Hey everyone, new member! I discovered this site a month or so ago; there is a lot of information here! I wanted to post a question and tell about my specific situation and get some feedback.
I am in a 3 piece cover band. I sing and play guitar, then we have drummer who sings, and bassist. When we started out 5 years ago, we put our equipment together to form a decent beginner PA system and have been using it at bars on weekends ever since. The guys came in with a Samson powered mixer, 300W mono, going into 2 Celestion main speakers with 15" woofers. I brought a power amp with 2 Peavey PR12s for monitors and it has seemed to work out. My bassist has a pretty big rig with an 18" and 2x10" cabs, so we don't run him through the PA. We only run 2 vocals, my guitar mic'd, and sometimes the kick drum mic'ed on certain venues.
We are now talking about upgrading our system, and have some disagreements on what to get. We set a cap of $3000 to get everything, and want to keep it as simple as possible. We don't have a dedicated sound man. I setup the sound at sound check and tweak accordingly as the night goes on. We are leaning towards active speakers all around with a passive mixer, most likely an Allen and Heath Mixwiz.
My first question is: 12's or 15's for main speaker woofers? I initially wanted to get a pair of high quality 12s (Mackie, JBL, QSC) which pack the power but come in lighter and smaller than 15s. However, the bassist and drummer want to stay close to our original setup with 15's.
Second question: Do we need subs? We play bars that aren't that big, from small dives to nicer places. I believe the guitar and vocals don't need the low end as much. Only the kick drum, which we don't always mic, would need the subs. Plus, the issue is that they are big and heavy to lug around, and none of us have the room in our current vehicles to do it.
Is it really a choice between 12's with subs or 15's without? Can we mic the kick drum if we use only 12's alone? Should we stick with 15's if that is the case?
Finally, will running guitar and vocals through 12's put more wear and tear on speakers than just running vocals alone? Trying to debunk something my bassist was arguing.
Can we upgrade to a simpler, more high quality system for $3k?
Thanks!
Dre
I am in a 3 piece cover band. I sing and play guitar, then we have drummer who sings, and bassist. When we started out 5 years ago, we put our equipment together to form a decent beginner PA system and have been using it at bars on weekends ever since. The guys came in with a Samson powered mixer, 300W mono, going into 2 Celestion main speakers with 15" woofers. I brought a power amp with 2 Peavey PR12s for monitors and it has seemed to work out. My bassist has a pretty big rig with an 18" and 2x10" cabs, so we don't run him through the PA. We only run 2 vocals, my guitar mic'd, and sometimes the kick drum mic'ed on certain venues.
We are now talking about upgrading our system, and have some disagreements on what to get. We set a cap of $3000 to get everything, and want to keep it as simple as possible. We don't have a dedicated sound man. I setup the sound at sound check and tweak accordingly as the night goes on. We are leaning towards active speakers all around with a passive mixer, most likely an Allen and Heath Mixwiz.
My first question is: 12's or 15's for main speaker woofers? I initially wanted to get a pair of high quality 12s (Mackie, JBL, QSC) which pack the power but come in lighter and smaller than 15s. However, the bassist and drummer want to stay close to our original setup with 15's.
Second question: Do we need subs? We play bars that aren't that big, from small dives to nicer places. I believe the guitar and vocals don't need the low end as much. Only the kick drum, which we don't always mic, would need the subs. Plus, the issue is that they are big and heavy to lug around, and none of us have the room in our current vehicles to do it.
Is it really a choice between 12's with subs or 15's without? Can we mic the kick drum if we use only 12's alone? Should we stick with 15's if that is the case?
Finally, will running guitar and vocals through 12's put more wear and tear on speakers than just running vocals alone? Trying to debunk something my bassist was arguing.
Can we upgrade to a simpler, more high quality system for $3k?
Thanks!
Dre
) then I'd suggest listening to your bandmates and getting the 15" boxes because they typically have another half-to-full octave of perceivable low end when compared to their 12" brothers in the same model line. You can't get that back with EQ on a smaller box.
... but I was able to make effective use of the additional LF the larger box afforded.
