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P.A. Mixers
Well. A couple years ago I bought an inexpensive 16ch mixer. $300 new. Very cheap. Then I bought some Mackie powered speakers, 2; 450's and 2; 1501 subs. Should have sounded GREAT. It sounded good. But I had no rack gear, at all. So there was little to nothing to do for feedback. Which I have learned is a pain!!! When you cannot remove that frequency that's feeding back. You're stuck. Period. I have a few friends that have systems and run sound. One flies all over the place to mix. He knows a lot, he's a darn professional. Well, My band played a couple weeks ago and I asked him to drop in and mix us. He did. And it was funny to watch him try to coax anything good from my system. He was clearly frustrated. Then I realized that my mixer did indeed stink and was the weakest link in my system.
A couple days ago, I bought an Allen&Heath MW3. Threw in a rack with an eq, and an effects unit with tap delay. Now? The vocals are clear and warm. And when you tap delay the vocal channel in time with the song, it's gets pretty darn big. The EQ will allow me to turn up the monitors and control feedback. *whew* about stinkin time.
The moral of the story. As an amp is to your guitar (like a cheap crate compared to a sweet tube head) as a mixer is to EVERYTHING plugged into it. Plug a LP into a junk amp, it'll sound bad. Stick a mic in front of your amp and plug that into a cheap mixer, then even your LP plugged into a JSX will sound weak, and your vocals, and your overheads on the drums etc.
Don't know why I waited so long. Yes I do. Quality P.A. gear is pricey. But well worth it. Seems a shame to have $3500 in PA speakers and a $300 mixer in front of them.
Living and learning.
P.A. stories?
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