live band equip. question

[marik]

my question is this.

to rehearse as a live band, what kind/powerful type of amp do you need? a) for guitar b) for vocal mic.

also, if you were to play a gig, in say, a club or bar type room. what type of equipment is required.

i don't know much about it at all, but if someone could explain how powerful of amps you need, and how a PA system plays into the mix, that would be wonderful.
thanks.

 

[gragravar]

Rehearsals tend to be held in small spaces where the listeners (the band) are standing right next to the amplifiers so huge volume is not required. In terms of guitar amps, almost anything over about 25W would do the trick. You?d probably want 50w for a bass amp though. A basic rehearsal PA system for vocals only need not be more than a couple of hundred watts at most and feature a 12 inch speaker plus horn on either side. You'll find numerous examples of this sort of system on www.musiciansfriend.com and a million other sites of that sort. Playing live to an audience is a different matter: the PA system needs to be capable of amplifying the entire band, which will include hard to amplify signals like kick drum and low bass, as well as providing clean monitoring for the musicians so you?d really want a power amp(s) with 2000w out front and around half that for onstage monitoring. Speakers for this set-up might include one or two 18 inch subs, a pair of 15? inch mid range speakers and a high frequency horn on each side, with a monitor for each member of the band and two for the singer. You'd also need a mixing desk with 16 or more channels, various effects units such as delay, reverb and so on. Most clubs worth the trouble of playing will have their own PA system and it's a real pain to lug around and store so don?t buy it unless you really must.

Six string guitar creates sound in a range that is relatively easy for amplifiers and speakers to reproduce so a little power goes a long way. Any decent combo rated at 50w or 60w will be plenty loud enough for both live shows and rehearsal. Actually there are quite a few lower powered combos that would do the trick too. Remember that at live shows guitar amplifiers are normally fed into the main PA system via a microphone or DI so the volume is really only for onstage monitoring and in fact sound engineers would rather you keep the volume down on stage so that they have better control over the front of house sound. Stacks of Marshalls look neat on stage but even Eddie Van Halen only had one or two of them actually running. Bass on the other hand is much harder for amplifiers and speakers to reproduce cleanly at volume so I?d recommend at least 200w for a bass player?s amp. There?s a thread about this subject on this very forum entitled ?What is the best wattage for a small bass amp? or something like that which goes into quite a lot of detail. Obviously you can use your main guitar gear for rehearsals, just turn it down. I suppose you could have separate amplifiers for rehearsals and live shows but I think you?d be better off spending the money on one good amplifier that will do both.

Hope that helps, ask if I?ve left anything out.

 

[marik]

hey, thanks! you sure do know your stuff.
i need to clear up two things though.

1. "Any decent combo rated at 50w or 60w will be plenty loud enough for both live shows and rehearsal" -What is a 'combo' ?

2. "at live shows guitar amplifiers are normally fed into the main PA system via a microphone or DI" - could you explain this a little more to me? does this mean a mic is set up right next to the guitar amp?

thanks alot, i'm really ignorant about all this stuff.

 

[gragravar]

Combo = amplifier with speaker built in, as opposed to a separate amplifier head and speaker cabinet. An example would be a Vox AC30 or Fender Champ. Generally a bit cheaper than two separate components and far easier to move around.

Yes, guitar amps are normally amplified by placing a mic in front of the speaker cab; the mic is connected to the PA system. Bass amplifiers are usually connected to the system via a standard XLR socket and cable (this is known as DI'ing, which I have always assumed stands for Direct Input or something similar) though a few engineers will mic it instead and yet others will do both. As long as it works...

Glad to be of help. Ask if any other questions occur to you.

 

[marik]

gragravar, what about vocals for a rehearsal? assuming that any club would have a PA to use, what does a band use for vocals at a rehearsal if they don't have access to a PA? can you plug a microphone into any type of amp? a guitar amp? etc. or are there special mic amps? what would most bands do in this rehearsal situation?
thanks.

