Hello all!

I am new to the 'Blue-Room' and it was recommended to me by a sound engineer working with a local company (MAD sound and lighting).

I have recently purchased a second hand PA system and I am posting to basically see if I have got myself a system adequate for my needs.



I bought a packagre consisting of:

2 x ProSound 400W speakers (with soft cases)

2 x speaker stands (which seem to be very well built)

1 x Alesis MultiMix8USB desk (with Steinberg Cubase LE)

1 x ProSound 1000 Power Amp

1 x Sennheiser e825s mircophone

and all necessary connecting cables (seeming to be of good quality and in good condition)

Total cost: £400



The gear is in very good condition as someone bought this system as part of the condition that he joined a band, however, he was kicked out soon after and the PA system is virtually untouched!!!!

I am in a welsh pop/rock band consisting of 4 members:

1 drummer

1 bassist

1 guitarist (electric)

1 singer w/ acoustic guitar

you can visit www.chwartercall.co.uk to hear our music.

I am also on the lookout for a monitor, any suggestions for a good monitor on a budget of around £100 would be greatly appreciated.



Thanks for your time

Dan

Well for a start, No, your system is not going to be very suited for your needs, unless of course you are only putting vocals through your PA, however I would guess you will be wanting to put the acoustic through aswell. If its an electro acoustic then your pretty much sorted, a simple jack to jack to your mixer, however if its a cheapo then I would stay away from the pickups as no-doubt they will sound tinny and horrible. My preffered choice would be to put a mic on it, however this dosent work aswell if your moving about whilst playing, and you can get more feedback due to the nature of the mic used for the guitair.

As for monitors, take a look at www.thomann.de and have a look at some of there own moniors, there pretty good for the money, the MA120 MK II being the most popular and it would also be my reccomendation.

Give us a bit more info abut what you would like to achive from your system and we will be able to give you better advice.
Rich

I have a couple of MA120s. while they're nothing special, and dont go particularly loud, they've paid for themselves ten times over already. they are however, well overdue for replacement, as my needs have far outgrown them.

Hi Dan, welcome to the Blue Room.

Alas, it's an all-too-common occurrence that people ask the BR for opinions on new gear after they've bought it looking for reassurance that they've got a good deal. Unfortunately I don't think you've done especially well and I doubt you'll be very happy with your purchase.

It sounds like the person you bought the gear from got a job lot from Maplins--you can find literally everything you now own in their online catalogue. Bought new, the kit would have cost around £650. (I have to admit I only did a rough total but that's not far off the mark.

I have a bit of experience with ProSound amps because, a few years back, my son's best friend had a couple of them along with some speakers. I hate to say, but they were frequently going wrong with the thermal cutout operating pretty much any time he tried to drive them at all hard. Opening them up for the lad, as far as I could tell there was no specific fault--they were just under-specced and badly built. Both his amps died in quick succession after he'd owned them for under 2 years.

As for the sound of the amp/speaker combination, they weren't particularly loud and tended to sound harsh as soon as they were driven at all. At lower levels they were okay (but nothing special) but they proved not to be adequate to do discos and parties (his application) in a relatively small pub. I suspect they'll struggle with the needs of live music.

I don't have any specific experience with the Alesis mixer but think you'll very soon decide that 8 inputs just isn't adequate, Having a quick look at the spec sheet I suspect that you'll soon decide the EQ and routing options aren't enough for live work either.

The good news is that the Sennheiser mic is okay for the money (again nothing special but there are certainly worse out there). Also, you would have had to be pretty lucky to do much better for the money you spent--realistically, even for second hand, even for basic pub gigging you need to spend a bit more than you have.

Having said all that, probably the best way to get a feel for what's good and bad with your system is to try it and see. You'll soon get a sense of what you're not satisfied with and what you want to spend more money on.

Sorry to come across as the downer...I hate writing posts like this. Good luck with the band!

Bob

on the grand scale of things....

youve spent £400 and got 600-700 worth of kit, not a bad deal considering its barely been used (and I presume still under warranty)

itll do the job until you can justify spending more on upgrading various parts of the equipment.

