First attempt at building small PA system. Newbie here.

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AxisDrummer

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First off a little background: Our band has played together for almost 20 years, but with several years layoffs in between due to military service, family duties, etc... We've mainly jammed in a basement but have played maybe 20-30 shows and all the clubs have provided PA, soundman, mics, everything we needed. We have never owned a PA system and at practice we just sang through an extra guitar amp. Pretty sad, right?

Now we're older and started to jam again with hopes of playing a couple shows a month. A few small bars do require the band to provide PA, but I'm not too concerned with that right now. I'm wanting something that can get our vocals up at practice first and foremost then possibly expand our PA for the shows.

I'm as green as green can get when it comes to knowledge about this topic, but have been researching PA systems over the past week and have learned a just a tad. I've determined that within our budget and needs, active PA speakers were the way to go along with a non-powered mixer. I ordered 2 Behringer Eurolive B215D's. Hope that was a good selection. I know that in a pinch, we can just hook the mics up and go. I also am aware that we can hook a mic up to each one, or daisy-chain them together.

In the future, I was planning on ordering a Peavey PV14 channel mixer with hopes of running 3 mics, 2 guitar amps, a bass amp, and possibly a mic'd bass drum through it, possibly more.

This is probably a very stupid question, but here it goes. I have an old Tascam 424mkIII Portastudio. It has 4 XLR inputs and 2 extra 1/4" inputs. Can I run mics through that and use the "Monitor Outs" to hook up to a speaker? I know this a studio-type mixer and not sure if it would work for a live PA mixer. It has the red/white RCA monitor output jacks instead of a 1/4" or XLR output.

IF I could get by with this, should I hook up the R/L to one speaker and daisy chain them OR run the RIGHT OUT to one speaker and the LEFT OUT to the other speaker?

I realize that these are rookie questions (plus I'm the drummer so my IQ is automatically low, right), but I hope to learn a lot. Any help is greatly appreciated. Thanks ahead of time!
 
Do you get an output from the Portastudio when you have mics plugged into it? I would think it would need to be in record mode for that. I think you will find those Behr speakers are not up to handling vocals AND instruments, specially bass and bass drum, at the same time. Did you listen to them in the store? Audition speakers by bringing an MP3 player with 1/4" output adapter cable - plugging in a mic and shouting 'Test test test' won't do it!
 
I will defer to someone who has used them, but on paper the B215Ds look respectable. They have 15" drivers, each with two class D amps inside at 550watts.

I reckon they would be fine for vocals and instruments, but they will not deliver the bottom end of a sub. Putting the kick and bass through them will be fine, but may not sound as impressive as you want them to.

MJB is right . . .throw some music through them and see how they cope.
 
The Behringer live stuff is thought of as good value for the money on a live/theatre forum I visit often. I think the preference might have been to go with the passive model of the speakers and a separate EPS series amp (if only for the flexibility) but that's a minor comment.

So long as the monitor outs of your Tascam work when you're not recording, the monitor outs should work fine. You may find the levels are slightly lower than the speakers are expecting but not by enough to cause problems. If it was me, I'd run in stereo mode with the channels panned only slightly off centre mirroring the stage line up but the mono vs. stereo discussion runs and runs on live sound forums so there's no single right answer.

What you will find pretty quickly is that you want some channel EQ and possible a main EQ for feedback control in a live situation--but just to test things your Tascam should get you going. Obviously you'll want some cables to adapt from the phono outs to the Behringer inputs.

I agree with the previous comment that, as soon as you go live, you will likely find you want a sub--and if you run through the sub as a crossover this will also help to get the best out of the tops.
 
Best quick advice, besides what is already stated above, is forget about running live stereo. Even the biggest national name brand acts don't do that (only a few who do) and there is a good reason. Mainly because you want all points in the room to hear the same sound at all times. At home with your audiophile friends, yeah you can worry about fine stereo. In a club with a bunch of alcoholics spilling beer on everything, don't bother. Running loud mono will make your live engineering experiment so much easier.

I hate to be the party pooper here, but the problem you may, and likely will, have with those speakers is reliability. It will probably get you thru the testing phase ok, but people who are serious about paid live work will not have anything on the truck with that "B" word brand name on it. The "most bang for the buck" is a worthless dud if it's in the shop 6 months or a year after you buy it, and nobody can fix it unless you pay to ship it back to Germany........before they tell you it's cheaper to just buy a new one.
 
See, I told you the mono/stereo question is a major debate!

My view is that it's more important to have a SLIGHT stereo in a small club than with a national act in a big arena. My thinking is that, with the audience relatively close a SMALL amount of directional information is useful and pleasant. If you're 300 feet away in an arena, it matters much less. I don't find working this way causes any difficulties and, if you want mono, just pan everything centrally.

However, that's what works for me. The best advice is try it and see.
 
Bobbsy said:
See, I told you the mono/stereo question is a major debate!

My view is that it's more important to have a SLIGHT stereo in a small club than with a national act in a big arena. My thinking is that, with the audience relatively close a SMALL amount of directional information is useful and pleasant. If you're 300 feet away in an arena, it matters much less. I don't find working this way causes any difficulties and, if you want mono, just pan everything centrally.

However, that's what works for me. The best advice is try it and see.
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I'm gonna go with a contrary position on this. In a small venue the majority of the crowd will be closer to one side or the other. That means they will only hear whatever's coming thru the speakers on their side of the room and will simply not even hear the other side at all.
I think that in those situations about 3/4s of the audience don't get any stereo effect at all and just miss out on whatever's panned away from them.
 