 

[gragravar]

I have never been to a rehearsal space in any Western country in almost 30 years of playing that doesn't have a little PA system already set up there along with a couple of guitar amps, crappy drum kit, mics etc., e.g. everything you need bar guitars and talent. There must be half decent rehearsal facilities in a relatively big city like Edmonton (that's where you are, right?) This is where most bands go for rehearsals, that's where I go anyway. Ring around until you find a rehearsal studio that does all of the above. Price is probably around $15 Can an hour. There's nothing to stop you plugging a mic into a guitar amp if you want but it probably won't sound very good, guitar amps are meant to reproduce guitars as a rule. You should really try to use a dedicated PA system for voices, which are the hardest part of any mix to reproduce accurately, you don't want to be trying to overcome someone's too-loud guitar on the same channel all the time. If you're going to set up your garage as a rehearsal space then I'd buy a little PA system with at least 4 inputs and two little speakers on stands or similar. Have a look at the Peavey and Fender websites, they both do little PA systems for very small rooms that might meet your requirements. This sort of system is for vocals only really, you could of course plug a bass guitar into it but it would probably wreck the speakers if you did it often enough. Or go to www.ebay.com and browse for PA system. Here's the first one I found: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3702187075&category=3278

Obviously you couldn't do a gig with this stuff, it's simply too underpowered, but this would be OK for a garage or something similar. I'd suggest around 200w would be the kind of power you'd want.

Ok, gotta go, got a show to play! Go Elevation Canada!!!

 

[marik]

wow, you are in elevation canada! did you guys play that GTA gathering in toronto back in nov? i'm pretty sure that was you guys, (unless there's a different tribute band called "elevation") you guys rawk!
i hope you last show went well.

another question. a bunch of friends want to get together to start a band, we'd just been meeting in a garage, or basement. or something. we don't want to rent out a rehearsal space just yet. is there someway to do vocals with having a mini-PA?

i mean this probably the equivelant of the boys meeting in larry's kitchen. what would u2 have used for those first few jams when they started doing vocals? i'm talking before you use a pa system, when you are just basically starting out, what could bands do for vocals?
thanks.

 

[gragravar]

Yes, that's me/us who did that show. I'm the bass player by the way. Thanks for the compliment! Friday night went pretty well, thanks for asking.

Regarding the PA system issue, I suppose you could simply plug the mic into the second channel on someone's guitar amp and see if that works. If not, you could try a separate combo I suppose, but you'd still have to buy that from somewhere too of course, so perhaps you should all put $100 in a hat and buy a small, second hand PA system. I know you want to avoid this but if the idea of spending money on music equipment is off-putting, take up stamp collecting instead because being a musician in a working rock band costs lots of money, at least it does me anyway. Stuff gets lost or damaged all the time too....arrrrgh! By the way, I'd recommend a Shure SM58 for the vocalist, it's a great mic, doesn't cost a fortune and rejects feedback pretty well, and feedback is going to be a problem if you must use a guitar amp for vocals in a very small room... Hope that helps!

 

[marik]

gragravar, your advice is valueble to me, so i pose another question,.
i ran into a friend of a friend and mentained what i've been contemplating regarding this topic, and he (in a lil' garage band) said that they use a mic, into a mic pre amp, into a guitar amp, for their vocals at practise sessions. i thought i'd ask you what you thought of this method since you are the professional.
thanks, once again.

 

[gragravar]

OK, you've got me there... that method might work out alright and I can't think of any reason why it shouldn't work at least a little... but I've never tried it so can't really add anything to the above. The worst that will happen is that it doesn't work very well so why not give it a whirl?

Elevation Canada doesn't pay enough to allow me to call myself a professional musician... I wish it did.

 

[marik]

ATT: gragravar,

one more question for you buddy. i was wondering about guitar amps. how many watts would be needed in an amp for a full band rehearsal session? also, in the situation of doing vocals through a guitar amp, how many watts would be needed for the vocals to not be drowned out?
thanks

 

[gragravar]

The wattage of an amp is an indication of how loud it is but this can be misleading, some amps rated at 30w sound a whole lot louder than others rated at 50w or whatever for many possible reasons including the level of input into the amp, efficiency of the speaker and amp and the style of the player. I think I said in my first post that in a rehearsal situation I couldn't see how you'd really need more than say 25w or so since you don't need earth-shattering volume or great projection from the amp/cab, it's for your use only, though of course much depends on the style of music you're playing, if you're a metalhead nothing less than 100w will do etc. On reflection I think I'd revise that figure to 40w. You probably wouldn't play any louder in terms of actual decibel level but you wouldn't have to run the amp flat out to reach the required volume. This assumes you're buying a decent amplifier in the first place of course. Vocals need to be nice and clear, I've never tried to plug a microphone into a guitar amp so I have no idea how that would work out but I'd speculate that you'd want to have twice as much wattage on the voice as any one of the guitars. If the vocalist has to scream to be heard all the time then the rehearsal is going to be pretty short.