I've become my band's vocalist...need budget PA

[lastminute]

Well, our vocalist walked, and with him went his PA/speakers/mic.

And since I'm now doing bass/vocals, budget is tight, especially since I'm gonna have to pay for all the equipment.

I need a setup that'll do rehearsal/small venues. Budget is $350-ish, maybe less depending on my financial situation.

Any suggestions?

[Deacon_Blues]

I'm afraid you don't get anything decent for that money unless you check out the secondhand market.

I bought a (=1) new Behringer B212A monitor for my vocals a couple of days ago. It gets the job done, but there's nothing extra about it. Only that one costed me 280 euros, equalling about 400 dollars....

You need a mic ($50-100), a small mixer ($50-100), two speakers and an amp, unless you go for active speakers. And of course cables ($50). You're going to have a hard time finding all this for less than 500 bucks, me thinks.

Perhaps, if you're really short of money, try plugging the mic straight into a used active speaker. I just don't think you want to do it this way for too long...

[BlacksHole]

If you go to Musicians Friend - Live Sound - packaged systems and sort by price you will find some systems in this price range. I would look at the ones at about twice your price point (Fender, Kustom, Peavey, Yamaha) and then try to find one of them used. Other than that, just keep an eye on Craigslist and ebay and hope you don't get screwed. Note that systems under $1,000 usually don't include monitors and you might want to buy the mike(s) separately as well.

[lastminute]

Could somebody maybe go further and maybe tell me what they did for their budget PA setups?

[lastminute]

Bump. Really need the advice, guys.

[Deacon_Blues]

Perhaps you could give some more background info. How many people play in the band? What style of music? What's the wattage of your bass amp and how loud is the guitarist? All this, and more, will affect what equipment you'll need to be heard.

As said already, in that price range you need to look at the secondhand market. Look first for active speakers, into which you can plug a microphone or a mixer. If you can't find active speakers that are cheap enough, look at older passive systems with separate amplifiers. When you have found something particular, you can post a link to the equipment here and we might comment on that.

That's about all I can say at this point.

[lastminute]

We're a power trio. My Carvin bass amp does up to 400 watts. My guitarist has a 60 watt Line 6 amp. Punk/alternative.

[bassguppy]

it will be near impossible on that budget. If I understand correctly you stated that you are buying the PA? If the other band members are willing to assist with buying part of the PA? An example would be the drummer buy the board, guitarist buy cables and monitors and you buy PA speakers, power amp. Each person would have a donated item to the band and if they leave the band they take or sell their item.

Also, not sure of your age or financial situation but with some online retailers you can break payments up into 3-4-5 payments or apply for a credit card and not make payments for a year.

[Questor]

Originally Posted by lastminute

Could somebody maybe go further and maybe tell me what they did for their budget PA setups?

Get an active monitor. They run about $250 (give or take a few bucks) and have more than enough power for you. Mine (I don't remember the brand off-hand) has two high-Z (1/4") inputs as well as 3 EQ knobs.

(I use it for an active monitor actually, but I've always remarked that it would make a good mini-PA.)