400w PA system

[krth1985]

So, we have just acquired this second hand PA system. The mixer is 400w, and there are two speakers, with that look like small tweeters. Its all in very good condition, and it was a bargain at the price.

But can we really run 3 instruments (2 guitars and bass) plus vocals through it? We play indie/rock. Oasis, Stereophonics, Ocean Colour Scene. We tried it last night, and the bass was all muddy, nothing I could do with the EQ to brighten it up, and the vocals were just plain awful. I also noticed that on the desk the PEAL L and PEAK R lights kept flashing red when we kicked into a song, what does that mean? Also am I right in thinking if there are 4 inputs going into the mixer, each one takes up 100watts each? So essentially the vocals only have 100watts to work with. We will be playing a lot of pub/club gigs 100+ people. Do you guys think this is enough power?

[Colledge]

i can't see you running even bass through that pa, considering a lot of bassists have more power then that in just their amp, ad thats through dedicated bass speakers. 400w would probably be enough for vocals alone for that size venue. see if you can get away with an un mic'd backline.

[mep]

[quote name='krth1985' post='883877' date='Jul 2 2010, 12:38 PM']I also noticed that on the desk the PEAL L and PEAK R lights kept flashing red when we kicked into a song, what does that mean? Also am I right in thinking if there are 4 inputs going into the mixer, each one takes up 100watts each? So essentially the vocals only have 100watts to work with. We will be playing a lot of pub/club gigs 100+ people. Do you guys think this is enough power?[/quote]

If it's peaking then you may need to trim the individual input gains (if you have any). But it's not up to the job for the whole band, especially bass. You need at least 1K (more if you can) for a whole band and some decent bass bins.

The 100watts each idea is not correct.

It sounds like this rig would make a good monitor setup!

[dan670844]

[quote name='krth1985' post='883877' date='Jul 2 2010, 12:38 PM']So, we have just acquired this second hand PA system. The mixer is 400w, and there are two speakers, with that look like small tweeters. Its all in very good condition, and it was a bargain at the price.

But can we really run 3 instruments (2 guitars and bass) plus vocals through it? We play indie/rock. Oasis, Stereophonics, Ocean Colour Scene. We tried it last night, and the bass was all muddy, nothing I could do with the EQ to brighten it up, and the vocals were just plain awful. I also noticed that on the desk the PEAL L and PEAK R lights kept flashing red when we kicked into a song, what does that mean? Also am I right in thinking if there are 4 inputs going into the mixer, each one takes up 100watts each? So essentially the vocals only have 100watts to work with. We will be playing a lot of pub/club gigs 100+ people. Do you guys think this is enough power?[/quote]


Our Pa for small gigs is also only 400watts per channel, but we only use it for sound reinforcement and vocals i.e to balance the equalise all the sound. But we never put bass through it , I am on my own. (I might add this is 400watts RMS of high quality Crown power amp, there is a big difference between this and a cheaper poweramp. For this type of gig we find that pa-ing the bass its not necessary, I am using a 4x10 eden in this set up and 750 watts rms not turned up that much . The peak L and R lights on the desk that you can see means you were feeding to much signal into the Preamps / mixer. Turn the gain knob down on the channels. A really good bit of info on how to set a pa up is read a soundcraft mixer manual. Go to the soundcraft mixer website and read one of the manuals it will fill you in on how to set up the channels and master on the PA.

[krth1985]

Thanks for the info guys. I told them this, but then again they couldnt understand why I would use a 300watt amp, when they only have 90/100 watts..

Everything was turned up to would be loud enough. Knobody listens to me, i'm only the bassist