Your Band PA.

[jazzbass_5]

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.

Powered speakers are definitely the way to go but I did fall into a lot of my stuff at a great price so I just went with it. I have a Carvin analog 16 Ch board as backup and the Behringer 18ch wireless that we'll probably use most of the time because it's just so easy and portable.

 

[jazzbass_5]

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

+1 on the Xr18. Powerful piece of equipment. I use channels 17 and 18 for an input for music during breaks and just mute the rest if someone wants to noodle onstage (through their monitor or amp).

 

[jazzbass_5]

I’ve gone (fairly) super-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!

View attachment 3801624 View attachment 3801626

This is definitely the way to go and after retirement from my real world job this will be the big change in my equipment.

 

[staurosjohn]

This is definitely the way to go and after retirement from my real world job this will be the big change in my equipment.

Yup- my choice was painkillers (& tote heavy PA) or ‘downsize’ to QSC (or other brands- as they are fine as well)... I decided to slum-it with the QSC (as opposed to painkillers- for my back)!

 

[dramatwist]

...typically play through a DI to the FOH... don't accept gigs in dives with a crappy PA system... no offense, YMMV... I do remember those days, though...

 

[jazzbass_5]

...typically play through a DI to the FOH... don't accept gigs in dives with a crappy PA system... no offense, YMMV... I do remember those days, though...

I still have a couple of young bucks in the band and power through the pain mostly myself but it is getting to be a burden hence the reason for the Amp change. That rig weighed so damn much with the Peavey GPS 3500 and the QSC3002. 90LBS gone makes it much more manageable.

 

[jad]

...typically play through a DI to the FOH... don't accept gigs in dives with a crappy PA system... no offense, YMMV... I do remember those days, though...

I'm with you on this one. My PA is built around my band's needs, with guitars, bass, and keys all going direct to FOH. It gives us the ability to deliver a very consistent product. I agreed to do a dive gig at the urging of other band members because it was PA and backline provided, and therefore an easy night's work. Actually, the PA was good equipment, all QSC, but it was not properly set up (no low cut filters engaged and subs on the stage are a bad mix!) and the rest of the PA from the cables/mics/stands to the power distribution was falling apart. Our sound guy wasn't allowed to actually run sound during the gig because the mixer was behind the bar. I even brought my own router and tablet with the right software so our guy could mix on glass, but the firmware on the mixer was never updated and we couldn't get it connected to the router. Our sound suffered and we were not able to present ourselves in the best possible way. Building a band's reputation is long hard work. I won't sacrifice it for convenience again.

 

[kittywithabanjo]

My rig
Behringer x32 rack
Behringer S16 stage box
Speakers all Turbosound.
2 IQ12 mains
2 IQ15B Subs
5 IQ10s as monitors.
2 Samsung Tab Es
4 Amazon 8" fire tablets for monitor mixes.
Plus lots of mics and sundries

 

[jazzbass_5]

I'm with you on this one. I won't sacrifice it for convenience again.

Oh, yeah, I've absolutely got you're back on this one.
Here's my story.
Last year I was in a new band in Rochester NY, all good seasoned players. We had played a couple of low profile shows until a prominent local BBQ chain ran a post on Facebook looking for bands to play on a week night with the opportunity to become a weekend band. We answered the add and got a foot in the door. Perfect music for the place, blues and blues rock.
We show up (no parking anywhere but in the street in downtown Rochester) load in our band equipment and yes we were told they had a house PA.
We set up, all the while the sound guy is hovering around us bragging about his band that he's the drummer in. Then sound check. He runs us through a quick sound check and says we're good to go.
We start our night out, 2 sets, he is behind the board for a few minutes in the first set, break and the guy is nowhere to be found, Kind of unsettling. We start our second set and he somewhere during our second set ambles up and says to me "your guitar player is pretty loud" I'm on the opposite end of the stag and starting another song, I can't tell my guitar player this AND I figured he's the sound guy, he'll address it. He didn't. The night ended we tore down and left, no sound guy in site (I guess he left and tasked one of the bar tenders to shut the PA down) the next day we get a Facebook message that the band was too loud according to the work staff.. I'm sorry, that's HIS Job, he didn't not convay this properly to the band and not only was he hardly behind the board, he left before the show was over.
Never again.

 

[seanm]

I voted small. Just a couple o 12s on poles. Small 8 channel mixer. But in these days of class D amps, even a small 8 channel mixer has 1,200W. The mixer weighs nothing.

 

[jazzbass_5]

I voted small. Just a couple o 12s on poles. Small 8 channel mixer. But in these days of class D amps, even a small 8 channel mixer has 1,200W. The mixer weighs nothing.

Just my rack rig now which entails:
1, 1U 1400W Peavey DPC1400X (for the monitors). (old school 90s class D)
1, Behringer XR18 mixer.
1, Behringer NX4 6000 amp (for the towers and subs) .
weighs in at less than 45 lbs.

In the old configuration the amp rack alone was well over 110 lbs. The mixer was in its own rack.
I shed 1 rack all together and over 70lbs.

 

[Bassdirty]

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

Oh, It Maters.

(couldn't resist..sorry)

 

[4Mal]

A pretty typical setup for us. KW-153 15" 3 way over the KW-181 sub. Outdoors we'll stack a second sub. This rig really presents well and takes minimal eq to sound good. I'm mixing on a Soundcraft UI-24r mostly.

We were having fun with the led sticks, led dj curtain in back and minimal front lighting.

 

[walterw]

after forever being the guy who mixed while playing all my current bands now have the best PA ever, consisting entirely of a soundguy's phone number

 

[edro]

JBL PRX 15" top, JBL PRX 15" bottom, Yamaha board, Peavey 15" floors w/ Crown power....
Never even stress the system, clean and warm w/ tight bottom.... Very little EQ work at all...
I prefer JBL drivers...especially the horns... Zero issues for several years....