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I'm trying to get a band going with a drummer and a singer, and I'll be playing bass. We want to start auditioning guitarists soon. We've got no PA, and unfortunately, none of us have much PA experience. The PA only needs to handle vocals, and be loud enough to play small/medium sized venues. We'll be playing the standard cover band rock/pop stuff.

So, I've been taking a crash-course in PA's, trying to figure out how much money we need to pool together. We don't care if it's used or new, but used would obviously be cheaper. I'm leaning towards simple - powered mixer with two speakers, and two monitors (for now).

Are there any brands to avoid? I seem to remember hearing OK things about Behringer PA's? I generally like Peavey stuff for it's value, but are they reliable?

Man.. I don't even know how many watts we need? 200? 300?

A lot of powered mixers seem to have only a line out for monitors.. do any come with powered outs for monitors? Or would it be better to go with self-contained powered monitors?

I feel like I'm in over my head here.. lol.. so any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

We use a Behringer PMP4000 powered mixer - it's 8 xlr inputs and 1600 watts. Sounds pretty good, no complaints so far. We scored an open box deal at guitar center right after a gig; it was only $250 or something.

Most of the smaller venues around here that have their own sound reinforcement use a passive mixer with powered speakers; which messes with us because when we want to add monitors, we have to bring our mixer to power our monitors. It seems like most places are going the powered speaker approach, so you might consider that. Just played a bar that had a Mackie passive mixer with powered JBLs. It sounded nice. There's a bluegrass guy in town who has that $4k QSC powered speaker package. It sounds insane.

I'd stay far away from powered mixers as I've had terrible luck with them. My band has now been through three behringer powered mixers, two of them being warranty replacements, in just this year. So reliability is very lacking there. Behringer does give you a lot of bang for your buck - their gear has some features that can't be found on anything in that price range. If you must go the powered mixer route I'd look at the Carvin stuff too.

My advice would be to get a pair of powered speakers on sticks and a nice mixer. It might cost you a bit more but in my world I like to buy once and buy right. I'm slowly putting together a system like this for wedding gigs and it is working out much better than a powered mixer ever has.

How much power you need really depends on a couple things what you are going to use it for and how loud your drummer is. With a normal (whatever that means ) drummer and just pushing vocals at rehearsal you should be able to get a good sound with 200-300 watts. For a live rock show I believe the rule of thumb is somewhere around 10w per person in the venue so depending on what size places you play 300 watts might not cut it.

The behringer PMP6000 powered mixer we are currently running has two power amps and can be ran so one pushes the mains and the other pushes the monitors. But again I'd go back to the powered speakers for monitors too .

Another vote for powered speakers. In my acoustic duo, we use a Mackie 1202VLZ and two powered Behringer speakers. For cafes, we use one for the house and one for a monitor, but for bigger rooms, it's easy enough to get a second pair of powered speakers and run separate mains and monitors.

Hmm... passive mixer with powered speakers does sound interesting. Seems like this type of system would be "scalable" later on if need be? Like, a passive mixer could later be used with a larger amp, whereas with a powered mixer, you're kinda stuck with the amp that's built in there, to an extent. You could always use the direct line out of the powered mixer to a larger amp, though, right? And the powered speakers could be used as monitors.

Man, there's a lot to learn here with PA's. Thanks for your input so far, guys.

I've got this big full on hard on for Midas and Soundcraft. because that's what we got at work. Probably a bit out of your price range though.

I fail to see why you even need a PA system. Are there so many gigs out there were you have none? Seeing as it is a big investment only buy one if you got a lot of shows lining up, that way you can earn it back and offer to play for less money then you would if you had to rent one each time. If you don't got a lot of gigs lining up, tell the venue you'll cost X amount for a fee plus Y amount for the rental of a PA. Unless they rent a PA themselves, in which case you'll cost X. If you don't do a lot of gigs and are still dead set on getting a PA, try finding another band who wants the same and buy one together. Less costs per band + you can now offer to do package deals.

I still think you should look into renting a PA because unless you guys are willing to pay for a PA system out of your own pockets you still need to earn it back, so your asking price would still have to be band fee + depreciation of your PA.

Yeah - I'm gonna recommend the rental thing as well for gigs. Of course you'll still need something for practice, but you shouldn't need much in a practice space.

Renting versus buying for a larger (gigging) PA makes sense for a number of reasons: 1) you'd have to play a TON of shows to make buying one worthwhile (I don't imagine a place with no PA would pay the band very well), 2) no maintenance and 3) you'll get to try out different setups as you rent them and learn what really works for you and your preferences. Plus (number 4) if the band braks up, nobody is stuck with an expensive PA lying dormant in their basement.

Furthermore, yeah, where are you playing that doesn't have a PA? That's only happened to me once, and a band as bad as mine plays only the crappiest of crappiest joints!! But - even if they don't have a PA, if you're just starting out you'll likely be on a ticket with other bands, and one of those bands may have a PA or you can all go in together on a rental if need be.

To answer you other questions - brands to avoid: BEHRINGER. Peavey PA stuff seems just as solid as all of their other stuff. You can find Yorkville PA stuff for cheap all the time, and it's decent stuff that takes a beating. As for setup, I don't know why it has to be powered mixer versus powered speakers ... I like passive speakers and passive mixer, with power amps so I can configure things any old way I please. It's all very modular that way, too. But then I've never been accused of having good ears ...

Must be a regional thing.. none of the bars around here have their own PA's. And none of them pay very well either, lol.. or so I've heard. Which doesn't matter, because we're only doing this for fun. These are generally restaurant/bar type places, in the suburbs, and they only book cover bands (one band per night). They just want people to have fun & DRINK. There are a couple of places in New Haven that are for original music, 2 or 3 acts per night, and they have their own PA's. We won't be playing those places.

We're talking small venues here, so a big PA isn't needed (read: we don't need to spend a lot of money). We won't be micing the amps, or the drums (except maybe the kick?).. we just need it for vocals.

I suppose rental is an option, but we need something for rehersal (in the drummer's basement) anyway, so we'd just rather have our own small system. On the one hand, we don't want to spend a lot of money, but on the other, we don't mind laying out some cash for something decent. The thought of going in on a system with another band and sharing just makes me cringe. No way I want to deal with who is using it when, who broke it, etc. The drummer would actually like to just own it himself, because he's sick of not having one. I might help him pay for it up front, but he wants to pay me back so that it's just his system. Fine by me.

edit: at the moment, I'm trying to see if I can put something together for around $800, just to give you an idea of the types of sytems we're looking at. Anything with separate passive mixer & power amp is probably out of our bugdet, maybe.. I'm still figuring this all out though, so maybe I'm wrong.

Will 12" mains cut it for vocals, or will we end up being sorry we didn't get 15's? What if we want to mic the kick drum? I mean, I think I know what the answer is - go with the 15's, right? But what if we don't mic the kick? I'm thinking the 12's will be fine for vocals?

It really depends on the speakers you are looking at. I've been running EV ELX112Ps and putting kick, bass, guitars, keys and vocals through them and I've had plenty of clarity and gobs of low end. On the other hand I was at filling in for a buddies group and they ran everything through QSC K12s and the low end didn't transfer through and really messed with the clarity of the vocals. If I were you I'd get together a good reference CD of stuff your band is playing and head down to your local music shop that has a decent pro audio department and listen to some systems yourself. We can all tell you what works for us but ultimately it is you and your band that will be using the PA.

So with the right 12's, it's possible.. Thanks, pdun, that's very helpful.

I was looking at carvin speakers, but they're only sold online, so listening to them beforehand is out of the question. I may have to take a trip to guitar center instead.