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My quartet has been offered the opportunity to perform at a local Farmers Market, we would perform roughly twice monthly from mid-May to end of September, for roughly 2-3 hours. However, they do not have access to electrical. They do provide a battery (no idea what kind etc.) that according to the guy who does the bookings, handles solo and duo performers. My band consists of 4 vocalists, two guitars, either a semi-hollow body and hollow body or an occasional acoustic w/pickup. We also have an electric bass.
I'm considering purchasing a battery operated PA speaker and that way I would only require electricity for the passive mixer we would use for all connections and some EQ & FX. I'm looking for suggestions as to what battery operated PA would be appropriate. It's an outdoors gig but the person I've been emailing with does not want us drowning out shoppers, more as low volume background. Our music is mostly 30's, 40's, 50's jazz type ballads, along with a little bit of 60's music, a little Motown, Van Morrison, Carol King.
Is there a battery run PA speaker that can handle the vocals, the guitars, and...........an electric bass? Or will the bass require its own bass amp which will be more taxing on the venue's supplied battery? I had a Bose S1 Pro but found it quite muddy sounding. Electro-Voice? JBL? Something else not on my radar?Last edited by shekie; 03-17-2025 at 01:28 PM.
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03-17-2025 10:59 AM
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Have you considered a generator? Honda makes a series of very quiet electrical generators. I have one and wouldn't hesitate to use it in the setting you describe. You could place it 100 feet away from the band and run an extension cord to your PA system to keep the stage quiet.
The benefit of the approach is that you can use it for more jobs than the one you describe. You will have it handy for power outages at home, or for picnics in the park or camping.
Congrats on landing the gig!
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bose s1
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Alto do one that’s good
You do get power spikes with generators sometimes. One took out an Acoustic Image Clarus one time. There was smoke coming out the back.
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Bose s1 for the vocalists, guitars and amps need to figure out their own thing. Probably be fine with some Class D amps plugged into their battery. It's a farmers market gig, not a Live at the Village Vanguard recording.
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I participate in a regular outdoor jam session that uses a rechargeable battery-powered portable power supply. I forget the exact model, but it was one of several in the $250-ish range on Amazon. It easily handles a guitar amp, keyboard, PA for vocal and keys, and a bass amp for a few hours. IMO, works better than buying an entirely separate battery-powered PA if you already have a PA.
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My battery amps are Peavey Solo, and two Crate Limos.
They seem to focus on achieving a 'proper' unprocessed guitar tone. Most portable systems are for Folk guitars with piezos. But the Peavy and Limos are great for archtops with magnetic pickups.Last edited by garybaldy; 03-17-2025 at 01:51 PM.
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Did anyone read opening statement in thread,OP has already stated he had a Bose S1 and didn't like it.
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I've tried two. The Bose S1, which I didn't think was muddy, but I only put vocals and guitar through it. And, the Everse 8, which I thought sounded a bit harsh.
In the OP's situation I'd be googling generators and batteries to run my usual stuff.
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I read it, and I still think the Bose S1 is the best choice. It's a battery powered PA for an outdoor farmers market gig, good enough is good enough. I would use the gear I have for a gig that is likely $200 split 6 ways.
Originally Posted by nyc chaz
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A friend was playing in a park once and asked me to come by and sit in.
The drummer was running a generator from his car battery and told me to plug my Twin Reverb in.
It immediately tripped the circuit breaker, so I hit the soul food table and just listened.
That's all I've got, sorry.
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Taking my twin to a park fills me with dread. Originally Posted by wintermoon
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Maybe a couple of these? Set you back $220... These are power inverters, which is what Spook describes in the next post...
Last edited by Ukena; 03-18-2025 at 01:23 PM.
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What you're looking for is a power inverter. A chargeable lithium battery that provides AC power. These work quite well for Class D music amps/PA's as long as the inverter provides a pure sine wave. Has to be Class D amps. Anything else will quickly drain a battery.
You start by figuring out how many amp hours you're going to need.
You then to go Amazon and figure out what you want to spend based on the model inverters that support the number of hours you want to run plus some wiggle room.
Anker is probably the best brand. Prices have gone up but it's not the only good brand. You may have to decide if you want a backup in case your primary goes down for some reason. I've found these to be pretty reliable and would be comfortable without a backup. YMMV.
Bear in mind an inverter is also great for camping and power outages so the primary use might not even be music.
