Live Performance... PA?

laughing_bear · Post by **laughing_bear** » Thu Jun 05, 2008 7:12 am

Greetings,

any recommendations for a small but really powerful live PA system to drive a few keyboards and soft synthts?

What do you use and at what costs?

Diego · Post by **Diego** » Thu Jun 05, 2008 9:20 am

Hi!

I've used mainly 3 PA systems:
- Montabo (which ensures great power at great audio quality)
- Mackie (good compromise price/performance ratio)
- Bose

I must say that the last Bose live sound system (L1) really amazed me...But I think it depends where you plan to use it.

Regards

Stephen · Post by **Stephen** » Thu Jun 05, 2008 12:06 pm

Diego wrote: I think it depends where you plan to use it.
Regards

Yes indeed!
I use two Behringer B212A Powered speakers, for my keyboards, which are also patched into the Front of House mixer, and they totally rock.
we've used them for small parties where our large system, of 2 EAW- 15" 2 way, and 2 Peavy 18" Subs are just too much, and they still rock, they've also taken a good deal of abuse in our trailer, and held up nicely, so I'd recommend them, especially at $229.00 ea.
http://www.zzounds.com/item--BEHB212A
HTH

RVNOak · Post by **RVNOak** » Thu Jun 05, 2008 1:37 pm

We are fan of Mackies. Their newer powered z speakers are powerful and sound incredible. They are a bit pricy but these are nice!!

http://www.musiciansfriend.com/product/ ... sku=605274

http://www.musiciansfriend.com/product/ ... sku=600507

For almost half the price, my wife and I have been looking at purchasing these. We are still researching our options but these have been on our list as a definate possibility:

http://www.musiciansfriend.com/product/ ... sku=600419

http://www.musiciansfriend.com/product/ ... sku=600424

Maybe GregC could chime in on this one. I have sent him a ton of private messages on this forum and other forums about PA's. He has educated us pretty well over the years

!!

Stephen · Post by **Stephen** » Thu Jun 05, 2008 10:20 pm

The Mackie speakers are definitely good.
The JBLs however, did not impress me for the price they were asking.
Just FYI.

JonSolo · Post by **JonSolo** » Fri Jun 06, 2008 12:24 am

For my mixer I use a Behringer Europower PMH3000 into a PMP5000 which is great to drive my two Kustom KPC215H each with dual 15" speakers and horns. Since they act like subs because the low end is so rich I throw two Yamaha S115Vs on stands to give me superb high ends.

My keyboards mix through the PMH3000 which mains out into the PMP which includes 4 vocalists, snare, and guitar in the mix.

We have two subs independent for our bass and kick drum.

We paid under $1700 for the entire setup.

You could do it with the PMH3000 and the a single 15" Kustom pair for under $700 though MF.

Jon

RVNOak · Post by **RVNOak** » Fri Jun 06, 2008 3:10 am

Stephen wrote:The Mackie speakers are definitely good.
The JBLs however, did not impress me for the price they were asking.
Just FYI.

I pretty much hate JBL - We have been looking at the overall specs for this line and thought it was worth a look. Problem is, we can't just walk into a music store with our setup and just put on a three song show to try them out. Have you tried them Stephen? I'm seriously curious to see if JBL is coming up or not and even more curious after looking at what I could at these speakers.

laughing_bear · Post by **laughing_bear** » Fri Jun 06, 2008 5:39 am

Hi Folks

Thanks for chiming in here!

Few things, I do not buy any Behringer product as a matter of principle, I do not support their constant infringement strategy, some may call it frankly theft. Thanks anyways.

I have JBL LSR speaker as nearfields since years, very happy with them, and I know thier PA stuff to be very good, but also expensive.

I forgot to say what it is for. I intend to use it on local exhibition openings, this can be quite large rooms, but not always, so I need some flexibility.

@ Diego, yeah, I was looking towards these as well. what L1 version do you have? Modell II with the ToneMatch Engine? What bass module do you use with it? Looks intruiging and very portable.

On another note concerning live performance, does anyone here use Muse Receptor with Kontakt 3 by any chance?

What I wonder about is this; What is the difference to a normal Computer, say a Macbook Pro ( which would give me 4 Gig Ram instead of 2Gig) why would a Receptor be more stable?

I would like to drive Kontakt and Spectrasonic Synths from such a system.

