Setting up my PA.....
Home > Home Recording Forum > Live Sound Reinforcement > Setting up my PA.....
Posted on Jun 25, 2009 10:04 am
New2Sound
Member Since: Jun 25, 2009
Hey Everyone.
Glad I found this resource. Hopefully I can find some help with setting up my new system.
I've never setup my own PA before - and the nes band i got together collectively has a bunch of equipment that we have pieced together to hopefully put together some that will work.
Small venues only - (200 max) everywhere else has house systems.
Here is what I have...
beware... the word Behringer is in here alot... so we arent talking overly professional,,,
2 mackie passive subs
2 powered Behringer 15" 2 way speakers
Behringer FBQ3102 Ultragraph PRO EQ
Behringer EuroPower EP2500 Power Amp
Behringer SUPER-X PRO CX2310 Crossover
EV Unpowered 24 channel mixer
Ultrapatch Pro Patchbay
i am planning on getting 4-5 monitors as well... but i need to know where to start....
having powered speakers - do i need to run the amp to them.. or just a straight shot? do i even need all this stuff? what would be the ideal setup using this equipment?
and what would i need to bring in monitors? (another amp? etc...)
any help is appreciated.. i am a COMPLETE novice... and hope that its not frustrating to the veterans around here!
Thanks guys n gals
RR
[ Back to Top ]
Jun 25, 2009 01:38 pm with that equipment, i'd hook up mikes and whatnot to the mixer (obviously) then you wanna use your main outs on the mixer to the powered pa speakers, then connect the sub (aux) output on your mixer to the crossover, the crossover outputs to the poweramp inputs, and the poweramp outputs to your subwoofers....the cool thing about dooin 'it this way, is you'll have individual control of how much signal you send to the subs over every channel on the board, like really ya don't need to send vocals to the subs, or even guitar, but perhaps the kick drum and maybe bass.....if you're in a small space i would recommend not even using the subs, poweramp, or crossover....as for the patch bay....sell it......
as for monitors, really i'd sell the subs and crossover (lol can ya tell i'm not a fan of subs!!!) and get some wedge monitors and depending on the kind ya get you can power 2 or 3 with the poweramp you already have.
how many ppl are in the band, what kinda music are ya playing/what instruments are ya using....are y'all gigging? or is this just for practice?
Noize2uCzar of MidiAdministrator
Since: Apr 04, 2002
Jun 25, 2009 08:57 pm Looks like you have a good start. And not to worry about the B word. We all gotta start somewhere. I own a few pieces of Behringer gear as well.
I will leave this for Rob to take a look at, but WYD has a good start for ya. Rob can give you some more input on the X -over and how exactly to set up your subs and the like.
And no, your powered speakers are just that. Powered so they won't need any other amp to run them.
Jun 25, 2009 09:30 pm Hey guys.
New2Sound you have a little collection that should do you for the size room that you need to fill.
If you have never worked with a crossover before. Then there is a little bit of a learning curve involved with it.
There is an article that I wrote here that will help you along.
www.homerecordingconnecti...ory&id=1578
There is a small mistake that I made in the series/parallel section of it. I think that you will catch it right away.
Now, for the self powered speakers that you have, you don't need to run anything from the from the power amp to them. The amp is built into the speaker, so all you need to do is run just an mic cable (or balanced 1/4" cable) from the crossover.
Read the article, and I'll help you with the rest of the set up.
Jun 25, 2009 11:40 pm call me crazy but i'd run those powered speakers full range, btw rob, excellent article bro! made me miss my VLZ mackie board! lol
Jun 26, 2009 10:08 pm Thanks wohsyourdaddy.
I try not to run the top boxes at full range.
The reason being that depending on the room and or top box. They can couple on the low mid, or low end.
And a lot of times when that happens, there is not an EQ on the Earth that can remove or reduce the amount of coupled frequencies.
Jun 27, 2009 02:59 am ok i understand small room, they're probably ok, and for bigger spaces the subs would be useful....but what is the coupling yer talkin' about? i dont' think i've ever heard of it before...which is always fun to learn new stuff! so i'm just gonna google my way around for the time beein'...
thanks for the info, because i'm quite sure i've been on both of the bad ends of this issue, i've used subs in small rooms some times, and i have tried high school gymnasium type of battle of the bands with a pair of 15" 2 ways LOL and learned the hard way about tryin' to fill a room like that, brought subs with me the next year and worked out much better....but i do think when i ran the subs i also had the 2 way's running full range (wait a sec, is this the couppling effect you speak of?) kinda like a phase thing gooin' on? because yeah i spent what seems like more time than it shoulda taken on the graphic eq's i brought.
Jun 27, 2009 11:05 am Hey WYD, it sounds like you did run into this issue.
What happens is, the area that your subs and tops start to run in the same frequency range. The frequencies will sum together.
Example. The top box can go as low as 75 hz. And the subs can go as high as 125 hz. I that area of 75 to 125 hz, you will have double the energy.
Not only that, but you can have phase issues as well. And that will behave in similar fashion to comb phasing just like two horns next to each other will do.
High concentration of bass in one area, and nothing in another. A lot of times you will hear lobbing as well. This is where the timing of the waves come together.
The timing will direct the low end either down to the ground, or up in the air. Think of it as a large bubble that will go up or down with time.
And finally, the last issue that goes along with all of this, is standing waves. Nodes (No Displacement, or standing waves) will behave the same way that a comb filtering will do.
When the wave is to large to fit in the space that your doing sound, you need to High pass the subs a little more. This will shorten the wave leaving the sub, and allow it to fit in the space that your in.
This where I use the frequency distance finder from RealTrapps. www.realtraps.com/sbirlbir.htm
This program will let you know how low you can run your subwoofers. Enter in the depth of your room, and move the HPF to the first node. That should eliminate the standing waves in the room.
For the timing, I use Smaartlive, and a crossover that allows you to move the timing in the unit. I can then time align the boxes to themselves. Without Smaartlive, and a crossover that does not have delay, there are a few tricks that you can do to get it very close.
What you do is, put the subs out of phase with the tops. Then move the sub either away, or closer to the top boxes. When you hear the subs sound different. As in stronger, or softer then they where. Your in the right area. Mark that spot, and put the subs back in phase.
The other thing to do, is to make sure that the crossover point is correct for the two boxes that your running.
I'll give an example that we do. We have 6 EV Qrx 112's. And 6 Turbosound TXD 118's. The EV's will run from 22 khzs to 75 hzs. The Turbosounds will run from 15 hz to 125 hz.
Even though the EV's can do 75 hz. They do not handle it very well. Since it is only a 12" speaker in there. I set the HPF for the EV's to 100 hzs. And then I will move the LPF for the Turbosounds to 90 hz. The slopes are at -24 Linkwitz Riely. And just by leaving a 10 hz gap between the two, will keep the coupling down to a very minimum. And any problems that you encounter can be reduced by the EQ at that point.
It's a lot of work at first to find where you need to be for your set-up. But, once you have all of this information on your system. The next time will go a lot faster.
Jun 28, 2009 09:08 pm man that all makes complete sense to me......and now i know why i hate runnin' live sound so much! haha...i'll stay safe in my dark hole.
good info man....