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How do you intend to power the passive mixer please? Originally Posted by shekie
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The venue apparently has what was described to me as a "battery" that is offered to bands when they perform there. I don't know any more detail about it, but I assume my Soundcraft Notepad mixer can be powered with their battery. Originally Posted by garybaldy
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Everse 8 or Everse 12. EVERSE 8 | Electro-Voice
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Thanks for all the input. We've decided to go the route of a lithium ion power inverter. It will need to power a Henriksen Bud 6, a Soundcraft Notepad FX12 and a Fender Rumble 40 bass amp. The Henriksen lists on the back of the unit 300W, the Fender Rumble 110W. The Soundcraft doesn't indicate its wattage needs, but does list its amperage at 1.3 amps. I believe that converts to 156W. So if I add the three devices' wattage, coming up with 566 watts, and times by 2.5 (in use for roughly 2 1/2 hours), I come up with 1415 watts needed for a gig.
I'm interested in an Anker Solix C1000 power inverter, which is listed as 1800W. Can I assume it has sufficient wattage to power a Henriksen Bud 6 amp, Soundcraft Notepad 12fx mixer and Fender Rumble 40 bass amp for approx. 2 1/2 hours?
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Amps = watts/voltage. That's usually 110v, so 143 W on the mixer + 110 on the Fender and 300 on the Henriksen = 553 Originally Posted by shekie
This means you need a battery that can deliver 553 watts peak power, and you need it to be able to do that for 2.5 hours. You would express that in watt-hours (1383, or 1415 using your 120v conversion) or amp-hours (12.57) or milli-amp-hours (12570) of battery life. According to the specs for the Anker Solix C1000, its life is 1056 watt-hours, which is quite bit a less than 1382.
If you're mostly running the Henriksen and the Fender well below full power (which is often the case, though more so with guitar amps than bass amps), you could probably get away with using that power supply, but if you don't want to risk having it run out before your gig ends, you might want to consider one with more watt-hours.
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This thread is beginning to remind me of Chevy Chase playing Gerald Ford on an SNL presidential debate, stumbling through "It was my understanding there would be no math". Originally Posted by John A.
Greatly appreciate the explanation. The Henriksen is in fact running well below full power, but it isn't worth the risk to run out in the middle of a gig where we have no recourse but to pack up short of our agreed playing time. I guess this is about to get a bit more expensive than originally planned.
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I can't imagine that you would use the Henriksen at full power, or the bass amp, for that matter.
Unfortunately, the Solix isn't returnable, so you can't try it and see how it goes. However, this one, at 300w, is returnable, so you could try it and see how long it lasts for your use-case, and see how many more watt-hours you need. It's an option, anyway.
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I'm not so sure you need to spend more because you don't need a whole lot of peak power (you just need it to last longer). I just did a search for portable power supplies on Amazon, and filtered that for ones that are 999 watts or less (you need less than 600), and there are several with more than enough watt-hours to keep you going (at least according to the advertised specs). For instance, this one Originally Posted by shekie
Claims to be able to put out 600 watts and have a life 70000 mAH. That's 7000 watt hours at 110V. If your set-up is drawing 600 watts, that'll buy you 12 hours. I
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Yea. We're talking about Class D amplifiers. These do not work like Class A amplifiers with their constant output. It is their efficiency that lets you do this in the first place. Start by looking up how Class D amplifiers work, why they are so efficient, and how to estimate power requirements for them. Be prepared to do some sorting because there is a ton of confusing stuff. You want real world over time considering efficiency.. not theoretical peak. It's quite different for a bass amp and guitar amp. Moving air costs watts.
An Anker C1000 (I have one.. great $500 battery) will power my refrigerator for something like 8 hours in a power failure. That's a lot of power (side note: it's the minimum for this application and may not work for your refrigerator because this application has a very large 'start up' peak power requirement). Guessing without doing the math it would power a Bud 6 and a Rumble (assuming it's a class D) and a board for quite a long time. Certainly longer than any gig. There are probably sub $200 solutions that would work though the Anker C1000 is a great battery for any homeowner to have.
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Better to buy more capacity than needed for a lithium battery so you're not constantly charging it from 0% or 5% after every gig. A big advantage of Class D is the amp isn't wasting power to heat to anywhere near the degree of a Class A or AB amp, and today they can sound pretty good. Originally Posted by Spook410
Phil
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My understand of electricity is quite poor and I've been down the battery power supply rabbit hole and come back out more confused. But I did find out that the simple maths doesn't work in practice in that if you have a spec. of xAh, your power supply won't give you xA for 1h.
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