Musician Gear & Tech Discussion

me and the band will need some gear.all we got are mics,guitar bass guitars,keyboards,drums and the amps and speakers. but we need like a PA system and a mixer.

me and the band will need some gear.all we got are mics,guitar bass guitars,keyboards,drums and the amps and speakers. but we need like a PA system and a mixer.

How much money ya got, I'll put one together for ya.

I've got five bucks. What kind of PA can I get?

Kinda like the first time I went to the big city. I was walking along and this woman comes up to me and says, "For fifty bucks, I'll do anything you want."
Not knowing what a hooker was I said, "Ok, here's fifty bucks. Paint my house."

I've got five bucks. What kind of PA can I get?

I can get you a 1968 klipsch la scala manual, a couple of pages might be missing

PA's can get expensive in a hurry. My advise to you is do your research and don't buy one because the salesman tells you to. I have wasted 10's of thousands of $ buying gear. Always spend the extra money to get top notch gear because if you don't you will just be selling it later for less than 1/2 what you paid for it only to turn around and pay full price for what you should have bought in the beginning. My advise if you are good with computers and can understand technical manules well, get a Yamaha digital mixer it has the compressors and all the outboard gear included they sell for $1999.00 but you will not have to buy anything else except a DBX Driverack PA and some of the newer powered speakers have the processors built in, you will also need quality cables. Once you get everything set up this is an extreemly easy system to run and you can get this system for around $7500.00 to $10,000.00 I have twice that in mine and if I had it to do all over again I would do it this way.

Oh I forgot you will need a monitor system also, the Carvin in ear systems are best they are priced right. The only thing is you have to buy your earbuds I paid $80.00 for mine, mutidrivers they are the same as shure E5's just not as compact. I have been using these same earbuds for 2 years I purchased them online. you will also need a reciever pack for each musician. I am using the Carvin PSM 1001 monitor system I have had it for 5 years and it still works great.

Check out venues the size you expect to play, and see what the bands coming in there are using if they sound good. Ask about their PA when they take a break. Find out how much power they are running, how many channels they use, if any certain equipment has given them problems in the past, their favorite brand. Do a lot of research before making up your mind.
Here's a recommendation for starting out good but inexpensive:
Mixer - http://www.billsmusiconline.com/yapmg166cx.html $399 ($30 cheaper than Musicians Friend ttp://pro-audio.musiciansfriend.com/pro ... sku=630257)
EQ - http://pro-audio.musiciansfriend.com/pr ... ku=180124V $99
Power amps - http://pro-audio.musiciansfriend.com/pr ... sku=483052 $400
Mains - http://pro-audio.musiciansfriend.com/pr ... sku=605100 $300 ea.
Monitors - http://pro-audio.musiciansfriend.com/pr ... sku=600818 $120 ea.
Subs - http://pro-audio.musiciansfriend.com/pr ... sku=606064 $360 ea.

Start out with 16 channel Yamaha mixer with built in effects $400
Tapco dual 31 band eq. $99
Tapco Power amp (750 watts for mains and 750 watts for monitors) $400
Two B52 dual 15 main cabs $600
Three Kustom 12 monitors $360
And there you have a good starting PA for less than $2000 not counting Mics, cables, mic stands etc.
Later add another power amp and the subs for $1120 and you've got a nice system that would handle almost any venue you would need to supply the PA for. (anything this won't handle will be big enough, they'd have a professional system)

Anyway, this was just a fun little search to get you headed in the right direction and show what you're looking at price wise. I'm sure many other BMixers will have comparable ideas with maybe better prices.
Yamaha is great gear with clean sound
Tapco is designed by Bob Mackie of Mackie Speakers
B52's are a good name brand
Kustom seems to be making a comeback by making good gear at low prices.
Any equipment I listed here that I haven't actually used, I read the reviews and they were all good.

i don't have any money at all some asshole stole my money

Find him and steal it back!

You'll notice most new amps have a single input channel and have channel switching buttons, whereas older amps had two separate channels. Back in the day, if your amp had two channels, you bought a mic (with 1/4 inch plug) and used one of your amp channels for your guitar and the other for the mic. Hell, none of us could afford a PA back then, but it got us by.

well i do have a nice job and i make alot of money.so i should be able to get all the PA gear we need.

My son recently started singing.

I bought a little Behringer 10 Channel powered mixer from GC for $350, our band had some old Peavey 1542 monitors that I paired it with. I think I priced out a simple system in another thread a few weeks ago. A nice basic system with mics and cords will run you in the neighborhood of $1500.

Mixer, 2 speakers, 4 mics, and cords

I watch Craigs list in my area all the time and every now and then a small pa system will pop up for around $1000.

My band has a system that would cost close to $20,000 to replace, weve accumulated this gear over a 20 yr period.

My recomendation is to buy a small system to practice with and then just rent a system til you know you are in this business for the long haul.

your son can sing?Thats what i can do in my band

What are you leaning on?

your son can sing?Thats what i can do in my band