[Kieron]

Anybody out there in a band - or putting together a band.

Trying to get a "kit" list that we would need for the following....

1 x Singer
4 x Backing Vocals (drummer and 3 guitarists)
3 x Guitarists
1 x Drummer (me)

Obviously the guitarists own guitars, and I have a set of drums to use (acoustic kit)

What mic's, amps, speakers, mixer would you recommend for a medium sized venue - probably a few hundred people at most?

Typical pub set up?

Any ideas?

[Toasty]

You shouldn't need a full PA setup at that size, we play pubs and rarely have to put anything other than the drums & vocals through the PA. Our PA mixer is a Yamaha 600watt with JBL speakers and subs, the amp model is similar to this one and is nice and compact for gigging.

We have a set of drum mics, we do mic the kit up, but we find its mainly only useful for the bass drum.

With 4 singers you'll obviously need 4 boom mic stands. We only have two singers, so we have one wedge monitor at front of stage, you may need two. We have a separate small crate pre amp for the monitor, but I'll admit, I don't know how all that works. We use shure SM58 mics, superb all round mic for this type of environment.

To follow this kind of set up, your Guitarists will need at least 100watt amps for the backline. I use a 150watt Combo amp, the other guitarist has something similar and our bassist has a nice big Ashdown stack.

And some other stuff you may forget but are really useful:

- Leads, lots of quality leads, never a bad thing to have spares, you will need them at some point.
- Guitar stands, nothing worse than faffing with cases while not on stage
- Lighting, you can get some nice compact coloured gel lighting rigs perfect for adding ambiance on stage
- Kit bags, bags / tubs for leads, drums, general stuff makes things tidy, easier to store and transport
- A transit van

I'm not sure how much kit you all have at the moment, but I'd recommend as a starting point pooling together everything you all own and see how close to a gig set up you already have. Its amazing how much stuff a musician can amass over time

[deadtotheworld]

A few hundred people sounds more like a club venue than a pub and that is a totally different beast.

If you are doing a regular/typical pub gig - if you have tube amps for guitars 100W is not really necessary. If you are using a PA for vocals and drums, you can mic up the guitars as well and have them coming through your monitors. Sure its great to have a fat Mesa or Bogner behind you, but for pub gigs its more and more common for people to go straight into a PA with a Line 6 Pod or similar and just use the monitors - oh and make sure the drummer gets a monitor if there is no backline.

For the average pub most of the time you can get away with micing the vox and the bass drum and if you do have decent amps that should suffice.

A good idea is to strike up a friendship/deal with a PA company and book your gigs and throw alot of business their way. Arrangements and deals can always be made and they can take care of whatever appropriate gear you need for the venue. A lot of pubs 'on the circuit' in a surrounding area usually have PA guys they use and know the venues inside out - as you find that they will do the same 'circuit' as the actual bands.

Getting to know the PA guys is great as they learn what you like your mix like and what balance you want in your monitors - (that only really important for bigger venues etc). Treat PA guys really well, buy them a pint, dont act like a primadonna as they have the power to sabotage your sound and you cant do anything about it from the stage.

If you do go down the route of doing it yourself - dont be lazy when packing away. Put everything away neatly and dont just screw up your leads etc into a plassy bag, it will just take longer to set up the next time. Gaffer tape is your friend!

[mickevh]

A reverb effect for vox is a good idea - most vocals sound horrid "dry" - but you need some easy way to kick reverb in/out as conversely, reverb sounds horrid when you "chat" between the numbers.

Watch a show on TV like Jonathon Ross (if you can stand him) or Jools Holland (if you can stand him) and you'll hear what I mean - the "talking" mics will be dry, but the vocal mics the singers use will have reverb added, (sometimes it's prettry subtle though.)

I used to see a pub band where the singer would even change the reverb patch to fit the songs - big long ones for the power ballads, shorter snapier for Alanis Morrisette, etc. etc.

[dmpoole]

At the pubs here in Stoke we go out with a 3000 watt PA system with everything put through it.
I've got 4 x Mackie SWA1501's and 2 x Mackie SRM450's.
The mixer is a Behringer SX2442FX and 13 channels are used on it.

[Crazy Guy]

Hi,

In my last band we used 4off Behringer B1520 eurolive speakers with an EP2500 amp behind it, and a behringer eurolive mixing desk. Bought the whole lot from www.gak.co.uk they currently have the B1520 at £239 a pair!!! Which is fantastic value. We didn't use the whole volume of the setup but concentrated more on the presence (if that makes sense). I used a set of drum mikes (approx £110), again mainly bass drum and snare fro presence. As a drummer I would say buy the best bass drum mike you can afford as this is where its at gigwise. Worth checking the music live show out at birmingham NEC early novemebr as well, as you will be able to try a lot of kit there to get a feel for it.