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BECAUSE THERE IS NO PA!!!

#21
Is this just for this style of music? I'm asking because most spots I attend have a full P.A. available (either by the venue or band) but the music is Top40, R&B, Funk, Gospel. Radio friendly stuff! Our band, we hire a soundman. I can't recall ever doing a gig without some form of a P.A. even if it was just for vocal support. And unless the drummer really wails, he can get lost mighty quick if everyone else has their amps on 11!
 
#22
I must agree ... don't always have a reasonable PA to run through which makes life suck out front. However, I think I would also say that I love my 8x10, because...

- I can feel it/myself onstage
- I can feel it/myself onstage
- It rumbles bowels. :bassist:

PS ** I absolutely loathe carrying that big @$$ MoFo though! **

Even when we setup our own PA (which isn't bad at all), I still like to "feel" myself onstage.

I played a really cool venue that put 18's under the stage for Bassist/Drummer feedback ... that was the only place where I didn't feel that I needed my own "brown note generator".
 
#23
DWBass said:
Is this just for this style of music? I'm asking because most spots I attend have a full P.A. available (either by the venue or band) but the music is Top40, R&B, Funk, Gospel. Radio friendly stuff! Our band, we hire a soundman. I can't recall ever doing a gig without some form of a P.A. even if it was just for vocal support. And unless the drummer really wails, he can get lost mighty quick if everyone else has their amps on 11!
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I think it is based on the style. I have played in original punk, metal, and rock bands my whole life and PA support is a luxury. Keep in mind, most people playing this style do it for the love of music with no hope for financial gain. The fan base is broke. The clubs are broke. And the bands are even broker. It's all for fun so no one is gonna pitch in for a nice PA.
 
#24
Another thumbs down for the few house PA systems we've encountered. Nothing worse than wasting time "re-inventing" yourself with unfamilar, marginal, or dysfunctional gear. In the time I would stand there scratching my head, my fellow hooligans can have space cleared, gear carted in, assembled, and ready-to-go in 30-45 minutes. We know our gear inside and out including expectations as to how it will respond in a given venue, and how to spot & trouble-shot problems quickly.

Riis
 
#25
Personally being a vocalist as well as a bass player I bought my own PA.

I know of several bands that have a dedicated lead vocalist. In one case the bass player bought his rig, the guitar player his, and the drummer bought his kit. They carry a PA - purchased by the band! What's wrong with this picture??? The vocalist doesn't even own his own mic!!! Shouldn't each person be responsible for buying what he/she needs to perform???? Keyboard players are just as bad. Had a sub at a gig who just handed me a pair of signal cables and told me to put them through my PA! Let's just say he never subbed for us again!

OK I'm off the soapbox.

Paul
 
#26
+1 to vocalists supplying PA...or anything for that matter..:ninja:
So often at gigs I take one look at the pathetic excuse for a PA and laugh.
That is why I never have less than a 4 ohm 410 and 300 or 500 watt head. This combo seems to be the sweet spot for me and the mid size bar dives and partys we do.
Plus our gee-tar only uses a 212 and 100 watt fender bassman.
 
#27
panama said:
What is funny is that oftentimes the PA being used for the vox/maybe drums has a few extra inputs that could be used for guitars or bass, but the club is too cheap to buy the mics.
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Use an amp with a balanced out (XLR) onboard, or bring your own direct box. And a really long-ass mic cord. That way if there's an open channel on the board you can snag it even if they're short on mics. Guitarists are still SOL but I have never ever been in a club where the guitarist brought too LITTLE rig for the venue. The first three things that can be cut out of any P.A. if inputs/mics are short are electric guitar, snare drum and cymbals (overheads).

Re the crappy house P.A.'s, I believe that in too many cases the club owner knows that if he can say, "P.A. provided", he/she can charge the band less. In some cases, a LOT less. So from his/her perspective, go as cheap as possible on the P.A. and lowball the band as well and it's a win-win.

Never mind that that the bands get p**ed off and the house sound is total garbage.
 
#28
I think some of you guys are missing the point. The kind of clubs I'm talking about barely pay and when they do it's to give the out of town band some gas money. The PA is not a marketing ploy. It is a necessity that the club amplify vocals at the very least. Sometimes the owners are just music fans who want to support original music (which is woefully unprofitable) and sometimes its a bar owner who doesn't know any better.

The real scum are the pay-to-play joints. I've fallen prey to that a few times thinking that I'm paying for a nice joint where my friends can hang and the "production fee" would go towards the "sweet PA" that they have. Then when you try to get paid they claim that you have to pay for the sound guy. You bring 50 people they each pay $10 then they drink all night (if the place has a bar) and you leave with $20 to split among the band. On a good night. Oh yeah, and you still didn't get put through the PA.
 
#29
BassmanPaul said:
Personally being a vocalist as well as a bass player I bought my own PA.

I know of several bands that have a dedicated lead vocalist. In one case the bass player bought his rig, the guitar player his, and the drummer bought his kit. They carry a PA - purchased by the band! What's wrong with this picture??? The vocalist doesn't even own his own mic!!! Shouldn't each person be responsible for buying what he/she needs to perform???? Keyboard players are just as bad. Had a sub at a gig who just handed me a pair of signal cables and told me to put them through my PA! Let's just say he never subbed for us again!

