John Wicker.com

So I had been going back and forth between buying a power amp or a powered mixer. I was leaning towards going the power amp route, and I had a rehearsal coming up and needed PA gear. I got in high gear and started doing research. Just to cover my bases, I went ahead and called Carvin about a RX1200, but it turned out that they were out of stock. I wound up renting a Yorkville AP 800 from the Doo Wop Shop in Louisville. Yorkville’s products are well made and highly regarded, and I had considered buying the amp I rented from them. But after I heard the amp paired with my speakers, I wasn’t totally satisfied.

As it turns out, the AP800 outputs 200 watts at 8 ohms, and the PR 15’s are rated at 8 ohms. I didn’t know exactly why I didn’t like the combination, but I wasn’t thrilled with what I heard. I ran the rehearsal with the Yorkville, dodged some farm animals (more on that some other time), and got on down the road.

I hit Far Out Music again but the knowledgeable expert who had helped me out back in August had left, probably to become the sound man for a major touring band. The guys that were there were very helpful but they readily admitted their expertise was not with live sound gear. I didn’t have clear choices presented to me and I still had questions that were unanswered. On top of that, the options there were more expensive than I remembered– either there was a new model with a higher price tag, or the last quote I had gotten had a better discount. Either way, I left without making a purchase.

I was running out of ideas, but I was still determined. Soon enough, I was back in Indianapolis for work, and I headed out for Sam Ash. I was not familiar with Sam Ash before I started working in Indy– Guitar Center I had heard about, but Sam Ash was an unknown. Jason introduced me to this magical place shortly after I started the job up here. Sam Ash is a really big damn music store, and I had spoken with a guy there a couple of weeks back. He had given me a quote on a full set of equipment, including a Furman Power Conditioner, a Samson power amp, and a SKB 6 slot rack case to protect it all with. With my experience with the Yorkville amp, I wanted to hear all of the components together before I dropped coin. Once again, my original salesman wasn’t there, but after some major discussions (which I’ll detail in yet another post), we hooked up the amp in question with a PR 15. And I hated it.

No, hate is too strong a word. I didn’t like it, and it turned out that the fact that my original salesman wasn’t there was a GOOD thing. The department manager who wound up helping me out knew his shit. And his audio gear, too. The reason that the sound wasn’t great, and the reason why the Yorkville didn’t sound as good as I had hoped, was because both of those amps were underpowered compared to the PR15’s, which are rated at 400 watts. I don’t remember what the Samson amp was putting out at 8 ohms, but the Yorkville was throwing out 200 watts at 8 ohms.  Much discussion ensued.

I heard a lot of theories thrown back and forth, and things like “voice cones” and “throw distance” and a bunch of other stuff that I’m not qualified to repeat or smart enough to remember. Long story short, though- I got a Samson PG3800 amp, which puts out about 570 Watts at 8 ohms if I recall correctly. I also got the road case, the power conditioner, and 100 feet of speaker cable. And I’m really happy with the gear that I bought.

So I’ve now got 15 inch mains and around 600 Watts of sound to pump through them. I still need monitors and subs, but this is a bare minimum. My first band played every show we ever did with 12 inch mains and something like 200 Watts. It ain’t perfect but it’s a good start.

So what have I learned? What advice can I give you? When you’re gonna make a purchase, look at the money involved, take your time, and do your research. Don’t be afraid to ask questions, even if you know they’re stupid. Because after all, would you rather sound stupid in a music store, or while you’re standing up on stage?

P.S.- I’ve been trying to scrape time together to get this post written for more than a few days, and it has proven to be more difficult than I expected. I’ve had other posts that I wanted to make, but I told you guys I’d discuss my PA gear next time, and I don’t like to break promises. So lesson learned– don’t promise what the next post is gonna be about 😉

I’ve been studying various options for PA gear and after saving up cash since around August 2008, last week I finally went ahead and made some purchases. This has been a really tough decision and I’m just hoping I made the right choices. Here’s why I bought what I bought.

I went back and forth on what I was going to buy, bouncing between buying an all-in-one powered mixer or a power amp and mixer. Back in August, I set out to get some advice and wound up talking to a very knowledgeable guy at Far Out Music in Jeffersonville/Clarksville Indiana. He asked me a lot of questions and pushed me toward buying a power amp because it provided the most flexibility– I could start out with the mixer I already had and then trade up for a bigger one as my needs grew. He also pointed me towards a set of speakers that both sounded good and were light (Peavey PR-15s). I managed to pick up a set of those back in October.

Why the light speakers? At that point, I was angling myself towards a series of solo shows and I had to have equipment that I could easily cart in and out on my own. The Peaveys sounded great and are practically weightless. I feel like they were a good deal at $199 each, and I’m pretty happy with them thus far.

As time wore on, I became a little disillusioned with the idea of buying a power amp and a separate mixer. Going that route meant that I also needed to buy a road case for the amp and that the overall setup time for the PA would be more time consuming– it may not seem like a big deal but running cables from the mixer to the power amp is just one more step in a long process.

The last band I played in had used a Carvin RX1200 for sound, and everything worked very well. It’s a powered mixer that provides four distinct channels running at 300 watts, along with 12 input channels, digital signal processing, and an integrated and very sturdy case to house the unit. Having heard this unit in action, I knew what it was capable of, and that was a very reassuring thought.

The downside is that the Carvin costs $699, and the more I thought of only having 12 inputs the more I realized that wasn’t really enough. If I run mics for the drum kit, that’s at least 5 separate channels (kick, snare, two toms and an omni-directional mic for the cymbals and floor toms). Add in instruments (bass, keys, two guitars) and vocal mics and you’re looking at 11 channels already. If we have three people singing, or if we need to add a sixth mic to the drums, or if we have another instrument in the mix, or if someone needs a stereo signal from their instrument, I’m suddenly using all 12 channels.

That was a lot of possible problems, and in the last band I was in we routinely ran all the drums into a separate mixer and then into the Carvin when we played out, so the possibility of running out of mixer channels was not just a hypothetical situation for me.

So the closer I came to buying PA gear, the more I was leaning towards separate components. More on what I bought will show up in my next post.