A question about the feasibility of using 2 PA systems at once for live performance.

G

gene12586

Member
Please note: this question is about live performance when rehearsing with a band; not recording.
So let's say I have a PA system I've gotten used to and the I like that I use to practice singing. Let's say in the not so distant future I start rehearsing with a band, and let's say that my PA system unfortunately doesn't have enough wattage for an entire band. So let's say the band gets another PA system with enough wattage for rehearsal. My question is: could we effectively use both PA systems at once such that all the instruments go through the higher wattage PA system and I run my vocals through my old lower wattage PA system? Could we achieve equally as good sound through this setup versus running all the instruments and vocals through just one PA system? If so, is this something easy to do, or does it require a lot of technical knowledge and setup? I ask because I don't have more than a very basic understanding of these systems - just know the basic functionality.


Any help is appreciated.
Thanks.
 
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Yes you could, but you'd be going back to the sixties. The key aim for PA systems is that every audience member gets the same quality sound, at as close to the same level. Very hard to achieve. The other big problem is about scaleability. The same sound no matter what the venue size and shape. My inventory runs from plastic boxes on sticks, through to flown multibox rigs, and everything in between. I suspect you've got used to your monitoring, not the PA. You've never heard your PA, only what hits your ears, from bounceback and however you hear yourself. Its common now for bands doing 300-1500 seater venues to tour their stage monitoring system, so to them it sounds the same every show but use PAs that suit the venues.

Using two PAs is OK really if you use gear that can feed it. A mixer that has groups, or a matrix would let one set of mics, feed multiples, after all, we do this anyway. Main left and right, fills at the side, and maybe front fills, or even subs? These are effectively separate PAs doing different things, so it can be done.

I dont think this is quite what you want, you want it seems your rehearsal lower volume sound that you, not the audience hear. So why not use your system as a monitor system, if it works for you?, but let the audience hear a full mix, and not yours. Incidentally, you also need to consider the cheap wedding reception disco problem. Smaller systems sound fine, until the moment the DJ turns the volume up and a perfectly nice sounding background music system tries to fill a big space. Your pa you're using as monitors, not PA. Running two systems like you are intending also means upgrading two systems when you work bigger places, and that will sound different, which you'll hate.
 
rob aylestone said:
Yes you could, but you'd be going back to the sixties. The key aim for PA systems is that every audience member gets the same quality sound, at as close to the same level. Very hard to achieve. The other big problem is about scaleability. The same sound no matter what the venue size and shape. My inventory runs from plastic boxes on sticks, through to flown multibox rigs, and everything in between. I suspect you've got used to your monitoring, not the PA. You've never heard your PA, only what hits your ears, from bounceback and however you hear yourself. Its common now for bands doing 300-1500 seater venues to tour their stage monitoring system, so to them it sounds the same every show but use PAs that suit the venues.

Using two PAs is OK really if you use gear that can feed it. A mixer that has groups, or a matrix would let one set of mics, feed multiples, after all, we do this anyway. Main left and right, fills at the side, and maybe front fills, or even subs? These are effectively separate PAs doing different things, so it can be done.

I dont think this is quite what you want, you want it seems your rehearsal lower volume sound that you, not the audience hear. So why not use your system as a monitor system, if it works for you?, but let the audience hear a full mix, and not yours. Incidentally, you also need to consider the cheap wedding reception disco problem. Smaller systems sound fine, until the moment the DJ turns the volume up and a perfectly nice sounding background music system tries to fill a big space. Your pa you're using as monitors, not PA. Running two systems like you are intending also means upgrading two systems when you work bigger places, and that will sound different, which you'll hate.
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Many thanks.

My question was more about just rehearsing with the band, and not so much about actual performance at venues in front of an audience. I've edited the question to make this more clear. I didn't ask the same question about performance at venues because I know most venues just provide you with a PA that tends to be far superior to the one I have. But nonetheless I'm glad you answered the question in the context of performance at venues for audience because I would have asked a follow-up question about this. So if I understand you correctly, you're just saying to run my vocals into my personal system for my own ears, but also run the vocals along with all the other instruments into the venue's system for the audience's ears? Is that right?

But back to the original question, for rehearsal with just me and the rest of the band in a room, would it be as simple as just running mics into one PA and the instruments into the other PA, and this would give us sound comparable to running everything through one PA??
 
If it's for rehearsal, I assume it's just got to be functional? As in you need to hear what you need to hear to perform? No sound operator, so sort of set and play? Two seems more complicated for no reason. If you already have two systems and don't wish to spend money, it's perfectly fine if it works. However, if you were going to buy gear, why duplicate things like speakers and mixers? Many band record their rehearsals and two systems makes that harder too. Surely one mixer and one set of knobs is easier?

