[iampigsnout]

While tinkering with my guitar tone is a bottomless pit at times...generally I can dial in to any standard sized venue at this point and be happy with it. The problem is getting a "full", "rich" tone from the band as a whole. When I hear back recordings it sounds anemic. We've come a long way from feedback to volume wars, etc. We've done well bringing in subs and now I'm not sure how to get the depth of tone from the PA to add to the music/show.

Has anyone else made improvements to their PA's that added depth to the sound?
Thx
tb

[Rusty the Scoob]

Sounds like a job for subwoofers to me!

[jester536]

Sometimes it takes the wisdom of a bass player to assess the situation and point out the obvious...subwoofers!

[myoung6923]

Yep - good subs and appropriate sized mains will give you a nice, full sound.

You need to look at the size of the room and match your speaker size to it. Single 12" mains are ok for small rooms - but if the room is bigger then you'd want at least a pair of 15's with horns and 18" subs. Maybe even a pair of dual 15's with horns for mains.

But it all depends on the size of the room.

[iampigsnout]

Thx for the input, yeah we've had sub-woofers for some time and it was a considerable improvement. Maybe the trick is to add more low end to the vocals eq. There always seems to be the next "great gadget" for PA sound...maximizers, etc, but I'm always left a little suspicious. A little reverb never hurt that much (in moderation) and we've compressed the single a bit as well. As for as tinkering and looking for improvements goes, I guess it's baby steps....

[Rusty the Scoob]

Hmm... so you have subs. Once you have those the issue is usually muddy mixes, so this is interesting.

What's your lineup?
What's your PA gear?
Got any recordings?

[myoung6923]

You shouldn't have to add lows to the vocals - a good PA and decent mics should give you decent lows from the vocals. No amount of low end boost to the vocals will be coming out of the subs - it's just a lower frequency than vocals will produce.

Maybe it's how you have the crossover set up? It should be set somewhere around 80 - 100 MHz. Also - how big are the subs and what size amp is driving them?

[iampigsnout]

We've recently switched from passive speakers to powered mains, now QSC K12's over powered subs are run off of a Allen and Heath 16 channel mixer. Snare/Kick/(sometimes) overhead cymbal into board. 4 vocals and 2 mic'd guitar amps. Keyboards go as a direct in.
Monitors are passive JBL's . When playing in mid sized rooms (say 150-200 people) everyone can hear well and the K12's have done a better job of avoiding the muddy mix we always seemed to get with our passive set up. Likewise no shrill ear-fatigue.
I'll try to figure out how to post an audio sample.
Thx

The subs are crossed over at 100hz from the feed off of the k12's. They are Sansom ex500. 15 inch

[myoung6923]

What kind of mics?

[iampigsnout]

The vocals are thru Sennheiser 835's but the amp mikes are a hodge podge of omnidirectional mic's. Shure, AKG, Ev...we haven't been sure if the task specific mic's for the amps would be worth finding the money for...

[myoung6923]

Maybe it's the mics? Hard to know until you try out some different ones. It sounds like you have the right gear to be able to make it sound nice and full. Do the vocals and keys sound thin - or just the guitars? All of it?

We use Senheiser e906 mics for the guitar cabinets and have pretty good luck with them. But even an SM57 should do a good job.

[myoung6923]

Aside from the EQ's on the board - do you have a good EQ for the main mix - and run it as a L&R insert?

[Stone]

While tinkering with my guitar tone is a bottomless pit at times...generally I can dial in to any standard sized venue at this point and be happy with it. The problem is getting a "full", "rich" tone from the band as a whole. When I hear back recordings it sounds anemic. We've come a long way from feedback to volume wars, etc. We've done well bringing in subs and now I'm not sure how to get the depth of tone from the PA to add to the music/show.

Has anyone else made improvements to their PA's that added depth to the sound?
Thx
tb

Id be interested to hear what kinda gear you are using and what your definition of "depth" is. Your quality of gear , having speakers out of phase ,improper gain structure are just a few things that can make the best systems sound anemic. Also what kinda recording are you making judgments with? Subs are only a small part of the puzzle. A good EQ (dbx 231 - good/cheap) and someone who knows how to use it could probably make a big impact for you. The "depth" you are looking for probably has nothing to do with your low end.

For us , the biggest sound improvements was the upgrade from a Mackie mixer to a Allen & Heath GL2400-32 and from our older SRX jbls to new PRX 625's w/ XLF subs. Really not much of a logist change but a step up to newer/higher quality gear.

Edited to add- I must have missed a few post there. QSC K series are nice speakers. Overheads on drums can be a nightmare in a small room as your vocal mics typically bleed enough into the main mix.

[JonnyBoy]

I think PA systems are like instruments in themselves, you get better at it as you play it. It seems a good sound person (in the band or otherwise) is as important as good sound equipment, especially in venues with horrible acoustics. A PA driverack that assess the pink and white noise (and other parameters) and then EQ's the PA for you is a great piece of equipment for DIY bands. This is an economical alternative to having to hire someone too. (or using the sound guy provided by the bar that probably knows less about getting what we want out of the pa than my 7 yr old.) in that case we go early, set it and they can slide the main volume. Our new rhythm player has done pro live sound for a good while and has a lot of these tools. They are relatively new to us.

We have played lots of small places this winter, and most places did not take acoustics into account when building the area. We used a Bose L2 system last night for vocals (did not use the driverack), and it cause a crap load of Feedback and was too loud for the drummer since the tiny stage required him to be on top of it. There was a lot of people there talking, and we could only get the bose at a certain volume and that was it. On a larger sized stage I could see it being a good vocal PA, but we couldn't turn it up past a certain point due to feedback. Don't believe the hype about it not feeding back. So far on these small bar stages, a made in USA Mackie mixer and a pair of QSC K12's have given us the best tone for our vocals/pa. Also picking mics that suit the individual voice helps knock the vocal tone up a notch.

As for outdoors, the good old fashion 2x15 with horns are ideal for us.

[Stone]

I think PA systems are like instruments in themselves, you get better at it as you play it. It seems a good sound person (in the band or otherwise) is as important as good sound equipment, especially in venues with horrible acoustics. A PA driverack that assess the pink and white noise (and other parameters) and then EQ's the PA for you is a great piece of equipment for DIY bands. This is an economical alternative to having to hire someone too. (or using the sound guy provided by the bar

Since you already are using a powered speakers you basically have a "driverack" in each of your QSC speakers. These are already processed with the proper limiting,eq and designed to use there crossover point. The "auto RTA" functions produce ok results at best and could put you further from your target. A good eq used to make cuts to compensate for abnormal things in the room sounds like the ticket for the OP.


A PA system definitely takes some tuning to get it right. We sometimes have a opening band and you can learn alot about your system and get it tweeked a lil before show time. A sound guy inst something we work without. However a bad one can be night mare also.