How to make your own "PA"

[GuitarStv]

Re: How to make your own "PA"

Wasn't specifically speaking about frequencies, I'm talking about volume. You would need to crank the surround sound for vocals alone to be heard over the drums. Now I'm not sure what style he plays but my band plays more modern to hard rock with a double bass, a couple high gain amps, etc and the vocals never stuck out with the pa we were using. Thing is we never really had our amps up much past 3. Same wattage.

Now if he plans on mic'ing everyown. forget about it.

Fair enough. He did say that it's just him and a drummer practicing though, so the volume would likely be lower than the situation you just described. He also said that he only plans on micing his vocals . . .

In terms of guitar amps, whatever you guys do is your business, but I will never run anything but a guitar in mine.

That's also cool . . . but if you don't have knowledge of something and haven't done it then why are you advising people that it will "ruin the amp"?

[woemoejack]

Re: How to make your own "PA"

keyboard amp with xlr input is your easiest, cheapest, and best sounding option for amplifying vocals.

[mwalluk]

Re: How to make your own "PA"

Fair enough. He did say that it's just him and a drummer practicing though, so the volume would likely be lower than the situation you just described. He also said that he only plans on micing his vocals . . .



That's also cool . . . but if you don't have knowledge of something and haven't done it then why are you advising people that it will "ruin the amp"?

I never said I never ran vocals through a guitar amp. In fact i did when I was younger. My Marshall solid state was never the same after. I'm friends with other musicians who did the same and their amps never recovered.

[Franknfilms]

Re: How to make your own "PA"

Thanks for all the feedback, this is a good conversation. While the the drummer and I are cranked and playing rock/metal, I don't think that we are particularly loud compared to most bands. I'm leaning towards buying a cheap phonic keyboard amp.

[uOpt]

Re: How to make your own "PA"

Damaging a guitar rig with sound input is difficult. They are immune to feedback and clipping that you normally use to kill part in multi-way full-range cabinets.

The only way to hurt them is low frequencies at high power, because that may make the coil in the speakers hit the back of the speaker, or rip the paper. Combos and cabinets with open back are particularly vulnerable to this. This is why I said that as long as you don't constantly drop the mic you should be fine. In practice most guitar speakers have very stiff mounts and I'd say they are difficult to kill even if you try with low frequencies. They just don't output anything much.

If you are dumb enough you can damage the amp after killing the speaker. If you melt away the speaker coil so that it doesn't have any electric conduction anymore then there is no load anymore on the output transformer, so that's the same as not connecting a cabinet. This can overload and hence melt the output transformer if you continue to give it input after audible output ceased long ago.

[mwalluk]

Re: How to make your own "PA"

Thanks for all the feedback, this is a good conversation. While the the drummer and I are cranked and playing rock/metal, I don't think that we are particularly loud compared to most bands. I'm leaning towards buying a cheap phonic keyboard amp.

If you play acoustic at all fishman loudbox or swr strawberry blonde are good choices for acoustic amps that can be used for vocals.

[thespricket]

Re: How to make your own "PA"

I've been doing the vocal mic into a guitar amp for a really long time. We used an older Fender Princeton 65 that I just recently got rid of. It was a SS amp and was usually just loud enough. We've also used an old crate 10 or 15 watt amp with a nice reverb to great effects. My singer and I did a gig recently with no sound system, just that little crate sitting on top of my tube combo, and we sounded pretty great.

I would also recommend using a small powered monitor with a little mixer. You can pick up a rig like that for less that $150. It's pretty worth it, those can give you a lot of volume.

[GuitarStv]

Re: How to make your own "PA"

I never said I never ran vocals through a guitar amp. In fact i did when I was younger. My Marshall solid state was never the same after. I'm friends with other musicians who did the same and their amps never recovered.

What exactly happened to your (and your buddies) amplifier that was unrecoverable? Was it actually the amp that was damaged or the speaker? Fuses? Transformer? Exploded caps? I've done this many times with my amp, and it just sounds really strange that this would cause any damage . . . I mean, there are tons of people who break in their speakers by running CDs or radio through the amp with no problem as well.

[Kam]

Re: How to make your own "PA"

What exactly happened to your (and your buddies) amplifier that was unrecoverable? Was it actually the amp that was damaged or the speaker? Fuses? Transformer? Exploded caps? I've done this many times with my amp, and it just sounds really strange that this would cause any damage . . . I mean, there are tons of people who break in their speakers by running CDs or radio through the amp with no problem as well.

