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[Mark McFarlane]

I've spec'd out a PA system for general use by a company/community.  30K is their budget.  If anyone is interested in reviewing the system, I'd appreciate to know if I left out anything important.  My goal is to have a complete system ready to work.

A couple of notes:

1) The Ashley processor is in there primarily to provide some additional EQ and occasionally delays for outdoor events, not for traditional speaker processing.
2) I choose Mackie mixers because most anyone can run a Mackie board. The 2 mixers are there to make the system somewhat scalable, for example someone could take 2 QSC KW122's, the small Mackie, and some mics and cables for a small indoor event.

I'm not really interested in alternate vendor/model choices but more interested in knowing if I missed some class of product, i.e. could you throw this gear in your truck and do a gig without anything else.

I know its a stretch to ask anyone to look at the list, but if someone is bored, go for it

Here's the list  http://www.bhphotovideo.com/wl/3D8B6BFC5F

Hopefully, its not editable by the public...

[Tim Weaver]

I'd ditch the protea processor. Nobody will use it, or they will just use it wrong.

You only have 1 dual31 band EQ. What about the monitors?

Why in the hell does a mackie-sized PA need an SM7B? Lose it.

Lose the SM81's too. Replace them with something cheaper from Audio Technica.

Cities usually have more material handling carts and dollies than you can imagine. Lose the rock n roller thing.

Lose the second mixer. Either completely, or replace it with a tiny mixer. If they need a couple Speakers in a room, then they certainly can get by with a 4 channel mixer. The 16 channel job is too large to be portable and too small to be useful on stage.

Replace the radial DI's with whirlwind IMP's and Hotbox's.  This being a city-owned PA, those DI's are going to disappear pretty fast. No sense in buying the good stuff when you are replacing it every 6 months.




In my experience Cities want to use their own PA to cover audiences from 2-300 all the way up to 4-5000 people. I would look into a more scalable speaker system instead of 2 mixers and etc.

Honestly if it were me, I would replace the QSC stuff with the new Yamaha DSR stuff. It's cheaper and louder. I would get more monitors and at least 4 subs and 4 tops. Comb filtering be damned.

I might instruct them to put one top upside down on the other top for best performance. Although, this being a city, they may have a bona-fide use for 180 degree coverage too.





It's just me, but doesn't this seem like a PA built by a studio cat? Radials and the SM7 going into a POS mackie and coming out of low-rent speakers? Keep everything on the guitar-center level for these guys. It'll be easier for you and them.

[Greg_Cameron]

I agree with pretty much everything Tim said. And you can definitely do better on the pricing. A certain sound co. related to vermin comes to mind. And while years ago I was a fan of Mackie mixers for low cost mixers, their reliability and customer service has been on the wain for a while. I'd be more inclined to stick with A&H for lower priced mixers.

Greg

[Mark McFarlane]

I agree with pretty much everything Tim said. And you can definitely do better on the pricing. A certain sound co. related to vermin comes to mind. And while years ago I was a fan of Mackie mixers for low cost mixers, their reliability and customer service has been on the wain for a while. I'd be more inclined to stick with A&H for lower priced mixers.

Greg

Like a GL 2400?

[Greg_Cameron]

Like a GL 2400?

Yes, absolutely.

Greg

[g'bye, Dick Rees]

Mark....

How many times/year is this stuff going to be used?  They should really look at the actual cost rather than the one-time purchase price.  Once you figure in maintenance, repair, replacement, storage, depreciation and everything else associated with ownership, then balanced that out with the usage of what the gear will handle and add in the cost of hiring a larger system or additional gear for larger events I'd bet that they'll find it's cheaper to establish a relationship with a local house for rental.

If you have a reputable company who maintain their gear and update their inventory on a regular basis you'll likely find that you'll have a higher rate of success over time with hiring gear rather than trying to squeak by owning a "one-size fits all" inventory. 

I'm guessing that the $30K used over time will support a minimum of 60 shows.  Divide that  by your # of shows/ year to get a shotgun cost estimate/show.  Now figure that the $30K purchase price is perhaps 2/3 to 1/2 of the actual cost over time, the fact that rental inventory is going to be new every two years or so (against an aging and eventually aged city-owned system) and hiring becomes an option.

Ownership brings responsibilities which are not likely to be shouldered by a municipal organization.

That's my take and I stand by it.

DR

[Mark McFarlane]

I'd ditch the protea processor. Nobody will use it, or they will just use it wrong.

You only have 1 dual31 band EQ. What about the monitors?

Why in the hell does a mackie-sized PA need an SM7B? Lose it.

Lose the SM81's too. Replace them with something cheaper from Audio Technica.

Cities usually have more material handling carts and dollies than you can imagine. Lose the rock n roller thing.

Lose the second mixer. Either completely, or replace it with a tiny mixer. If they need a couple Speakers in a room, then they certainly can get by with a 4 channel mixer. The 16 channel job is too large to be portable and too small to be useful on stage.

Replace the radial DI's with whirlwind IMP's and Hotbox's.  This being a city-owned PA, those DI's are going to disappear pretty fast. No sense in buying the good stuff when you are replacing it every 6 months.




