Grateful Dead Music Forum

Okay, gang, who here has back-up PA stuff that they bring to gigs?

Currently I only own a powered board. It's a good one but sometimes I get worried.

So today I'm picking up poweramp which I'll used with a small mixer as a back-up.

I got the idea from a friend who has a board and 2 poweramps 1 for mains, 1 for mons with a small mixer in a drawer knowing he can goto mono if 1 of the amps blow.


Do y'all think I'm insane or does anyone else do this?!

We bring an 8 channel Mackie mixer amp to all gigs just in case. Enough to survive a bar gig if the mixer or power amps crap out. It's always good to cover your bases.

tcsned wrote:We bring an 8 channel Mackie mixer amp to all gigs just in case. Enough to survive a bar gig if the mixer or power amps crap out. It's always good to cover your bases.

Firstly good to know I'm not the only one! Secondly, is the Mackie you referred to is powered?

strumminsix wrote:

tcsned wrote:We bring an 8 channel Mackie mixer amp to all gigs just in case. Enough to survive a bar gig if the mixer or power amps crap out. It's always good to cover your bases.

Firstly good to know I'm not the only one! Secondly, is the Mackie you referred to is powered?

yep its powered - 600 @ 2ohms per side


I use it with my bluegrass band as we only use 1 or 2 mics for the whole band and when we do acoustic trio gigs. Ain't knock-down awesome but it's functional.

tcsned wrote:

strumminsix wrote:

tcsned wrote:We bring an 8 channel Mackie mixer amp to all gigs just in case. Enough to survive a bar gig if the mixer or power amps crap out. It's always good to cover your bases.

Firstly good to know I'm not the only one! Secondly, is the Mackie you referred to is powered?

yep its powered - 600 @ 2ohms per side


I use it with my bluegrass band as we only use 1 or 2 mics for the whole band and when we do acoustic trio gigs. Ain't knock-down awesome but it's functional.

I used this Mackie 808S as my PA in bars for years with great results. I ran one side as Main and one side as Monitor. Outdoors I might use a serperate Monitor amp and use the Mackie in stereo. I would sub mix the drums and bass on a small Behringer mixer, run that through a powered sub then on to 2 nice old EV 12/horn pole speakers. I REALLY liked that Mackie. Good sound and EASY.

Thanks, friends!

Thankfully our drummer uses and electronic kit so we can easily squeeze him down to one channel. So we can manage w/8 channels.

Hi Strummin

+1 on the 2 identical mains that can cover each other.

we have power amps for all 4 monitors and 2 mains and 2 subs. A few weeks ago the amp for the mains went out and thankfully I was able to chain the monitors into 2 mixes (instead of 4) and use that monitor amp to drive the mains. It worked well enough in a pinch but it's so nice to have 4 separate mixes... I bought another amp & we're getting the other one fixed to have as a backup.

Our board is a 24 channel Allen & Heath - I don't know what I'd do if it died altogether...

Thanks all! So I integrated the new poweramp and tossed my small mixer on a shelf in the cab with her.

Firstly, more power was awesome and the clarity was phenomenal and secondly it was nice not having that worry in the back of my mind!