Small PA recommendations??

[JoeCon]

Guys,
A bunch of us "mature" musicians are putting a band together to play some parties and other assorted gigs ( mostly just to blast away on our guitars and amps while we still can)...but we need to purchase a PA system.
Looking for small, portable, not too much $$ and easy to use! Only need 6-8 inputs.
Any good stuff?? Also what stuff to AVOID!!

Thanks....

[Gibsonman63]

I have a three piece band. I use the Yamaha EMX512SC and mic just the vocals. It weighs less than 20 pounds and has 500W each for mains and monitors. I originally ordered a Peavey XR 8600D, but it was DOA. The reviews on the reliability of the Mackie at the time was not good for reliability. I had a couple of their older mixers that were great, but my last experience with the 1640 that I was using for recording was not great.

[JoeCon]

Gibsonman

Thanks, thats the kinda stuff we are looking for...what about speakers/monitors?

[NickC]

I recommend a small Mackie 1402VLZ mixer into the pair of powered speakers of your choice (I like the QSC K12, which I would buy had I not custom built my enclosures driven by 2,400 watts of Crown power).

[JoeCon]

Nick

So in your case the amps are in the speakers and it's just a mixer in front? A couple for Mains and the same for Monitors?

Thanks I'll check those out...

[Teleguy61]

Guys I know use a mixer with powered JBL Eons. You can piggyback as many as you want.
There are EVs also that are similar.

[NickC]

Nick

So in your case the amps are in the speakers and it's just a mixer in front? A couple for Mains and the same for Monitors?

Thanks I'll check those out...

Those QSC powered speakers (K12) have the amps built in; one for the low end and another to power the high-end compression driver/horn. It's a two-way system with built-in crossover and two 500 watt class-D amps in each speaker enclosure. They sound good and are relatively small, making transport easier.

The system I built is old-school; extremely heavy with lots of signal processing racks and power amps and 12-gauge speakon cabling. Fills up a van. If I had it to do over, I'd go with those QSC self-contained powered speakers and save my wallet and back a lot of grief.

[M Fowler]

I use a Carvin rack mount 12 channel mixer non-powered.

Two 1500w Carvin power amps, four Peavey floor 1-15 monitors, and two Yamaha 1-15/horn on stands for mains with additional 2-15 home made towers if I need it. Also, have two 1-18 Berringer subs but never use them.

None was expensive but it did take me time to put it all together but Carvin has some good deals on PA packages.

But there is always used systems on Craig's list it seems at least in my area.

[boots]

I've also heard the Peavey XR8600 has lots of problems. I worked on one and it was a terrible PITA. I think they push the ratings of the components too far, and the reliability suffers accordingly.

[Leo_Gnardo]

I've seen the QSC speaker-on-a-stick work pretty well. Probably the same or similar to what Nick mentioned.

If you're going separate speaker & amps, the "old classic" EV are good if heavy. Downmarket, lighter weight and surprisingly clear on vocals & acoustic instruments: Community SX-35 and its variants, good heavy duty 15" Eminence plus a decent sounding piezo. Get some that aren't clapped-out and you'll give your ears and wallet and back a treat.

[ER]

I can't recommend a small PA, only a big one!

I don't mean big-big, but some larger high-efficiency speaker go a long way to good sound and being heard.

Small inefficient speakers and big(cheap) power= heat, distortion, and blown speakers.

Old school horns, floor monitors (the real key to hearing your vocals well without feeding back using the mics rear rejection pattern), lower power from a reliable amp, and line-level high-pass filters below the speakers cut-off.

One option is getting a mixer that works, a low to moderate power reliable workhorse amp, and some old school speakers for cheap on craigslist.

