How was your PA last night?

[Phil Starr]

9 hours ago, mrtcat said:

6 gigs in last 14 days, all weddings, and all without noise restrictions (absolute miracle to get so many non restricted ones in a row) and 4 were in marquees (so much better for sound) so we we've been able to use my PA for all.  Its a super simple setup of 2 x rcf 932a and 2 x rcf 905 subs run via a behringer x-air 18. All on in ears. Acoustic drums and i got to use my amp too. Lovely to have full control over sound with a simple PA that just does the job right. Pull up the band's standard scene, short soundcheck, tweak for room and away we go.

Love your set up, I've a pair of RCF 745's with a single 905 sub but I think I'd go 932's if I wanted to go again. Such a fabulous sound from the big RCF compression drivers but the 745's are such monsters to transport and take up too much space in small venues. The 932's look like a great speaker.

 

I can feel your joy, maybe gigging isn't so bad after all

[Phil Starr]

Two gigs in three days for me. Both with my duo and both open air. The first was a fairly small affair at a brewery tap. The brewery is in an industrial unit on a small indusrial estate next to the Henry hoover factory, nice

 

It is nice actually, a really friendly West Country event every Fri. A bit odd, but normal for Chard and the beer is fantastic. Anyway PA for this was Two RCF 310's for FOH and a single one for monitors. I can't persuade my partner on iem's but we aren't loud on stage. Mixer is an RCF M18 and we've done so many gigs that no tweaks are needed for an outside gig other than turning up the bass a touch. we don't use back line and drums are programmed.

 

Last night was outdoors in a lively music pub, a much bigger space and audience so we got out the RCF 745's. Two 310's for monitoring and our new lighting set up. Again no tweaks to the M18 mixer other than turning the bass up. The bass tone outdoors with the 745's was fabulous and the vocals are stunning, well the speakers are anyway. I love this set up, you can just relax and concentrate on your playing knowing you've done everything you can and that the sound would be fabulous, or at least makes us sound as good as we can. 

The new lights worked well. We've settled for six identical LED strips all a metre long and mounted vertically on stands. Two static illuminating us and the other four behind us on a sound program. We also use one of the usual four PAR's on a stand running a chase program. Indoors we add a couple of low power lasers to add a bit of movement but outdoors there's nothing to project onto so we didn't bother. I think that's it for us with lighting for a while. it takes us 20 mins to set up and knock down and for what we charge I think its at the top end of investment, complexity and time and we probably do it better than most of the other local bands. it looked good but I think I need to adjust the sensitivity a little lower on the soudn setting as the lights were maxing out a little too often. They looked pretty good for a first outing but I think a bit more dynamic range would make for more drama

Edited yesterday at 07:10 by Phil Starr

[Al Krow]

Guys - how much power does a typical band PA set up plus a few lights use in terms of watt hours over a 2 hour gig?

 

Thinking of getting one of those portable batteries e.g. Jackery UK for outdoor use. Their Explore 1000 v2 is currently on half-price sale and rated at 1000 watt-hours

[Stub Mandrel]

Problemnis many amps have s conservative power consumption that may apply for everyday use, but not continuous gig volumes.

 

My Orange Terror 500W hybrid head head is rated at 650 Watts, so 1,300Wh for two hours. But that would be going flat out, I'd guess 3-400W on average?

 

 

[Woodinblack]

25 minutes ago, Stub Mandrel said:

My Orange Terror 500W hybrid head head is rated at 650 Watts, so 1,300Wh for two hours. But that would be going flat out, I'd guess 3-400W on average?

 

That would be flat out with a sine wave or something going through it. Chance are it would be a 10th of that. However, for a gig, two PA speakers, mixer, pedalboards, its going to add up, especially as gigging in the cold will be less than that total value.

Its going to be a 'how long is a piece of string' question, that depends on your setup. Set everything up through a power measurment plug and play for 10 minutes, multiply by 12 and see what you get!

[Al Krow]

Yes absolutely.

 

My 932A are rated 2100W so at rms that would be 1100W at max

 

But we have them set at 6/8 and they are apparently pretty linear so on that basis 825W a piece = 1,650W in total.

 

Lights are LEDs so perhaps another 250W there?

 

So maybe 3.8kW over two hours on that basis?

 

Although we did a 2hr outdoor gig, daytime - no lights, with a provided battery (quite a pricey one!) rated 2000 watt hours and barely used 40% of the battery. 

 

So not getting my sums right somewhere!

Edited 2 hours ago by Al Krow

[Woodinblack]

38 minutes ago, Al Krow said:

My 932A are rated 2100W so at rms that would be 1100W at max

 

But we have them set at 6/8 and they are apparently pretty linear so on that basis 825W a piece = 1,650W in total.

 

That is power put to the speaker, if they were running flat out with a constant signal. so the only way that would be the source is if your system was 100% efficient which is impossible.

You are putting far less power out in volume, but using more input than a 1:1 to input power to output power.

 

38 minutes ago, Al Krow said:

Lights are LEDs so perhaps another 250W there?

 

Seems a lot - how many liights do you have?

 

38 minutes ago, Al Krow said:

Although we did a 2hr outdoor gig, daytime - no lights, with a provided battery (quite a pricey one!) rated 2000 watt hours and barely used 40% of the battery.

 

ok, that is a better way of working it out, so about 800W for that?

[Al Krow]

23 minutes ago, Woodinblack said:

Seems a lot - how many lights do you have?

Chauvet Gigbar2, 2 x Chauvet DJ and 1 x Worldlite Party DJ (I do need to upgrade that set up at some point soon - following Phil's LED lights thread with interest!) Tbh I was guestimating the wattage from the lights, but given we use 6 x GU10 50W LED lightbulbs in the kitchen ceiling, didn't think it was an outrageous estimate?

 

Yes would be 800W for just the PA over 2 hours. But was wondering if there was a sense check at arriving at the number from "first principles"?

[Woodinblack]

30 minutes ago, Al Krow said:

Chauvet Gigbar2, 2 x Chauvet DJ and 1 x Worldlite Party DJ (I do need to upgrade that set up at some point soon - following Phil's LED lights thread with interest!) Tbh I was guestimating the wattage from the lights, but given we use 6 x GU10 50W LED lightbulbs in the kitchen ceiling, didn't think it was an outrageous estimate?

 

Well, I had 10 GU10 50W light bulbs in my kitchen. i replaced them for LEDs, so now it is 25W instead of 0.5kW of lights.

Looking on the net, it says the Gigbar 2 is 6x 3.5W Quad-colour LEDs + Strobe: 4x 1.8W Dual-colour LEDs  plus 6x 6W LEDs. So that would be  60W if they were all on at the same time (ie, all on bright white and not cycling colours).

 

30 minutes ago, Al Krow said:

Yes would be 800W for just the PA over 2 hours. But was wondering if there was a sense check at arriving at the number from "first principles"?

 

Yes, but it is complicated and you would need to know what your duty cycle of your amp use is.  I mean if you are playing a thrash song with bass / drums / vocals in the PA, you would use a lot more power than if you are were playing 7 nation army for instance, which is 80% gap.

 

Next time you have a gig measure it, and then you will know for the following sale!