How long to does it take you to setup a PA ?

That is far too much time. Does no one in this band understand basic live sound? What is it that's taking so long?

 

Yeah that's way too long. 90 minutes tops.

 

We can set up 4 mains, 3 monitor mixes, 2 subs and 17 mics in about 60 minutes.

 

What kind of PA. Powered mixer? Powered speakers? Passive mixer with amps in a rack?

 

When I was doing sound/setting up PA (2 powered mains/powered 18" sub and 2 monitors into a Yamaha EMX 5000-12 board) plus settting up the LED lights on each side of the stage (light trees) I could do it in an hour as long as everyone plugged in their own mics etc. This included a quick line test/sound check.

Most places where they serve dinner barely give you an hour to set up.

 

Shoot, you should be able to do that all in an hour and a half tops from what I've been able to do in the past, and that's including setting up guitar, bass, keys, and drum rigs, too.

 

What are they doing?
Set a main in place, go have a smoke
Set the other main, go have a beer
Set two monitors, take a leak and have a smoke
Set two more monitors, go out back and blow a doobie and have a smoke
Set the sub, go talk to the cute waitress and have a beer
Run the cables, eat the burger and fries the cute waitress brought you. Have a beer and a smoke
Mic the drums, man this is hard after 3 beers and a doobie, better go out back again and have another doob, go back and mess with the drum mics again.

 

Drummer should hook his own mics up. Everyone should hook their own mics up. If there are band members who know nothing about the PA, educate them or just have them run the XLRs and leave them at the snake or mixer if you aren't using a snake. Take all the PA cables that run from the amps to the outboard gear and the mixer and put a piece of masking tape on each end. Mark them for where they go ( i.e. Aux 5---------Crown ch. 1 etc.) That is a time saver. Try to set your racks up so that most of the cables just stay plugged in where they go. Don't drop channel strip sliders or trim knobs all the way down when you are tearing down. Just drop the main sliders. Have separate cases for each type of cable ( XLRs, Speaker cables, power cables, PA cables)

 

I have a small powered mixer setup. 2 mains on stands, 2 monitors. Vocals, keys, bass (just a tad) and kick (just a tad). No sub yet but it's coming. Setup time aprox. 20-30 minutes.

 

Yeah, that's way to long - 60, 90 minutes tops. Oh well, least you don't have to be there.

 

For cheapo bar gigs (i.e. $100 per person) I refuse to do any setup that takes longer than an hour, and even that's pushing it. One thing I've noticed since I've started playing the 10-2 bar gigs is that guys generally bring far more crap than they need.

 

It takes about 75 mins to set up our 4 peice band drums miced, 3 vocals with mains, 2 subs and 3 powered stage monitors.

blue

 

What small venues want a band setting up for hours? Around here, liquor laws dictate that venues that can sell alcohol are restaurants. If you're going to play clubs (as opposed to theatres and GB dates) in Virginia, you'd better have your set-up pretty well worked out.

 

Passive mixer, outboard eq's/speaker management, 2 powered mains, 1 powered 18" sub, 4 powered monitors, 6 vocal, 3 guitar, 1 percussion, 4 drum kit mics. I own and set it all up. I get there 2 hours before, one of the guitar players helps and I am set up and sound checked with usually 15-20 minutes to get a drink, take a pee, and relax. This includes unloading all this out of a VW Rabbit with a trailer hitch cargo carrier, thats 15 min it's self lol. If it is a Saturday afternoon gig, I will leave a little earlier if I have nothing to do so as to not rush setting up and take my time.

 

Yeah, it's just inexperience causing the long setup. No biggie. Get a setup/tear down plan going, using some of the suggestions already mentioned. A couple times through the process and you guys will be setting up in under an hour.

The poor guy that's taking 2 1/2 to 3 hours to do it now will be happy for the change I'm sure.

 

60 minutes in a worst case scenario. If your set-up is taking up to 3 hours, I can only attribute it to one of two reasons:

*They don't have a clue as to what they're doing....and/or

*They're dickin' around (drinking, chatting with the waitstaff, etc.) instead of paying attention to the task at hand.

In this instance, which of two applies?

Riis