Drum Mic setup for live gig

Tukkis

Tukkis

New member
I'm bringing my P.A. to my school talent quest cause the one at school sucks.

This is the gear I've got to work worth:

Yamaha EMX 660 600 watt powered mixer
2x Yamaha S12e 250w each speakers

2x behringer ecm8000 for overheads
1x sm57 for snare
1x audio technica pro25 for kick

and all stands and cable etc..

The talent quest is in the school hall which is very reverberant and I can't change it so will have to live with it.

Bass will be through Marshall 150w
Guitar through Roland JC 120w
Drums and vocalist through PA

Because I'm in the band I can't adjust levels while we play so I'll just have to set it up before hand and leave it.

Is this setup alright?

Is there a preferred way to position the overheads or should I just use a spaced pair? As the PA is not stereo is there any benefit of having 2 overheads or is one better?

Do you think the PA will be able to handle drums and a vocalist?

Thanks
Tukkis:D
 
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I have a pair of ecm8000 that I use as overheads and I like them fine in my studio......but I really wouldn't use them for a live gig. They're very sensitive omni's and they'll pick up everything including the PA and it won't be pretty.

Can you get a pair of cardioid overheads in time? If you can't afford it, can you borrow some?
Your other mics are fine, but I'd worry about the two little Behringers in a hall situation.
 
I agree with Rimshot... try to get your hands on some MC-012's or even MXL603S's for overheads at the gig.
 
You Know,
I play a lot of gigs with a 7 piece band and 90% of the time I get away with just a kick an snare mic. Most auditoriums are small enough not to need much drum amplification. The singers / intrumentalists mics pick up plenty of cymbals.

The only time I add mics is for outdoors or really large multi thousand size auditoriums (not that I regularly play for multi thousands)
 
Yeh ok so I guess there is no real need for overheads as the cymbals are usually the loudest part of the drums anyway I've notice in the hall.

Do you think that my PA can handle both drums and a vocalist?

Tukkis
 
The power you have seems adequate. The speakers I am guessing are 12" woofers and hi freq horn set ups. You may not get quite the thump from the kick you may like, but in a live room like you are describing you don't want to pump too many decibels in there. They will just bounce all over the place.
It will be fine for the vocals.
 
Yeh they are 12" woofer and tweeter rated at 250w each with a freq response of 65hz - 14khz. I don't need heaps of bottom end anyways so they'll be fine.

I justed wanted to get a second opinion on if the speakers could handle it because I haven't had a drumkit and vocals thorugh the same PA before.

Thanks alot everyone for the input.

Tukkis
 
Tukkis said:
Yeh they are 12" woofer and tweeter rated at 250w each with a freq response of 65hz - 14khz. I don't need heaps of bottom end anyways so they'll be fine.

I justed wanted to get a second opinion on if the speakers could handle it because I haven't had a drumkit and vocals thorugh the same PA before.

Thanks alot everyone for the input.

Tukkis
Click to expand...
It should be ok for the vocals... but not drums.
 
As a constantly gigging musician, I really do not like mixing vocals and instruments.

Very few portable PA systems have the Moxie to handle the transients at performance volume levels. Worse, very few PA systems have the bottom and driver Xmax to handle kick drums or electric bass.

A second power amp and set of drivers will allow for easy separation of vocals and sound reinforcement with any generic mixing board. I use Rane EQs and active crossovers, and a pair of QSC PLX series power amps. Voice mains are JBL SF15. Sound reinforcement are 15" subwoofers and Radio Shack el-cheapo 15" horn cabs. Balance is achieved with a Rane RA27 real time analyzer/pink noise generator.
 
Yeh I'm only micing the kick and snare and 1 vocalist.

All the instruments are through their own amps.

Tukkis
 
i think that should be fine as long as you're not blasting the drums through to loud, which im sure you arent. probably just giving them some boost. i mean, as long as your not playing way to loud for the room it should be more than fine.
 
I vote for one overhead on the drums and if you want the "kick sound" cut the lows on the mixer then you will still get the "click" of the bass drum but no bass. Yes it does sound cheezy, but if the kick is an essential part of the song that's what you gotta do. Or go rent a sub and amp from your local music store.
 
Hi tukkis

The yamaha S12 e's are fantastic.

I busk in central London and run my eqipment off a car battery, and I used the S12 e' s for the first time today and it sounded lovely, I only use one single speaker and I use a heavy duty sack trolly to carry my yamaha S12 E plus a Phoni powerpod 620 which is a 200 watt amp when bridged.

I use to have a cheap Pro Sound speaker from maplins which is ok but that was only 10 inch and Maplins are more of an elictrial shop , they are not speaker specialist. So I got my SE12'e at a PA centre.

The quality of sound was noticable the sound was clear and I did'nt have to put too much effort in the vocals.

I got mine for £110.00 in londons west end.

Dave
 
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