PA advice wanted!

[Steve Browning]

I did the colour coding too. All the PA cables (ours is active) are lilac - bought very reasonably from Studiospares own brand.

[Happy Jack]

I use a lot of these: https://www.studiospares.com/Cables-Leads/Leads-XLR/Armoured-XLR-Male---XLR-Female-10m_689070.htm

Never seen another band use them so they're very easily spotted and never confused, plus (being armoured) the singer & guitarist can spend the entire evening standing on the cable without damaging it.

In the Junkyard Dogs we call these 'shower hoses'.

 

 

[Silky999]

We use Yamaha DXR10s for tops and DXS12s as subs For FOH. These run the vocals, bass, kick drum and snare for small gigs plus DI guitars for bigger gigs. These are through an old Yamaha O3D digital mixer.

We went Yamaha due to the superb sound quality, weight and 7 year warranty. There hasn’t been a gig or venue where we have needed more and sometimes we just run the tops as full range without the subs in smaller venues.

We have IEM(cheap Gear4Music) plus heads and cabs for guitars. Both guitars have the same mix, I have a mix for bass and drummer has his own.

We used to run amps and cabs for FOH which were QSC and Brooke amps and B & C driver loaded plywood cabs with a digital crossover. It was heavy and complicated compared to the active system we have now.

[mike257]

I'm probably in a minority opinion here, but in my small sound company I've shifted almost all of our stock over to passive boxes and separate amps. You add a bit of pack space and weight, but you gain a little flexibility and, importantly for me, it's better for redundancy and maintenance. Whenever I've had an amp fail in a powered speaker, it's an expensive bespoke part from the manufacturer, often costing as much or more than the S/H value of the speaker itself. If I have an amp in a rack go down, I can swap an amp out for another generic item. If it happens mid-show, I can run more than one speaker off a single amp channel to get through the gig. There's less cabling mess on stage too, as all your signal and power stays localised in one spot and you only run speaker cables out to each box. 

With regards to monitoring - this very much depends on what your band are used to/happy with. Personally, when I've played pub gigs I've always just made do without, but doing function/corporate work I've always made sure there's proper monitoring on stage. With only two aux sends available for monitors, you'll struggle to satisfy a six piece band. You've mentioned that two of you use IEMs already. That leaves no monitor mixes available for the rest of the band. If that's an issue, you'll have to look at upgrading your mixer at some point - a popular low budget choice is the Behringer XR18, which gives you 16 mic inputs, a stereo line input, six aux outputs for mons, and a lot of processing options. I've got one in our stock and have it racked up with a WiFi router hardwired in and a tablet that lives in the case, and it's a very tidy solution for small gigs. 

Got to be honest, not a fan of coloured cables. Looks terrible on stage IMO. Colour coding the ends is one thing (or tape with a name/logo under clear heatshrink wrap) but I'd keep it black purely for aesthetics. 

[Dan Dare]

13 hours ago, mike257 said:

I'm probably in a minority opinion here, but in my small sound company I've shifted almost all of our stock over to passive boxes and separate amps. You add a bit of pack space and weight, but you gain a little flexibility and, importantly for me, it's better for redundancy and maintenance. Whenever I've had an amp fail in a powered speaker, it's an expensive bespoke part from the manufacturer, often costing as much or more than the S/H value of the speaker itself. If I have an amp in a rack go down, I can swap an amp out for another generic item. If it happens mid-show, I can run more than one speaker off a single amp channel to get through the gig. There's less cabling mess on stage too, as all your signal and power stays localised in one spot and you only run speaker cables out to each box. 

Good advice. Using passive speakers also removes the need to run mains power all over the stage. I'm running active FoH at the moment, but I'm aware that if anything fails, it could create a problem. My monitors are passive, so I could put some of them out front if the main system misbehaves, but it may not be adequate. 

[ubit]

2 minutes ago, Dan Dare said:

Good advice. Using passive speakers also removes the need to run mains power all over the stage. I'm running active FoH at the moment, but I'm aware that if anything fails, it could create a problem. My monitors are passive, so I could put some of them out front if the main system misbehaves, but it may not be adequate. 

I admit that putting power to four different speakers is a pain but the resulting sound is awesome from the Electrovoice speakers and you have control at the speaker as well as the desk.

[Japhet]

Another one for passive speakers. You can pick up a decent power amp for peanuts but a failed active PA speaker can often end up in the bin. I'd also add that one of the best PA acquisitions in my band was a Behringer graphic equaliser which enables you to take out narrow frequencies that cause problems rather than losing a whole lump of sound around the problem area. Behringer stuff gets quite a bad press but we've never had a single problem.

