I’m pulling together a PA for mixed use, but basically for a very entry level band that will play small clubs. To afford a little more I’m talking to one of the guys about side work DJing parties/weddings. He’s done it before, has everything to interface with a system and a tremendous song library.
I’m confident that the system can give the band what it needs because we will be in the very small places. Probably overkill really. I’ll have 2 Mackie SA-1232 as our mains and a couple of Yamaha yamaha sm112v’s as our monitors with a Crown XLS 1000 amp pushing them. We use several tube amps for guitars and a dedicated 2-12 amp for the bass. We haven’t mic’d the drums or amps at all before. So, basically I’m running vocals through those massive powered mackies. Probably overkill.
Where I’m concerned is the bass availability for the DJ gig. The mackies are big enough to grow into for the band and supposedly have good low end, but I think I’d like to have an additional sub. I’m hoping that I can use the Crown XLS 1000 to push a passive sub (because they are less expensive). I’d really like to get just one, like a Yamaha SW118V, and push it with the Crown. At 8ohms, the crown only will put out 700W RMS. The sub is a 600W rating, but several reviews say you need at least 1200 to push it.
What do you think? Probably good enough for a low-end DJ gig, just don’t want to be completely disappointing. I really think the Mackie SA-1232’s will carry the load for most but that bass induced tingle might be missing…
Thanks for the advice. I’m not exactly local to Bill, so I took your advice and spoke to my local shops around Greenwood. They all said no problem with my setup, but there are so many reviews that say these subs need a lot of amp headroom. I just wonder if 100W is enough headroom to sound decent. They are rated for 600W, my amp has 700W brigded at 8ohms.
Thanks for the advice. I’m not exactly local to Bill, so I took your advice and spoke to my local shops around Greenwood. They all said no problem with my setup, but there are so many reviews that say these subs need a lot of amp headroom. I just wonder if 100W is enough headroom to sound decent. They are rated for 600W, my amp has 700W brigded at 8ohms.
Brian
BG
Buying new?
You may try looking for a used Sub & dedicated amp. I havent done live sound in about 10 years now, but even in small rooms I would always bring subs for the bands. You really need to mic the kick to make things sound good in most situations (and it can be done with a SM57 on a budget, if necessary). Having a sub takes alot of stress off the mains and makes everything last longer, IMHO. Thats an awfully small enclosure on the Yamaha, too.
I really wasn’t looking to make any changes to the band’s setup. We’re not missing too much for our size/crowd/style and besides, we kind of suck… We won an open mic night at one of the bigger places up here in Greenville and that gave most of the group the idea we should take it on the road. I’m sure our setup could be WAY better, but it’s fine for what we have going on.
I was really wondering about the sub for the DJ kind of role. I currently only have one amp, the Crown XLS 1000 that I use to push 2 monitors that are 12’s. It gets the job done w/o issue. I would not include the monitors in the DJ setup, but use the amp to push one 8ohm 18" sub to give the pop music a little more punch for the old women doing the electric slide. All of this stuff would be used stuff already. The sub that I’d pick up would be used and would hopefully get us to a point that is DJ-worthy. I don’t have enough funds associated with all of this to get a sub and another amp to include it in the band mix right now. Maybe after a few DJ gigs, I will.
Brian
Here’s a few pics of other bands at the location of our first gig, our stuff will be at least as powerful and clear as theirs:
I just bought a couple of 600w Alto powered speakers and a passive mixer for my daughter’s start up band (she’s 13). Anyway the Alto stuff is a very good value and they have a powered sub that’s very reasonable in price. I would give it a listen.
you could then run the mains off of the crown at 100 up and the powered sub will catch everything under 100. That will improve your headroom and SQ, esp when DJ’ing
