My church is formalizing the informal praise group we've had for a couple of years now; the group will now lead service on the first Sunday of each month.
One of the main concerns has been the blend and balance of the group. Currently we have unamped acoustics that fight at times to be heard over two electrics. We also have a drummer, I'm training up a bassist (I'm the best bassist in our group, but I'm also the second-best guitarist and as such am needed to fill in a skinny-string slot), and almost everyone sings, so balancing all that when you cannot really control the levels of the drums or acoustics is frustrating.
The other half of our woes is recording. The problem is not that we can't; the problem is that currently our system, which is the church's main PA and exists mostly for vocal augmentation, not instrument amplification, is based around microphones; therefore, when recording the service, the praise group is virtually all vocals with no instruments. The existing church board is also getting rather full (16 mono channels go rather quickly); it simply cannot support adding an input for each instrument as-is.
The solution to both problems, or at least the one I'm pitching, is to have our own PA that everything will plug in to. Other solutions include the status quo, and to upgrade the entire church PA. The main advantage I'm pitching is that a second system would be portable so we could hold services practically anywhere big enough, including outside. It would also be cheaper than an upgrade of the entire PA system (much of which is built into the sanctuary). More of interest to our praise group itself is that a second PA will allow us to control our mix, and not the soundman. I love him to death, he's been a sound engineer for decades and I've learned a lot by shadowing him as he works the board, but it shows; he's a knob-fiddler and hard of hearing after 20 years in the sound booth, so we're constantly trying to hear ourselves in the mix and feeding back while he's listening to what's heading to tape and adjusting so THAT sounds good.
SO, lengthy introduction over, I've been through two Guitar Centers and their website, and haven't found the perfect setup. So, thought I'd put the shout out here. I need suggestions for a PA system that I can pitch to the Worship and Music committee.
Must-haves:
- At least 12 inputs. Most consoles allow XLR or line-in for each channel, but the breakdown if important is:
- 2-4 vocal mikes
- 5 instrument inputs - 2 will almost certainly be banana plugs, the rest are a coin toss depending on whether the input's from a DI/mike or an effects loop send
- One stereo line input for a keyboard
- at least two ambient/drum mikes
- Simplicity; powered mixer unit is almost a must-have but a portable rack with seperate board and power amp, if inexpensive, will do. Small knobs/controls must be set and forget.
- Portability; if I'm going to sell that as an advantage it better be true. 80-lb mains that you need a van to transport do NOT qualify.
- Reasonable cost; If it looks like we get a lot of goodies for our money it'll be an easier sell even if more expensive than some other option; regardless, I do not think I can pitch a base system (mixer, amp, mains, mons) that costs more than $2000.
- At least 150W per side. This isn't just vocal support; we're plugging everything in, so the amp has to handle it.
Nice-to-haves:
- Grouping. This is an ideal, as most mixers are either too expensive or otherwise too complex, but if we can adjust vocals vs instruments with two sliders instead of 6 while keeping overall layout relatively simple it'd be great. 2 groups is probably all we can hope for.
- On-off. Press a button and the channel's out of the mix; much easier than cutting out and then re-setting a slider.
- Stereo monitor channel - if I want to hear my vocals predominantly and so does the other main singer, it makes sense to pan mine right and hers left. If that can be done seperately from the mains without bridging the power amp, so much the better, but keep simplicity in mind; monitor balance and level by channel is probably the max. Dual stereo monitors is overkill on many levels.
- Stereo line-out. Not a must-have, especially as the board with the recording equipment only has mono inputs, but this is probably one feature that will definitely make one or two setups stand out.
Don't-wants:
- RCA inputs (red-white). Most have one and we'd probably find a use for it sometime, but when four or even six of a mixer's channels are tied up in stereo RCA jacks, which are useless for anything else, I start to think "truth in advertising" as to channel count.
- Effects. Reverb, hall, and chorus-type effects may at some point have a use, but it will probably not affect our decision.
- More than 500W per side. Even that's probably more than we will ever need; don't wanna blow the old folks out of the pews, and at around 2000 sqft. the sanctuary's not gargantuan (at least compared to some of the mega-churches in town).
- More than 20 channels. We could probably find some use for it, but such mixers usually (a) aren't powered and (b) are cumbersome to move and set up.
The closest I've come is the Yamaha EMX 5014/16 powered mixers. They have enough channels, and while it's about as complex as I would ever want to get, most of the knobwork is pretty set-and-forget. It also has amp-scaling; we can run it at 500W per side or pull it back to 200W or even 75W per side if we want to. I'd run that with two JBL powered monitors and two or four JBL or Harbinger 2x12" 2-way mains, and probably be set on the main components for about $1600-1800.
