Korg Forums

[laughing_bear]

Greetings,

any recommendations for a small but really powerful live PA system to drive a few keyboards and soft synthts?

What do you use and at what costs?

[Diego]

Hi!

I've used mainly 3 PA systems:
- Montabo (which ensures great power at great audio quality)
- Mackie (good compromise price/performance ratio)
- Bose

I must say that the last Bose live sound system (L1) really amazed me...But I think it depends where you plan to use it.



Regards
_________________
Diego http://www.myspace.com/diegoinmusic

Korg M3 with EXB Radias & EXB-256 onboard
MOTU Traveler - iBook G4

[Stephen]

[RVNOak]

We are fan of Mackies. Their newer powered z speakers are powerful and sound incredible. They are a bit pricy but these are nice!!

http://www.musiciansfriend.com/product/Mackie-SA1532z-Dual-15-3Way-Active-HighDefinition-Professional-Speaker?sku=605274

http://www.musiciansfriend.com/product/Mackie-SWA2801Z-Subwoofer-System-Pair?sku=600507

For almost half the price, my wife and I have been looking at purchasing these. We are still researching our options but these have been on our list as a definate possibility:

http://www.musiciansfriend.com/product/JBL-PRX525-2Way-Dual-15-Powered-Speaker-Pair?sku=600419

http://www.musiciansfriend.com/product/JBL-PRX518S-SelfPowered-Subwoofer-Pair?sku=600424

Maybe GregC could chime in on this one. I have sent him a ton of private messages on this forum and other forums about PA's. He has educated us pretty well over the years !!
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[Stephen]

The Mackie speakers are definitely good.
The JBLs however, did not impress me for the price they were asking.
Just FYI.

_________________
Stephen
https://www.soundclick.com/artist/default.cfm?bandID=1514031
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[JonSolo]

For my mixer I use a Behringer Europower PMH3000 into a PMP5000 which is great to drive my two Kustom KPC215H each with dual 15" speakers and horns. Since they act like subs because the low end is so rich I throw two Yamaha S115Vs on stands to give me superb high ends.

My keyboards mix through the PMH3000 which mains out into the PMP which includes 4 vocalists, snare, and guitar in the mix.

We have two subs independent for our bass and kick drum.

We paid under $1700 for the entire setup.

You could do it with the PMH3000 and the a single 15" Kustom pair for under $700 though MF.

Jon
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Jon Solo

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Windows 10 | Intel i9 9900K | 64 GB RAM | Scarlett 18i20 | Nektar Panorama P6
Korg Kronos - 88 | Korg Kronos 2 - 61 | Roland Fantom 6 | Push 2 | Maschine Mk2 | Slate ML1 | JBL LSR308/310
Nuendo 11 | Ableton Live 11 | Reason 12 | FL Studio 20.9

[RVNOak]

[laughing_bear]

Hi Folks

Thanks for chiming in here!

Few things, I do not buy any Behringer product as a matter of principle, I do not support their constant infringement strategy, some may call it frankly theft. Thanks anyways.

I have JBL LSR speaker as nearfields since years, very happy with them, and I know thier PA stuff to be very good, but also expensive.

I forgot to say what it is for. I intend to use it on local exhibition openings, this can be quite large rooms, but not always, so I need some flexibility.

@ Diego, yeah, I was looking towards these as well. what L1 version do you have? Modell II with the ToneMatch Engine? What bass module do you use with it? Looks intruiging and very portable.

On another note concerning live performance, does anyone here use Muse Receptor with Kontakt 3 by any chance?

What I wonder about is this; What is the difference to a normal Computer, say a Macbook Pro ( which would give me 4 Gig Ram instead of 2Gig) why would a Receptor be more stable?

I would like to drive Kontakt and Spectrasonic Synths from such a system.

[Diego]

Hi Bear!

No, I don't have any PA system by myself; when I play live I generally find the PA on-site, so I play with what I've at my disposal...
With my previous band, I used a Mackie PA system, which I found not much powerfull but with nice quality.
I just played once in Milan with Bose L1 system, but can't remember if it had this feature, sorry.


Regards
_________________
Diego http://www.myspace.com/diegoinmusic

Korg M3 with EXB Radias & EXB-256 onboard
MOTU Traveler - iBook G4

[laughing_bear]

I am getting a L1 ModellII and ToneMatch to try out.

[Marc]

If it is just you and a small to midsize venue then the Bose is a good choice.

If you're looking for more then you need to think about speakers and subs.

I tested, side-by-side, the Mackie, JBL, and QSC.

I did not like the Mackie speakers at all. Very midrange speaker and the stereo field was just OK. The Z series is definately better then the 450s.

The JBL was a bit better but you had to look at the higher end line as the G series didn't cut it either -- it was also midrange dominant with slightly better highs then then Mackie.

I liked the QSC speakers the best. Great sound that blew away the others. The issue was budget prevented me from getting the 122 and dual subwoofer combination (nearly $4K) so I got the 152 instead (under $2K). Really great speakers. The only drawback is they are heavy at 100 pounds each. We run them through a Mackie 16 channel mixer and get great results for small to mid-sized venues.

I have an audiophile setup in my home theatre and have several reference CDs so I can really take a test drive on music listening. At the end I decided the sound was most important and chose that over portability.

For large venues we tap into the house and I bring my 300W keyboard amp. If I wasn't playing with two other guitarists and bass and drums I would probably go the Bose route but I have to compete with them. Fortunately 300W lets me go to 12 or 13 to keep them honest.

My suggestion is always to prioritize your decision criteria to guide the way, so reorder these as you see fit:

- Sound
- Price
- Portability
- Flexability
- Reliability
- Expandability

Hope this helps,

Marc
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A rolling MOSS gathers no polyphony...

[laughing_bear]

Another question come to mind....

Please keep in mind that I never performed live other than on a Steinway.

If I understand that correct, as a keyboarder, there is no sense in blasting out a stero signal into a crowd, so it is mono.

But what happens to those nice sounds that pan left and right from my Korgs in a mono situation, would that not sound pretty crap?

Bose is quite helpful, one phonecall and they send a system, very kewl!

[Stephen]

[batninja]

Personally, I'm going the 'passive' route, using a separate amp to drive the cabs. My amp is mounted in the rack, so there's only one set of cabling going out to the cabinets (signal), as opposed to both signal AND power.

But I'm on the fence concerning the use of standard cabinets versus wedge-style monitors. I do an equal number of gigs standing up and sitting down, in mostly small to medium venues. I'm leaning towards the Yamaha S112V/S115V series, though.

Beyond that, I'm going with the Behringer RX1202FX mixer into the American Audio VLP-300 amplifier.

Thoughts?

[RVNOak]

Yeah, update:

The JBL's sucked. We listened to the QSC's and they were definately better in all aspects except SPL. Yes, they made Mackie seem sort of muddy. The QSC's were nice. We also tried Electro Voice and the models they had (I can't remember right now) were right up there with the QSC's.

Now we are in sound purgatory trying to decide which is best
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We saw.
We decided to conquer another day...