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Author Topic: Free speakers...  (Read 6085 times)

Taylor Phillips

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Free speakers...
« on: April 20, 2014, 10:00:12 PM »

So, I've gotten involved with a church plant here in Jacksonville that just received a literal truckload of free stuff from a church in Atlanta that closed.  We had exactly zero sound equipment before and were trying to piece together a system before moving out of a house to a rented space.  Anyway, while the bulk of the stuff seems pretty good, the speakers seem a bit questionable.  There's six speakers in total.  Two "Optimum" wedges that look like they may be car audio speakers installed in a carpet covered wedge box, two Hollinger 10in speakers that look to be copies of these: http://kustom.com/product_detail.aspx?TypeID=8&FamilyID=83&ProductID=166&Tab=3, and a pair of Klipsch PA-size home audio speakers.  Does anyone know if these are any good?

We also got a couple of power amplifies, a Mackie and a QSC (not sure the model number on either, but the QSC has a number in the 4000s on it), a couple of powered mixers, Kustom and Hollinger again, and a Carvin C3244 32-channel passive mixer.

The member who helped bring it down set up a bit of it to get a working system going, not the way I would have done it but it does work.  He has the mics going to the Kustom 8-channel powered mixer, pre-amp out to the Mackie amp, to the wedge speakers he put facing the congregation.  I played around with it a bit today and there was a rhythmic sort of the thumping sound coming from the speakers.  Turning the knobs on the Kustom mixer didn't affect that, so I guess it must be a problem with the Mackie amp?

Now, the way I'm thinking of setting it up is use the Carvin for the main mixer, send the outputs to the powered mixers (since the Mackie amp might be making funny noises and I think the QSC might be 1000w too much) to the wedges and the Hollinger speakers (they have pole mounts, the Klisches and Optimums do not).  Not sure on the quality of the Hollinger speakers, though.  In my mind Klipsch is a better brand of speaker than Kustom, which the speakers seem to be copies of, but the Klipsch speakers don't seem to be made with live music performance in mind. 

The other stuff we got are a handful of Sennheiser e835 mics, which I like, a handful of no-name wireless mic systems, an Audio-Technica PROformance wireless headworn mic system (might be the only wireless setup worth keeping since it's the only brand I've heard of), a 16 channel snake (not sure the length, but it's bulky), mic stands, speaker stands, keyboard and the most of two drum sets not to mention a bunch of non-audio related stuff.

Right now the music just consists of piano and vocal, but the style goes from contemplative Hillsong style the-song-ended-five-minutes-ago-but-we're-still-singing to energetic gospel.  We have a couple people who want to play drums. 
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Tim Perry

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Re: Free speakers...
« Reply #1 on: April 21, 2014, 12:38:31 AM »

I would suggest you sell all the free stuff for whatever you can get for it and put the $ toward items that you can actually use.

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Taylor Phillips

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Re: Free speakers...
« Reply #2 on: April 21, 2014, 06:52:31 AM »

I would suggest you sell all the free stuff for whatever you can get for it and put the $ toward items that you can actually use.
That was what I kinda figured might be the best option, but wanted to see if anything was worth keeping/using.
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Jonathan Johnson

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Re: Free speakers...
« Reply #3 on: April 21, 2014, 03:06:18 PM »

That was what I kinda figured might be the best option, but wanted to see if anything was worth keeping/using.

I'd keep anything without electronics (cables, stands, etc.) and the Sennheiser and A/T mics and (maybe) the keyboard. Everything else... if you don't have a use for it now, it's not an asset, it's a liability. Sell it and use the money for something you can use.

You don't need to treat it as a white elephant. Even though it was a gift, don't feel obligated to keep it. Trading it for other audio equipment still keeps things within the spirit of the gift, though. You probably don't want to sell it and buy a solid gold communion chalice if the giver was intending it for the benefit of your church's A/V systems.
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Taylor Phillips

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Re: Free speakers...
« Reply #4 on: April 21, 2014, 08:52:14 PM »

I'd keep anything without electronics (cables, stands, etc.) and the Sennheiser and A/T mics and (maybe) the keyboard. Everything else... if you don't have a use for it now, it's not an asset, it's a liability. Sell it and use the money for something you can use.

