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Rehersal PA

  • Thread starter Thread starter jhan
  • Start date Start date
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jhan

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#1
Quick question - 'cause I don't know much about PA's: Our vocalist is looking for a rehersal PA, basically a powered mixer. We play symphonic/goth metal and rehearse at moderate volumes. How many watt is she going to need to be heard over everyone?

Tks.
 
#2
five million.

Ok maybe not. Good efficient PA speakers are the key. They don't have to be super expensive but they should be able to take the wattage of the powered mixer, and should have a high efficiency rating. (they should also sound good). Powered mixers have come a long way, 300-500 watt units are pretty cheap now. One of my loud-ish bands uses a yorkville which sounds fantastic, is light and i think is in the 300-500 watt range. Check out their website. I'm not sure which speakers we use with it, i think they may be of higher quality than the mixer.

But yeah, good speakers for PA are the key. you can have a great mixer, and with crap speakers it will sound like crap, which will be fine because you probably won't be able to hear it.

BTW, don't use the EQ on the PA unless you have to - eschew favorite EQ presets for vocals.
 
#3
So the short answer is 300-500 watts?

IvanMike said:
five million.

Ok maybe not. Good efficient PA speakers are the key. They don't have to be super expensive but they should be able to take the wattage of the powered mixer, and should have a high efficiency rating. (they should also sound good). Powered mixers have come a long way, 300-500 watt units are pretty cheap now. One of my loud-ish bands uses a yorkville which sounds fantastic, is light and i think is in the 300-500 watt range. Check out their website. I'm not sure which speakers we use with it, i think they may be of higher quality than the mixer.

But yeah, good speakers for PA are the key. you can have a great mixer, and with crap speakers it will sound like crap, which will be fine because you probably won't be able to hear it.

BTW, don't use the EQ on the PA unless you have to - eschew favorite EQ presets for vocals.
Click to expand...
 
#5
jhan said:
So the short answer is 300-500 watts?
Click to expand...

that's the general range of most powered mixers anyway. Keep in mind they have two poweramps - one for mains (in mono but you use 1 or two speakers, and the second for monitors (usually one or two of those).

But I would check out yorkville as they are a bit cheaper for the power and sound good, mackie seems to be riding on their name, good stuff, but pricey. And I can't emphasize the good speaker part enough.
 
#6
+1 on the speaker part. Thanks for that!

IvanMike said:
that's the general range of most powered mixers anyway. Keep in mind they have two poweramps - one for mains (in mono but you use 1 or two speakers, and the second for monitors (usually one or two of those).

But I would check out yorkville as they are a bit cheaper for the power and sound good, mackie seems to be riding on their name, good stuff, but pricey. And I can't emphasize the good speaker part enough.
Click to expand...
 
#7
Put everyone on headphones (poor mans' IEMs). Open-air models if you want to hear all the sound in the room (Grado preferred). M-Audio IE10 buds or ExtremeHeadphones EX29 (latest version only) if you want protection from all that racket). Cheaper than a crap PA, and you can use them for pleasure listening as well.
 
#8
I have a peavey 680 plus that works pretty good for said applications.
2 300 watt amps 128 effects unit processor built in so you can add delay or reverb or whatever you like to the vocals. its an 8 channel so they arent crazy expensive, probably get a used one for around 300.00 or so. it is self contained so its not a rack unit. So easy to move. it has an rca recording jack out that i connect to a cheap
cassette tape deck and we just mic the room for rehearsals. Then transfer the output from your casstte deck to your comp with an rca to 1/8th inch jack to send the signal to your daw for a quick convert to mp3. makes a nice practice cd to listen too between practices. With the 8 channels you can mic some cabs as well as vocals to your pa as well. Cheap way of recording for practice purposes.
 

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