Your Band PA.

[jazzbass_5]

So over the years I've acquired a decent size PA and have learned the ropes on setting it up and running the sound. It's fair in size and will cover pretty much anything we run into.
The new band I'm in also has a Drummer with a considerable amount of PA equipment and a vocalist with some more stuff of his own. At this point between the 3 of us we have a ridiculous amount of PA equipment (including 6, 2x15 towers, around 10, 12" and 15" floor monitors and no less than 10, 18" subs... Probably close to 18,000 watts of power amps).
(So yeah, we're looking for a dedicated sound man now).
Anyway, what are you all running for sound?, and post a picture of what you've got. Here's just some of mine below.
(newly added was the 2U, 4 ch, class D power Amp that not only works fabulously powering my towers and subs but also shed 90lbs from the entire rig).

 

[JRA]

well, congrats on having plenty of choices on your next gig!

newly added was the 2U, 4 ch, class D power Amp that not only works fabulously powering my towers and subs but also shed 90lbs from the entire rig

i have a couple of the older 4 channel inuke 6000 amps that have worked very well for me. what's your new amp?

 

[DWBass]

I chose medium but all my cabs/sub are powered so I just summed up to get a total amount of power. My (analog) board is 16 channels. I also have 2 passive dual 15's subs and a power amp so add another 1000w.

 

[jazzbass_5]

well, congrats on having plenty of choices on your next gig!


i have a couple of the older 4 channel inuke 6000 amps that have worked very well for me. what's your new amp?

This, the Inukes predecessor. NX4 6000. Color me impressed. Was never a big fan of Behringer.

 

[JRA]

Color me impressed. Was never a big fan of Behringer

i've been impressed, too. i've had other inuke pieces but they had problems/issues and i did not find them as reliable as the 4-channel amp. behringer has had winners and losers throughout their manufacturing history, but it's nice to save some money on reliable gear. a friend of mine was on a legit/pro 'testing team' which compared some of the class D amps and their report also compared the 4-channel 6000s favorably in terms of performance and reliability. i didn't see the study/results myself --- i took his word for it. it was easy to do given my own experience with those units.

 

[jazzbass_5]

i've been impressed, too. i've had other inuke pieces but they had problems/issues and i did not find them as reliable as the 4-channel amp. behringer has had winners and losers throughout their manufacturing history, but it's nice to save some money on reliable gear. a friend of mine was on a legit/pro 'testing team' which compared some of the class D amps and their report also compared the 4-channel 6000s favorably in terms of performance and reliability. i didn't see the study/results myself --- i took his word for it. it was easy to do given my own experience with those units.

I did a butt load of research before I purchased it. It replaced a 65 lb Peavey GSP 3500 (subs) a, 23 lb QSC 3002 (2x15 towers) and a 5 lb crossover. All of which I keep as backups. Also, I realize that it's impossible for this Amp to run continuous at 6000 watts (it's peak) on a normal 20 draw circuit (normal 120 outlet) but for what I'm doing and what it's powering I'ts doing a great job!
I could have easily blown any of my FOH with the old amps so it was too much anyway.

 

[micguy]

I play Church gigs, where the PA is already there - from medium to stupidly large on your scale. I bring a bass, a pedalboard, and a few cables - 1 trip load in and load out.

 

[CallMeAl]

BL has several heads, unpowered and powered speakers. But the most used setup is 3x JBL powered 700w 10”, 2 for mains and one for a monitor. We are a trio, and the drummer almost always brings a cajon. We play breweries, wineries and small bars; so we don’t need a ton of speakers and the power level of these is more than adequate.

 

[musicman7722]

Not to insult you but everything I have read and a few I have heard agrees that a double 15" top is a waste of money and speakers space. Better to have 10" or 12" tops with a horn. Or do like I do and use Turbosound IP2000's. I have 4 so it makes it easy to decide how much to bring to the gig. 1,2 or all 4

Also I have owned a few of the Behringer Digital boards and found them all very good. in fact in some ways they are a better bang for the buck than Mackie. I returned to Mackie only because they have the ability to to have a break switch for music during break without turning off the IEM signal to the players. Some like to twiddle during break or after sound check but before the gig. I use a Mackie DL32r now.

