About a year ago, Lynn and I first played at Dulono's, a long-running bluegrass/oldtime venue in Minneapolis. We discovered that our sound system was not up to the job. I had it maxed out and people in the back could still not hear it. This was a 200 Watt Yamaha system. Last spring we upgraded to a more powerful Yamaha system based on the EMX512SC power amp with SM10V speakers.
I didn't want to spend any extra for monitors so we used Lynn's Roland Keyboard Amp as a monitor. This worked, but the amp and stand were out in the audience. We played a couple of gigs with this setup but I knew we'd need something more convenient eventually.
For the past few summers Lynn and I have been playing farmers' markets in Prior Lake and Bloomington, usually with Bob Estes and the Rhubarbarians. Once or twice we brought our old Yamaha system and plugged it in with about 300 feet of extension chord. However, this was a lot of work to set up and was kind of overkill. At some point, Bob E. borrowed a Crate Taxi Portable Amp which supported a couple of inputs. We had a PigNose which added one more mike, but the Crate was definitely superior for the purpose. I bought one and then a second so that Lynn and I each had our own Crate Amp. This is sold as a guitar 'combo' amp with one Microphone input plus an instrument line-in (as well as an RCA dual jack). Bob E has a preamp and uses all 4 inputs. Lynn and I don't plug in our guitars; however, an I use an IMP converter to route the 2nd mike to the guitar input.
Last fall, we had a gig for a retiree luncheon at a hotel ballroom. We had to provide the sound and I brought along one of the Crate amps to use as a monitor. (At least 1/2 the size and weight of the Roland). It worked well. I got to thinking this would be much better for Dulono's than the Roland -- and it would be even better if I could set it up to use both of the Crates.
I did a little research and found a signal splitter that would take the monitor output from the Yamaha power amp and redirect to both of the Crates. (The Crate does not have its own output, only inputs). Before the Dulono's gig I set up everything in the living room and both of the Crates were pushing out sound.
At Dulono's we were able to put the 2 Crates on stage and so Lynn and I each had a monitor with nothing out in the audience area. We had to play a little with the placement and volume settings to avoid feedback, but they work well as monitors. Since we were playing two nights, I brought the AC adapter/chargers and plugged the Crates in. But for most normal gigs, the battery would easily carry you through and avoid a bit more stage clutter.
As a side note, our system is now 'Loud Enough' - we had to turn it down so that the folk at Dulono's could hear their phone-in orders.
It may very well be that our sound system needs are set for awhile...
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
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