P.A. Or Individual amps?

Araillac · #1 02-21-2009, 10:36 AM

Should I go with a P.A. System and mix in Guitar, Bass, and Vocals or should I just go with individual rigs?

If I do mix things into the P.A. is there a special way to do this or do I just plug it in and change the settings till I get the tone I want?

I'm mainly planning to do smaller bar type gigs but if we get some bigger shows like a decent size, I'll take that and if, on the off chance, we get famous and we're doing huge shows then cool. For each of these 3, which would you suggest. Individual rigs or P.A. I understand when it gets to be huge the drums will get mic'd.

Thanks for your inputs in advanced

AlembicPlayer · #2 02-21-2009, 11:48 AM

not sure what you're asking here...
a good mix thru the PA is never a bad thing

OtterOnBass · #3 02-22-2009, 08:44 PM

In my playing experience, the separate amps & vocal PA works until you get a big room. Even then, you can do it, but the inconsistency of sound in different parts of the audience will grow into a seriously bad mix for some seats. The main problem is that higher frequencies are very directional, meaning you will only hear the sound clearly from straight in front of the amp. Off to the sides things become dull as you lose the highs. Try this: aim your amp straight at your ear. While playing, walk side to side and see how very limited that area of clearness really is. With a PA you can aim everyone's sound through one speaker, and hopefully get an even sound throughout the room.

JimmyM · #4 02-22-2009, 09:32 PM

The reasons that you run instruments through the PA are to keep your onstage volume down, and to send a sound out to the crowd that's consistent in as many seats as possible. If you use stage volume, most instrument cabs will have poor mid and high response off to the side of them because of speaker beaming (the larger the speaker cone, the narrower the area it will send mids and highs to). So you run everything into a PA because they're designed to send mids and highs more evenly across the crowd.

I've experimented with stage volume recently, and I liked certain aspects of it, but even though I don't like a lot of treble, I do like a little, so I mic up my amp and send it to the PA, if only to get the upper freqs into the PA. But in a smaller room, stage volume can sound really good as long as you just turn up enough to get a good balance with everyone else and don't do volume wars. Volume wars just get you fired.

RicPlaya · #5 02-23-2009, 10:47 AM

Use the PA just for vocals till you play a large enough venue where you need to mic the drums, guitars, and DI from your head to the board (or mic your cab) less is more..KISS approach is best for live sound.

modulusman · #6 02-23-2009, 11:02 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by RicPlaya

Use the PA just for vocals till you play a large enough venue where you need to mic the drums, guitars, and DI from your head to the board (or mic your cab) less is more..KISS approach is best for live sound.

The KISS is best for live sound if you don't have a clue too what you are doing.

RicPlaya · #7 02-23-2009, 11:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by modulusman

The KISS is best for live sound if you don't have a clue too what you are doing.

When your starting out like the origianl poster is (I assume by the question he/she asked) then yes. Funny thing, me and my buddies that have been doing this a while and enjoy live sound, seem to get back to basics .. we just get sick of hauling all that gear around when we really do not need it. So we bring what is adequate..nothing more. To each is own, just more heavy crap to lugg around. Most boards now have good enough processors and even compression to sound good without having to bring the "wall of sound" with you to a small pub.