OK I'm off the soapbox.

Paul
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No way! get back on that box and teach those cheap a** vocalists a lesson

And to show how unprofitable punk/hardcore can be: we had a show were we got paid (:hyper:) 50 euros but we had to provide our own PA, which made us 75 euros poorer ...
just for the love of music :D
 
#30
father of fires said:
Amp worshipers (which I'm guilty of) take pride in not needing a PA. Hell, I used to play an old Acoustic 370
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Guilty as charged. I believe that if my rig can do a show without PA support, and I'm willing to cart around a big amp, I mean why NOT!? Putting bass into the PA is just one more possibility for something to go wrong in my book. :hiding: And with a Bassman 300 and a Sunn 215, I'm really not worried about not being heard.

But I'm right there with the OP. Playing dive bars with NO PA supplied at all, every band where I live has to supply their own PA, so we only ever end up with the Vocals and Kick Drum going through the PA
 
#31
A $1000 bass rig might sound better than a $1000 PA - for the bass. But you need more than just a bass to have a band.

If you need a PA anyway, for vocals and kick drum (and any band that uses vocals and drums would at *least* need PA for the vocals), then spending the same amount of money for better PA instead of bass and guitar rigs will result in an overall much better sound for the band.

We go to every gig with our own PA. FOH is 2 15" mains and 2 18" subs. Guitar and bass go DI to the board and hear what they're playing through their own 12" stage monitors. And the bass can hear a lot of himself coming back from the 18" FOH subs. Drums have mics on every tom, the snare, the kick, and 2 overheads.

We can turn it way down and play a very small room. Or we can crank it and keep a large crowd outdoors dancing.

And I don't believe the whole setup cost any more than an equal quality, but smaller, PA for just vocals and kick, plus a decent bass rig and a decent guitar rig.
 
#32
D.M.N. said:
Guilty as charged. I believe that if my rig can do a show without PA support, and I'm willing to cart around a big amp, I mean why NOT!?
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How about, because you can't tell from on stage what the sound is like to the audience? By running everything through the PA, you can have somebody out in front making the mix sound good TO THE AUDIENCE. Plus, if your rig is at the back of the stage, pumping out enough volume for the whole audience, how are the rest of the band supposed to hear their monitors (without cranking them to ridiculously loud levels)?
 
#33
StuartV said:
How about, because you can't tell from on stage what the sound is like to the audience? By running everything through the PA, you can have somebody out in front making the mix sound good TO THE AUDIENCE. Plus, if your rig is at the back of the stage, pumping out enough volume for the whole audience, how are the rest of the band supposed to hear their monitors (without cranking them to ridiculously loud levels)?
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Asking us how we are supposed to hear our monitors is like asking us why we complain about doing our laundry when we could simply have our butler do it for us.

Different worlds man. Different worlds.
 
#34
We all play full stack monster rigs, I hook up my 1x15 combo to my DI box sometimes to give my 8x10 a break on lows. Sometimes I play along with the lead, sometimes rhythm, more often than not all 3 of us are playing something different. We need to hear each other is the point I'm trying to make...

We just played an outdoor festival yesterday and the PA was massively massive, but no monitors. Since we're standing behind the speakers of the PA, we heard nothing more than a rumble. We spent half the time looking across the stage for changes because we couldn't hear anything but our own amps, the constant rumble, and maybe a cymbal here and there. My mic cut out halfway and I found out after the show because we couldn't hear the mics at all.

After the show, we all kept asking each other "So how did it sound where you were?".."I don't know. I heard my amp, hopefully I was playing the same thing you did."

The drummer had the worst of it, his kit was behind our rigs so all he heard was noise. He said he used my headbanging as reference for some songs.
 
#36
father of fires said:
Hell, I used to play an old Acoustic 370 for the purpose of blowing any house system out of the water.
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Funny you should mention this, as last year my band played a bar whose P.A. had half the wattage of my bass amp. And only two microphones. On top of our amps not having P.A. support, we had to turn down so the audience could hear the vocals. I don't care, to me it still beats playing covers at nicer places.
 
#37
Edword said:
Funny you should mention this, as last year my band played a bar whose P.A. had half the wattage of my bass amp. And only two microphones. On top of our amps not having P.A. support, we had to turn down so the audience could hear the vocals. I don't care, to me it still beats playing covers at nicer places.
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THIS +1,000,001
 
#39
i get to play through really nice pa systems all the time...
and these days i will still bring a stack of cabs.
i got caught up in all the micro rig crap, what a waste (for me).... it brought me no joy. if i can't feel enthused about it, how can i make anyone else feel that way?
i have no interest in sounding like a well mixed cd, there are dj's for that. i want my eyeballs to shake.
 
#40
stflbn said:
This was my same solution. Bought my own P.A.


.
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I started a small project with a friend and decided to be the singer. I was all pumped to practice. I had everything set up and when we were about to jam I realized there was no PA. I've always been lucky with singers having PA's (just big enough for vocals though). It never occurred to me that I would need one to be the singer. I had to drive 1 1/2 hours to borrow my friends PA.
 

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