My band is starting to look into building a PA system to take to gigs to essentially have out monitor mix set up and leave some variables out of the equation (read: useless sound guys). I have been looking for a resources to start with, but haven't been able to find anything just yet. Does anyone have any advice or a good resource to start with? Thanks!
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Building a portable rack PA system
- Thread starter skrogle
- Start date
Your post is a bit confusing. When you said to essentially have out monitor mix set up, did you mean our monitor mix set up? IOW, youre looking not for a PA system, but for a monitor system?
Regards,
Wayne A. Pflughaupt
Pedulla Club #45
Any system like this is going to be logistically challenging. I dont see any way you can do anything ready to go. Youre talking about replacing the house monitoring system with your own. That requires your own speakers, amplifiers, the works.
For starters, you would need separate feeds from each piece of equipment to both your monitor system and the house PA system. Thats easily doable for guitars say, use the amps DI out for the house, and the EFX send for your monitor system. But for mics its going to be more of a challenge. To do that right it requires a transformer, as a y splitter reduces the signal considerably.
Then theres the issue, how many monitor mixes do you need? Youll need an amplifier channel and monitor speaker for each mix (your own, remember, not whats at the venue).
Lets step through what it would take to utilize your monitor system at a gig. The sound man would do his usual thing, getting feeds from your guitars to the house system. In addition, youd have to run your own cables for each of them to your monitor mixer.
Microphones this is where it gets ugly. Assuming youre using the venues mics, youd have to move the venues mic cable over to your splitter/combiner. Then run your own cable between the mic and the splitter, then another one from the splitter to your monitor mixer. So thats a splitter/combiner plus two mic cables per mic. Multiply all that by the number of mics in use.
Then youd have to deal with your monitor speakers (as in yours, not the venues), hooking all of them up to your amplifiers. It would save time and trouble if you could talk the venue into letting use their monitor speakers, connected to your system. Expect some resistance.
Then you have to sound check each of your monitor mixes.
As you can see, even with a system racked up and ready to go, theres nothing quick and easy about this. My sons band did something similar, but with in-ear monitors. I can check with him if you like and find out how they did it, but Im guessing it wasnt cheap. Either way, its going to take some set-up time and effort. If youre a main attraction act you might be able to pull it off, but if youre one of a half-dozen acts playing any given night, its probably a lost cause.
Regards,
Wayne A. Pflughaupt
Pedulla Club #45
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So, you want to have your own monitor set up to use with the house PA?
IME, The "useless sound guys" will be all over you if you try to integrate your monitor setup with the FOH setup.
Seems to you're going to be shutdown most of the time by "useless sound guys" doing their job.
You might want to call around and talk to some "useless sound guys" to find out what their take is on your planning to bring your own monitor set up to their gig.
Good luck.
You're kind of describing a studio mixer with multiple aux sends.
Stumbo is right.. this is just asking ofr issues unless you're briging the entire PA.
Stumbo is right.. this is just asking ofr issues unless you're briging the entire PA.
You needsomething like this. http://pro-audio.musiciansfriend.co...h-WZ3-12M-Mix-Wizard-Monitor-Mixer?sku=637567 To do what you want to do the right way will cost some money.
If you are willing to go IEM (wired or wireless), then there should be no issue building a light, flexible, and modular monitor rig that doesn't ruffle feathers with the sound man. It's a personal choice to save your hearing and clean up your stage volume, and he should respect that. Taking the monitor control out of his hands so he can work on the FOH shouldn't be ill received either, but I don't think you should ever do your own monitor system and use your own speakers. It makes it pretty hard on the sound man to control feedback and stage volume.
You will need to work some things out with your band though just to see if you are a candidate for it.
How many inputs do you need to put through the monitor system?
How many different mixes do you need? Can you share a mix for a while, or ever?
What's your starting budget?
Who gets to be in charge or bringing it to every show AND practice. With IEMs, you need to use them to get used to them. From how they feel in your ears, to what they sound like, to handling and setting them up to work best for you, etc. It takes some time to get used to, and takes commitment.
Can you stand using a wired in ear monitor and save thousands?
The key to integrating into the house PA without becoming a burden is to use a split snake. 8 XLR channels are about as few as my band can get by with (4 vox, 3 guitar, bass). Expect to spend around $150 for the snake. Plug the 8 sources of XLR into the box of the snake. One end goes to your monitor mixer (we have it on a 30' long whip to get to the back of the stage), the other end goes into the house snake for the FOH sitting right next to it. Any other inputs you don't need in a monitor will plug right into the FOH snake as well.
From there, you need a inexpensive mixer with at least 8 XLR inputs, and as many aux channels as you want mixes. We use 4. We have been using a Behringer 2442 for over 10 years with no problems. If you are worried about quality for some reason, remember that you are only using it as a headphone amp primarily, but in a pinch (or fulltime, really), you could easily use this mixer as a monitor and FOH mixer at the same time.
Plug the 8 channels of the split snake into the monitor mixer, and plug the 4 aux sends (outs) into a multi-channel headphone amp. 4 Channel headphone amps are around $100 or so. Then you plug some nice long and heavy duty headphone extension cables into the amp, and give each of your band mates one of them. Then they plug their in ears of their choice into it. Now they can walk over to the mixer and dial up their own mix, or yell at you to do it for them. Regardless, the band is in control of what they hear.