Diego · Post by **Diego** » Fri Jun 06, 2008 8:12 am

Hi Bear!

No, I don't have any PA system by myself; when I play live I generally find the PA on-site, so I play with what I've at my disposal...
With my previous band, I used a Mackie PA system, which I found not much powerfull but with nice quality.
I just played once in Milan with Bose L1 system, but can't remember if it had this feature, sorry.

Regards

laughing_bear · Post by **laughing_bear** » Fri Jun 06, 2008 11:41 am

I am getting a L1 ModellII and ToneMatch to try out.

Marc · Post by **Marc** » Fri Jun 06, 2008 3:59 pm

If it is just you and a small to midsize venue then the Bose is a good choice.

If you're looking for more then you need to think about speakers and subs.

I tested, side-by-side, the Mackie, JBL, and QSC.

I did not like the Mackie speakers at all. Very midrange speaker and the stereo field was just OK. The Z series is definately better then the 450s.

The JBL was a bit better but you had to look at the higher end line as the G series didn't cut it either -- it was also midrange dominant with slightly better highs then then Mackie.

I liked the QSC speakers the best. Great sound that blew away the others. The issue was budget prevented me from getting the 122 and dual subwoofer combination (nearly $4K) so I got the 152 instead (under $2K). Really great speakers. The only drawback is they are heavy at 100 pounds each. We run them through a Mackie 16 channel mixer and get great results for small to mid-sized venues.

I have an audiophile setup in my home theatre and have several reference CDs so I can really take a test drive on music listening. At the end I decided the sound was most important and chose that over portability.

For large venues we tap into the house and I bring my 300W keyboard amp. If I wasn't playing with two other guitarists and bass and drums I would probably go the Bose route but I have to compete with them. Fortunately 300W lets me go to 12 or 13 to keep them honest.

My suggestion is always to prioritize your decision criteria to guide the way, so reorder these as you see fit:

- Sound
- Price
- Portability
- Flexability
- Reliability
- Expandability

Hope this helps,

Marc

laughing_bear · Post by **laughing_bear** » Fri Jun 06, 2008 3:59 pm

Another question come to mind....

Please keep in mind that I never performed live other than on a Steinway.

If I understand that correct, as a keyboarder, there is no sense in blasting out a stero signal into a crowd, so it is mono.

But what happens to those nice sounds that pan left and right from my Korgs in a mono situation, would that not sound pretty crap?

Bose is quite helpful, one phonecall and they send a system, very kewl!

Stephen · Post by **Stephen** » Fri Jun 06, 2008 5:24 pm

Have you tried them Stephen? I'm seriously curious to see if JBL is coming up or not and even more curious after looking at what I could at these speakers.

We did an in store A-B comparison of the EAW 15 " 2 way cab, (we ended up buying, and loving to death), and a pair of similar JBLs with similar specs, and the JBLs sounded very honky, and thin in comparison. Even the Peavy speaker we listened to sounded better than the JBLs, and I was a big fan of JBL back in my audiophile days.
I also use a Behringer mixer, Headphone amp, DSP 9024 mainframe processor, V-Amp-2, and about a half dozen other products from Behringer.
I try to avoid overpriced merchandise like Mackie for example.
Oh...and I drive a Honda,

Go figure huh!?
To each his own.

batninja · Post by **batninja** » Fri Jul 11, 2008 4:36 pm

Personally, I'm going the 'passive' route, using a separate amp to drive the cabs. My amp is mounted in the rack, so there's only one set of cabling going out to the cabinets (signal), as opposed to both signal AND power.

But I'm on the fence concerning the use of standard cabinets versus wedge-style monitors. I do an equal number of gigs standing up and sitting down, in mostly small to medium venues. I'm leaning towards the Yamaha S112V/S115V series, though.

Beyond that, I'm going with the Behringer RX1202FX mixer into the American Audio VLP-300 amplifier.

Thoughts?

RVNOak · Post by **RVNOak** » Sat Jul 19, 2008 4:21 pm

Yeah, update:

The JBL's sucked. We listened to the QSC's and they were definately better in all aspects except SPL. Yes, they made Mackie seem sort of muddy. The QSC's were nice. We also tried Electro Voice and the models they had (I can't remember right now) were right up there with the QSC's.

Now we are in sound purgatory trying to decide which is best