Google says: Press Association, Personal Assistant, Penny Arcade, Pennsylvania

December 15, 2006 3:00 AM

Need to put together a PA for a music venue

It looks like I'm now responsible for putting together a PA for a 100-150 person live music venue.

Problem is, I don't have a clue, and I suspect that this area is going to have about as much FUD, hype and faux experts as high-end home equipment. I don't want to buy the equivalent of green CD pens and oxygen-free cables.

So, the questions are:

a) what do I need, and why?
b) what would be nice to have?
c) is there anything else I need to know?
d) which internet sources are trustworthy?

posted by Leon to media & arts (11 comments total)

Check out Musician's Friend for complete PA packages. The reviews are worthy, and you can't beat the prices....
posted by peewinkle at 3:30 AM on December 15, 2006

Is this a permanent installation? Is it going to be mainly live rock music or Jazz performed? Maybe a place like Guitar Center or SamAsh can help you out. They usually have a live sound department. If you don't know what you are doing, you will want to get a professional involved. Maybe ask at another club in town who set up their system. Hire that person as a consultant.

in random order....

You'll need to know what kind of mixing console to get. 16 input? 24-input? More? If the sound engineer is mixing monitors at the board, the mixers should have the capability to send signal out to multiple monitor channels. Count on using 4-8 mics on drums alone, depending on musical style


You'll also need a snake with enough channels in it to accommodate on-stage mics and line mixers going to the mixer at front of house, as well as returns for on-stage monitors. It is very important to lay the snake along a path where it won't make a lot of contact with dancing feet and spilled beer. It is expensive and all your audio signal will be passing through it. Perhaps in a conduit tray along the wall and ceiling. Or under the floor to the mixer if possible.

You'll need...
Mics (dynamic, durable..Shure, AKG, ), Mic stands (short ones, tall ones), Mic clips, Mic (XLR) cables, DI boxes, Monitors, Power cables, Power strips, Speaker cables, Speaker stands. Agin this all depends on what kind of music will be performed in this venue.

Speakers: 100-150 doesn't sound like too big of a place so you don't need a super banging system but it will have to have enough bass for when you have DJs. I'm not sure what wattage and ohms you'll want to get though.

Power: It is very important to have a properly grounded, sufficient and safe electricity supply. This will help avoid unwanted and sometimes hard to eliminate hum from poorly grounded or hooked-up audio equipment. Make sure the fuse box can handle it. Don't forget to put the lighting system on a separate circuit.

In live sound reinforcement, clubs anyway, you don't really want super high end stuff because you'll have drunk/high musicians on stage getting wild, spilling beer and oozing sweat. It is important that it is durable because when they set up and strike they will be banging boxes and cases into your equipment.

Nice things to have for your sound mixer guy or gal:
External effects units with reverb and delay.
Compressors/Gates for vocals/drums/bass
DAT/Cassette/CD Player for music between sets and rappers.
Everything rackmounted in cases with the backs of the gear still easily accessible. This will help your engineer be able to easily and quickly swap cables and solve other problems on the fly. This is also helpful because at the end of the night you can pack up the racked gear and stow it in a closet so it doesn't get stolen.

That reminds me. Another nice to have ..... cases or a closet to store all this stuff in when it is not in use. These kinds of equipment have a funny way of disappearing.

This are just some things to think about.
posted by chillmost at 4:20 AM on December 15, 2006 [1 favorite]

Chillmost's list is an excellent summary and list to keep in mind while looking around for places to buy.

When I did sound and tech for my university '03-'06, I used sites like music123.com and zzounds.com to buy and read reviews of live sound products. (Ooo sorry, that sounds like I work for these companies... I don't.) We were in rural Iowa, so there wasn't really any decently-priced music-related stores in our neck of the woods.

Another option for purchasing would be Craigslist or classifieds. Usually this stuff is built to last, and if you're on a tight budget some of the pieces can be bought used for prices significantly lower than new while not sacrificing quality.

I'd like to reiterate that you make sure your storage location is somewhere very near to your stage. The first few setups and teardowns with a distant storage location will be fine, but lugging/rolling/pushing/scraping your equipment to your storage room will get old real fast.
posted by yellowbkpk at 5:27 AM on December 15, 2006

chillmost: excellent stuff, thanks.

