Building a PA for mostly studio sound

[BassLift]

I'm trying to get a handle on where to begin building my band's PA. We have a 530sf jamspace which we are slowly dialing the sound into, but there are a few points that I'd like to smooth over and optimize for recording and love performance. I can't hear our drummers kick for the life of me, which is kind of important for the dancy music we play. His tons could use more presence as well. I'm only comparing these volumes to the levels that the cymbals inevitably reach. Also, our keyboardist has a bit of a jenky amplification set up and could use a more well balanced sound all around. My guitarist rings through just fine and my bass rig could probably bring the place down basically I'd like to know what would be a good way to go in order to both optimize our stage (studio) levels and give us room to build for larger live settings

 

[Hactar]

Building a PA mostly for studio sound

This seems to be somewhat contradictory.

After reading your post, my question would be:

Do you want a PA system or a studio system?

IMHO, I think it will be difficult to satisfy both these requirements with the same equipment.

 

[BassLift]

I understand the contradiction. The Thing is that we can host small parties at our studio and would probably need equipment that could both serve as monitors for us and PA speakers for a crowd. I just want to make sure that our sound is balanced and everyone can hear everything clearly in a mix. Volume wouldn't really be an issue for recording, we use a tascam interface and ableton for that now, but we'd like to be able to take a more analog approach to mixing the sound so we don't have to deal with mixing it on ableton too much after the fact. Maybe this doesn't make any sense whatsoever, hence my inquiry.

 

[projectMalamute]

You don't need a PA, you need a properly tuned set of drums and a drummer who knows how to play them. If dude can't fill a 530 square foot room with a good sounding, balanced, loud-as-you-could-possibly-want, drum sound you need another guy. Or at the very least you need someone to teach him how to maintain and tune his kit.

 

[walterw]

or you just need a sub or two to balance the kick and low toms with the rest of the band.

 

[ksandvik]

Go for a well-balanced QSC K12 pair + two QSC sub-woofers.You need a PA, not a studio environment.

 

[Stumbo]

Try putting some sound board around the drummer(above the cymbals) to tighten up the drummer's tone/sound. Then cut a small hole in the sound board in front of the kick drum and put a mic through it onto a pillow on the bottom of the drum.

I did this a few weeks ago at a rehearsal studio jam and just go enough kick drum through the P.A. to hear it okay. Wasn't an over the top tone like you could get with a sub but it was okay. If you need more than that, one good 15" sub with 500-1k watts should do it for you.

 

[BassLift]

great feedback guys! this is helping bigtime. granted, my drummer could certainly step up his game across the board as a drummer, but so could I as a bassist so i can't really fault him too much...(even though i know a good drummer can make a mediocre bassist like myself sound like a pro) that being said, i'm going to try a few things before dropping extra loot. For instance, i have my guitarists Ampeg SVT Classic head and 115 cab at our disposal, would this (if the kick mic was run through a mixer) serve as a decent kick-booster for now or would it just over-complicate things and take away tone?

 

[MNAirHead]

Overcomplicating yes

 

[walterw]

...i'm going to try a few things before dropping extra loot. For instance, i have my guitarists Ampeg SVT Classic head and 115 cab at our disposal, would this (if the kick mic was run through a mixer) serve as a decent kick-booster for now or would it just over-complicate things and take away tone?

if it's an 8Ω 1x15, you don't want to run an SVT head into it anyway (4Ω or 2Ω only, please). aside from that, a tube head would likely make for a squishy and distorted kick sound.

that said, any ol' power amp would do fine instead, with the limiting factor being the cab itself if it's not an actual PA cab. a pinch of kick might be OK, and enough to bring it in line with the rest of the kit.

 

[Hactar]

What sort of 15 is it?

You can run a power amp into it for a bit more kick, but you can very easily shred the 15.
15" bass cabs are generally not great for kick amplification.

Regarding an actual rig, I like ksandvik's suggestion. K12's and a sub or so.