 

[jazzbass_5]

Not to insult you but everything I have read and a few I have heard agrees that a double 15" top is a waste of money and speakers space. Better to have 10" or 12" tops with a horn. Or do like I do and use Turbosound IP2000's. I have 4 so it makes it easy to decide how much to bring to the gig. 1,2 or all 4

Also I have owned a few of the Behringer Digital boards and found them all very good. in fact in some ways they are a better bang for the buck than Mackie. I returned to Mackie only because they have the ability to to have a break switch for music during break without turning off the IEM signal to the players. Some like to twiddle during break or after sound check but before the gig. I use a Mackie DL32r now.

Eh, I paid $200 for both in mint condition and normally they go for $399 each. I couldn't pass on that and they sound great, especially for the price, lol. The Subs are Yamaha, I actually picked Those up down the street from me as a couple of Jamaicans stripped them down and through out the cabinets, I reloaded them with the same speakers (on sale at Parts Express rebranded as B52 factory buybacks at $74 each) so I fell into a lot of my equipment.

 

[jallejulius]

We're using Alto's TS3 PA system, two TS315 tops and two TS318s subs, so that would be a Medium + PA

For us, it works perfectly. Plenty of power and SPL for the gigs we do and I think they sound awesome. We are all going direct, we even use e-drums and wireless IEM, so no amps or wedges on stage.
At gigs, we're rarely above -16 dB at the Master fader (speakers are set at 12:00), so we have plenty of headroom left.

I'm glad that I didn't pay to much attention to all PA snobs out there who told us to by 3000$ tops, or we will have to buy twice etc... It's still a hobby and we're out giging maby 5-10 times a year, and I'm glad that I don't have a 10000$ system in my garage that I wont need.

 

[musicman7722]

As long as it works for you that is what maters.

 

[Rip Van Dan]

So over the years I've acquired a decent size PA and have learned the ropes on setting it up and running the sound. It's fair in size and will cover pretty much anything we run into.
The new band I'm in also has a Drummer with a considerable amount of PA equipment and a vocalist with some more stuff of his own. At this point between the 3 of us we have a ridiculous amount of PA equipment (including 6, 2x15 towers, around 10, 12" and 15" floor monitors and no less than 10, 18" subs... Probably close to 18,000 watts of power amps).
(So yeah, we're looking for a dedicated sound man now).
Anyway, what are you all running for sound?, and post a picture of what you've got. Here's just some of mine below.
(newly added was the 2U, 4 ch, class D power Amp that not only works fabulously powering my towers and subs but also shed 90lbs from the entire rig). View attachment 3800344 View attachment 3800347

One of the bands I play with, the trio, has two 15" JBL self-powered PA speakers and three 12" JBL powered speakers. We typically use the 15" set as our mains and the three 12" JBL's as our on-stage monitors. I believe there is no separate amp because the speakers are all powered and we just run speaker cables out to their inputs. Both the 12" cabs and the 15" powered cabs have 1500-watt class D amps built in. So, 4 of those would be a max of 7,500 watts...guess you'd call that medium although I really think of our PA as "small".

The other band has a mix of powered and un-powered speakers. The mains we usually use are a couple of very nice 2x12" powered PA cabs and then we run five monitors which are a mix of 12" with horn and 15" with horn speakers. We have 5 of those. I think two of those are un-powered. Not sure what wattage rating amplifier is powering those. Sometimes they'll put our 15's up as the mains. In any case I think we are running about 8,000 to 10,000 watts by the time everything is hooked up and running.

We also have two sound boards. The smaller board (16-channel) is used for most spots and then we'll pull out the huge 32-track Allen & Heath one if the drummer really needs to hook up all 8 of his mics (he still can't believe he's supposed to provide his own cords for those mics).

So, although I would call the trio's PA medium size, the 5-pc. group's PA is definitely large. Normally we only mic the voices and the kick drum but for big places we'll mic the guitar amps, the keys amp, and use all 8 mics on the drums. We almost never mic my bass because it just doesn't need it. The only time I've had my cab mic'd was when we were playing a festival and they were also recording our set.