In my experience Cities want to use their own PA to cover audiences from 2-300 all the way up to 4-5000 people. I would look into a more scalable speaker system instead of 2 mixers and etc.

Honestly if it were me, I would replace the QSC stuff with the new Yamaha DSR stuff. It's cheaper and louder. I would get more monitors and at least 4 subs and 4 tops. Comb filtering be damned.

I might instruct them to put one top upside down on the other top for best performance. Although, this being a city, they may have a bona-fide use for 180 degree coverage too.





It's just me, but doesn't this seem like a PA built by a studio cat? Radials and the SM7 going into a POS mackie and coming out of low-rent speakers? Keep everything on the guitar-center level for these guys. It'll be easier for you and them.

Thanks Tim for the helpful suggestions.

A couple things I should have shared:

I'm not too worried about theft, this is in a country where they cut your hand off for stealing.  There still is some theft, but I've never had anything walk off a stage in 9 years except for my Crown Royal 'tails bag' at a Harley Rally.  I'm generally more likely to come home with extra gear than loose anything.  It's hard to explain where I live, but you can think of it as a very tight community rather than a city.  It's a company compound in the desert in the Middle East.  Tight security.  The PA will be purchased and stored by an employees' association that probably won't have a dolly, but they will have easy access to half a dozen people to hand carry stuff.  For my last show I asked them to send  truck, and they sent 2 with about 10 guys to carry stuff.

For most of the better acts that come through over the next 5 years I'll be running the system but it will see 95% service by others at FOH.

The list of gear is actually a scaled down list of my inventory, and what I threw in the list would satisfy 90% of the gigs I've done for the community, sans recording.  I'm sick of hauling my own gear, and the community has volunteered to buy a setup.

I do record some of the events.  If indoors, I'll bring even better mics than the SM7b and SM81's for such events.  I've done 3 jazz concerts over the past few months, fairly big jazz bands from the States and Europe  Here are some recordings of Darius Brubeck (Dave's son) if anyone is interested http://www.arkoserecords.com/ArtistsMusic/DariusBrubeck/tabid/87/Default.aspx.  I've also run FOH and shot video and recorded some Middle Eastern mini-ochestras (12 acoustic instruments) so the system needs to be fairly flexible.

FWIW, I've used IMP and Director DI's before, they don't compare sonically to the Radials (Maybe the Director and ProD2 are 'close enough').  The IMP sounds like complete crap to me, just sucks the life out of some instruments.  The Radials are also indestructible, definitely suitable for being banged around.  I could scale down from the J to Pro series, but I'm too huge a fan of Radial DIs to listen to any sane advice in this area .

I'll rethink the Protea as an EQ+delay device, but man, I really want at least one channel of delay...  I guess I can carry my own.

I haven't heard the Yamaha DSR's, I'll take a quick look.  The Yamaha's would be better because they could probably be serviced locally. Yamaha is everywhere in the world.

I'll seriously consider adding a few more large tops and scale back on the DIs and mics,...  I originally was thinking of a pair of powered VRXs on each side, but thought the setup complexity would be a tad high and I've read that the VRX's need processing and don't sound great till you add 3 or 4 per side...

The actual purchase will likely be bid out to several local vendors, the prices will be even higher.  Not in my control.

Back to the original question, am I missing anything?

[g'bye, Dick Rees]

In re the Protea:

If you're looking for two channels of extremely usable EQ (graphic and PEQ) with workable delay get yourself a Sabine GraphiQ.

DR

[Mark McFarlane]

Mark....

How many times/year is this stuff going to be used?  They should really look at the actual cost rather than the one-time purchase price.  Once you figure in maintenance, repair, replacement, storage, depreciation and everything else associated with ownership, then balanced that out with the usage of what the gear will handle and add in the cost of hiring a larger system or additional gear for larger events I'd bet that they'll find it's cheaper to establish a relationship with a local house for rental...

Unfortunately, other than from me, the best gear local provers can provide is PG series mics and Yamaha's cheapest speakers.  They used a local provider for a mini-orchestra and he charged $2500 for an afternoon with 4 crappy Yamaha teenager DJ speakers, a powered Yamaha mixer, and some crappy mics.  The next year I did the show for 1/2 with about 5 times the quality of gear, and multi-tracked it, and did a 2 camera video shoot to boot.

Live music events are basically forbidden so there's not much of a commercial business.

[Jay Barracato]

Unfortunately, other than from me, the best gear local provers can provide is PG series mics and Yamaha's cheapest speakers.  They used a local provider for a mini-orchestra and he charged $2500 for an afternoon with 4 crappy Yamaha teenager DJ speakers, a powered Yamaha mixer, and some crappy mics.  The next year I did the show for 1/2 with about 5 times the quality of gear, and multi-racked it, and did a 2 camera video shoot to boot.

Live music events are basically forbidden so there's not much of a commercial business.

The combination of the graphic eq and the dsp jumped out to me as well, in addition to the lack of processing for monitors.

As an alternative to the Sabine Dick suggested you may also want to look at the Ashly 4.24G digital graphic. Actually two of those units would give you house L/R plus 6 channels of monitors.

[ProSoundWeb Community]