Can't hear the singer

[Youngspanion]

I run a mic into my bass amp but the volume is so low that we can hardly hear the singer. What can I do?

Do We need to spend a lot of money on a PA?

Can we buy a better Mic?

Thanks

[Kimpini]

I'm no expert but I would try getting a better mic before makeing a descision that would cost alot of money.

[Bard2dbone]

Bass amps aren't intended to function as PAs. Keyboard amps do somewhat better as PA's. But most times it's the other way around, where the keyboard player uses a small PA as his amp.

You can get a decent-enough-to-use-for-practice PA for pretty cheap. And I recommend that you do so.

My trashy PA for practice purposes used to consist of a pair of CGM floor wedge monitors I bought at a garage sale for $50 for the pair, a small mixer that was traded in to a Mom and Pop music store that I frequent : eight channels for $75, and an old power amp that my guitar player had given up on : FREE!. I think I spent nearly as much on cables as I did on the whole rest of that system.

For my home studio I use those same garage sale monitors as the cabs for my keyboard and vocals. The cables are generally the same too. The mixer is an Alesis Firewire 16 that I use to record straight to my computer. The power amp is a Nady refurb that I bought on Musicians Friends' Stupid Deal of the Day for $70.

[Passinwind]

Originally Posted by Youngspanion

I run a mic into my bass amp but the volume is so low that we can hardly hear the singer. What can I do?

Do We need to spend a lot of money on a PA?

Can we buy a better Mic?

Is the mic low impedance? If so, you need a transformer to run it into a high impedance input like most bass amps have. Radio Shack sells a workable version for pretty cheap, for starters. A small mixer can serve the same function too.

But ultimately, there's no free lunch. Maybe find a used beater PA until you can step up a bit?

[Deacon_Blues]

I'd recommend spending some bucks on a PA. The vocals are definitely worth spending some money on, as that is what people listen to the most anyway. Crappy sounding vocals make the whole band sound bad. Any other solution than a PA would be only temporary, and requiring too much compromising to make you sound even decent.

So this the least you need to get by, IMO:
- a used active monitor (200-500 watts, e.g. Behringer) (perhaps $200)
- a decent mic (IDK what you've got, but check out Electrovoice mics, they're cheap but quite good) ($50-100)
- an XLR-XLR cable. ($10-20)

Ït wouldn't hurt with a small mixer either. You can probably find a small usable one for $50, but if you spend $200 or more you'd probably get something you have more use for in the future.