 

[jad]

I consider my PA small, but it is medium by this scale; Yamaha DSR112s over KW181s. I still think my XR18 was my best PA gear purchase, especially considering what it replaced. Between the mains and powered monitors I'm in the 8000 watt range. I only bring 2 monitors to gigs anymore because 3 of the 5 of us are on IEMs.

...I returned to Mackie only because they have the ability to to have a break switch for music during break without turning off the IEM signal to the players. Some like to twiddle during break or after sound check but before the gig. I use a Mackie DL32r now.

I do this with my XR18 by adding a "mute" button in Mixing Station that toggles the guitars in and out of the mains.

 

[TheDirtyLowDown]

Our PA gear is a pair of QSC 12.2's for the mains, and a pair of QSC KSUB subwoofers that they mount on top of. Then we've got a few Alto TS212s and some Yamaha 10" powered speakers for stage monitors. The mixer is a digital QSC Touchmix-16. I'm a fan of all of it, except the mixer -- which, although being super useful, is a pain for quick adjustments, or making any changes without scrolling through tiny menus.

This works reasonably well, even for small outdoor shows. Our larger outdoor gigs typically supply a larger/better PA; ours works well for up to medium size gigs, and we often play small bars with no stage monitors, one QSC 12.2 in the back as a "main-itor" and one 12.2 up front for the crowd, plus one sub.

The QSC gear is reliable, and we're all used to it now, so it goes up pretty fast. There's value in having something that everyone understands and can help set up and cable reliably, so we won't change it unless something breaks. Gotta love those class-D powered monitors!

 

[tadawson]

EAW KF trapezoid cabs for mains, SB180's for subs, Radian Apex 1200 for monitors (6). Power is Crest 9001 for subs and lows (2 amps) and 7001's for mid/high and monitors (6 amps). Mains tri amp/4 way, monitors biamped, DBX260 processors. 32x8 Soundcraft analog console and god size sidecar rack of fx, reverb etc. Processors easily switch to no-sub config flr spaller spaces, as well as can add/drop cabs as needed . . . Tuned with SMAART . . . Heavy as hell, but with a sound that makes it totally worth it!

(Oh, and not necessarily associated with one band - I suport a primary, but also take other work . . .)

 

[s0c9]

Not to insult you but everything I have read and a few I have heard agrees that a double 15" top is a waste of money and speakers space. Better to have 10" or 12" tops with a horn. Or do like I do and use Turbosound IP2000's. I have 4 so it makes it easy to decide how much to bring to the gig. 1,2 or all 4

Also I have owned a few of the Behringer Digital boards and found them all very good. in fact in some ways they are a better bang for the buck than Mackie. I returned to Mackie only because they have the ability to to have a break switch for music during break without turning off the IEM signal to the players. Some like to twiddle during break or after sound check but before the gig. I use a Mackie DL32r now.

I got to go with.. IT DEPENDS!
If one has an external crossover, one can split to subs and tops, so that the 300Hz and below that would normally be fed to the lower 15 by the internal xover in the dual tops only sees what isn't going to the subs above the crossover point - lets say that's 100Hz. HPF will split all above 100Hz to the Tops and all below to the subs! That lower 15 will only reproduce 100-300Hz. Can be run as a 4-way system if dual tops are 3-way
Not the most simplistic approach with that config, but works great!
Ask me how I know!

 

[4Mal]

carry as much as you need for the gig. nothing more.

 

[lbbc]

All of our gigs were on the smaller side so, after our Bose system died (another story for another time), we went old school....Mackie 808S 1000 watt 8 channel head, pr of 3 way (15/6/horn) Carvin cabinets on poles and pr 12" CGM floor monitors.

 

[staurosjohn]

I’ve gone (fairly) compact... the QSC way

Touchmix 16 (iPad Air2 to run)
TM8 (recently acquired due to *this* - Mystery $$ from MF...)
2- KS112 subs
2-K10.2 (tops/stand-alone as required)
2- K8.2 (wedges/tops as required)
2- CP12 (wedges, e-drum monitor, etc.)
2-CP8 (wedges)

Serves me for almost any gig we have... I have ‘a guy’ who provides PA for anything larger than what this can handle!