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Time for PA upgrade?

P

pcollin

Dec 22, 2005
156
0
Portland, Maine
#1
The Band: 5-piece: guitar, drums, keyboard/sax, 3 vocals and bass.

Style: straight ahead rock, covers and originals

Current PA: Peavey XR-600B--300 watt RMS, 12" speakers, 2 10" Peavey wedge monitors) exclusively for vocals and the occasional sax.

We experimented running my bass through PA during practice but it was WAY too muddy and wrecked the vocals.

We tend to play smaller venues and our most common complaint is that the instruments sometimes sound uneven coming from the stage.

It's been a good summer for gigs but we want to take it up a notch and improve our sound overall.

Any advice/recommendations?
 
#2
If I'm reading your gear correctly, you likely have 2 12" mains daisy chained to one side of the powered mixer, and two monitors daisy chained to the other side. So each of the 4 speakers is getting 150W RMS. This is incredibly weak and it's no wonder it bogs down and distorts with your bass in there. Bass freqs chew up wattage.

You need to upgrade if you want more than vox and an occasional instrument in the PA. If you want upgrade suggestions, what is your budget?
 
#4
Yeah, we have a seperate power amp for the floor monitors but to my ears, it's still under powered. None of us in the band knows much about PAs and we bought this one used. Obviously we don't have the benefit of a mixer board/soundman and so far been able to gig.

Can you give me a ball park estimate of how much a decent upgrade might run us? We're really pretty clueless.
 
#5
pcollin said:
Can you give me a ball park estimate of how much a decent upgrade might run us? We're really pretty clueless.
Click to expand...

If you are just looking for a minor and inexpensive upgrade that will suit bar sized gigs, I'd go with a used Yamaha 1000W (500W per side) powered mixer or Mackie 808S (also about 1000W) powered mixer. They go for about $450-$550 used.

Speakers could also be a great improvement in sound and volume. I'm a big fan of the Yamaha Club V series speakers for a great value - big bang per buck.
 

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