Hello everybody, I am a singer for a four-piece band. We play mostly classic rock and blues. My guitarist and I have been practicing together for a little while now, but we're getting together with the rest of the band (bassist, drummer, maybe keyboard) and I need to buy a PA system that will hold up.
We're not concerned with gigging at the moment, but enough power to handle small gigs would be ideal. The system would be used primarily for rehersal. As a high school kid I'm not rich, and I only have about $800 to spend on everything. What kind of setup would you guys recommend? I'm not exactly sure what to buy, I know I need a powered mixer and at least two mains, but is that all? What kind of companies sell decent equipment for good prices? What kind of setups do you people use? I'm really a beginner to all of this stuff, and any advice or help or suggestions would be really great.
I would really appreciate any advice you guys can give me, thanks!
Your approach is a good one. If you get a reasonably good system to rehearse with, you can use it as a monitor system when you get real gigs, and either use the house PA or rent one for bigger gigs.
Just about anything from Mackie or Peavey will work well for you. And be sure to check out used gear in the local stores and on eBay.
Read through the lessons in the Sound Engineering section for more tips.
https://www.guitarnoise.com/sound.php
Check back with specific questions.
-Laz
shrunkenhead145
Boy can I relate. I was in the same situation several years back. How to build a decent PA for less than $1000?? That's tough, but I did it. And a pretty good system too.
These are just my recommendations, but this is all good gear, not junk. You will be able to gig easily with this.
Rapco 25' Speakon to 1/4" Speaker Cables (2)
You would be hard pressed to find a PA this good for under $800. If you look up each individual item all over the web, you will see everything here gets excellent ratings. I'm not the world's greatest expert, but I am always looking at PA gear. I have found out how to get quality gear for a low price.
There are less expensive packages out there, but they will not give you as much quality and power as what I have mentioned here.
For Rock music you want an amplifier that provides at least (bare minimum) 200 Watts per side.
If you know something better than Rock and Roll, I'd like to hear it - Jerry Lee Lewis
We've used one of the Carvin PA1200's for a few years now. It's a Top notch setup for small venues.
Playing guitar and never playing for others is like studying medicine and never working in a clinic.
