PA
As I mentioned elsewhere on this site, very soon after purchasing my first electric drumkit, I had to start learning about PA systems. Electric drums are one of the most demanding sound sources you can put into an amplifier or speaker. The transients are large, the frequency range is very wide, and generally you want drums to be relatively loud (certainly at gigs).
After a few experiments, the PA rig I used succesfully for a couple of years with my electric drum kits comprised of:
Studiomaster 2 x 350W Power Amplifier
2 x Peavey Speaker Cabs (15" Bass cone, 8" Mid Range and dome tweeter)
Peavey 15PM Eurosys Powered Monitor (150w amp with 5 band graphic), with additional 15" Slave Cabinet
(These were only used at larger gigs - normally outdoors - when extra bass power was required.
Carlsbro 2.x 300W Power Amplifier
15" Bass Reflex Cabinet
When I sold my electric kit, I also decided to sell my PA as well - it was unlikely I would need a PA rig of that size again in the near future (and also I needed the storage space!). However, I didn't want to be completely without a PA system, as they often come in handy from time to time, so I started to look at something a litle more 'up to date', hopefully smaller, for not too much money.
.jpg)
German Engineering, German Efficiency
The advances made in PA technology over the last few years have reduced the need to have separate mixers, effects units, amplifiers and speakers. Powered mixers and/or powered speakers are now very common, and can be very good value for money. Past experience with putting together my last PA rig had tought me that it was more important (and more difficult) to match speakers to amplifiers than it was to match mixers to amplifiers. That suggested to me that powered speakers were the most logical choice for my new rig. All the major speaker manufacturers make powered speakers (and if fact I had owned a Peavey powered monitor which I was very impressed with), but the costs of these are still quite high.
A little research on the internet took me to
Thomann - a German company offering very good prices for musical equipment - especially their own 'brand' of gear. Their 'The Box' range of speakers (both powered and passive) are very good value, and appear to be very good quality for the price. I purchased one small speaker to use a a vocal foldback cabinet initially, and once I was satisifed with the quality I went on to purchase more speakers from their range. Thomann had a special offer on a range of Phonic mixers at the time I was looking, and so I also purchased a mixer with built in effects. The full details of my new PA rig are as follows:
2 x Thomann 'The Box' PA202-15A 250w Active Speakers
These were bought as my main PA cabinets (and sound superb). They also come with plastic feet to enable them to be used on their sides as foldback cabinets. I also use one of these as my keyboard amp when playing keyboard.
2 x Thomann 'The Box' PA108A 130w Active Speakers
I originally bought one of these as a personal foldback - they have the advantage of a Microphone level input, with a parallel XLR out socket. This means I can plug my microphone directly into my own monitor (and adjust my own volume levels) and still send a balanced signal to the main PA desk for my 'front of house' vocals. This worked very well in Bad Toad (when our PA mixer did not have enough auxiliary sends to provide different monitor mixes for all the various members of the band).
Phonic MX1843 Mixer
Thkis mixer has 8 microphone / line inputs (and a further 2 stereo line inputs) - it's not the largest mixer in the world, but suficient for most of the smaller jobs I'm likely to need it for. I particularly chose this model for a number of reasons: it was cheap (!), it had 4 auxiliary sends, and 4 sub groups (that can all be use independently - previous mixers I have had with 4 sub groups were only really 2 stereo sub groups, which is not as flexible). The mixer also has insert points on each microphone channel (and the group outputs), built in effects, and a built in graphic equaliser (which can be patched into any 2 channels or outputs).