Best PA speaker for KPA?

Quote from AndySchick

Well, for your problems during rehersal, I would suggest to buy a cheap digital console, we use a cheap Beringer XR18. It has 6 busses, so everyone can dial in his/her monitor sound to their liking. Of course these have many possibilities to tweak (or „mistweak“), but if you run pretty basic, it should work - a good singer won‘t sound bad, even with a flat eq.
But this would require to reherse with headphone, as we do it.

In fact, at rehearsal, it's not the most important, we are in circle and can hear each other. We already have the equipment...

It was an example to show that even the music room's manager doesn't know how to tweak a mix table....

Quote from Steve5478

In fact, at rehearsal, it's not the most important, we are in circle and can hear each other. We already have the equipment...

It was an example to show that even the music room's manager doesn't know how to tweak a mix table....

I used to do this, but found that the band members got used to looking at each other at practice. At gigs, everyone got messed up trying to look at the audience when they played and missed cues, and generally felt uncomfortable looking out away from the other band members.

I started practicing with the PA and floor plan setup like we gigged and things got much better. Any issues we had with monitoring or feedback got addressed at practice and there were few surprises at the gig (as we all know, there are always venues where SOMETHING really crazy goes on that no amount of planning can avoid ).

for me, a great sound guy is like another musician in the band. But like many, we too mostly have to mix ourselves (no sound guy). I think the biggest issue in FOH mix is not eq'ing, but mixing the volumes of the various instruments and singers. Eq'ing and effects will enhance a singer or instrument, but won't make a bad input (voice or instrument) sound good. BUT, getting the overall mix right (balancing drums, bass, guitars, keys, singers) is huge to the audience experience. We've all heard bands where the bass or the guitar overpowers everything, or the vocals (main or harmony) are too low.

Getting the mix right is, to me, 90% of the FOH quality. All other adjustments just "enhance" a good mix.

Quote from GCNC8068

for me, a great sound guy is like another musician in the band. But like many, we too mostly have to mix ourselves (no sound guy). I think the biggest issue in FOH mix is not eq'ing, but mixing the volumes of the various instruments and singers. Eq'ing and effects will enhance a singer or instrument, but won't make a bad input (voice or instrument) sound good. BUT, getting the overall mix right (balancing drums, bass, guitars, keys, singers) is huge to the audience experience. We've all heard bands where the bass or the guitar overpowers everything, or the vocals (main or harmony) are too low.

Getting the mix right is, to me, 90% of the FOH quality. All other adjustments just "enhance" a good mix.

Its funny because I think that getting the balance is the relatively easy part that most people can do. You can easily hear if drums are louder than the vocals...although don't get me started on why so many people get it wrong - its sometimes because the person doing it is a guitarist so makes the guitars more prominent ( same from drummer/singer/bass player obviously)! My point is, Joe Public can usually tell..

EQ-ing is about getting the sonic space right ( I think) which is where I would flounder and is more of an engineering background.

Of course the 2 are linked but volume is less of a mystery ( because its just up and down) but e.q, especially mids, I have trouble deciding...Does that make sense?

it does make sense -- and I agree the mix should be the easy part, but rarely is. At least 50-60% of live bands I hear (including major touring acts) have a mix that is far out of balance. One or more instruments or vocals is either much too loud or much too soft. In small club settings, when the band is mixing itself, I agree that often whoever is adjusting the faders will tend to favor what they like (keys, guitar, etc.) without considering the overall mix. I've often wanted to go the sound board and ask the engineer, "can you not hear that the backing vocals are missing" or "do you really want the bass and kick that loud?"

Eq'ing, for me, is waaayyyy more subtle. The sonic space is more a function of what instruments you have, making sure they all have their space (i.e., the keys and guitars should not all be playing in the same register), and learning to have folks not play during certain parts of songs (to create space and dynamics).

For live sound, the Eq is more of an accommodation to the room ... every room is different, has different reflections, different resonant frequencies, etc. This is really where eq'ing improves the overall sound.

Quote from V8guitar

Its funny because I think that getting the balance is the relatively easy part that most people can do. You can easily hear if drums are louder than the vocals...although don't get me started on why so many people get it wrong - its sometimes because the person doing it is a guitarist so makes the guitars more prominent ( same from drummer/singer/bass player obviously)! My point is, Joe Public can usually tell..

EQ-ing is about getting the sonic space right ( I think) which is where I would flounder and is more of an engineering background.

Of course the 2 are linked but volume is less of a mystery ( because its just up and down) but e.q, especially mids, I have trouble deciding...Does that make sense?

Lots of time, the problem with volumes is more insidious that meets the eye. Lets take the example where the guitarist stage volume is pretty high.

Microphones aren't smart devices, they simply amplify the sound they hear. If the guitar is louder at the singer's mic than the singer's voice is, guess what gets amplified more?

So you have this person at the mix board getting complaints that "I can't hear the singer" from the crowd. He pulls up the volume on the singer's mic and gets ...... more guitar and a little more singer. He keeps moving the slider up until he gets feedback .... then shrugs and says "That's all I can do".

High stage volume is where good band sound goes to die!

Now the REAL trick isn't getting a soundman that knows this, it is getting one that the band trusts enough to turn everything on stage down so the mix out front sounds good. It is my experience that IEM's make for a much better FOH sound and a much better musician monitoring solution that a stage full of loud monitors. Additionally, my IEM's are a butt ton lighter than any of my wedges :).

Not necessarily, eq and volume are linked in my experience. For instance, making a guitar cut through the mix is generally more a matter of eq-ing (mids) than a matter of volume.

Quote from AndySchick

Not necessarily, eq and volume are linked in my experience. For instance, making a guitar cut through the mix is generally more a matter of eq-ing (mids) than a matter of volume.

True; however, it is rare when an audience member comes up and says "I can't hear the guitar" ;). Still, to your point, what DOES happen is that the guitar is eq'd in too much of a scoop (no mids) that someone thought sounded good alone in the bedroom, but live with the band doesn't cut ..... so it gets turned up ..... resulting in the problem I described above. High stage noise.

Yeah, my post was related to the one above yours, I was writing (On the phone with german autocorrect 🤪) while you posted…

Exzessive stage „noise“ is the key to sound bad on the front. At least on small to mid sized stages.