school me on PA systems version 2 - weddings, parties, functions - so something a bit bigger

nickp

I'm pretty sure that you guys know by now but we've been going for about 2 years.  Pub rock and indie covers.  Using an old vocal PA - peavey XR 684F 400w amp, two passive old lumpy speakers, a powered monitor and slave.  Seems fine - loud enough etc.

We have two weddings to do this year.  I think we are a good band and I'd like to move us into private parties n stuff as well as playing pubs.  The weddings that we have are sort of 50-75 people affairs so the rooms are going to be big enough to accommodate that many sitting down - so at least twice the size of a pub that we usually play.

I think (suspect) that we need a bigger PA system to mike up the band properly - so 4 vocal mikes, 2 guitars, bass, drums.  We could hire a PA and sound guy or we could look for a second hand system.

I guess if we are doing parties and the like to see us doing 50-100 odd people halls - so church hall size etc which I guess is a "medium size" venue ???  

What do we need in broad terms?  How many watts. How many input channels?  What is it going to cost s/h do we recon?

Danny1969

Weddings can be a bit different to other gigs in terms of volume. Sometimes they are into it big time and want it cranked, other times you have to keep it down to avoid inadvertently recalibrating Aunt Doris's hearing aid

The biggest luxury for us over the last 10 years playing weddings was the invention of iPad mixing. Up till then just about every wedding involved an argument with the wedding planner \ event manager \ head waiter etc about where we could put the desk. Their normal helpful suggestion being can't your man mix from the side of the stage ? 

Channels wise for wedding's we use an A&H QU16 or a Presonus Studio Live both of which have  22 channels, you typically only need :

1 Kick

2 Snare

3 Rack tom

4 Rack Tom

5 Floor tom

6 Bass

7 Git 1

8 Git 2

9 Keys

10 vox 1

11 Vox 2 

12 Vox 3 

13 iPod left

14 iPod right 

Studiolive desk is about £550 to £950 SH depending on the model. The little Mackie DL1608 will do the job and that's about £800. Don't buy a non digital desk if you want someone to mix out front at a wedding, in 9 out of 10 venues they won't want you to run a snake out front let alone put a desk amongst their tables 

Speakers wise a typical system is 2 bins 2 poles and 2 tops. The tops sit on the pole which screws or slots in the bin. This means no stands to trip over and height of tops is adjustable. 

HK Premiem Pro 2 x bins and 2 x tops with HK amp about £900 SH

Mackie SRM 2  x 18 subs and 2 x 450 tops cost about £1300 SH

QSC K series 2 x subs and 2 x tops about £2K SH

HK Actor DX 4 x subs and 2 x tops cost about £2.5K SH

 

There's loads of others I've only listed those cos I use them all the time. 

It might look pricey compared to pub PA but wedding work pays a lot more

nickp

@Danny1969 - you are a star thank you!  I have asked several questions about weddings n stuff and you have taken time to post a full reply each time.  My thanks!!!!  It is part of why this forum is so fab.

Your list makes me think that we should hire a decent PA this year and see whether we will do more functions in the future or whether we prefer being a pub outfit as spending lets say £3K for argument is a lot of commitment if we don't intend to make the band more commercial than it has in the past.

again - Thank you!

Nick