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Topic: Live Sound Connectivity (Read 2519 times) previous topic - next topic
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Live Sound Connectivity

This is my first post to this forum and I'm sure what I am about to ask has been asked and answered many times. So please bear with me. I am comparatively new to the realm of hooking up equipment for live sound. Up until now I have been using a 10 ch Peavey 8300 Power mixer for our live performances. As you can imagine the limitations of this type of system are numerable. But I have been collecting equipment (on a budget mind you) to change that and give ourselves much more flexibility with live performances. My question is in a few parts but it is all surrounded by connectivity.
Here is what I have collected so far:
. 1975 Peavey 12 Channel Mark 3 Mixing Console
. Behringer EP 2000 Dual Channel Power Amp
. Behringer EP 1500 Dual Channel Power Amp
. Pyle 20 Band Eq - 10 Bands per side
. 4 Peavey 12" Passive Monitors
. 1 Peavey 15" Passive Monitor
. Peavey 15" Main Passive Speakers for FOH

What I want to do is of course hook all this equipment up properly and be able to create FOH and monitor mixes. I understand the concept of Pre and Post Fader. But hooking things up to the mixer to create monitor mixes, eludes me for some reason.

.I have an electric drum kit Pearl E-Pro as well, which I want to be connected thru the mixer.

.As well I have 5 stand up mics and 1 Samson Wireless mic headset.

I would like to have the drums to the FOH and mixed back thru the 1 Peavey 15" monitor back to me as well as my vox. The other mix or mixes (what ever is do-able) I want to the forward stage 12" monitors. I was planning on using the EP 2000 for FOH and the 1500 for monitors. Am I in the right ball park? I know the mixer is old but this thing is mint. Works great and from what I am told, easy to work on and is a work horse. The price was right too. I have attached pics of the mixer, the power amps and the EQ for your perusal. I hope I have given you all the necessary information to help me with this. I appreciate all the information I can get on this subject. I thank you in advance for all your help.

Re: Live Sound Connectivity

Reply #1 –
I hope you have a rehearsal space where you can try all of this out before the 1st gig...

Quote
I understand the concept of Pre and Post Fader. But hooking things up to the mixer to create monitor mixes, eludes me for some reason.
I assume you are planning on using the old mixer as your monitor-mixer?  And I assume the old mixer has pre-fader outputs for each channel?    Connect your snake to the pre-fader (or effect-send) outputs of the monitor-mixer, and set-up the FOH mixer for line-level inputs.

Quote
. 4 Peavey 12" Passive Monitors
. 1 Peavey 15" Passive Monitor
. Peavey 15" Main Passive Speakers for FOH
So, that's 7 speakers, and including the powered mixer you've got 6 amplifier channels, right?   Check the impedance of the speakers and the impedance-rating of the amplifiers and be careful when paralleling speakers.    i.e. Two 4-Ohm speakers in parallel are 2-Ohms and that might be too low for the amplifiers.

Re: Live Sound Connectivity

Reply #2 –
Thank you DVDdoug for getting back to me. Yes rehearsal space is not a problem. The powered mixer (Peavey 8300) is not in the equation. I bought the Mark 3 and the 2 power amps to take the 8300 totally out of the picture. I was going to use the Old Mixer as you called it as my one and only mixer. Are you saying I need a separate mixer as well? If I get your meaning right, if I use two power amps one for FOH and one for monitors I will need a separate mixer as well as the Mark 3?  One for FOH and one for monitors? Is that what your saying? I was under the impression that I could use the 'Old' mixing console as my one and only. The Mark 3 is not a powered mixer. That is why I bought the two power amps.
The only snake I have is a mic snake which I use to connect the standing mics. My wireless headset is connected to a channel on it's own next to the board. So rather than connecting my monitors and FOH speakers to the board with a series of cables I should buy a snake to compress this into a neat connection? Can you get snakes with a combination of 1/4" and Speakon connections?
Yes you are correct that the mixer has pre-fader on each channel. I have included a pic of that as well as a pic of the output connections. I apologize if my initial post was a bit ambiguous, but my knowledge is limited in this area and I included what I thought I needed to include.
I look forward to hearing back from you on this matter.

Thank you

Kevin
 

Re: Live Sound Connectivity

Reply #3 –
Quote from: Big Kev 59 on
This is my first post to this forum and I'm sure what I am about to ask has been asked and answered many times. So please bear with me. I am comparatively new to the realm of hooking up equipment for live sound. Up until now I have been using a 10 ch Peavey 8300 Power mixer for our live performances. As you can imagine the limitations of this type of system are numerable. But I have been collecting equipment (on a budget mind you) to change that and give ourselves much more flexibility with live performances. My question is in a few parts but it is all surrounded by connectivity.
Here is what I have collected so far:
. 1975 Peavey 12 Channel Mark 3 Mixing Console
. Behringer EP 2000 Dual Channel Power Amp
. Behringer EP 1500 Dual Channel Power Amp
. Pyle 20 Band Eq - 10 Bands per side
. 4 Peavey 12" Passive Monitors
. 1 Peavey 15" Passive Monitor
. Peavey 15" Main Passive Speakers for FOH

What I want to do is of course hook all this equipment up properly and be able to create FOH and monitor mixes. I understand the concept of Pre and Post Fader. But hooking things up to the mixer to create monitor mixes, eludes me for some reason.

My reference document for understanding the Peavy MK 3:   https://assets.peavey.com/literature/manuals/80361051.pdf

Pretty straight-forward and actually pretty good for the day.

If you can get main mixes going then you should have no problems getting the monitor mixes going. There is some chance that this old console is broken and will never do what you want to do with it until it is fixed, or it could be a serup problem.

(1) Set channel 1-12 (as needed) channel level controls to 0 dB
(2) Set Main Channel A and Main channel B level controls to 0 dB.
(3) Set all EFX levels to 0 (min)
(4) Set Eq kobs to 0 (mid)
(5) Set channel pans all to mid
(5) Hook 1 pair of speakers and amps to main outputs A & B
(6) While  speaking into channel mic or otherwise creating input signal for each channel  set each channel Gain as required to obtain desired sound level.

(7) Once main speakers are creating some kind of potentially useful sound, set up a pair of monitor speakers close to you than mains  and adjust  channel strip monitor levels as required to obtain some kind of potentially useful sound in the monitor speakers.

(8) Adjust gains , faders (linear controls) and pans as required to fine tune sound in mains and monitors.

(9) Add eq as desired to improve sound quality further.

Once you have your mains and monitors working, we can start worrying about the rest.

Re: Live Sound Connectivity

Reply #4 –
Thank you so much Arnold B Krueger. I just read your post. You are mistaken about the Peavey Mark 3 Console though. There is nothing wrong with it at all, other than the fact it's not powered. All 12 channels are very strong and all the pots work great. It is definitely a setup problem because I don't know proper connectivity and the finer points to creating mixes. It was easy to hook up and use the 8300 powered mixer to get FOH and Monitor sounds, but here was no flexibility to the unit. I had to rely on 'Y' splitter cables to achieve a mix of my 'E' drums and vocals through a monitor next to me. I think that now(once I learn to connect things right) I can achieve the mixes I wish as well if amps need to be mic'd on stage I have room for that with the Mark 3. I'm crossing my fingers. I have not as of yet used your advise as I just read your reply. Once I get the mains and monitors up and running I hope I may go back to the well and get further info to tweak things much more finely. Thank you.