surfershort Posted October 22, 2009 Share Posted October 22, 2009 Hi, im promoting some live/electronic acts in clubs >500 persons and doing a few outdoor concerts >1000 persons next year and was wondering if anyone could advise me. I want to run my own sound rig at these events but at the moment I only have a budget of a 1000 quid which im well aware will not get me anything sufficent to run at these gigs.....so my plan is to start with a small functional rig with around 1-2k power and then hire in extra when as and when needed. So my question is what would be a good starter rig that I could slowly add more too as budget allowed, and say after 5 years I would eventually own a 10k rig that I could use at my own events and hire out to others. Ive really no idea if you can buy a 1k amp then buy another 1k amp and run them parrallel to enable 2k and so on etc... Is it worth buying a complete system of ebay or buying seperates and slowly building up like hi-fi?. I saw this one on ebay ebay PAl and liked the look of it then I realised how little I know about them and thought id better look for some good advice. Sorry for all the questions, maybe even one of you has some kit for sale that may be of use to me. Oh and my first gig is on the 19th december Thanks in advanceAl Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paulears Posted October 22, 2009 Share Posted October 22, 2009 These kind of questions always generate the same answer - so I'll do it now to save you having to wait. If you have a grand, then wait till the jobs come in and you know how big you need to go, then hire in, add your own fees, and pocket the profit. If you find a supplier near to you, you are quids in. There is little point buying a system that is around 1-2k unless it will be used to the full. It's unlikely that you'll be able to hire in something that will find what you have a useful component. If you spend a grand on a mini system, and use it 6 times, then in a year how much is it worth? Buying a system to hire to a specific customer who will pay you in a year, more than it cost you to buy, then why not? However, few pieces of kit used casually pay for themselves. What usually happens is that you have a need to 'own' the kit. So you shy away from hire because you pay out and have nothing. This isn't really bad, it's good. When you have a medium sized inventory, then what will you do with it when it's not out? Storage is a really big problem - as is transport. Hire in, and a nice truck delivers the kit, sets it up, and you 'manage'. I think everyone gives this advice pretty automatically now. I used to always want to buy, and nowadays I make more money by receiving invoices and then generating new ones. The system on ebay is ok I guess, it has a few useful bits and pieces, but I can predict the kind of sound it will make, so I for one, with a grand in the hand, wouldn't buy it. What bits do you need? Live/electronics? what kind of music. A duo strumming a guitar, playing a keyboard to backing tracks might be ok, but a band, with drums, or worse still a real electronic full range sound source? I'm not so sure. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
surfershort Posted October 22, 2009 Author Share Posted October 22, 2009 These kind of questions always generate the same answer - so I'll do it now to save you having to wait. If you have a grand, then wait till the jobs come in and you know how big you need to go, then hire in, add your own fees, and pocket the profit. If you find a supplier near to you, you are quids in. There is little point buying a system that is around 1-2k unless it will be used to the full. It's unlikely that you'll be able to hire in something that will find what you have a useful component. If you spend a grand on a mini system, and use it 6 times, then in a year how much is it worth? Buying a system to hire to a specific customer who will pay you in a year, more than it cost you to buy, then why not? However, few pieces of kit used casually pay for themselves. What usually happens is that you have a need to 'own' the kit. So you shy away from hire because you pay out and have nothing. This isn't really bad, it's good. When you have a medium sized inventory, then what will you do with it when it's not out? Storage is a really big problem - as is transport. Hire in, and a nice truck delivers the kit, sets it up, and you 'manage'. I think everyone gives this advice pretty automatically now. I used to always want to buy, and nowadays I make more money by receiving invoices and then generating new ones. The system on ebay is ok I guess, it has a few useful bits and pieces, but I can predict the kind of sound it will make, so I for one, with a grand in the hand, wouldn't buy it. What bits do you need? Live/electronics? what kind of music. A duo strumming a guitar, playing a keyboard to backing tracks might be ok, but a band, with drums, or worse still a real electronic full range sound source? I'm not so sure. Cheers Paul that really makes sense and I see