My mixer has built-in high pass filters and effects, and doubles as a 16 track recorder onto a portable hard drive or USB (Behringer UFX1204), I have $100 speakers (less than a buck per Db/watt), a pair of cheap floor wedges (our old "mains" that we used to pole mount that belong to my bass player and are somewhat passable for vocals only at rehearsals on their own) , and a 130 watt per channel $50 peavey power amp. Loud clean, clear, and not breaking a sweat, except at loading time, but nothing a dolly and one guy can't handle really. Works great for recording and rehearsals as well, but I'm super cheap and everything has to serve double duty.

The QSC stuff does sound good on it's own, but not as good as something a little bigger together with the whole band. And you can save some coin at the same time.

[Gibsonman63]

Gibsonman

Thanks, thats the kinda stuff we are looking for...what about speakers/monitors?

My speakers and monitors are nothing special. My mains are older Ross speakers with upgraded horn drivers and crossovers. My monitors are super cheapies with upgraded speakers, horns and crossovers. I have scaled back enough where my PA and my guitar rig fits in the back of my Tacoma and I can fully close the tonou cover.

The noise ordinances here are now arbitrary, not a specific dB at so many feet, so none of the clubs want us to be very loud any more.

[UR12]

Our band caries both a big system and also a smaller "pa on a stick" system for some of the small venues we play. A good pair of powered speakers on stands does fine. It really depends on what kind of music you're playing. If you want kick drum in the mix then a small 18 sub woofer would also help but not necessary if you only want vocals in your PA. The use of powered speakers also helps eliminate the need to carry around a separate amp rack. We use JBL powered eons for monitors, again no monitor amp rack. If you are made of money you could also go with in ear monitors and forget even carrying around monitor cabs. I am a drummer and switched to wired ear monitors about 18 months ago and love them. I will never go back to wedges. The wired in ears can go from about $250 for some good Westone buds and about $50 for the belt pack amp to run them. At $300 for the wired in ears I would be hard pressed to find a good monitor setup for drums that would cost less or even the same. Of course the wireless in ear systems go for a lot more money so it just depends on how much money you want to spend to keep from carrying around a lot of equipment. Decent 8-12 channel boards can be had fairly cheaply these days.

Our big system runs 13000 watts of class D amps, 2 2x18 turbosound tse218 cabs, one per side and a couple of woodworx 3way top cabs with 2x12, 2x10s and a 150 watt horn with JBL 4" driver in each cab. These weigh about 200lbs per cab. I'm running the new Behringer X32 digital 32 channel board and also digital snake with a cat5 cable run to two s16 stage boxes. I only mention all of this because, except for the 4speaker cabs, I have dropped a lot of weight off the old trailer and wear and tear on the old back. My old amp rack full of Qsc amps weighed about 250-300 lbs. my new rack with class d amps weighs about 50 lbs. the 100 lb 32 channel snake is gone and the 100 ft of cat5 cable weighs about 2 lbs. I've completely eliminated another 200 lb monitor rack and the new digital board has completely made my FOH effects rack also a thing of the past that weighed about 50 to 100 lbs. So even with the big cabs we have eliminated about 1000 lbs of equipment to lug around for bigger venues. The new digital stuff is awesome and it's a great time to be buying new PA stuff with all of the options out there.

[JoeCon]

Dana

Thanks for the info.
I think the PA on the stick would be good for us. Drummer is loud enuff without miking! Sure looks like powered speakers are the way to go these days.

[Leo_Gnardo]

Dana

Thanks for the info.
I think the PA on the stick would be good for us. Drummer is loud enuff without miking! Sure looks like powered speakers are the way to go these days.

A couple of sneak attack PA addons in case your drummer, or anybody else's needs: Extra bass amp, run a mic from the kick drum. That'll put some extra oomph on it without taking up a channel in the PA or stressing its speakers & amps. Extra guitar amp with reverb, run a mic from the snare & put some "air" around it with the reverb. I got these hints from Tony Beard who's on dozens of hit albums now, but back when his band was playing clubs & pubs these helped get their sound a bit more punchy. Tried it out at some jam sessions and it's a lot of fun.