Id also say that if the Stands are the Black Tubular style ones, they are pretty good actually and the same ones (re-badge) are sold by many other manufacturers (prolight, carlsbro etc)

Im not sure on the spec of your speakers, I hope they are 4Ohm, if they are 8ohm then you will only get 200w into each cab, so that should be the first place to upgrade, if not upgrade the speakers first just to get a better sound and less harshness (then upgrade the amp)

I'd be tempted to sell on the Speakers and Amps with the Covers and 2 cables but keeping the stands then selling on the Multimix separately but keeping the Mic and any other cables.

You should be able to get about £250-300 for just the Speakers and Amp. The Multimix would probably fetch another £90-110.

Josh

Thanks for all the advice! Looks like I have bought a bit of a Lemon PA system then! But I was on a very tight budget. I am aware that to get decent equipment you need a deep pocket, there's no two ways about it.

The system is just being used in small pubs at the moment. With only the vocals and the acoustic guitar going through it (the acoustic being pluged in jack to jack).

I suppose it's all a learning process, but with this system it was the fact that it was relatively cheap compared to other quotes I recieved.

I have gigged this system, it was and outdoor event at a local pub and it sounded clear as a bell to my ears. I basically got the drummer to play at a normal level and set levels of the vocals and the acoustic guitar and then setting the guitar and bass amps to compensate, I have no idea weather or not this is a very good or efficient method but it seemed to sound ok. The music we play isn't particularly heavy so the system seemed to cope just fine. Any suggestions about how to make the best of what I've now got would be greatly appreciated!

The monitor is only needed so our singer can hear what's going on so he knows he's in tune.

Cheers

Dan

Have you thought about IEM's?

These could prove a better sound for your vocalist and less to *carry/transport. (*Depending on model !!)

As well as easier to work with.


John Denim.

IEM's do sound like a good idea! Looks like a very nice and discrete way of monitoring, good for lowering the on-stage volume and sparing our ears! However, from just having a quick scan through search engines, they seem a liitle pricey for me. I'm just looking for something that'll enable our singer to hear himself with a reasonable level of clarity. (that hopefully won't break the bank!)

Cheers, and thanks for the suggestion John! Do you know of any cheap but decent IEM's on the market?

Dan

The words 'Cheap' and 'Decent' tend not mix in all honesty. Try ebay? you may be able to find something reasonable on there.

If you're just doing pubs, why not go for wired IEMs? You will save a lot this way.

The quick and easiest way to do it is what ben said, plug a set of ipod ear phones into the headphone socket of the Alessis and give them to the singer.. adjust this system as the money roles in!

Cheers! that sounds like an easy and cheap solution! This could well be a stupid question, but if I wanted to, could I hook up an amp to the headphone socket? (I have an old WEM speaker with a jack input which could be used) Or will this cause damage?

Thanks Ben and Doug for the suggestion!!

Dan

Hmm, not sure I'd do this as a vocalist, he will be very restricted in movement.

As for hooking up an amp to the phones socket, you will not get very good results this way.
Is there not another audio out on the mixer?
maybe the 'tape out' or there could be another option.
I think it's also worth saying that hooking up any old speaker for the purpose of foldback could be futile!

John Denim.

A concurrent post has been automatically merged from this point on.

Looking in detail at your mixer I see there is an aux send facility.
This would be the best way of tailoring the mix for the vocalist.

I don't think IEM are the best way to go in this case (wired or radio).

The vocals & acoustic guitar are going to be wanted to some degree, by everyone in the band, not just the singer.

Also, if the singer were to use them, then s/he may want other things too, as the IEMs will block out a certain amount of sound. So then you start to need to mic/DI other things that are not in the PA mix at the moment.

As much as I tend to like IEMs, I think Mark has a good point here. As discussed previously, the OP is only putting vocals and an acoustic guitar through the FOH. It's highly likely that the vocalist will need to hear a bit more than that. With a wedge he can still hear the live drums and instruments from the backline; an IEM could block a lot of that but the sources aren't available on the mixer.

One other thing: a purpose built IEM system will have a built-in limiter to protect hearing. Using a simple set of iPod ear buds will allow you to achieve ear-damaging levels and not provide any protection against hitting those levels. As far as I'm concerned it's all too easy to do damage and I wouldn't take the risk.

