Stage monitoring..

bevanjon74

really quick question, my band ( a two guitarist with backing tracks of bass and drums knocking out pop punk tunes in pubs) are about to start gigging after months of getting ourselves ready...  in the rehearsal room we have just been making do with the PA and the two guitar amps to make a racket, but to make the move to the pubs that we will be playing in we want to make sure we can hear the vox and backing tracks clealry

we have our own pa with speakers - powered desk and carlsboro speakers - for the vox and the backing tracks..

We want to be able to hear the backing track and vox coming back to us on the stage, and we are stuck as to which kind of stage monitor we need... do we need an active or passive wedge speaker to use with our powered desk?

I cant seem to find any advice on the web as to which we need..

The pa desk has a monitor out jack, as well as a headphone/control mix out, the regular sized jack socket - so this is the one that goes to the monitor.. 

Any advice on the type of speaker we need would be greatly appreciated!

cheers  

Phil_aka_Pip

presumably you want to know what's going out front.

if your desk produces a line level monitor send you could do worse than get a Kustom powered wedge from thomann. they daisy chain so you could add another one later

IanSavage

It also depends on impedances - trying to keep this simple, your powered desk will be rated as a particular maximum power into a particular impedance (probably 4 ohms) which is the LOWEST impedance you should operate that desk at.

If your Carlsbro speakers for the out-front sound are higher than this (which is totally possible, a lot of PA speakers are 8 ohms) you'd be able to 'slave' another pair of passive speakers of equal impedance from the Carlsbros, giving you pretty much the same coming back to you as the punters out front are getting.

Whether that's what you NEED is another matter (you won't be able to change the balance between vocals and backing track in your monitors without changing the mix out-front doing it this way, which you would with a powered monitor run from an aux send) put it's the cheapest and simplest way of doing things.

Beexter

Difficult to say for sure without knowing what desk you have but it sounds like you could run either active or passive given you have a monitor out and an aux out.. Chances are though, that a powered monitor would be the best bet as you don't have to worry about speaker impedence and amp loads. If you let us know the model of the desk you have, we can give more specific help. Check to see if the monitor out socket is sending a speaker level signal (ie designed to connect to a passive speaker) - if it is, you do not want to connect a powered speaker to this output - use the headphone out instead.

If you go for a powered/ active speaker, look for one that can be used on it's side as a wedge monitor. I currently use a pair of Alto Truesonic TS110a's which I find to be perfectly fine. You could start with one and add more later as you can link them together if you need more power.

bevanjon74

cheers guys.. yes its so we know whats going out front really, prob dont need much of a different mix coming back at us, but might be an option

We have monitor send that I presume is a line level coming out of the desk so a powered wedge as mentioned by @phil_aka_pip would defo work for that job.. and they look mighty cheap too. Is a speaker of that size going to be loud enough coming back at us in a pub or club? If so that could be a winner!

@IanSavage the carlsboro speakers are 8 ohms (ive just looked on the back) - how do you "slave" the speaker from it then? They has 3 inputs on the back - 2 of the locking type and one normal jack socket. Presume one of these is to slave the other passive speaker from?

bevanjon74

thanks @beexter its a Behringer Europower PMX1000 i inherited from my brother.. it has a headphone/ctrl out for sure with its separate volume so that could be the best for a powered monitor wedge type - which sounds the way to go then

IanSavage

bevanjon74 said:

@IanSavage the carlsboro speakers are 8 ohms (ive just looked on the back) - how do you "slave" the speaker from it then? They has 3 inputs on the back - 2 of the locking type and one normal jack socket. Presume one of these is to slave the other passive speaker from?

That will be fine, aye!

Phil_aka_Pip

@bevanjon74 the Kustom wedge carries a 100W amplifier, and the speaker is not horribly inefficient, so you should get decent spl out of it. btw I use one from time to time. If it turn out there's not enough spl on stage (unlikely in a pub IMO) they're cheap enough so just daisy chain another one. You can put them on poles as well (he he that's a good job for an exploited immigrant - holding a wedge up to your ear on stage) so you can have them at ear level side-fill wise if you like.

bevanjon74

guys thank you so much for taking time to answer .. Im armed with all the info now I can go shopping! Not as exciting as new guitars, pedals or amps but needs must ) 

thanks again.. this place is great!