I guess this goes here..PA question

[guitarsjb]

Well, the band has everything we need, except a PA to be self sufficient. So far every place we've played either has one, or another band has one and does sound for everyone. Our singer for practice just uses a powered mixer through a 4x12 cab..hey it works for what we need.
Anyhow..I just bought a 16 channel mixer...and I know I need an amp to power it. That's ALL I know..no kidding, I'm a idiot (I don't need any of you to confirm this..I am aware of this :ROTF: ) when it comes to this. I have some speakers (for what they call mains?), no monitors. What else do I need, and how do I hook it all up? I am looking at a GEM 2000watt amp or a Techical Pro 2000w amp. What are subs? Sub woofers?? Do I need a pair of those too?
Sorry... thanks for the help.
Jeri

[clifffclaven]

what kind of music do you play?

[guitarsjb]

Metal..not really death metal..but that's the closest I can come to categorizing us.

[rjohnstone]

Jeri... what kind of a budget are we talking here?
You can get a small setup decent for club gigs for around $2,500 or so.
Carvin has some nice ready to go packages if you don't feel like trying to match components.
Whatever you do, don't cheap out on any of it. Nothing sucks more than having your PA go down mid show. Monitors are not a must for most small club gigs, but are nice to have if you can afford it.

[hippietim]

The simplest setup is: Mic -> Mixer -> Power Amp -> Speakers

Basically the same as: guitar -> preamp -> power amp -> speakers

The most important thing to do when building a PA is to stick with disceet components as much as possible. That leaves you way more room to expand and upgrade.

• You don't need subs if you only plan on running vocals through it.
• You do need subs if you plan on mic'ing drums, guitars, or running bass or keyboards into the PA.
• You need monitors if you can't hear what's coming out of the PA. For practice you won't need monitors because you can point the cabs where you want. Live you will need monitors unless you aren't pointing the PA cabs at the audience.
• Decide if you need to run stereo. If you don't, you can push monitors on one side of a power amp, and your mains on the other side.
• Read and understand the wattage ratings on the amp you are buying. A 1000 watt amp is not what you think it is. That will probably be the mono/bridged mode at 2 or 4 ohms. Most PA cabs are 8 ohms. So if you are running stereo, the 8 ohm per side rating matters. If you are running mono, the 4 ohm per side rating matters because you will be running two 8 ohm cabs on one side for the mains.
• Buy twice as many watts out of the power amp than your speakers are rated for unless you like solid state power amp buzzy clipping.
• Buy compressors. Dbx 266XL's are fairly cheap ($60-90 used) 2 channel compressors that work very well. Ideally you'd compress every mic independently via channel inserts on your mixer. If you can't do that, you want at least a limiter between your mixer and the power amp to protect your speakers and keep your levels from spiking and producing that nasty ass solid state power amp distortion buzz.

[Twisteramps]

Excellent stuff by Tim. BTW, when it comes to PA, Peavey is your friend... CS800s are great power amps, and if you don't mind 70s looking cosmetics, you can get old ones incredibly cheap. SP2s are Peavey PA speakers that are a working band standard also.

Pete

[markD]

peavey stuff is great. i use a PV2000 power amp and some SP4 speakers. GREAT stuff and it works very well for gigs!!!

tim gave great advice. enough said!!

[Dreamland_Rebel]

just get those mackie powered pa speakers and hook them up to your mixer. they work great!