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Speakers, amps.

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#35349 by iownit4
Fri Jun 27, 2008 3:24 am
hey guys !! I have 2 mackie 808m 1200 watt heads , 2 yamaha 15in mains and 3 yamaha monitors all 8 0hms .. I was thinking on adding a 18in sub , how would I power it if I get a passive sub? could I use 1 of the mackie heads , also what do I run through the sub if I get one ,drums and bass ,if I get a powered sub do I need a seperate board or I hook it up to my spare mackie 808......

thanks rob

#35418 by Al -bass player looking 4
Sat Jun 28, 2008 2:23 pm
Hey Rob,
I'm not familiar with your Mackie heads, but unless they have a built in crossover, you might want to pick one up to get the most out of adding a sub.
Most active subs have a crossover built in and various signal routing methods can be done depending on what you buy. And oh yeah, they get expensive.
The way I run my passive subs is:
from mixing board>>to EQ>>to Crossover>>>to....

>>one amp for mains out of the mid-high output channel of the X-over >>>into 15" mains
>>one amp for sub out of the low output channel of the X-over >>>into 18" sub

I'm using a non-powered board though, not sure how you could run your
Mackies as they are powered mixers.
Hope that helps.

#37580 by Ken Hale
Wed Jul 30, 2008 8:43 pm
Why do you have 2 808m's? The truth is powered mixers are a pain in the ass and are not terribly versitile. Let's assume for now that you want to make this work and that you have 8 inputs or less. My suggestion would be to purchase a powered sub and run it off the monitor out or the line level main output. What ever you do don't connect it to the powered output. Unless that is you like the smell of fried electronics. You sould then get y cables for all of your inputs and use your second mixer as a monitor mixer only. As far as what to put into the sub just kick.

#40330 by Nile
Mon Sep 01, 2008 1:57 pm
Hi! Got to agree with a couple of points from previous replies. Firstly it sounds like your trying to make some sort of move from a handy dandy power mixer based P.A. into something with a bit more bottom end and running monitors. Sorry to disappoint but contrary to what the guys in the Music shops tell you your powered mixer isn't going to grow or evolve with you're needs.. You really need to look at investing in a good quality mixing desk thats not shackled by a flimsy internal amp. Something with a damn good eq on each channel and at least six Aux sends. Why? becuase running stage monitors requires good quality pre-fade aux sends (prefferably with an ability to solo the output). As for running your Subs. The usual way would be to take your Mix output from your desk and through a good quality 3.5 Octave Graphic EQ (Or simillar.... don't ponce around with those 5 band eq's ) this provides the "Room EQ" for the system. from the EQ you would then feed in to either a Speaker management system, such as an Omnidrive, DBX drive rack or I'm sure behringer may have a box full of cheap Hi-Fi grade components that might do a similar thing. From the Speaker management processor you would derive your feeds in to the amps driving your mid/hi P.A. cabinets and the feed to your amp powering your sub. The speaker management processor if set up correctly will take care of any signal crossover points and phasing/time allignment problems.

In the real world of pub gigs this is an expensive set up. So my advice would be to run your sub cabinets from a separate amplifier (and make it a damned good one the best you can buy even if you have to beg steal or borrow). That amplifier should then be fed from you mixer via a aux feed, processed through some sort of a croosover/eq. This basically sends the low frequency component of your signal into the amp driving your sub cabinets.

There is an advantage to this method in that by using the aux you only need send a signal into the "Sub speaker" thats utterly necessary. maybe a little bit of kick drum or bass guitar maybe keyboards.

The addition of subs on any kind of small to medium sized gig needs to be done sparingly. My own experience is that many bands just keep throwing speaker cabs at their P.A.'s hoping to get that loud arena sound... Sorry kids.... it doesn't work like that. You achieve more by understanding about microphone headroom and signal speaker quality as opposed to just buying lots of boxes with 400w written on the back!!! You'll have much better results buying the best quality items you can, look at what the pro's use..... not what your mate down the music shop can get you with his discount.
#51914 by Shokamo
Mon Jan 05, 2009 3:24 am
I would have to agree with Al. If you want any kind of control you have to consider, crossovers, equalization and then to the board, in order to get some kind of sound balance on your subs. As far as amplification is concern, a good rule of thumb is one amplifier per speaker, some may not agree with me on this but, I consider the cost of break down if your on the road touring or in a harsh environment, murphy's law applies. Keep your amplifiers in a rack. I prefer to have them near the stage, watch your cabling for health and safety purposes, don't forget to gaffa tape if you have too. Keep in mind the continous wattage application, I think you measure at 10 decibals to 1 watt. Ask a pro on this one. Good luck. I hope this helps. JP.

#52309 by domokunrox
Thu Jan 08, 2009 9:19 pm
I'm sorry to inform everyone who previously posted ideas and suggestions that your opinion isn't close to a professional standard from a FOH POV.

Why go through all this hassle and confusion when you can make it simple? You want a sub, but why? You want your Kick Drum to shake everyone balls and/or you want the bass guitar to have some more punch to it.

Get another amp for your sub and feed your amp via Aux send. This way, you get to choose what you want to send to your sub.

You don't need an powered sub. You only need an amp and the sub woofer.

Also, if you're on a powered mixer, get rid of that junk and get a suitable mixer.
#55303 by 72 svp
Sun Feb 01, 2009 1:16 pm
[quote="iownit4"]hey guys !! I have 2 mackie 808m 1200 watt heads , 2 yamaha 15in mains and 3 yamaha monitors all 8 0hms .. I was thinking on adding a 18in sub , how would I power it if I get a passive sub? could I use 1 of the mackie heads , also what do I run through the sub if I get one ,drums and bass ,if I get a powered sub do I need a seperate board or I hook it up to my spare mackie 808......

Hi I'm from the old school when there was old tech out there and you had to figure out how to put a system together because you did not have the money or the Tech was not there at the time. I have used a powered board but simply disconnected the amp inside it and was able to run as mamy power amps as I wanted. In alot of times those boards were very good and when the manufacture built them they had to short on somthing so they usually cheapend up on the amp to make it afordable. I run an EV system with two 15s and a horn cabinets and two 18 inch subs on the bottom. these are both passive systems but I run an electronic cross-over only on the 18s. this gives me only the very low sound where its more a feeling and since the human ear has a hard time hearing that low it hits you in the chest. The trick is to match yor speaker power with you power amps and even than you can peg the system if your not carefull. The rule is for every two main speakers you need 4 subs. I use two subs rated at 350 rms. Of course I would have a lot mor lowes if I had two nore but who wants to hual all that around.

#55359 by LKTraz
Sun Feb 01, 2009 5:42 pm
For what its worth......

From an old school perspective, if you want to have that bone crushing bass but retain quality mids and clear highs then the powered mixer bit is right out.

The best bet for a system to fit your wants would be a non-powered mixing board and tri-amping through a good crossover.

A decent 31 band EQ is pretty much requisite and compressor/limiter/gates are a nice addition but not necessary.

I run a CS-400 for the highs, CS-800 set at 50% for mid and CS-800 at full balls for the subs. All amps are run in bridge mode as for all practical purposes unless you're playing big stadiums, stereo mode is mostly useless.

I run a separate monitor amp setup.

With this setup I can cave chests in at outdoor gigs but still have nice clean mids and highs with no distortion. Its not necessarily more power or more cabinets, rather its the right combination of cabinets, power and sound shaping.

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