[Phil Starr]

On 27/04/2020 at 12:47, lozkerr said:

Hi everyone,

I'm in the fortunate position of being able to work from home, which means that the money that would normally go on train tickets and grotty Travelodges can be put to more productive use. I'm starting to look at PA systems, and I'd be grateful for da BC massif's thoughts on wattage, innit. I already have a 16 channel passive mixer, so I guess it'll be either powered speakers or passive speakers plus power amp.

I'm wondering how much power would be right for small to medium-sized venues and thinking it would be better to have too much oomph than not enough, although a full Knebworth would be completely OTT for the Dog and Duck and I would expect a dedicated music venue to have a house PA anyway. But something that's under-powered for a six-piece rock band would just be a waste of money.

So I guess the question is - if you have your own PA, how much power does it crank out, and is it enough for your needs? All thoughts and advice gratefully received.

Many thanks,
Laura

 

I'd not worry about wattage, here's why.

Most people will go for a PA which is 12" bass driver + horn. 12" drivers can usually only handle about 3-400W. (a bit more for a 15" and a bit less for a 10 usually) at the most. Less at lower frequencies. If you go active then the amps will usually be class D but computer controlled (called DSP) The amp may well be a 1000W amp but is controlled by the DSP to prevent the speaker ever getting more power than it can handle. If you buy an active system it may well claim 1000W based on the amp but it won't usually be louder than a 400W speaker. Ideally look at the maximum output in decibels, though this itself will be exaggerated and not always by the same amount.

The reality is that most 12's from the top manufacturers put out very similar sound levels and all will be enough for the average pub gig or even slightly more. RCF, QSC and Yamaha are my current value for money favourites in that order but there is a lot of good stuff to choose from.

The next question is are you going to put bass and kick drums through the PA, and how loud do you want to go? If the answer is yes and deafening then you might want to look at a bigger speaker with a 15" bass unit or buying a sub or two. (you'll generally only need one but that's another issue. Not only will the sub give you more and deeper bass but by reducing the power going through the tops it will clean up your sound.

Finally I'd go for active speakers, unless I was running a hire company. It's years since I had a failure at any gig so with sensible use of your own gear you can expect good levels of reliability. Having active speakers and up to date lightweight gear means setting up and knocking down time is considerably reduced and the leads are what go wrong so having fewer boxes means fewer leads. Also the DSP will look after your stuff if somebody does try something stupid.

What is your budget?

[Happy Jack]

On the whole Active -v- Passive thing, do remember to compare the WEIGHT of these units.

I've used big RCF and Mackie units and they sound undeniably bloody wonderful, but if I wanted to be a weightlifter I'd go to a proper gym.

I now have two PAs. The passive one uses cheap speakers from Studiospares which weigh next to nothing and sound just fine at any sensible volume. The active one is a mini-linear array thingy; it uses powered sub-woofers on the floor (so they never need to be lifted high) which then drive the passive top units.

 

[Phil Starr]

It's true about the weight. If I'm doing a jam session rather than a well paid gig I tend to take my Wharfedale Titans that weigh nothing and sound great so long as you don't put anything bassy into them. If I need bass I've got a couple of old JBL subs I stick underneath. An easy lift versus more trips to the van is a perfectly sensible thing to think about.

Our band use QSC 12's for gigs but someone else brings those

 

[Mottlefeeder]

One option that might be worth considering for monitoring is to fit a Y cable to the mixer main-output  and feed both the PA amps and a small personal mixer to which you can add your own instrument and/or mic feed. In our band, I take an attenuated DI feed from the full-range speaker, and a DI feed from my bass amp. I mix them to get the sound I want at the volume I want.

DI box ~£30 (if needed) and 2-3 channel mixer ~£40 - for just a couple of IEMs it's a cheap option, less so when they all want one.

David

[Dan Dare]

8 hours ago, ubit said:

I admit that putting power to four different speakers is a pain but the resulting sound is awesome from the Electrovoice speakers and you have control at the speaker as well as the desk.

I appreciate that. I know active speakers do sound a little better in most cases. My PA speakers (Fohhn LX150s and XS22 subs) are sort of semi-active - the power amps are built into the subs and you feed the tops with normal Speakon cables. It sounds pretty good. Like a giant hi-fi. However, I've got no alternative option if something fails on a job, unless my monitors (which are passive) suffice.

[Owen]

I used to do PA for one of my bands. Big is fabulous, but small is truly beautiful. It is beautiful when you are loading your car to go to the gig, it is beautiful when you are loading into the venue, it is beautiful when you are loading after the gig and it is SUPER beautiful as you unpack the car at 3am when you get home. Cos you cannot leave it in the car because it will get stolen. It also means you do not have to be driving a truck to carry everything. If the band buys and carries individual bits then that is bigly beautifuller still because you all share the load both moving wise and financially.

