Practice PA speaker placement question

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dwkman0117

New member
OK - I am not sure if this is the right place at all for this questions, but here it goes...

rock band practice - acoustic drums/bass/elec guitar/singer.
Running the bass/kick and vocals through the PA.
Room size - 12' X 30'.
PA - Yamaha EMX512sc power mixer(500 watts)
2 speakers - Crest Performance LQ10

What do you feel the best placement would be for the speakers. We are having a hard time hearing the vocals and if we turn up the mic more we get feedback.

Any help for be cool

Thanks
 
Have you tried putting the speakers behind you? Sometimes that helps in a small space. Had to do that in some small basements playing heavy metal.:cool:
 
well ..... first, I'd be curious about how you have the EQ set.
For example, I very often see bands crank the highs because they want the voice to sound 'crisp' and in a small room, that's a surefire feedback creator.
So placement is not the only factor in feedback problems.
But the most basic placement rule is to not have any mics in a direct line with the horns output. Also ...... it's a good idea to have the back of the mics pointing at the speaker/speakers. The mics tend to reject sound from there so there'll be less feedback.
It's important that you understand exactly what feedback is if you don't already.
In it's most basic definition .... feedback is when the mic can actually pick up the sound of the speakers enough to send it to the mixer to be amplified. Then it picks up that sound and reamplifies that and so on until it reaches a self perpetuating loop.
There are other feedback loops that can involve no mics but for what you're asking ..... we're looking at those mics.
So you're wanting to look at have the least sound from the speakers enter the mics. Ways to do that are to point the speakers away from the mics or have the back end of the mic point towards the speaker.
Also ..... since high freq's are usually the biggest problem, although you can have low-end feedback too, you can control it some more with proper EQ.
And if it's just practice, then it doesn't matter so much if the PA is great sounding or not. You just want to hear it.
So you can pull more highs out of it than you would on a gig.
Lastly ...... reverb and echo increase the total output level of whatever they're on so sometimes you can tame feedback by reducing or eliminating FX's.

All of these used in conjunction should give you some tools to ease that problem.
 
Thanks for the input - so maybe we should put the band at one end facing towards the middle, and have the speakers at the opposite end facing back at the band? This would enable the mics to be facing the speakers.

The EQ's are flat right now. - I also have a little reverb, but not allot.
 
The cabs could be set either way -as 'mains facing back towards you (firing into back side of the mics) or set them as floor monitors. Try both. Wall and room reflections, mic patterns, might push one as a better solution than the other.

Question though- Why the hell are you trying to run kick and bass through 10" mains? At best (at least at any reasonable volume) all they would be good for is some 'click off the beater. Use small speakers for what they are good at -mid and up.
The EQ's are flat right now...
Click to expand...
Everything on the low end should be dumped so that they can deliver their specialty cleanly.
 
mixsit said:
The cabs could be set either way -as 'mains facing back towards you (firing into back side of the mics) or set them as floor monitors. Try both. Wall and room reflections, mic patterns, might push one as a better solution than the other.

Question though- Why the hell are you trying to run kick and bass through 10" mains? At best (at least at any reasonable volume) all they would be good for is some 'click off the beater. Use small speakers for what they are good at -mid and up.

Everything on the low end should be dumped so that they can deliver their specialty cleanly.
Click to expand...
really good point .... I hadn't noticed the speakers were that small.
In a rehearsal situation, the ultimately most important thing is that they allow you to hear the vocals. Everything else is secondary even if you have to dig up a small bass amp to run the bass and kick thru. The bass and kick are eating up what little headroom those speakers have ......
 
I see that Yamaha has comps on the mic channels - tread lightly here. That's a big feedback black hole hiding there. ;)
 
I'll tell you, I fought and fought with feedback and hearing the vocals at practice for so long. I hated coming to the reality.. but I just needed to turn down and yell at the drummer to play softer. It helped everything so much. I found myself screaming into the mic just to hear it and was killing my voice, not to mention my ears. Its so much more comfortable when everything is at a nice volume you'd listen to the stereo at. (ok, well maybe a little louder :) )

Its hard though.. specially at first. Its hard to get that "To rock out we have to be effin' loud" out of your head.
 
Good point about the kick - we were just doing that do boost the bass and the kick for me... I am the drummer - I will remove those and just use the vocals... If I can add something else after then so be it... thanks for all of the help - I will let you know how it goes after next practice..
 
have you tried earplugs? or maybe just one.

seriously. most probably you are too loud for the room (as most rawk band would be). plugs will help you hear your voice naturally, through your jaw. occasionally though, this can make a vocalist consistently either flat or sharp. in-ear monitors can do the same thing. some sort of strange psychoacoustic effect, i guess. still, it is cheaper than a bigger PA.

a
 
I turned the effects down and the comp almost off - I set the eq's at flat. I have 2 speakers and I set the mixer to a Mon mix. This way I can control each speakers output seperately - this seems to give me more volume. I have the speakers on the back wall facing out from behind the instruments. I have the main mic facing in towards the band and speakers. It appears that I am getting much more volume out of this setup. I will know better this weekend at practice.
 
dwkman0117 said:
I turned the effects down and the comp almost off - I set the eq's at flat. I have 2 speakers and I set the mixer to a Mon mix. This way I can control each speakers output seperately - this seems to give me more volume. I have the speakers on the back wall facing out from behind the instruments. I have the main mic facing in towards the band and speakers. It appears that I am getting much more volume out of this setup. I will know better this weekend at practice.
Click to expand...
cool ........ sounds like you've improved it at the very least
 
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