With bigger systems in bigger venues, the important thing is your monitoring being consistent - in quality, level, and location. Many bands today pay lots of attention to having monitoring that doesn't change - and lots are using in-ears for so many reasons. If their way of working is to use hired in gear, with hired in ops for front of house, consistent monitoring is vital, so many buy a mixer and in-ear/floor wedge solution, and have outputs via a splitter to hand to the venue/PA people leaving monitors in the hands of the band. We certainly did this because so often, our monitor sound was awful left to strangers. We had our own PA too - but this was optional. We had a simple flight case, Behringer X32 rack inside with a mic splitter. We would set up, put the mics out in the same places on people and gear, and we all had a P16 personal mixer. The mic splits went to the PA folk and we could just leave them to it. Sound checks became split - they would use the sound check for getting audience sound right, and we had very tiny tweaks to do for our monitoring. For rehearsals we just powered up the monitor system, and no need for the PA.

You edited the initial post but you still speak about "the band getting a higher power system" - as if you and them operate separately. Surely if you are the lead singer, you might want their sound in your ears too, not just yours, and presumably they might like to hear you?

You state you don't know much about PAs - but you don't usually have two PAs running isolated. It just sounds like a monitor system run by committee - I want this, you want this and he wants that? If they have to BUY a PA, they buy it for gigs not rehearsals, and the high power system will have you going through it - or will your PA have speakers pointing at you? If so, it's not PA, it's monitors. I'm not really getting what's behind this? I think you mean you like the sound of your system for your monitoring needs - which is fine, but that's totally different from using it as PA, in the traditional sense - as in PA for audience, Monitoring for performers?
 
rob aylestone said:
If it's for rehearsal, I assume it's just got to be functional? As in you need to hear what you need to hear to perform? No sound operator, so sort of set and play? Two seems more complicated for no reason. If you already have two systems and don't wish to spend money, it's perfectly fine if it works. However, if you were going to buy gear, why duplicate things like speakers and mixers? Many band record their rehearsals and two systems makes that harder too. Surely one mixer and one set of knobs is easier?

With bigger systems in bigger venues, the important thing is your monitoring being consistent - in quality, level, and location. Many bands today pay lots of attention to having monitoring that doesn't change - and lots are using in-ears for so many reasons. If their way of working is to use hired in gear, with hired in ops for front of house, consistent monitoring is vital, so many buy a mixer and in-ear/floor wedge solution, and have outputs via a splitter to hand to the venue/PA people leaving monitors in the hands of the band. We certainly did this because so often, our monitor sound was awful left to strangers. We had our own PA too - but this was optional. We had a simple flight case, Behringer X32 rack inside with a mic splitter. We would set up, put the mics out in the same places on people and gear, and we all had a P16 personal mixer. The mic splits went to the PA folk and we could just leave them to it. Sound checks became split - they would use the sound check for getting audience sound right, and we had very tiny tweaks to do for our monitoring. For rehearsals we just powered up the monitor system, and no need for the PA.

You edited the initial post but you still speak about "the band getting a higher power system" - as if you and them operate separately. Surely if you are the lead singer, you might want their sound in your ears too, not just yours, and presumably they might like to hear you?

You state you don't know much about PAs - but you don't usually have two PAs running isolated. It just sounds like a monitor system run by committee - I want this, you want this and he wants that? If they have to BUY a PA, they buy it for gigs not rehearsals, and the high power system will have you going through it - or will your PA have speakers pointing at you? If so, it's not PA, it's monitors. I'm not really getting what's behind this? I think you mean you like the sound of your system for your monitoring needs - which is fine, but that's totally different from using it as PA, in the traditional sense - as in PA for audience, Monitoring for performers?
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The reason to use 2 instead of one in rehearsal would be two-fold: firstly, I have a PA system I love and am used to using for vocals, but it doesn't have enough wattage to plug in an entire band... and so let's say there's already a PA system that the other band members have and it has enough wattage to power the band... but let's the one the rest of the band has is a crappier quality system which my vocals don't sound nearly as good coming out of... That's why I wondered whether we could use both, one for vocals and one for the rest of the instruments.

But I get what you're saying. Thanks a lot for the detailed reply! Very informative.
 
The "sound of the PA system" is mostly the speakers themselves, assuming you're using the same microphone. In a proper PA system, each band member gets their own speaker, all fed from one mixer. So run your mic through a shared mixer and send what you want to hear out an aux to your "PA system," whatever that is, and send what the other members want to hear out other auxes to other speakers. Then you get to use the speakers you think are so awesome and all the other members get what they need (which might include your voice through their speakers).
 
bouldersoundguy said:
The "sound of the PA system" is mostly the speakers themselves, assuming you're using the same microphone. In a proper PA system, each band member gets their own speaker, all fed from one mixer. So run your mic through a shared mixer and send what you want to hear out an aux to your "PA system," whatever that is, and send what the other members want to hear out other auxes to other speakers. Then you get to use the speakers you think are so awesome and all the other members get what they need (which might include your voice through their speakers).
Click to expand...
Got it, thanks! Finally mostly clicked when I was reading Rob's last post, and this drove it home.
 
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