leew3 is offline
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What Wistah said! Learn from others who have it figured out as the most accurate response you could get online from any of is is 'it depends'. I have many opinions about live sound that are based on playing in an acoustic duo with live gigs that have no relationship to what you're doing. So, my opinions aren't going to apply to your situation.

Good luck-it's a wonderful time to be buying PA equipment! Class D amplifiers have been game changers and there is lots of great stuff available for comparatively low cost.
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Old 03-12-2018, 07:30 PM
krisls krisls is offline
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Everything depends... but given your post I suspect the best way to go would be some powered speakers for tops, 10s or 12s, I don't like 15s personally. Plus I would look at a small sub, which also plays to the 15 size, against.

Powered because they are more 'idiot' proof which is not a slur on you at all. They're more plug n play than the old power amp plus speakers where you need to be more careful with matching things up. But.... this can work very well and maybe cheaper if you're careful. Especially secondhand. Then say a lot of the first gen K series may be around now as people upgrade.

Mixer, I'm more an analogue guy so I go Soundcraft or A & H, Yamaha or possibly Presonus, but they can be exxy. If you fancy the digital route by all means look at some, lots of threads here discussing them. How many mic inputs.. always go more than you think.

What?? Hmm, how many and price is the question here. Tops alone? Two? Foldback? How much punch do you need?

Just going basic I'd say look at Yamaha DBR 10s and the little DXS Sub. There's equivalents form several Co's that are pretty good though price is likely higher. The upper level DXR series speakers, QSC, RCF, EV. Price and availability.. and your ears will play here, they're all fine bits of gear.

Happy hunting

Kris
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Old 03-13-2018, 07:55 AM
jdmulli jdmulli is offline
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Thanks for the advise, everyone. I'm still shopping around, but I expect to make some purchases in the next couple of weeks.
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Old 03-13-2018, 09:34 AM
lschwart lschwart is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jdmulli View Post
Thanks for the advise, everyone. I'm still shopping around, but I expect to make some purchases in the next couple of weeks.
I would advise you to rent systems with various possible speakers and mixers for a few gigs first to see what works for you and then purchase what works. Some rental companies have a rent-to-buy program as well that will let you apply the rental costs to final purchase.

Much better than buying blind.

Louis
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Old 03-13-2018, 09:35 AM
DupleMeter DupleMeter is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jdmulli View Post
Hello,

Long story short, I've recently been put in a position where I need to purchase some PA/live sound equipment for a band. We are a four piece country, classic rock and pop cover band with drums, bass, guitar, and vocals. We tend to play bars and restaurants with maybe 100-200 people. Our drummer is on the loud side.

I know little to nothing -- closer to nothing about live sound. I have all the speaker cables/ stands and mic cables/stands that I need, but I have no idea about the speakers and mixing board.

I'm okay with buying used. Ideally, I'd like to buy a minimal setup that I can build on over time.

Should I go with powered speaker or would I be better with passive and an amp/s? How much power do I need? Any specific brands to checkout/ avoid?

Any advice is appreciated.

Thanks
Here's the setup my Reggae band has used for the past decade or so in many venues.

We have a powered Yamaha mixer w/ built in FX
2 powered yamaha speakers (with 15" woofers) on speaker stands
each singer has a Behringer 250D for monitoring

We made the rule that everyone has to buy their own mics. I sing through a Sennheiser e935 vocal mic (love that mic for vocals).

We don't mic instruments because w/o a soundguy you just can't get a good balance, so we go with balancing ourselves on stage (we've gotten very good at that) and the PA is simply for voices. We've never run into a situation where we've been too quiet for the PA

We do all have plenty of equipment & when we've had a proper soundguy we've mic'd up our instruments...but that's a very rare occasion. We may have done that twice in the past 10 years.

We usually run a Zoom or similar recorder in the room so we can check our balance at the breaks. Just incase someone gets a little over-excited and plays extra loud That has to be kept in check because that's the beginning of volume creep, as everyone adjusts to meet the new "normal" and things get obnoxiously loud.

HTH
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Old 03-14-2018, 07:35 AM
jdmulli jdmulli is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by DupleMeter View Post
Here's the setup my Reggae band has used for the past decade or so in many venues.

We have a powered Yamaha mixer w/ built in FX
2 powered yamaha speakers (with 15" woofers) on speaker stands
each singer has a Behringer 250D for monitoring
HTH
Does that Behringer 250D put our enough volume for a singer to hear over a loud(ish) drummer? Do you mount it on a mic stand? Seems like a great solution and one less piece of gear that i would have to load out -- the singer could bring it with her mic.

Last edited by jdmulli; 03-14-2018 at 08:19 AM.
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  #11  
Old 04-01-2018, 07:44 PM
DupleMeter DupleMeter is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jdmulli View Post
Does that Behringer 250D put our enough volume for a singer to hear over a loud(ish) drummer? Do you mount it on a mic stand? Seems like a great solution and one less piece of gear that i would have to load out -- the singer could bring it with her mic.


Yes. We can be quite loud with a drummer on a trap kit & a conga player. I never have to turn up past half on the monitor.

We stick them on mic stands. They make an adapter that allows your to place it on a boom stand & still attach your mic to the same stand. We don’t do that because we like the monitors a bit farther back. So we stick them on straight stands that we can position exactly where we want them.
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Old 04-03-2018, 06:40 AM
DupleMeter DupleMeter is offline
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And I suppose, in the interest of full disclosure, another reason my band might be a little on the loud side just might have something to do with the fact that I play through a Mesa Boogie Mark IV. [emoji6]
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1991 Washburn HB-35s
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  #13  
Old 04-03-2018, 08:48 AM
jdmulli jdmulli is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by DupleMeter View Post
Yes. We can be quite loud with a drummer on a trap kit & a conga player. I never have to turn up past half on the monitor.

We stick them on mic stands. They make an adapter that allows your to place it on a boom stand & still attach your mic to the same stand. We don’t do that because we like the monitors a bit farther back. So we stick them on straight stands that we can position exactly where we want them.
I ended up lucking into the Mackie version of the the Behringer monitor you mentioned with adapter and stand. I'm excited to see how it will work at rehearsal this weekend.
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