What is the best sound system for a solo musician?

[eljoe]

Hi there,
I am a solo musician playing keyboard and sings in a restaurant. I was using Logitech Z 5500 sound system which was recommended by a fellow musician. This was OK and not that expensive, but still the sound which came out was not the best. Can somebody recommend a small sound system which can be played in a low volume, has to be crisp and must have bass volume too ( my restaurant is an open one and so I cannot increase the volume to a higher level, as it travels to even the lobby area too ).
I heard Bose is having good sound system for my kind of use, has anybody used it?
eljoe

[levi2]

hello there dunno what to recommend but im flying from uk to dubai tomorrow but we are only there for 9 hours till we get our flight to australia we have been given a free hotel for the 9 hours but dont know where till we arrive in dubai

[rogerch]

lajugeorge said:

Hi there,
I am a solo musician playing keyboard and sings in a restaurant. I was using Logitech Z 5500 sound system which was recommended by a fellow musician. This was OK and not that expensive, but still the sound which came out was not the best. Can somebody recommend a small sound system which can be played in a low volume, has to be crisp and must have bass volume too ( my restaurant is an open one and so I cannot increase the volume to a higher level, as it travels to even the lobby area too ).
I heard Bose is having good sound system for my kind of use, has anybody used it?
eljoe

ELjoe,

I have a Bose L1 and for small venues it is fantastic. I actually use it as a monitor system when I run my full rig. Go to a music store that carries them and have the salesman give you a demonstration of it's capability, i think you will be impressed.

It is a mono system so there are differences that you need to address if you run stereo.

Roger

[eljoe]

Hi Rogerch,
Thanks for your suggestion, but I've tried Bose L1 and like you said it is mainly used for outdoors as a monitor and its too loud and expensive too. What I am looking is for a smaller sounds which can be used indoors according to my specification. Hope somebody got a suggestion.
Eljoe

[JohnG]

Hi Eljoe,

To be honest there's no such thing as a "best system" without answering a lot of other questions like size and acoustics of venue, number of people present, kind of music being played, loudness required and so on. And also, critically, budget available. Although, to be fair, you have answered some of these.

What you need is obviously a decent mic to start with and there is another thread running that discusses this issue. My advice here is buy a reasonable quality one here e.g Shure SM58 or, if you can afford it, a Beta 58A. A good mic stand, don't skimp on cost, you'll regret it later if you do.

You'll need a small mixer a little Mackie DFX6 would probably be an overkill. There are many on the market. Yamaha also do ones that have a high reputation. Some have some built in effects others are without. Your choice. Some can also come with a power amp built into them. I prefer them without but that's only my opinion.

You then either need an amp and separate speakers plus a sub (you want plenty of bass you say) or you can get systems which have amps built into the speakers. A reasonably recent innovation is to build the amps into a sub unit and feed the two (satellite) speakers from this. In fact, for you, this may be the simplest solution. I've heard many people, on other forums, talk favourably about those from HK.

But have a look through what's available here it may give you some ideas. Some of the packages even include a mixer.

Here is a link for active systems from cheap (£200) to expensive (thousands):
www.thomann.de/gb/cat.html?gf=active_pa_sets&oa=pra
The other place to browse is www.musicstore.de they have their pages easily listable via manufacturer if you want which I find sometimes helps. Be prepared to spend a bit of time browsing around these two sites. P.S. "the Box" and "Fame" are the two stores own brand offerings.
.
It's not a specific recommendation but I hope it helps.
Best regards,
JohnG.

[eljoe]

Hi John,
I went to the sites you mentioned and its quite impressive. Good PA's they have. Like I told before, its the hotel to make a decision and I will forward them the site address and hope they will like it. Will let you know if there is any progress. Any way thanks a lot guys.
Eljoe

[JohnG]

Hi Eljoe,

You're most welcome. I'm glad the sites helped. But remember this is only to get an idea.

I imagine just giving a web reference to a hotel manager won't help them at all! I suspect they know absolutely nothing about this and will need some help.

What I expect they may ask is that you try to narrow it down a bit for them. What you need to know is a budget; a top limit that you mustn't exceed. Then try to find a reasonable PA dealer not too far away and go and listen. Explain your requirements to them and let them tell you what the different parts of the system do and why one e.g. mixer is better than another for you. Most importantly listen to it all hooked up and working and try it out at both quiet and louder than you would normally have it playing. You need to know whether it has sufficient capacity not to overload or for parties etc.

A system that's been designed for background music playing in a restaurant won't necessarily cut the ice when it's used for dancing to, as a disco say, during a wedding. So make sure if you want this that the system has plenty of extra power handling and capacity. A system that can say put out 100 dB SPL at 1 metre for normal use may be needed to output 120 dB SPL during a party. That's a whole lot more power. Roughly for each 3 dB extra SPL you'll need double the wattage. So say 10 watts for 100 dB SPL. 20 for 103, 40 for 106, 80 for 109, 160 for 112 and so on. You can see where we're going. All these figures depend upon the efficiency of the speakers.

It's often a good idea to include a 31 band equaliser in the budget. This allows you to cut feedback if it occurs. OR there's also a little gizmo that does this automatically from Behringer called a "Shark". The Shark usually goes after the microphone pre-amp (in the mixer) and the rest of the amplification chain and then just controls feedback for the one mic. This spot is often referred to as an "insert" point. The equaliser goes between the main output of the mixer and the amplifier. You probably don't need both.

There's a lot to learn about "sound reinforcement" to give it its official name but ask away on this forum it's got a good few people with some first class experience.

Hope that helps.
Best regards,
JohnG.
N.B. My PA knowledge is not as strong as my MIDI know-how.

[JohnG]

Hi again Eljoe,

Took a quick look at what I'd posted and just noticed that you're located in Dubai. Been there a few times on business in the past and stayed in one of the "twin towers", the hotel. Great view from the top! BUT is there a PA dealer in Dubai? I know both Thomann and MusicStore here in Germany are pretty good with export stuff but I don't know know about to the U.A.E.

If there isn't a local PA dealer then I'd write to Thomann and tell them your requirements. Room size, typical customer numbers, loudness required i.e. good for background singing with keyboards BUT also needed for parties/discos.; whatever.

If you need any more help please fell free to use personal messaging. I'm not a PA expert though. I'll even fly out to give you a hand Emirates naturally "all expenses paid" of course!!!

;D ;D ;D

All the best,
JohnG.

[cowboy79]

Hi I am a solo musician. I do a lot of work for line dqnces. I use a Phonic main amp with a mac mah 300 for the sub woofers. If I am playing a larger hall I add another MacMah 300 amp. I use Peavey speakers PR15s with Peavey subwoofers. I also use Peavey fold back. I have always found it reliable and often get complimented on the quality of the sound.