How to Set Up a PA System for a Band

today we're going to talk about setting up a PA system for a band either rehearsing or playing a gig our band consists of bass guitar keyboard and drums the bass the guitar and the keyboards each have their own amplifiers we'll also be setting up a stereo PA system and three monitors as well now to begin I've got all my gear from my PA system here in the center of the stage we've got the instruments already set up and ready to go so we'll need to set up our speakers we'll need to connect our mixer we'll need to run our microphones all those kind of things will happen in order to get ready for the gig to take place I've set up our drops behind the amplifiers for connecting the amplifiers and I've also run power drops to each side of the stage this will allow us to connect our PA stacks as well as we're up power out to our monitor system and in fact you could also use those if the guitar player for example has a pedal board we could run power for that over to one of these power drops as well for our PA system today we're using JBL speakers I have a pair of PR x800 subwoofers a pair of IR X 112 which will be our tops for the PA system then I have three ir x 108 which are used as our monitors well position two of those in front and we'll put one in back for the keyboard player on the drummer to hear our mixer today is a dl 16 s from Mackie and the nice thing about this is that it's controllable using an ipad so we can run sound right from the stage we don't have to have a separate sound engineer I've got a sweet water duffel bag and that holds all of my cables as well as my microphones and one other essential a roll of gaff tape for ensuring that our cables are taped down and nobody's going to trip and fall on stage now our PA system could be configured in different ways as I mentioned I have two subwoofers and two tops if you only have one subwoofer that's fine just put it on one side of the stage or at the back of the stage if you have no subwoofers just use a pair of speaker stands and put the tops on those so we're very flexible as far as setting things up positioning our fronts is very easy first of all I set my subwoofers into place I've got them right at the front of the stage so that they're in front of where the microphones will be this will help to control feedback there's symmetrical around the band and I've kept them a little bit away from the walls just to cut down on reflections each of the subwoofers has a receptacle on the top and we'll screw the mounting poles into those there's a corresponding mount on the bottom of each speaker we simply slide the speaker onto the pole and a set screw on the back that tightens down to hold the speaker in place make sure that it's not going to fall down accidentally the JBL speakers were using a very lightweight so one person can easily put them into position if you're using heavier speakers or you're using really tall speaker stands it may be easier with two people helping next up we'll position our monitors I have three monitors available so we'll put two of those at the front of the stage and that's really going to give us good coverage for all the musicians at the front and the keyboard player and the drummer will also hear that as well but since I have a third one available we'll put that at the back of the stage and that'll help cover the keyboards and the drums and we can experiment with the positioning of that if we need to move it in move it out change the angle of it so it's hitting both of them we also want to be careful that we're not sending that too directly into the microphone and causing feedback problems what I like to do next is run my power cabling for my speakers and monitors when I do this I have my power strip turned off I don't want any power flowing into my monitors or my speakers until I have my mixer set up and everything else connected we'll turn the power on last I'll connect my subwoofer and then power up the top on that subwoofer next we'll wire up the monitor another thing you'll notice is that I've tried to keep the space on the stage itself clear of cabling I've run the cables as much as I can to the outside and I'll go through when I'm completely finished up and gaff tape those down onto the stage so no one trips with my power connected to the speakers I've also set up my mixer now in this case I've put it on a stand right here on stage you could actually put that behind the stage off the stage since we're controlling it with an iPad it doesn't need to be on the stage itself but for the sake of our demonstration I've got it right here where we can see everything will now start running our audio connections so we'll be connecting from the mixer to our fronts as well as to our monitors I'll begin by running a line from the left out of the mixer to the subwoofer on the left side of the stage next up we'll connect from the top down to the subwoofer on the left side now I'll want to connect to the high-pass output on my subwoofer because it's actually controlling the low frequencies that are being fed to the top we'll repeat the process with the stack on the right side using the right output from our mixer now we'll connect our monitors I have six outputs on the front of the mixer we'll connect the first one of those to the first of our monitors now we'll continue connecting up with two to our second monitor and output three to our third monitor which is at the back of the stage at this point our mixer and speakers are ready to go what we need to do is connect our sources in this means it direct out from the bass amp microphone on the guitar amp microphone on the kick drum and the snare drum and finally two line outputs from the keyboard into the mixer and the way I like to set things up is I'll begin with my vocal mic I'll place that in channel one if I have additional vocal mics I'll run those next once I have my vocal mics connected I'll start connecting my instruments and I'd like to do that from left to right on the stage as you're facing the stage so I'll begin with the bass amp in this case our bass amp has a direct output so we can connect it straight from the bass amp right into the mixer we don't need a microphone for our guitar amplifier we'll be hanging a microphone in front of the amplifier so I'll go ahead and run the cable I'll wrap it around the handle so that'll help secure that microphone in place when we plug it in in channel 4 will connect our kick drum I'll wrap the cable around the stand so it stays in place and isn't getting in anyone's way in a similar fashion I'll wrap the cable for the snare drum microphone of the stand now we're using a triad orbit stand in this case it has two arms so it's very convenient very low-profile and doesn't get in the way for our final instrument connections I've got two outputs coming from my keyboard and again these are XLR direct outputs so I can route those straight into the mixer no microphone required this gives us a total of seven input connections one vocal microphone six instruments the final step in our stage setup is to connect our microphones we'll begin with the guitar amplifier my music a sennheiser a 906 which is very convenient because we don't have to have a stand connected to the cable and hang it over the front of the amp and you're ready to go next up we've got a kick drum I've got a V kick mic from SE electronics I'll get it basically positioned where I wanted and then we can move that around when we're checking things out during sound check for snare drum we're using a tried-and-true shure sm57 dynamic microphone once again I'll get it roughly positioned and then I'll fine-tune it when I'm doing sound check our final microphone is the lead vocal microphone we've got a shure sm58 the key to an easy efficient stage setup is having a plan in advance and an order that you follow every time you set things up I begin with my fronts then I do my monitors run my power cables connect up my monitors and fronts to my mixer run my instrument microphones my vocal microphone lines and then come back and plug the microphones in as my final step now I can power everything up and begin my soundcheck if you have questions about how to set up a PA or any of the products we've talked about here today contact your Sweetwater Sales Engineer or visit Sweetwater comm thanks for watching and be sure to LIKE comment and subscribe click here for more videos like these or start at Sweetwater comm for all your music instrument and pro audio needs fortunately our subwoofers are lightweight and I'm very mighty so we can no I don't want to say that but you'll probably need two people [Laughter]

Channel: Sweetwater

Views: 614,443

Rating: 4.9365482 out of 5

Keywords: Sweetwater, hide-from-insync, cat:live_sound, sound system, set up pa, how to set up a pa system for live band, how to setup a pa system for a band, pa system, set up pa system, pa system setup, live sound setup, sound system setup, how to set up a pa system, stage setup, pa setup, band setup, how to start a band, pa system sound check, #sweetwater, concert setup, live band setup, concert sound system setup, how to setup pa system for band, sound setup, pa speakers, pa

Id: Shtwr8-P0zs

Length: 7min 18sec (438 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 13 2020