Good PA solves a lot. But you'll still need IEMs or quality wedges & somebody out front to mix it. IME group owned gear, not such a good idea in the long run though.
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I know some people who can mix from stage. One person I know is very talented, and he works with a lot of different players. He uses a collection of old gear, and makes it work for small rooms where no PA is provided. It can be done.
Yep. I agree that if you have the DI capability, that's the better way to go.
The advantage being that the longer cable run will usually be balanced audio going into the mixer.
We have a bunch of individual Radial DIs, and a couple 8 channel DIs, that can be powered from the board phantom power, or when powered by a wall wart power supply, can supply phantom power to any of the inputs. Very handy stuff, that really does not cost a lot of money when you consider how versatile it is. Since we sometimes dont know what a band needs until they show up, the 8 channel DIs that can provide phantom power make it easy to accommodate unforeseen requirements instantly.
That's a nice setup and versatile.
Nothing better than having the gear to accommodate whatever might come along.
Mudloop, not sure if you are in the USA, but if you are, you could get everything you need in one trip to the used gear store we have around where I live that is called Music-go-Round for a very reasonable cost. An older 8 channel mixer, three DI boxes, and three powered PA speakers, (at least one for a monitor). Add more as needed. Easy enough for each person to own one piece of the setup to prevent any arguments if someone leaves the group.
I'm not saying it can't be done. My point is mixing from the stage is more difficult than from out front for most (not all). Especially for those with little or no experience behind the board. I've literally known hundreds of musicians over the years and found that many have no business even going near the board. Of those who are competent enough to dial up a decent mix many struggle doing a solid job from the stage.
The few I've met than can have been at it for quite some time. IMO it's a skill set comprised of several variables. Veteran player with great ears plus hours & hours real life experience running a board out front and/or running monitors on big stages. So for someone like that mixing a small room from the stage is not a problem.
My question is, how many bands actually have a member with the experience to have those skill sets? Just sayin'
I know a studio near me that had 4 different speakers in a 4x12" guitar cab and wired each speaker to a different 1/4" plug. Made it so you could run 1 speaker at a time and get a different sound without having to move cabs around, just swap plugs on the back of the cab. It worked just fine for guitar, don't know how you could add bass to that - bass cabs are to my understanding more engineered. the mechanics of wiring the speakers are quite simple considering 1 speaker to 1 jack. If you do that, you'd probably want to make sure the amp can run the ohm rating of the speaker.
They easily could. They would often run the amp into two different speakers and mic them both to capture two speakers sounds with one pass. What multiple amps would sound like, I don't know.
MDBass
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Just get two single 12 cabs bud, exponentially better on all fronts than a single 212 for two guitar amps
I'm surprised @JimmyM hasn't sauntered by.
The Ampeg 810 cab has 4 individually sealed chambers. With a little work maybe rewire each chamber to have 4 x 210 separate speakers. What say ye @JimmyM ?
The Ampeg 810 cab has 4 individually sealed chambers. With a little work maybe rewire each chamber to have 4 x 210 separate speakers. What say ye @JimmyM ?
Well I guess you could do that, but it would make 16 ohm compartments. The ones made since sometime in the 90's have separate 8 ohm inputs for each set of four 10"s. Didn't read the whole thread...how many instruments are we amplifying?
I imagine by the time you built the cab, wired it and installed speakers, you'd wish you had just gone with DI's into a PA.
It's not so much that it's a terrible idea. It could work if done right. But then you've got a very specialized piece of gear with only 1 purpose. And it will be a hard sell to any future bands you get into. Guitarists are even more obsessed with tone than we are and every piece of gear is carefully elected for its magic tonal properties. And you want them to give that up to plug into your home-built contraption?
A decent PA, while expensive, will help earn you job security.
It's not so much that it's a terrible idea. It could work if done right. But then you've got a very specialized piece of gear with only 1 purpose. And it will be a hard sell to any future bands you get into. Guitarists are even more obsessed with tone than we are and every piece of gear is carefully elected for its magic tonal properties. And you want them to give that up to plug into your home-built contraption?
A decent PA, while expensive, will help earn you job security.
I wish I could talk more guitarists into trying this. I think amp sims sound great these days. It's just so much easier to mix when you don't have a bunch of amps yelling at you from multiple directions.
