Hooking up monitors for live sound

[RideTheCrash]

Been a while since I've been on here, so hey to everyone again.

I recently came back from a week tour with my youth band out to the east coast in Canada. We used my good old AudioPro 16-S board and rented a Yorkville power amp and monitors (used as speakers). Monitors were not a big neccesity as we never really had the luxury of using any, it would cost more to rent, and we had limited space.

But anyways, a few churches we went to had monitors, but one of them I tried to hook up. There were two simple monitors, forget what kind, but just basically both monitors plugged into each other, and then you ran a patch cord to the monitor outs on the board.

So, with the help of someone there who knew the system, we tried hooking them up. Now, for the speakers I run cables from SUB 1 and 2 from my board, into a power amp. My board has another set of faders for MONITOR 1 and 2 which is what we tried to hook the monitors up to. We tried everything and could not get these monitors to work. Eventually I plugged one into the power amp and I got sound of the monitor.

My question is, do I need a separate amp to run monitors? My board is passive and the guy who sold it to me says it has no preamp (er, duh...) but I ran the bass directly into the board and it worked (but then again it ran through a power amp...). I asked the guy how the churches system did it and he said it ran through it's preamp (and it was an old board like mine).

I think I might of just answered my question, my board doesn't have a preamp in it, thus a pair of monitors would need a separate amp since they are passive. Makes sense right? Just let me know if I answered my own question, heh, thanks...

[mshilarious]

Originally Posted by RideTheCrash

My question is, do I need a separate amp to run monitors? My board is passive and the guy who sold it to me says it has no preamp (er, duh...) but I ran the bass directly into the board and it worked (but then again it ran through a power amp...). I asked the guy how the churches system did it and he said it ran through it's preamp (and it was an old board like mine).

That guy didn't know much about sound. You board does have preamps (on every input channel), but it doesn't have a power amp. Preamps get low-level signals (mics, guitars) up to line level, and a power amp gets line level up to enough voltage to drive speakers.

Thus, as you discovered, you need to send your monitor outs to a power amp, then to the monitor speakers UNLESS you get powered monitors (if it has a power cable, it's a powered monitor). I own a powered monitor, but I recommend the power amp approach.

The church probably had a powered mixer, which is a mixer that contains a power amp. Thus they could run passive monitors direct off the board. Or maybe there was an audio closet with power amps that this guy was totally unaware of . . .

[MISTERQCUE]

Originally Posted by mshilarious

That guy didn't know much about sound. You board does have preamps (on every input channel), but it doesn't have a power amp. Preamps get low-level signals (mics, guitars) up to line level, and a power amp gets line level up to enough voltage to drive speakers.

Thus, as you discovered, you need to send your monitor outs to a power amp, then to the monitor speakers UNLESS you get powered monitors (if it has a power cable, it's a powered monitor). I own a powered monitor, but I recommend the power amp approach.

The church probably had a powered mixer, which is a mixer that contains a power amp. Thus they could run passive monitors direct off the board. Or maybe there was an audio closet with power amps that this guy was totally unaware of . . .

Yup! What he said!

[RideTheCrash]

My apologies, the guy who sold me the board does enough about sound, that was my mistake. I just remember when he sold it to me he was saying it doesn't have an amp inside it (thus being powered), not saying it doesn't have preamps.

The guy at this church just said "we run them directly from the board's preamps" or something like that, but they plug into something on a wall that runs to the board I think. But, I took a look at their board and it looked pretty old and it wasn't digital or anything, I *doubt* it had an amp inside of it, I dunno what was with that.

The monitors I was trying to hook up were passive. I needed an amp, go figure, thanks guys.