P.A systems advice needed!

[simonbrown92]

Hello people,

Looking to start gigging soon with my new band and ideally we need to invest in a P.A system. Have had a quick look around eBay, gumtree etc but I'm not sure on what I'm looking for to be honest, being a bassist ive never been involved in that side of things.

Were a 5 piece band so we need something that's gonna give a bit of a kick!

Any help is appreciated,

Peace.

[Dad3353]

[quote name='simonbrown92' timestamp='1376304642' post='2171815']...Any help is appreciated...[/quote]

Good afternoon, Simon...

Give us some idea of your budget, the size of venues you'll be likely to play and whether this is for vocals only, or the whole shebang. Is stage monitoring to be included..? How many singers..?
That would make the replies more pertinent, I should think. Over to you...

[JTUK]

Depends how much you can spend and what you plan to do with it.

Assuming it is required to be a good quality Vox P.A only and you can augment up later
you may want to decide what size tops you can start with.

I'd stay quality active10's are a good start and you may find they sit with Subs better at a later stage.
If you aren't going to do that, then 12's would be the place to start.

You can go with Yamaha and Mackie ..but I wouldn't stick with PV for very long. Personally, I would miss them altogether, but ...??
They may be cheap but they may have had a hard life and the horns get a real beating.
This applies to a lot of P.A as well, and the horns are the weakest part, in terms of that is where
the sound loses it, IMO.

I would try B stock or nearly new RCF active 10 or 12's... as the benchmark and mimimum quality and then that
leads you to QSC which is very good but almost twice as much in price.
HK also ok.

So, that is your cabs sorted... then you need to look out for 16 ch mixer, leads and mic etc etc..

All of that stuff can be pretty robust, but great care and money should go towards the cabs, IMO
Spend well there and you should have cabs that will stay with you for a long time.

I would say you would need a budget of £12-1500 for a 600w vox P.A and you may be able to get a few mini vox monitors as well.

If you buy cheap and not so good quality, you will likely upgrade not too far down the line.

Don't ask who chips in the most for this...i.e the singer..?? as that is a whole new can of worms

Edited August 12, 2013 by JTUK

[dr.harry]

Hi Simon,

My PA knowledge might be slightly out of date, but...

1. How many singers?

2. How many of the instruments will need PA support?
Usually electric bass and guitars are OK with their own amps unless the venue is very big
Acoustic guitars, accordions, fiddles usually need some sort of mike/pickup/DI box
Drummers don't usually need any help in the volume department unless the venue is very big!

So you need to buy enough mikes for 1. (plus a spare?) I use Shure SM58 because they are bombproof, but at £100 each new might be a bit much for a first PA
Long cable for each mike. Even a small stage can be 10m from desk to furthest mike when you've gone round all the corners!
Stand and clip for each mike.

Mixing desk;
Add 1 and 2 to get how many inputs you will need. Add at least another 2 because there will always be an extra vocalist or a guitar amp that fails live and needs to be plugged into the PA

Now you have a choice
A Mixing desk, power amp, speakers
B Powered mixing desk (desk and power amp in one box) and speakers
C. mixing desk and powered speakers
I have type A, but modern digital amps mean loud, reliable powered speakers are easy to get now, making C what I will do when I upgrade.
But, if you are going second hand the choice may be whatever you can get.

You will probably need monitor speakers, particularly to keep the vocalists happy and also to let the drummer know what's going on.
Unless everyone is going down the headphone route,

Lots of long cables.

And my SansAmp pedal has seen more use as a backup guitar amp than I care to remember.

A 'lucky' band carries appropriate fuses, screwdrivers, soldering iron, spare cables....
Don't forget to ask bands doing similar gigs what they have.

Hope that helps you get started

Harry xxx

[Lozz196]

Good bit of advice my the owner of our PA was given when buying it, don`t scrimp on the monitors. Make sure these are every bit as good as the rest of the kit.

[Roger2611]

Old and heavy usually means decent quality and cheap prices (things like Peavey Hysis 4's and the likes, big old power amps from the likes of Crest Crown H+H Studiomaster etc Big old mixers like Allen +Heath System eights etc)

Newer stuff like Allen + Heath Zed series mixers sending out to a pair of RCF speakers or the like, HK Audio systems etc are all far more portable but a lot more expensive

As they say "you pays your money you takes you choice"

[Truckstop]

Right:

You need some speakers to make the noise. You can get active speakers (amp housed within the speaker cabinet) or passive (powered by an external power amp). I've used 15's all my life with no problems but I suppose 10's are more compact. You'll need to make sure the frequency range is suitable for your needs and to make sure the power handling is suitable for your needs also.

You need a mixer.
It needs to have enough inputs for all of the things you want to put through the PA. Ie, 3 vocals and the kick drum = 4 inputs. You don't need to bother your arse with a big mixer if you only want to amplify the vocals although it may be handy for when you expand the Pa in the future. You can get mixers with all sorts of room effects like reverb and delay which are handy but not essential in my experience.
You can get powered mixers (a power amp and the mixer in one big box) or passive mixers (for if you have active speakers or an external power amp).

You need enough power.
For pubs where you only need to amplify vocals I reckon 300-500w a side is plenty. If you want to put the whole band through the PA you'll need a massive power section, especially in the subs to really push out those bass frequencies. 1k a side minimum.

You need monitors so you can hear yourself.
Most mixers have auxiliary outputs for monitors or recording purposes. Small active monitors can be had for around £150, bigger (better?) one's cost more. You can run passive monitors off the power section of your PA but might not be as flexible as you'd like.

You need cables and other stuff.
Cables are obviously essential and you need to remember to budget them in. Decent 10m XLR's cost £40+. You need microphones (Yamaha and Peavey make decent one's for not much money second hand) and mic stands (Gumtree and eBay will have loads). You'll also need bags and cases for all your expensive gear and also tripods to stick your speakers on.

There's lots of different ways to achieve the same results and there's a lot of options when it comes to choosing what would be most suitable to your needs. Trial and error!

Truckstop

[simonbrown92]

Thanks very much for the replies people!! Price range looking around about £1000 really. Depends how much the others will chip in!

As for the mixer, I'll Be running 3 vocals, bass drums, maybe mic the guitar amps up, so only really 6 channels needed I'd say if that helps?

[JTUK]

If they don't ship in...why is it left to you?

Gtr bleeds are difficult in that they need the gtr to be pretty careful with his sound... as you aren't going to have anyone tweaking
the sound.
Once you have sound checked ...levels STAY the same... or the mix is pointelss.
If gtrs don't have this discipline then they are out of the P.A... IMO..as would anyone else be.
Drums have the same issue..as drummers may hit louder as the gig moves on.
This is more a problem if you don't have the mix attended throughout.. ie, a sepeerate mix engr on the gig.

[Monckyman]

Can recommend the QSC speakers in the for sale section right now, very good and powerful speakers at a great price.