Yup. I played bass live and in bi-weekly practice with a band through my AOR 1x12 combo and the only thing wrong with it now is completely unconnected to that. I've ran vocal mics into Marshall AVTs and MGs, with the volume on 8 or above for extended amounts of time. We used to run fortnightly gigs in a sports hall here with no PA and the vocals going through my friends old Laney Tube Fusion. Another friend still uses some sort of low-wattage Fender solidstate amp for practice with his band (after about eight years, I think). Another friend of mine has just moved into a house with a dude who has had a whole studio/practice room set up for about three years, with main vocals going into Deluxe Reverb and backing vocals going into either an MG30 or one of those little solid-state Orange amps (Krush or something?). I'm sure there's plenty more examples I could think of if I had the time.

After all that, I've never heard of vocals ****ing up a guitar amp.

I'm not calling bull**** and I'm not saying you're a liar...it just seems odd to me. I'd be interested to hear some details on how your amps crapped out as well, if only to prevent any future damage that may occur to either mine or my friends' gear.

And on topic: I agree that a keyboard amp will provide better sound quality for vocals. I had a short side-project going a while ago and the singer plugged into some sort of Roland. It always sounded pretty good, it was loud and it was reliable. I wish I had more detail, but that's all I remember, sorry.

[mwalluk]

Re: How to make your own "PA"

Yup. I played bass live and in bi-weekly practice with a band through my AOR 1x12 combo and the only thing wrong with it now is completely unconnected to that. I've ran vocal mics into Marshall AVTs and MGs, with the volume on 8 or above for extended amounts of time. We used to run fortnightly gigs in a sports hall here with no PA and the vocals going through my friends old Laney Tube Fusion. Another friend still uses some sort of low-wattage Fender solidstate amp for practice with his band (after about eight years, I think). Another friend of mine has just moved into a house with a dude who has had a whole studio/practice room set up for about three years, with main vocals going into Deluxe Reverb and backing vocals going into either an MG30 or one of those little solid-state Orange amps (Krush or something?). I'm sure there's plenty more examples I could think of if I had the time.

After all that, I've never heard of vocals ****ing up a guitar amp.

I'm not calling bull**** and I'm not saying you're a liar...it just seems odd to me. I'd be interested to hear some details on how your amps crapped out as well, if only to prevent any future damage that may occur to either mine or my friends' gear.

And on topic: I agree that a keyboard amp will provide better sound quality for vocals. I had a short side-project going a while ago and the singer plugged into some sort of Roland. It always sounded pretty good, it was loud and it was reliable. I wish I had more detail, but that's all I remember, sorry.

It was back in 2002. I don't remember much. I was fresh out of High School, heading to college. I used to DJ and would use the amp as both a monitor and something to put my vocals out on. Now it may have been on my behalf of ill knowledge or a voltage mismatch surge, but the amp wasn't the same.

I DJ a few gigs, before the amp started crapping out. The speaker was shotty, still worked but sounded like ass and something fried inside the circuitboard. I didn't open it up (once again, just started playing and learning about equipment). So I got rid of the amp. Since then, I just refuse to put anything but a guitar in a guitar amp.

Now I had no problem running vocals through my fishman loudbox which was designed for that purpose.

[guitfiddle]

Re: How to make your own "PA"

One of the little ADA two channel tube preamps, and a little 10" powered Peavey or Behringer speaker would come in at around $250 or less. That's all you need.

[LesStrat]

Re: How to make your own "PA"

Keyboard amp. Works as a mini-PA, can handle acoustic guitar, many are multi-channel and can handle an instrument + mic.

My Pop played MANY gigs in the '70s using a SuperReverb for guitar + vocals. The amp still worked perfectly when I sold it a few years ago.

When you say you were a DJ and used it as a monitor, were you running the MUSIC through the amp as well?

*cue hooptie bass thump*

[Fender_Punk]

Re: How to make your own "PA"

for about $300 US you can get a small powered head and a 12" cab with a horn. That will do for rehearsals and you can build on it later and use it for monitors at a show if need be. A PA is a handy thing to have!

[kmcguitars]

Re: How to make your own "PA"

My Pop played MANY gigs in the '70s using a SuperReverb for guitar + vocals. The amp still worked perfectly when I sold it a few years ago.

At sometime in the late 70's I saw a 3 Piece band here on Long Island called the "Tomcats". The lead Guitarist had his guitar & vocal mic. Plugged into a SF Super Reverb. They Sounded great! The next Time I saw these fella's They had their ugly mugs on a hit album cover. Oh yeah,.... They had changed their name to the " STRAY CATS".

Aside from a transient spike, Extend uncontrollable feedback Or a overwhelming low end thud! Guitar amps should be fine in a pinch for vocals .