Bob

The big potential advantage of IEM is that it allows each performer to hear exactly what he/she needs to hear at a level that suits him/her. This obviously means that everything needs to be in the mix (drums, guitar, etc etc) and so you'll potentially need a different monitor mix for each performer. In a professional environment this is probably what would be happening anyway, but in a pub gig environment will probably create problems as most small mixers etc don't have enough aux outs.

Also cheapo IEMs won't have a very high degree of attenuation of outside sounds. iow a lot of sound from the stage will be heard and you'll probably find you have to turn the level to the IEMs up to counteract and give the performer the mix he/she wants. This will in turn up the SPL, so could be more damaging to his /her hearing than just using monitors. You'll probably be looking at £1000ish to get a decent wireless IEM system. As Bobbsy says you'll need a limiter as the transducers in earphones are very near the eardrum and more than capable of giving out a high enough level to do some some serious hearing damage.

IMHO good monitoring is probably even more important that a good FOH. Bands always seem to skimp on monitoring, but if you can hear what you're doing you'll put in a better performance! Unfortunately £100 is not really a realistic budget for monitors. If I were you I'd look at the secondhand market.

I picked up a pair of JBL monitors for £120 on eBay which we power with a Thomann TA2400 amp (£170 new). We also have another pair of 12inch monitor wedges we also hook up to the TA2400. I.e. running a pair off each channel of the TA2400. Although not a "pro level" setup, it gives us pretty decent monitoring at a reasonable price.

I've also known bands use powered units like the Mackie SRM350s and 450s as monitoring with reasonable success and it keeps the setup simple.

Good point Mark and Bob.

I see OP you are in wales so a good distance from Mansfield.
There is an audio dealer there called CLASS D, who specialise in their own range of cabs. As you have an amp, two passive monitors here from them are priced at £99 a pair, cannot comment on sound quality. Athough I have heard some of their 'jac' range and to be honest, are actually not bad.

Not sure on postage cost for these, may be worth giving them a call if you are interested?

John Denim.

First of all; I'd like to say a big thanks to everyone contrbuting to this topic!

This is all very usefull advice!

It looks like a wedge at the front of the stage would best suit us then, I suppose a wedge will also allow the rest of the band to hear what's going on with our vocalist and his guitar playing.

I will probably end up looking at the second hand market, but thanks John for telling me about the monitors sold by CLASS D, if I can't find any suitable second hand monitors I will definately consider having a look at them!

Do I need to be careful buying second hand monitors? Are there any specific things I need to look for when buying them?

Also, forgive me if this is another stupid question, but what is the difference between a passive and an active speaker? I know of the differences between passive and active guitar pick-ups but is there a similar relationship between passive and active speakers? (But I'd obviously be looking at passive monitors as active monitors all seem to be more expensive)

Cheers

Dan

Passive means they don't have an amp built in and you need to buy one separately.

Active means they have an amp built in and you just need to plug it into the mixing desk.

Josh

Posts crossed...deleted

Active (or powered as sometimes called) are speakers with a built in power amp and dsp.

John Denim.

A concurrent post has been automatically merged from this point on.

hehe, three posts at once!

That could be some sort of record there.

Also not all Active Speakers have a built in Digital Signal Processor (DSP).

Josh

ahh yea, was comparing mine.

EDIT. AM12.

Well, that's actually the difference between unpowered & powered speakers, but for some reason the terms get mixed up. An active speaker will need two or more amps delivering different frequency ranges to the different drivers - a passive will have one amp with the frequencies being split by a passive crossover.

So you've never heard them. Not exactly a good foundation for a recommendation then.....

Often it costs more to get an unpowered speaker + amp than a powered one.

No not heard them Bruce, was mainly going on a low budget.

I would not have thought any £100 wedge would sound very different to another.

John Denim.

Not really true at all, there are boxes that don't cost alot that sound very good. There are boxes that cost more than sound worse. Every box is different at all price ranges. One thing we can be sure of is that at the top end of the market, the boxes will sound good, but different to eachother. The preference there becomes more subjective.

True Rob, but can you give a comparison of a bad £100 box and a good one?

I know I can't.

John Denim.

Well I can give a comparison of a good £30 box and a bad £60 one.

But that is off topic.

