blown speaker, drum machine the culprit?

Posted on Dec 16, 2010 09:33 am
jhouse
Member Since: Dec 16, 2010

Hi all,

Newbie here, and a non techie as well. I haven't had any luck finding this on the internet, so here goes:

We just blew a JBL 15 in our small p.a., and suspect the Alesis 16 drum machine, possibly along with my inexperience. I need to figure out how to run our drum machine to get a bit of decent volume & punch, whether through the p.a. or a keyboard or bass amp, or a combination of the two. And, not blow any more speakers.

This is a duo (vocals, bass & guitar), along with an Alesis 16 drum machine, small venue & moderate volume type thing, trying to fill the dance floor area with sound, but not the whole venue, what with the small p.a.

The gear:

Mackie 808m mixer, 600W main, 600W monitors.

Another mixer we may use: Yorkville 810, 400W main, 400 monitors.

2 JBL Eon1500s

2 Yorkville monitors (10" speakers)

We plan on running vocals in the p.a., (at our volumes hopefully the bass & guitar amps will carry in small venues)and possibly, the drum machine We're also looking into running drum machine through a keyboard or bass amp, if it's that much of problem in the p.a. Or, the drum machine through both an amp & a little in the p.a. if the amp alone doesn't cut it.

So far we've been rehearsing in a small space, not playing terribly loud but trying to get some decent volumes. We ran the drum machine into line in on a channel, and ran it just under clipping. Sound wasn't distorted at all, got yellow lights occasionally but not red. And, not getting that much drum volume in the JBL's -- probably not quite enough for a gig. Other than drum machine, just vocals in the p.a.

A soundman I know suggested trying different ways of running the drum machine into the mixer, including the high-z input, so I did that -- didn't sound distorted, but not sure if that was a good idea

The speaker just blew in the middle of rehearsal, no bad sounds or warning. .

Any advice on using drum machines live -- and keeping speakers intact -- would be greatly appreciated!


thanks,


Jan

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