OK, I have been planning out new equipment purchases with my band members, and I am wondering, what do I need for a live vocal rig? I do not want everybody's vocals going into the same speaker, so I have a mixer for that, but now my question is, after the mixer will i need to send the vocals to a vocal amp? If someone could post what I need for the rig and what the signal chain would be it would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

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singer - mic - pa mixer - poweramp - pa speakers

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Now will a regular mixing board such as used for the recordings of guitars and drums suffice for when and if we play a show? If we were to use the mixing board we wouldn't be using it for the guitars or the drums, only for the vocals, thanks.

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Yes you can use a regular mixer, but you will still need a power amp to power the speakers.

OK, I take it a regular guitar amp will suffice for an amp for the vocals, or will i need rack equipment? I'm trying to keep the cost relatively low as live equipment isn't as large a priority as recording equipment is.

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Why not pick up a PA package from musiciansfriend.com?

a basic PA is just Mics ---> mixer (ALL mixers are relatively the same thing...preamps w/ eqs + faders and maybe a few other goodies...there's no difference between a "recording" and "live" mixer) ---> Poweramp (usually upwards of 400+ watts depending on your rig...) ----> PA Speakers


From there people usually add EQs, compressors, crossovers (for subwoofers) and other stuff. You dont REALLY need that, but I advise at least buying some sort of powered mixer + 2 15 inch speaker cabs. That should get you buy allright, if it's around 200ish watts per speaker. Try and get a powered mixer with some reverb or something too, so your vocals arent "stale".

That's only if you're doing this for small gigs (very small gigs) + practice and only for vocals. If you wanna mic EVERYTHING....well why buy that when most clubs will have that anyway?

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how good do you need it to sound? are you a singer? screamer? growls? how loud is the band(equipment wise, what are we dealing with?)

honestly. something like a used 600w powered mixer and a pair of 15's(15" woffer and a horn) should suffice for practicing and small gigs.

most decent venues worth playing at will have their own PA's... i don't see myself at hardly anyshows where a band needs to bring it's own PA.

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Well, we have two 100watt tube amps. I guess we just need something that can suffice for our own small gigs that we host ourselves until we can get our name out. I take it if I buy a powered mixer then that can also suffice for recording?

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Why do you want to split up the vocals into different speakers? That's a waste of power, and normally, it can only be done if there are maximum 2 singers, one panned left and one panned right.. still a waste of power when you could get both vocals double as loud if they go thru both speakers

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Because vocals sound better if they are seperated with 2 separate speakers.

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Also, does a firewire ability let me record say, each part of a drum track to a seperate track in a multitrack recording program?

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not really,
especially not in a live environment. the mix is going to turn to shit, you're going to have to crank it up louder and probably be experiencing some poweramp clipping and speaker distortion depending on how nice the stuff you buy is.

for recording with two vocalists it may work a little better to have a slight pan to keep them separate and help the mix, but there really isnt any benifit at all in a live situation to have each vocalist from a different speaker, it's actually more of a crippling feature.

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Alright, I just thought since 2 guitars through the same speaker sounds like crap so maybe vocals through the same speaker would as well. Its mostly my vocals so I guess it really won't matter. Thanks

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one thing about the pa is each channel for each mic will have it's own levels and eq. so if mixed properly, you should be fine.

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