I quite like the Thomann MA120 a youth band I do sound for has one and it does the job for £100.

Josh

That was my first thought, I would certainly prefer one to a class D box, but apparently the op already has an amp so my unpowerd reccomendation would be THE BOX M1220, which again is from thomann, which retails at £82, however they do have a wedge called the PM m12 Eco which is under £50 so you could get a pair.

Oh and dont forget behringer! The do a monitor in the s series that retails for around £50, I dont know much about it though.

Rich

Not £100 although with a bit more of a look, I could.

http://www.djkit.co.uk/product.php?id=3728&cat=237
http://www.thomann.de/gb/the_box_pa110_fullrangebox.htm

£4 difference now due to exchange rate, but buy a pair and you get free delivery from thomann.

From experience of hearing both of these boxes, (I had 6 pa110's a couple of years back) the pa110's out perform the .... other things, in every single way.


There are boxes from peavey, carlsbro, class d, jbl, and many others that cost up to twice as much as the Behringer B1220pro, and don't sound as good. Of course, alot of people CANNOT and WILL NOT accept that.

Rob

A mantra I often recite goes:- "If they need to call it "pro", it ain't". The good news is that at 8 ohms, You don't stand much chance of overheating the amp because you can't pass the same current as at 4ohm. The 1000W amp is rated at peak power, rather than RMS or program.

If the gear is working for you that's fine, so don't panic. you have time to concider your next move. For the future, I'd think about buying nice pieces as they come up and as you understand more.
There are more efficient ( more volume per watt) and better sounding speakers, but they won't die unless you thrash your amp. Distortion kills speakers.
THe Mic is ok. Its the best that Maplin sell. Get the singer to invest if its a problem.
The mixer is limited but untill you get to the point where you need eveyone throught it I wouldn't worry. Your next input might require a kick mic.
There are better amps. Recently I blew a chanel on the only amp I took to Breckon Fringe. It brought home to me the value of reliability and the penalty of NOT having it. I'd start with the amp.

Read arround first!

It's all in the badge.
I guess that people just think of behringer as a bit of a tesco's value jobby!
I think most people are like it,whether they'll admit it or not is another matter,

When I lived in the UK I used to buy lots of Tesco's Value products. Much of it was very good quality for the money.

Behringer is similar. It's never the best (by a long chalk) but much of there stuff is quite usable and definitely better value than some more pricey kit. Compared to some of the "ProSound" gear the OP has, Behringer is notably better.

Bob

Thanks again for all the advice! It's a great help! Looks like the THE BOX M1220 monitor from thomann may be the answer, for now at least!

Looks like Behringer speakers may be a worth while investment if my ProSounds do pack in. However, they are not driven very hard. With only vocals and acoustic guitar through them I don't see the system having any problems. When the speakers do start to struggle it'll probably be time for me to upgrade my system anyway!! (You'll probably see my name again when I decide to do so!!!)

Just a quick question, in the manual for the power amp (ProSound 1000), it says to use the amp at full power, I.e. turn the amp it's self right up to get the extra headroom. Is this advisable? Because when I used it in the last gig, I had it at half of it's capacity and it sounded perfectly fine, pleanty of volume (for what we needed anyway!) What's best?

Cheeers

Dan

You'd probably do better to search around for that, the last time that old chestnut came up IIRC there was some rather heated discussion going on! The long and short of it though is that no, there's no need to turn your amp up to full if it's sounding as you want it.

As Bob said Behringer stuff would be worth looking at if you want to upgrade - no it's not the best quality / best sounding kit, but at the price a lot of it is superb. I'd have a look around before you purchase anything though, there are other low cost options out there, and while Behringer would certainly be a good place to start it's not the be all and end all of cheap gear! Studiospares do some auditorium speakers for example which I've heard good things about - I can't comment myself beacuse I haven't heard them, (though looking ahead a few months I might see if I can try some out) but a friend has said he was very impressed. Similarly, there's probably things you should steer clear of - nothing springs to mind straight away in your areas, but some things like the Behringer DI20 (I just find it unusably hissy) and some of the earlier Behringer eqs (though they may be ok now, it was a while back) I found just cheap and nasty.

In short, look around

Read this:

Do you run the PA amplifiers at maximum volume?......