You don't need to treat it as a white elephant. Even though it was a gift, don't feel obligated to keep it. Trading it for other audio equipment still keeps things within the spirit of the gift, though. You probably don't want to sell it and buy a solid gold communion chalice if the giver was intending it for the benefit of your church's A/V systems.
I was starting to think on those same lines - keep everything without a power cord.  The one electronic device I thought might be worth keeping was that Carvin mixer.  Any thoughts on that?  It does have 4 sub-groups, a mid-sweep eq, more channels than we need, and built in effects (which I'll grant are likely useless).
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Tim Perry

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Re: Free speakers...
« Reply #5 on: April 22, 2014, 12:33:51 AM »

I was starting to think on those same lines - keep everything without a power cord.  The one electronic device I thought might be worth keeping was that Carvin mixer.  Any thoughts on that?  It does have 4 sub-groups, a mid-sweep eq, more channels than we need, and built in effects (which I'll grant are likely useless).

Check the sliders. If they cut out when moved they need to be replaced. The part is only $3 each but it might need all of them. Plus the labor to put them in and markup on the part
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Kyle Leonard

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Re: Free speakers...
« Reply #6 on: April 22, 2014, 12:26:56 PM »

Those Klipsch speakers could be worth a pretty penny. You should look into putting those on ebay.

Kyle
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Taylor Phillips

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Re: Free speakers...
« Reply #7 on: April 22, 2014, 10:44:00 PM »

So, we just had about half the church over at the new place to help set up everything - not just audio, but chairs, padded floor pieces for the currently concrete-floored nursery room etc. Surprisingly, the audio equipment actually worked seemingly well.  Unfortunately, we actually didn't actually receive any speakers stands, though.   What I thought was a bag with them in it actually held a tent.  I put the Hollinger speakers on a couple small, tall, square tables on either side of stage, pointed them away from each other, and ran them off of the matching amp.  They're not at the best height, but at least they'll be over everyone's head when they sit down.  I used the powered mixer than came with them because the pastor was worried that the big mixer might be too complicated to work with if they wanted to have a small even where they just needed a mic or two and nothing fancy, and this way they have the option of using a very simple system, or the bigger more sophisticated one.  Our worship leader and drummer asked if I minded if they go through some songs together, and of course I was like "please do, it will let me set levels and see what we're working with."  The drums were not put through the system, just keys and vocals and I was actually able to get a pretty good sound at 90dBA SPL across the room.  Sunday will be the real test when we have more people in the room, though.  We did have about 10 people left from setting up the rest of the stuff and they got up, sang and clapped along and one of them got on stage to sing, so I got her a mic and put her in the mix too.

The one thing that was a bit baffling though, is the wedge speakers.  The other guy had them set up and working running off of the Mackie amp, but when I changed the setup, there's no sound coming from them, even though all of the lights on the amp indicate it's receiving signal.  The funny noise from before was coming from the Kustom powered mixer, so I figured the Mackie was fine.  The only difference with the setup was that before, the left and right pre-amp output of the Kustom were going to channels 1 and 2 on the Mackie and then respectively to the two wedge speakers (which unfortunately do not have a throughput), and now an XLR cable from the snake to the amp using the monitor 1 send from the Carvin.  The other guy was using the quarter-inch inputs, and both channels while I was using one channel and the XLR input.  The lights indicated signal, so it shouldn't be an input issue.  I'm not sure if the amp can use both output channels from one input since the wedges can't be daisy-chained.  I have more free aux sends on the mixer, but not a way to connect it to the snake.  The worship leader is fine without a wedge, but the drummer could use one. 
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Jonathan Johnson

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Re: Free speakers...
« Reply #8 on: April 22, 2014, 11:15:50 PM »

I don't know about YOUR Mackie amp, but some of them have switches on the back that can impact operation. Make sure they are all in the position marked 'typical'.
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Taylor Phillips

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Re: Free speakers...
« Reply #9 on: April 27, 2014, 01:55:32 PM »

So, the cheap little Hollinger mains worked out well this morning.  There were a couple issues that came up though.  One is that un-muting the mic channels on the Carvin mixer made a bit of a popping sound.  The sliders and knobs all did fine.  The signal LED was solid green on the un-muted channels as well, even when there was nothing coming through.  Any idea what this could be?

I figured out the issue with the wedges and Mackie amp.  It's definitely the wedges.  I hooked them up to main mix and they barely made any noise.  Blown tweeter/horn I'd guess. 

The other thing that was a bit baffling is that the keyboard just stopped making sound a couple times.  I got new cables, tried a different channel, different outputs, but what finally got it going again was to turn it off and back on again.  Not very convenient.  The keyboard is a Kawai MP9000, using the XLR outputs. 
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Re: Free speakers...
« Reply #9 on: April 27, 2014, 01:55:32 PM »


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