One of the main concerns has been the blend and balance of the group. Currently we have unamped acoustics that fight at times to be heard over two electrics. We also have a drummer, I'm training up a bassist (I'm the best bassist in our group, but I'm also the second-best guitarist and as such am needed to fill in a skinny-string slot), and almost everyone sings, so balancing all that when you cannot really control the levels of the drums or acoustics is frustrating.
The other half of our woes is recording. The problem is not that we can't; the problem is that currently our system, which is the church's main PA and exists mostly for vocal augmentation, not instrument amplification, is based around microphones; therefore, when recording the service, the praise group is virtually all vocals with no instruments. The existing church board is also getting rather full (16 mono channels go rather quickly); it simply cannot support adding an input for each instrument as-is.
The solution to both problems, or at least the one I'm pitching, is to have our own PA that everything will plug in to. Other solutions include the status quo, and to upgrade the entire church PA. The main advantage I'm pitching is that a second system would be portable so we could hold services practically anywhere big enough, including outside. It would also be cheaper than an upgrade of the entire PA system (much of which is built into the sanctuary). More of interest to our praise group itself is that a second PA will allow us to control our mix, and not the soundman. I love him to death, he's been a sound engineer for decades and I've learned a lot by shadowing him as he works the board, but it shows; he's a knob-fiddler and hard of hearing after 20 years in the sound booth, so we're constantly trying to hear ourselves in the mix and feeding back while he's listening to what's heading to tape and adjusting so THAT sounds good.
SO, lengthy introduction over, I've been through two Guitar Centers and their website, and haven't found the perfect setup. So, thought I'd put the shout out here. I need suggestions for a PA system that I can pitch to the Worship and Music committee.
Must-haves:
- At least 12 inputs. Most consoles allow XLR or line-in for each channel, but the breakdown if important is:
- 2-4 vocal mikes
- 5 instrument inputs - 2 will almost certainly be banana plugs, the rest are a coin toss depending on whether the input's from a DI/mike or an effects loop send
- One stereo line input for a keyboard
- at least two ambient/drum mikes
- Simplicity; powered mixer unit is almost a must-have but a portable rack with seperate board and power amp, if inexpensive, will do. Small knobs/controls must be set and forget.
- Portability; if I'm going to sell that as an advantage it better be true. 80-lb mains that you need a van to transport do NOT qualify.
- Reasonable cost; If it looks like we get a lot of goodies for our money it'll be an easier sell even if more expensive than some other option; regardless, I do not think I can pitch a base system (mixer, amp, mains, mons) that costs more than $2000.
- At least 150W per side. This isn't just vocal support; we're plugging everything in, so the amp has to handle it.
Nice-to-haves:
- Grouping. This is an ideal, as most mixers are either too expensive or otherwise too complex, but if we can adjust vocals vs instruments with two sliders instead of 6 while keeping overall layout relatively simple it'd be great. 2 groups is probably all we can hope for.
- On-off. Press a button and the channel's out of the mix; much easier than cutting out and then re-setting a slider.
- Stereo monitor channel - if I want to hear my vocals predominantly and so does the other main singer, it makes sense to pan mine right and hers left. If that can be done seperately from the mains without bridging the power amp, so much the better, but keep simplicity in mind; monitor balance and level by channel is probably the max. Dual stereo monitors is overkill on many levels.
- Stereo line-out. Not a must-have, especially as the board with the recording equipment only has mono inputs, but this is probably one feature that will definitely make one or two setups stand out.
Don't-wants:
- RCA inputs (red-white). Most have one and we'd probably find a use for it sometime, but when four or even six of a mixer's channels are tied up in stereo RCA jacks, which are useless for anything else, I start to think "truth in advertising" as to channel count.
- Effects. Reverb, hall, and chorus-type effects may at some point have a use, but it will probably not affect our decision.
- More than 500W per side. Even that's probably more than we will ever need; don't wanna blow the old folks out of the pews, and at around 2000 sqft. the sanctuary's not gargantuan (at least compared to some of the mega-churches in town).
- More than 20 channels. We could probably find some use for it, but such mixers usually (a) aren't powered and (b) are cumbersome to move and set up.
The closest I've come is the Yamaha EMX 5014/16 powered mixers. They have enough channels, and while it's about as complex as I would ever want to get, most of the knobwork is pretty set-and-forget. It also has amp-scaling; we can run it at 500W per side or pull it back to 200W or even 75W per side if we want to. I'd run that with two JBL powered monitors and two or four JBL or Harbinger 2x12" 2-way mains, and probably be set on the main components for about $1600-1800.
