PA wattage - what to choose? And what do you use?

[Jimryan]

Morning all,

All of my gigging at the moment is part of an acoustic duo, consisting of myself on upright bass and my singer playing an acoustic guitar (or ukulele depending on the song). To date we've been gigging with him using a Roland street cube (for both vocals and instrument) and I've been using my TC rig (BH550 and a BC212) and everything's gone swimmingly. However, things have started to snowball and we're getting more and more bookings. Our current thought chain is to take the next few gigs earnings and put it into getting a PA. This is where our dilemma starts. We've no idea what to get regarding size. We've found a 300w job that looks ideal, and he's also found a 600w that again is perfect, but I guess it's what wattage we'll need.

So, what do you guys use? Once we've got one, I'll probably continue to use my TC, so the PA will be solely for vocals (one channel at the moment whilst I'm building my confidence with BVs) with the other channels for acoustic guitar, uke (for quicker/smoother changeovers) and then if needed, I guess I could utilise the line out on the back of the TC.

There's quite a few pages online regarding sizes of PA based on crowd size, room size, how the rooms decorated/furnished, so for arguments sake, let's just say pub gigs and private functions. Back when I was in a full blown function band we had a massive PA with subs and a everything but I know that's overkill for us. Budget we're thinking around £300-£600 should be enough.

Anyway, yeah, cheers for the responses and advice in advance,

James





Also (shameless plug alert) if anyone is interested, search "Skaraman" on Facebook and you should find us. We're primarily ska/two-tone and reggae but also do a bit of hip hop and a few live lounge style covers.

[scalpy]

For gigs that aren't about dominating your audience with volume, I use two HK nanos, hooked up. Astonishingly good for acoustic gigs, done small theatres and they work a treat.

[crez5150]

Wattage is irrelevant, look at the continuous and SPL ratings

[Guest bassman7755]

Kick drum is the thing that requires masses of PA headroom, if your going to mike up the kick drum and get it sounding decent then that probably adds a 500-1KW to your requirements, otherwise for a vocal only PA then 300w upwards should be fine. Bear in mind that the commodity PA vendors play very fast and loose with what constitutes a "watt" especially for powered mixers and powered speakers, so always find the manual online and look at the specs sheet where they will usually list the actual RMS. As an example one yamaha powered mixer that we used in one band that billed itself as a "300 watt" unit but in the manual listed the per channel RMS as 57 watts ...

Edited August 6, 2016 by bassman7755

[SubsonicSimpleton]

I know a couple of duos that use the Bose L1 compact system for guitar/vocals and rate them highly on the basis of good sound and general ease of transport/setup. The Yamaha stagepas systems are also worth a look, I've used the discontinued stagepas 500 to run vocal and mic'd double bass through without issues - just depends on how loud you intend on getting, you might only need the smaller stagepas400 for just vocals.

[ivansc]

I have a 600 watt dynacoerd system powering a pair of Celestion SR2 Mk2s. Fine for solo gigs in pubs etc. When I play bigger places I hook in eiother one or both of my 600 watt powered subs.
Biggest gig I ever played was a bolws club dance - they opened up the whole arena, ALL lanes - and laid af loor. With my system AND the singers 2kw system we still struggled a biut. Mind you the place was packed ( over 1000 people) and the acoutstics were dreadful. Great night though.
So really the answer to the poll is "as much as you can bring in, depending on the gig".

[tauzero]

Mrs Zero and I intend to go out as a duo - that'll be one guitar and two vocals, for which I'll happily use the pair of Behringer B210Ds that I use as floor monitors with the band. About 400W.

Four-piece band (which has the same requirements as a trio) - we've got a pair of SRM450 Mk IIs, so about 800-900W.

[TimR]

The rule of thumb used to be 2W to each person in the audience.

Rule of thumbs are interesting things.

As mentioned above it's SPL but most modern speakers are fairly efficient now and pretty much of a muchness.

The problem with owning your own PA is you need to get a good all rounder for different situations and you need somewhere to store it all.

The problem with hiring is arranging to borrow each time, collecting and dropping off.

It's a trade off.

[stingrayPete1977]

Our RCF stuff is so portable yet powerful that it can be used for a duo jam session in the pub up to small wedding and function band gigs.