Passive speakers and cabs are great but - added bulk to move around. More faff setting up.

Analogue desks are great cos you can see everything, but digital is small, super versatile and does what you would need a 10U rack of outboard to do with an analogue desk.

Chuck a Samson headphone amp and some headphone extension leads into the mix (er case) and you can IEM for really not much money (£35 per head). And not carry wedges around. That is beautiful as well. And they are cheaper than wedges.

A decent pair of active Studiospare/Mackie/Yamaha/QSC/RCF/other things would do really good things. Go the sub route as well by all means. The amount of bands I have seen which were just too loud for the venue are myriad. Musos often want everything at the max. Punters really do not dig that in the pub. If you do a gig in a bigger venue hire a PA in. No point in owning enough kit to do Wembly but use it twice a year and store it for the rest of the time. Space cost money.

Yes, I have string feelings about this topic.

 

[jacko]

11 hours ago, Dan Dare said:

Good advice. Using passive speakers also removes the need to run mains power all over the stage. 

I don't get this one. The majority of electric guitarists and an increasing number of bassists(including me) will need power at the front of stage for pedal boards anyway so providing for a couple of extra pluds shouldn't be much of a hardship. We run a 4 bar to either side which would handle the 2 PA speakers, 3 pedalboards and 3 powered monitors (although our lead guitarist/frontman usually runs his own extension from one of the others so he can plug his ipad thingy in too. 

[Dan Dare]

15 minutes ago, jacko said:

I don't get this one. The majority of electric guitarists and an increasing number of bassists(including me) will need power at the front of stage for pedal boards anyway so providing for a couple of extra pluds shouldn't be much of a hardship. We run a 4 bar to either side which would handle the 2 PA speakers, 3 pedalboards and 3 powered monitors (although our lead guitarist/frontman usually runs his own extension from one of the others so he can plug his ipad thingy in too. 

Well, if you have active FoH, that's power to each side of the front of the stage, plus active monitors - say one each for a 4 or 5 piece band. That's quite a lot just for the PA and is additional to anything needed for individual backline, power for FX, etc, etc. If you're happy, great, but I like to keep things as simple as I can.

[jimmyb625]

29 minutes ago, Dan Dare said:

Well, if you have active FoH, that's power to each side of the front of the stage, plus active monitors - say one each for a 4 or 5 piece band. That's quite a lot just for the PA and is additional to anything needed for individual backline, power for FX, etc, etc. If you're happy, great, but I like to keep things as simple as I can.

You're still running cables though, whether they're mains feeds plus signal, or speaker cables.

[jacko]

10 hours ago, Dan Dare said:

Well, if you have active FoH, that's power to each side of the front of the stage, plus active monitors - say one each for a 4 or 5 piece band. That's quite a lot just for the PA and is additional to anything needed for individual backline, power for FX, etc, etc. If you're happy, great, but I like to keep things as simple as I can.

Well. In our case there's already power to both sides of the front of stage so plugging a couple of extra power leads in really isn't that tricky.

That said, if I'd had a say in the original set up instead of joining an existing band I'd have gone for passive speakers for the reasons given by others above i.e. resilience. 

Edited April 30, 2020 by jacko

[mike257]

13 hours ago, owen said:

Passive speakers and cabs are great but - added bulk to move around. More faff setting up.

 

Agree that it's an additional carry (although your speakers get lighter, so it's a weight/space trade-off) but doesn't have to be more faff. 

It's not at all hard to put a tidy amp rack together with all the connections on a patch panel. Our usual setups that go on small gigs have the crossover and amps all racked up, permanently wired together, and it's just two XLRs and one power in, and speaker cables out. No faff. Likewise with monitor amps - four channels of amp in a rack, four XLRs loomed together for the input. It's much, much quicker and tidier than running loads of XLR and IEC mains cables everywhere. 

Thomann's own brand t.amp units are great value for money and they've got lightweight four channel amps (all 2u high) at various power levels. You could have a crossover and four channel amp for mains, plus a four channel amp for monitors, all connections neatly on a patch panel, and fit it in one manageable 6u rack. 

Edited April 30, 2020 by mike257

[lozkerr]

Thanks again, everyone. I've decided to snap up @la bam's gear when I can drive to pick it up, unless he shifts it locally in the meantime. There's obviously a lot to work through here, and I can see that we might end up with more than one PA. I'm trying to get as fully tooled-up as possible during the lockdown, so we can hit the ground running when things start up again.

Regarding monitoring, I'm liking the idea of splitter cables - one for the FoH PA and another for whatever monitoring system we end up with. I find IEMs work well, as does our front man, but we haven't gone into it in depth as a band. If the others want foldbacks though, I won't stop them buying them 😉