This is a good starter system. The next logical step is to go wireless transmitters and belt packs for each member. These are pretty expensive, but each member can buy them as the funds and need allow. Over the course of a year we all purchased Shure PSM-200 system (includes some E2 $100 in ears). We used these for over 5 years, then started upgrading to dual driver buds ($250+) within the past year or so.
Plan on saving a few rack spaces for expansion of the wireless packs in the future. They are usually half wide, and you can fit 2 transmitters in 1 rack space. We use the 19" flightcase type mixer rack with the slant top to hold the mixer, and 4U to hold the 2U of transmitters, a rack mount power strip, and a spare 4 ch headphone amp that we kept around during the wired days. We keep everything prewired and just unroll the split snake and plug it into the house snake, power it up, and start using it. In general, we have a rough setting from the last time we used it, play a song to give FOH time to set his levels, then walk over and make a quick adjustment, then get a beer. We don't change it much the whole night. We don't have to ask the sound man to raise this/lower this, and if he messes with the trim pot on the FOH mixer, it doesn't change our level like it most certainly would if it went through his board. We are also modular enough to plug into just about any FOH system.
Wes
--
You will need to work some things out with your band though just to see if you are a candidate for it.
How many inputs do you need to put through the monitor system?
How many different mixes do you need? Can you share a mix for a while, or ever?
What's your starting budget?
Who gets to be in charge or bringing it to every show AND practice. With IEMs, you need to use them to get used to them. From how they feel in your ears, to what they sound like, to handling and setting them up to work best for you, etc. It takes some time to get used to, and takes commitment.
Can you stand using a wired in ear monitor and save thousands?
The key to integrating into the house PA without becoming a burden is to use a split snake. 8 XLR channels are about as few as my band can get by with (4 vox, 3 guitar, bass). Expect to spend around $150 for the snake. Plug the 8 sources of XLR into the box of the snake. One end goes to your monitor mixer (we have it on a 30' long whip to get to the back of the stage), the other end goes into the house snake for the FOH sitting right next to it. Any other inputs you don't need in a monitor will plug right into the FOH snake as well.
From there, you need a inexpensive mixer with at least 8 XLR inputs, and as many aux channels as you want mixes. We use 4. We have been using a Behringer 2442 for over 10 years with no problems. If you are worried about quality for some reason, remember that you are only using it as a headphone amp primarily, but in a pinch (or fulltime, really), you could easily use this mixer as a monitor and FOH mixer at the same time.
Plug the 8 channels of the split snake into the monitor mixer, and plug the 4 aux sends (outs) into a multi-channel headphone amp. 4 Channel headphone amps are around $100 or so. Then you plug some nice long and heavy duty headphone extension cables into the amp, and give each of your band mates one of them. Then they plug their in ears of their choice into it. Now they can walk over to the mixer and dial up their own mix, or yell at you to do it for them. Regardless, the band is in control of what they hear.
This is a good starter system. The next logical step is to go wireless transmitters and belt packs for each member. These are pretty expensive, but each member can buy them as the funds and need allow. Over the course of a year we all purchased Shure PSM-200 system (includes some E2 $100 in ears). We used these for over 5 years, then started upgrading to dual driver buds ($250+) within the past year or so.
Plan on saving a few rack spaces for expansion of the wireless packs in the future. They are usually half wide, and you can fit 2 transmitters in 1 rack space. We use the 19" flightcase type mixer rack with the slant top to hold the mixer, and 4U to hold the 2U of transmitters, a rack mount power strip, and a spare 4 ch headphone amp that we kept around during the wired days. We keep everything prewired and just unroll the split snake and plug it into the house snake, power it up, and start using it. In general, we have a rough setting from the last time we used it, play a song to give FOH time to set his levels, then walk over and make a quick adjustment, then get a beer. We don't change it much the whole night. We don't have to ask the sound man to raise this/lower this, and if he messes with the trim pot on the FOH mixer, it doesn't change our level like it most certainly would if it went through his board. We are also modular enough to plug into just about any FOH system.
Wes
--
I talked to my son about the system his band uses. Similar to what Wes described, they also went with a splitter snake. They have a 16-channel mixer, since they mic the drums. They went with in-ear monitors, some hardwired, some wireless. They use six mixes and like Wes indicated, the mixes are pretty much set before hand at rehearsals, and need only minor tweaking at the shows. So thats good to know.
$150 for an 8-channel splitter seems really cheap. That means there are no isolation transformers, which might be an issue in some circumstances.
My sons band had connections and got everything mixer, splitter snake, headphone amps, wireless transmitters, in-ear monitors, equipment rack - for about $12-1300. If youre stuck with street prices youll easily end up paying well over $2000. As always, anything you can pick up used will save you money.
Regards,
Wayne A. Pflughaupt
Pedulla Club #45
Yup, for $150, you don't get isolation transformers ( I built it, actually). We haven't found that we needed them. We have a 16 channel ProCo split that doesn't have them, and it also has been fine...there are times when you need it, but so far we have been lucky.
Wes
Wes