We're aiming at live music, I doubt we're going to see too many DJs.

Lets pretend we don't have a sound engineer, and bands are going to be setting up their own sound. How do we minimise the inevitable grief there?

Is there any way the amount of equipment can be minimised by doing some steps in software?
posted by Leon at 5:29 AM on December 15, 2006

Ahh, after posting it would appear that you are on the right side of the pond.

None of the sites that I gave you will ship to the UK for cheap, I don't think, so keep that in mind.
posted by yellowbkpk at 5:30 AM on December 15, 2006

Leon, to minimize the grief with musicians setting up their own sound, you'll want to make sure that whenever you get a contract with a musician, you ask that they come a little bit earlier than usual. Most of the contracts/riders I've seen will only specify a load-in and sound check time, which might not allow for a nice, easy sound setup. More time = less grief was my observation.

Also, having people (employees? volunteers?) who are not the band around willing to help on the day of the concert is helpful, too.

I don't know of a piece of software that will help with live sound (other than an MP3 player to play house music during set changes, etc.). Usually sound engineers/musicians want the hardware because they can reconfigure it to whatever they'd like by just swapping some patch cables around quickly.

I would imagine that all of the stuff that chillmost mentioned could fit in two or three (roughly) 30" rack mount cases.
posted by yellowbkpk at 5:38 AM on December 15, 2006

For powering the speakers I forgot amplifiers and crossovers. Full-range or bi-amped?

Don't forget bass cabinets as well.

If you are installing the system, now is a good time to learn all about soldering, what cables do what, connectors, speaker wattage and impedance, frequency range, phase cancellation, and "ringing out a room".

Also this and this.
posted by chillmost at 5:40 AM on December 15, 2006

I would recommend against not having your own house-engineer. Well, you should at least have somebody who mixes for you regularly and/or at least knows what is going on. He's the guy that will know the room best after a short while. He will also be the guy that knows that channel 12 on the mixer is a little wiggy so don't use it. He knows the room, he knows the equipment. If another band wants to use their own engineer, that is fine and their guy will appreciate having somebody on-site that can help with questions and problems (Uh, hey dude? Channel 12 doesn't seem to be working.)

It doesn't have to be a full time job. Plenty of University students or old rockers with experience would be glad to have a little extra money doing the sound at "Da Club". Just be sure it is someone with experience, not an idiot or junkie and someone you trust. Like I said earlier, some of the equipment has a funny way of disappearing.
posted by chillmost at 5:56 AM on December 15, 2006

btw PA stands for Public Address. also, if you use the popular mackies and are playing music with lots of bass, get battery-powered clip-on fans to keep the heatsinks cooled. otherwise they overheat too frequently and the sound cuts out.
posted by Señor Pantalones at 8:10 AM on December 15, 2006

As a musician who plays clubs about that size, let me second having someone around to run the sound board. You don't want us fooling with your expensive equipment, and you're going to need someone to hustle people on and off stage anyway or things will never stay on schedule.

If you're going to be booking high end acts you should have a system that will allow you to mic everything and mix it through the PA, and you will need a pro there every night to run it. Chillmost has it covered there.

If not, you can get by with a system that will let you mic the drums and vocals but not the instrument amps. These are usually loud enough to fill the room (often too loud, don't be afraid to tell us to turn down!) so they don't need to be mic'd. You could probably get by with an 8 channel powered mixer with a separate montitor output. It sucks to play without monitors because you can't hear the vocals onstage, so try to include monitors if at all possible.

My singer has this system-- we've used it for shows a few times and it has worked out OK.
posted by InfidelZombie at 9:47 AM on December 15, 2006

You'll want to bi-amp the system, with dedicated subs and high end speakers.

I recommend miking everything, because it gives the soundguy alot more control.

You'll want more power than you think you'll need in both the PA and the monitors, and bigger poweramps don'tt tend to cost that much more.

I'd recommend racks of power amps and seperate speakers, rather than powered speakers, for upgrade/replaceablitly down the line.

But generally +1 to most of the info above.
posted by chrispy108 at 5:26 PM on December 16, 2006