OT: recommend a small PA setup for band practice

[Matt Whritenour]

so i'm thinking about buy a new PA because mines not too good.
i don't want a powered mixer package thing i want everything
seperate so if i feel the need to ever upgrade parts of it i can
and i'm looking for something midrange
this is what i think i need

2 - 1 15" speakers
power amp
mixer ( i don't need a huge one, just something wiht at least 4 xlrs)
i would probably use my DBX 266xl compressor for the vocals mics and just
get a decent compressor for recording, instead of the dbx one.
and a dual 15 or 31 band eq

so if anyone could tell me some good things to checkout or anything i'm missing
no need to mention cables or stands, but anything else that would be great

thanks

matt

[Bastiaan]

mixer
verb
active speakers

You said you didnt want it...but with this you have it all, except a reverb

[keithl]

Also, check out Carvin...
I bought their speakers and have been very happy with them.

[albee1952]

Mixer-Behringer(way cheap but good features) or Mackie Onyx. Powered Mackie RM450's or Waldorph Pro with a QSC PLX2402. Reverb-TC M-ONE XL.

[Third Eye Studios]

I know you said that you didn’t want to go for a powered mixer, but I had a good set-up that worked well for my last band. We used a Soundcraft Powerstation powered mixer that was 600 watts by itself, and had plenty of patch points for adding additional components. You could patch in 1/3 octave eqs on the inserts, it had onboard fx and eq, and patch points to configure it as a foh/mon mixer. It was easy to add power and more speakers. It was perfect for band practice and plenty of gain before feedback, which in my opinion is the key when you have a loud band practice, we had huge guitar and bass stacks. I have tried some cheap mixers through power amps with 1/3 octaves and the gain before feedback was poor. If you don’t need a lot of volume you can get away with some cheaper stuff. As far as speakers go, we used a lot of different ones, we had free reign of my employer’s (large live sound company) stock. I would suggest a 15” but with a 2” for the highs, for better vocal intelligibility though. I like the way a 12” sounds too, if you don’t need the extended low end.

[jjhuntfox]

I love my Mackie SRM450s.

[Matt Whritenour]

thanks for all the replies
i'm hoping that i can just start off with the 2 speakers
and if there passive use my Hafler TA 1600 until i upgrade the amp
then get the mixer than a better amp, right now i just have a small crappy
PA that i use the 2 speakers for it then i go out of the tape out into my
hafler amp and into 2 old big stereo speakers it get's the job done for now
but i'd rather just have 2 really nice speakers,

and now that i think about it, i may also get a floor monitor to put over by the drumset

and i don't think i posted this before, but we practice in my "live room" so i'm thinking
of setting up the PA so that if i need to i can play my pro tools session back in the live
room so i have to make sure that the Mixer has aux inputs for that,
or maybe i would just use 2 line inputs into 2 of the channels, i'll figure it out

thanks again