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How big a PA for this job ?


BigYinUK

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Hmmm.. I don't know where my 5:20pm post went where I replied to some of Rob's initial questions.

 

I think the problem lies in the fact that, apart from last year where the area to be covered was small and in a residential area, on previous years the gig has been indoors or a barn etc and although personally I'd have liked to use a bigger PA as there was no budget we used our's and as dbuckley says "using our normal indoor PA, and there were a fair few bikers present, everyone had a good time. It wasn't as loud as it was in a pub but it were good enough". Which is pretty much where the rest of my band are coming from with this. We would get away with it but, its my PA, it'll get hammered and I'll be miserable ;)

 

This year presents more of a problem as the area is much larger so people will spread out more and there are no constraints on noise plus I'd like to get the spl up a tad as (IMO) heavy rock doesn't work at low spls.

 

I don't think the organisers have really thought this through funding wise but it is essentially a fund raiser for charity so we don't want to spend all the proceeds on the PA. They have thought about power though and asked us to let them know how much we'll need.

 

We have everything apart from a big FOH. I.e lots of monitoring, mixer, oodles of decent mikes, snake, lights etc etc.

 

As Rob's says my original question was how much kit to get a reasonable spl outside in this area and I think I at least have a better idea now although what's been suggested so far is pretty much what I'd guestimated.

 

Robs comment "It's not going to shake you to the floor at the back of the field but it stands a chance of being audible, clean, and at a moderate level to a suitable area (designed to comfortably sit 250 people)" is bang on the nail and where I'm coming from.

 

I have a couple of offers now, one from a BR member, so providing the organisers will cough up then we're away.

 

Thanks everyone for the replies.

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I have a couple of offers now, one from a BR member, so providing the organisers will cough off then we're away.

 

Thanks everyone for the replies.

 

In this industry, as with all others, all we ask is a reasonable pay check at the end of every day. The unfortunate thing is that most charities, need our services, weather sound, lighting, rigging, staging ....etc,

 

We have to pay for the gear we own, and the crew we provide.

 

and they want it for free........

 

The sums don't add up.

 

A well organised event should easily cover it's expenses.....It's just a question of getting the right acts ot bands.

 

Then they'll sell the tickets and get the money.

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and they want it for free........

 

The sums don't add up.

 

A well organised event should easily cover it's expenses.....It's just a question of getting the right acts ot bands.

 

Then they'll sell the tickets and get the money.

 

It can be pretty difficult for small events to make sufficient money to cover expenses and make a profit. I recently put a small PA and a few lights into a pub for the local folk club's charidee evening. I did it for free because I'm part of the group anyway, and wasn't otherwise working. They also got the venue for free and people to make the food for free, donate the raffle prizes for free etc. At the end of the day, they ended up making £370 or something for the charidee, which they were very pleased about, but in the normal scheme of things the event should have cost £600 or so to put on!

 

I'm not advocating doing gigs for free or anything, I wouldn't do it (even for cheap!) normally. Just a random vaguely relevant story.

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It can be pretty difficult for small events to make sufficient money to cover expenses and make a profit. I recently put a small PA and a few lights into a pub for the local folk club's charidee evening. I did it for free because I'm part of the group anyway, and wasn't otherwise working..

 

(sorry can't figure out how to do that bit correctly)

 

We all have charities we support and are happy ish to give our services for free if we feel it appropriate, however I do have a rule of thumb for such events, if the venue is paying the bar staff I want what they are getting, its then my decision if I put my fee in the hat or not. It really gets up my nose when a venue will put on a "charity gig" simply to increase their wet sales

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Doug, I'm not sure where the 8-10k figures are obtained from, the previously mentioned 4 stacks of the listed above and more WOULD cover this area with more than adequate results.

 

4 Stacks of floodlight is 4.8kW if we take the rms of all the drivers. 4 Stacks of C7 the same, 4 stacks of C4 and a pair of B2's would be 2.8kW.

 

I've taken 2 stacks of W8 to festivals of 1500 people or more and this has been fine, it's lacked headroom, and LF reproduction hasn't been great, but its done the job on a tight budget.

 

You'd need 10kW of something much less efficient to do the job, certainly.

 

 

Rob

 

EDIT : Fully agree with your last post, and it's QUOTE and /QUOTE to end within square brackets ([] [])

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@i_hate_fisicks

 

I think that's bang on where we are with these folks.

 

It is local custom bike rally and they expect up to 200 (ish) people to attend. They have one band (us) and aim to make a few hundred for a local hospice.

 

Last year they raised 700 quid.

 

Its the generator now that is the sticking point as they don't really want to spend £150+ on a generator.

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If there is a way to run a larger power supply from the pub, then this might be ok (obviously if that's ok with the pub).

 

pm sent

 

 

The pubs says not, as the field is the other side of a car park and a pond. Its a real nuisance. Add a bigger FOH into the equation and it really does present a problem.

 

The pub are paying us as they will get a big boost in wet sales. I'm thinking about suggesting that they put some of "our" money toward the cost of a genny as its for charity.

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Rob

 

I came up with the figure simply because thats what I would take, I took it that the big yin may not be as technical as us so discussions of the spl's of various boxes would not be of much use, but bowling into his local pa hire company and saying I would like to hire an 8k rig would at least have got him part of the way. If you read the post as a layman you will see that very few of the replies mentioned an overall power in kilowatts rating for the rig which was the original question. You and I know that this actually means very little but for the uniniated it is something that most people can get there head around.

 

 

ps thanks for the bracket thing I will experiment!!

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I didn't mean to cause any offence or insinuation in my reply if I did sorry, it wasn't a personal reply to you it was a general comment that a lot of people reading this thread would not be as involved in sound as we are... going to stop digging my hole now

 

D

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Doug, I'm not sure where the 8-10k figures are obtained from, the previously mentioned 4 stacks of the listed above and more WOULD cover this area with more than adequate results.

 

4 Stacks of floodlight is 4.8kW if we take the rms of all the drivers. 4 Stacks of C7 the same, 4 stacks of C4 and a pair of B2's would be 2.8kW.

 

I never work out PA system power like that. Logically the power of the PA system is defined by the output of the amplifiers. You could have a 500W speaker running from a 100W amplifier, and it would be a 100W PA, so the same is clearly true the other way round. So 4 stacks of Floodlight, generally going to be run from 10kW or so of amplifiers. If I remember rightly, from when I was thinking of buying such a system once, you actually need more amplifiers for 4 stacks of Floodlight than you do some other similar systems. But I digress. So with the obvious exception of D&B, a 4 stack pile of most PA is going to be around the 10kW sort of area, so I don't see a problem with designating it as such. It's a useful sort of terminology that most people understand. Ok, it's not very accurate, and not appropriate for sound snobs such as ourselves, but if someone comes in and asks for a 10k rig, you know what they mean.

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