Absolutely gonna go with Lt. Bob on this - a mono set up is the way to go in your situation.
 
Note that I'm not talking about panning anything away...just a subtle amount of pan. If centre is 12 o'clock, I wouldn't pan any more that 10 o'clock/2 o'clock. We're talking a situation where the backline is doing much/most of the work anyway. This just gives anyone not directly in front of the speakers a slight clue as to which person is singing. I prefer to have aural cues about location rather than a general stage wash.

But it's a matter of taste!
 
Re the stereo thing, if both speakers are covering the whole audience (narrow room, speakers angled in) then stereo is acceptable and helpful. If you have to use them to cover a wider space then stereo works against you. Having the option to use it or not depending on the situation is always my preference.

For those starting out I would suggest going mono until you feel confident dealing with the extra connections of a stereo setup.
 
Lt. Bob said:
I'm gonna go with a contrary position on this. In a small venue the majority of the crowd will be closer to one side or the other. That means they will only hear whatever's coming thru the speakers on their side of the room and will simply not even hear the other side at all.
I think that in those situations about 3/4s of the audience don't get any stereo effect at all and just miss out on whatever's panned away from them.
Click to expand...

If your audience can only hear one side or the other in a small club then you are either not positioning the speakers properly or not using enough speakers and/or power amps. Being able to run stereo effects makes a huge difference especially with a power trio. It just makes everything sound bigger.
 
I don't agree ...... if people are standing substantially closer to one side than the other they will only hear that speaker and it will mask the other side.
Further ...... I know how to position speakers ..... for small bands or single acts postioning the speakers is mostly a matter of where you can find a place to put them. Normal local players don't fly cabs and such.
 
mjbphotos said:
Do you get an output from the Portastudio when you have mics plugged into it? I would think it would need to be in record mode for that. I think you will find those Behr speakers are not up to handling vocals AND instruments, specially bass and bass drum, at the same time. Did you listen to them in the store? Audition speakers by bringing an MP3 player with 1/4" output adapter cable - plugging in a mic and shouting 'Test test test' won't do it!
Click to expand...

I have not tested out the Portastudio with microphones and getting an output. However I did plug my MP3 player with the 1/4" adapter into a mic input and got nothing out of the monitors. So I'm assuming that I'm going to need to purchase a mixer. Probably going with the PV14 as mentioned.

As far as the Behringers, I did test them out with an MP3 player and my 1/4" adapter and I thought they sounded great, but then again I'm not an audiophile or anything. Right now if they can handle vocals ONLY, I'll be happy. I figured that I'd need a sub for live performances to mic the bass drum at the very least depending upon size of venue. At practice, our guitarists and bass player have sufficient volume but we just need to get the lead and backing vocals up, which I'm hoping I can accomplish with these powered speakers and a small mixer.

Thanks a heap to EVERYONE for the tips and feedback!
 
I tend to agree with the mono crowd, however, stereo can be nifty for certain effects if you have a need (and soundman). As far as gear quality you find some really good used stuff for sale if you're patient. And finally, for drummers IQ isn't the issue, it's just that they spend most of their early lives in a room banging away. That get's to you after a while!:p
 
And I want to repeat that this is a matter of taste and personal needs. Stereo is definitely better sounding when it can be implemented properly.

But for me the number of gigs where it can't is large enough that I find it easiest to just go with a mono hookup ..... why deal with doing it differently from one gig to the next?
Like last night ...... my second gig in a new club and the easiest thing for me to do is put all the PA on one side of the stage. Last week when I played there I got volume complaints because the left side of the stage had tables right up in front of the speakers.
Last night I just put it all on the right side ..... no problems. An obvious mono situation in this particular case.
So I like to have as little to do as possible when setting up and if my settings don't change at all from gig to gig then I can simply set levels and I'm ready to play.
Easy is my mantra.

But whatever works for you is wonderful.
 
musicmachine said:
And finally, for drummers IQ isn't the issue, it's just that they spend most of their early lives in a room banging away. That get's to you after a while!:p
Click to expand...

And you sir, get a BA-DUM-DUM-CRASH! for that. But you ARE correct. :D
 
Lt. Bob said:
Like last night ...... my second gig in a new club and the easiest thing for me to do is put all the PA on one side of the stage. Last week when I played there I got volume complaints because the left side of the stage had tables right up in front of the speakers.
Last night I just put it all on the right side ..... no problems. An obvious mono situation in this particular case.
Click to expand...

I would have panned away from that side or just turned down the amps on that side, but...

Lt. Bob said:
...whatever works for you is wonderful.
Click to expand...
 
OK, I have another VERY rookie question here regarding inputs/outputs and cables.

Again, my speakers arriving Monday are a pair of Behringer Eurolive B215 active speakers. They have XLR and TRS inputs.

I'm planning to order the Peavey PV14 unpowered mixer. It has XLR and TRS outputs.

Is there ANY significant difference in which outputs/inputs I use? For example using the mixer XLR outputs to the speaker TRS input OR the mixer TRS outputs to the speaker TRS or XLR input.

Again, forgive me for such a green question (and forgive me for ordering Behringer which seems to get a bad rap among audiophiles, but I didn't know better) but I just want to make sure I can get our minimal PA gear up and running the right way.

Thanks again to everyone.
 
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