your point. To be a bit more clear, Im a promoter who has staged concerts in the past with acts such as Stereo Mcs, Gossip, Go Team, ive always hired in professional PA companies (well one actually) to do these gigs and will allways continue to as they have been fantastic, but im now doing some smaller gigs in some unusual venues, some of these are bars/restaurants where im just providing DJs, some are larger venues/restaurants where the PA isnt really sufficient when the usual capacity is doubled because of an act. Im a little reluctant to be paying out 100-200 quid on hire say on at least a monthly basis, one such venue is a 150 capacity bar with outdoor stage area where no PA exists at all, I could be providing acts DJs/Live to this venue every weekend next summer so I guess it may pay for itself...?. Also storage wouldnt be a problem my old man has got an empty shipping container I could blag. Thanks again Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
smalljoshua Posted October 22, 2009 Share Posted October 22, 2009 How about speaking to your hire company? Ask them to come to the venue, recommend a system and buy it through them. That way, you'll get advice from someone you (hopefully) know and trust, plus you'll have a known contact for if something needs sorting. Josh Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
j_b Posted October 23, 2009 Share Posted October 23, 2009 That's good advice - The hire company will quite likely get a better price that you can anyway, so they can add a small margin, and everyone wins. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
i_hate_fisicks Posted October 23, 2009 Share Posted October 23, 2009 If you can really hire a proffessional quality PA for £100-200 then I wouldn't even be considering buying one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
greenalien Posted October 23, 2009 Share Posted October 23, 2009 If you want a professional quality system, your current budget is woefully inadequate. For a compact but powerful system, suitable for venues between 100 and 1000 people, look at something like a Nexo PS15 / LS1200 speaker rig ( around £6000 including controller) plus a couple of quality 2kW** amplifiers (around £1500 each). Add in a monitoring system, mixer, cabling etc and you get no change out of £10K. Makes a £200 hire fee seem positively cheap! (** by 2kW, I mean an amp that will push 1kW rms per channel into 8 ohms, as that's what the PS15s need) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robin Pratt Posted October 23, 2009 Share Posted October 23, 2009 As everyone else has said, hire the PA to suit the size of the gig. If you feel the need to own some kit, then perhaps look at buying things like a selection of decent microphones, that you can use at all your events, regardless of how big your PA needs to be. £1000 will probably only buy a dozen reasonable quality mics anyway.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
surfershort Posted October 24, 2009 Author Share Posted October 24, 2009 :( Thanks everyone for your advice. I will now be sticking to hiring in sound. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rob_Beech Posted October 24, 2009 Share Posted October 24, 2009 It seems you've been gently persuaded in what is IMO the right direction. But I'll add a few things. Robin gives fantastic advice about microphones, buy some, maybe not all, but a selection that you can use. Even if its just a reasonable drum set and some vocal mics, anything extra you get you can just tag onto the hire. If you suddenly need a mic for a saxaphone a hire company won't be too bothered if they have to throw a suitable mic in the box when you get the PA from them, though if you need 20 mics from them, they're likely going to need to charge for that. Microphone stands would also go some way to helping, along with good quality mic cables. If you can get that bit purchased yourself it's a massive thing for a hire company to not have to bother with and may score you extra discount points. I'll give an example. If someone wants a complete small PA system from me (probably similar to what you want) then they're probably looking at the £150 mark for the evening on a dry hire basis if they pick it up and drop it off the next day etc, however, I have the speakers, amps, desks, multicores, etc to send 5 or 6 of these out per night, but NOT the mics and stands to do the same, I'm sure alot of companies are the same. So if you can get away without sending those bits out, you could halve the cost from myself and perhaps similar with others. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TimmyP1955 Posted October 26, 2009 Share Posted October 26, 2009 1000 pounds might buy a passable mic package, or a decent outboard package, or a decent snake & cables package, or a nice set of amp and processing racks (empty!), or a nice console case (empty). You should definitely hire out IMHO. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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