A pair of RCF 735As for FOH (these act as subs also if you are not familiar with them)
A pair of DB Opera 10s as monitors
A single DB opera 12 as a drum monitor (being added soon)

The DB 10s would do a jam night or a gig with backline on there own so that gives a very compact option, the 735s added does anything I would do before getting someone in to provide a PA.

[stingrayPete1977]

[quote name='TimR' timestamp='1470500242' post='3106432']
The rule of thumb used to be 2W to each person in the audience.

Rule of thumbs are interesting things.

As mentioned above it's SPL but most modern speakers are fairly efficient now and pretty much of a muchness.

The problem with owning your own PA is you need to get a good all rounder for different situations and you need somewhere to store it all.

The problem with hiring is arranging to borrow each time, collecting and dropping off.

It's a trade off.
[/quote]

I agree with all of this, our guitarist wasted money on PAs for small events etc, the money he spent on a HK audio sub and satellite speaker thing would have bought us a pair of DB Opera 12s instead of 10s.

Digital desk and powered speakers makes a very small dent in the storage area compared to an old fashioned setup and any money spent on a small old fashioned one could go towards a proper PA, If you bought a pair of Opera 12s now as FOH they would do most of the gigs in the poll right away within budget, add a pair of RCF 745s at a grand each in future and you have a great PA with nice powered monitors!

[Phil Starr]

The majority of bands and solo acts tend to use a variant of the 12" + horn as a PA with subs if they put kick and bass through the PA. That's because it is currently the sweet spot for power price and portability.

You've got to realise that most 12" drivers will only handle about 300W. That's down to two things, how much heat they can dissipate and how far the cone can move before distorting or damaging something (Xmax and Xlim). So anything that claims 1000W into a 12" driver is misleading you. With class D amps you might get a little extra power for a fraction of a second which helps with undistorted headroom and with DSP (signal processing) protecting the speaker then you shouldn't get any overshoot of the cone. So it's kind of true that some of the new actives are 1000W (or whatever) but but that is only for brief periods and they aren't actually any louder than an old fashioned 300W PA.

As someone has said look at the SPL levels and you'll find most of the better PA tops claiming 127-130dB (that'll be peak levels) which is bloody loud and good enough to do vocals and almost everything else for a pub band. For price and portability they'll do most acoustic acts a good job too.

Edited August 6, 2016 by Phil Starr

[grandad]

It sounds like a Bose or Yamaha Stagepas 600i might suit your needs, they are both well worth a look.

[luckydog]

Headroom - not sounding loud is all about headroom. Clarity and low distortion means usually go large on power but operate it at average levels well inside its rating. Ironically, clear sound is perceived as less loud, and to get there needs sometimes stupid amounts of headroom.

LD

[Norris]

We use a pair of Mackie 450s for our trio. We only put vocals through the PA and that is plenty at the volume levels we play at - mainly pub gigs. They are not too heavy, make a reasonable sound and are quite affordable second hand.

As they are powered cabs we only need a mixer to feed a line level signal. Certainly worth a look

[Norris]

Darned double post!

Edited August 7, 2016 by Norris

[funkgod]

Solo Duo ..........Hk Actor Tops
3 to 5.................Hk Actor Tops.+ 2 HK bins
5 to 13...............Hk Actor Tops.+ 4 HK bins

I do PA Hire and For FOH i have been using this combination for years and its been fine.
Its the older actor with an amp in every cab, ( as opposed to the Dx with two passive bins)
im sure the speakers are B&C and I never changed a speaker. i have had 1 amp in the top blow once due to a sax players F&*^ed up clip on mic pac, other than that, im happy with it

I use this set up for my 13 piece funk band it handles it with no fuss and sounds good,

my main reasion for not changing is mainly i cant get a bigger rig around with all the other stuff in my
little vw T4 van,

if i could i think i would go down the DB route as some of you have, but i cant afford it.
i first heard DB watching Paul Carrack at buxton, it sounded great

Edited August 7, 2016 by funkgod

[itsmedunc]

HK Elias 1.6k. Loud as a loud thing but doesn't distort or lose clarity. Small footprint and great for a five piece playing noisily. Very impressed. Bought it 2nd hand as we always hired in and lost all the money to the PA guy! 3 or 4 gigs and it's paid for.

[Kevin Dean]

I use a Peavey XR1212 2x EV tops & 2x EV powered subs & two Alto monitors , Nice light weight & flexible system .